David Karam writes to tell me:

I recently encountered your website while trying to explore the "Street Magic" of David Blaine. I watched a video of him performing "Street Magic" with my girlfriend and we quickly disagreed on his abilities. Being a lifelong skeptic, I was critically analyzing his tricks from the beginning, while she had a more "objective" view. We both agreed that some of the things we saw were unexplainable. She, however, thinks that this proves that they are magic, while I think that this proves that they warrant more investigation.

Pause: as used above, the word "unexplainable," perhaps Mr. Karam will agree, should really be, "unexplained"? I assure you that we magicians have explanations of all of them....

I ran into your website and this led me to your books, which contain exactly the information I need to back up many of my claims. They have helped me to disprove many of the phenomena that she claimed were real or unexplainable. A success, in this case, but being a constant critical analyzer, I can't help but question my own logic. Here is where my questions lie:

Many people seem to have a need for mystery and the unexplained, and they will do anything to find it. I have a need to explain everything, and I am relentless in finding my explanation. Could this be viewed as ends-based logic? Is my desire to find explanations hindering my ability to correctly view things which may be outside of my capacity? For example, I don't fully understand gravity, yet I accept it as science and reality. Yet, when I don't understand a magic trick I set out to reveal its explanation because it doesn't fit my theory of the universe as a logical and explainable place.

Mr. Karam, everyone has a need, a basic urge, to solve puzzles that present themselves. Most of these are natural phenomena, and are directly amenable to straightforward analysis. However, conjuring performances such as those of Mr. Blaine require a different approach; they're different because here you have a human designer behind the puzzle. The puzzle is set up and accomplished purposefully, with art and cunning, to confound your ordinary perceptions of how things occur. Of course you want to know; we all do. But don't spin your wheels. Apply a "sideways" approach, and you'll do better.

I've perhaps said too much.....

The other question I have may be going a little too far. Have you ever applied your twenty points from the beginning of "Flim-Flam" to religions other than TM? I find many of the excuses in your 20 examples in the explanations of my recently converted Muslim friend. For example "Mohammed was illiterate, and therefore wouldn't have the ability to create something as complex as the Koran," which is exactly the same claim about the young girls' abilities in the Cottingley Fairies affair. There are countless other similarities. I find it hard to be respectful of his religious decisions when they are so obviously based on irrationality. To make it worse, he has challenged me to find weaknesses in his argument, and I have delved into disproving a religion practiced by a fifth of the world.

Wrong approach! It's not your place to "disprove" anything. You're not making any claim. He is, therefore he's the one who should be providing the proof. If someone says he astrally visits Venus, I can't prove he doesn't, and I don't have to; he has to prove that he does. Those 20 points can be applied many ways and in many places.

I have considered breaking his arguments down and placing them in your twenty points as part of my counter-argument. I am a little worried about the consequences of doing so, but don't think I will be able to help myself. Do you have any insight into religious arguments like these? Have you ever tested or investigated people who claim religiously-based miracles? How do you go about this carefully without taking on the role of the Devil trying to bring doubt to a believer's faith?

Well, miracles are subject to the same rules as all other claims. Prove it. It's that simple, no more. As for doubt, that's often a by-product of thought, and thinking can be very injurious to perfectly swell notions. Obviously, religions don't offer evidence, just rules and "laws." But where they make claims that can be examined, those aspects can be looked into. That's rare.

Last week we gave you an interesting site — http://www.cryptoclast.org/Opinion/astrology/reverse_astrology.htm that many of you visited. Clare Zimmerman of San Diego did, and comments:

Oh my god! The backpeddling in this site is unbelievable. Immediately at the end of the test it says that if your test does not match your sign, then you are wrong about when you were born!! Instead of perhaps learning that their test (and we can extrapolate to astrology itself) is bogus! This is what I got when I took the test:

You are most likely a Virgo, but definitely not a Leo. You claim to be Taurus, but you are incorrect. Ask your parents...

I mean, REALLY! Considering Taurus is May and Virgo is September, apparently there was a rather involved conspiracy among my parents, their parents and siblings, the hospital, the doctors and the state of New York. I vow to get to the bottom of this!

Reader Jim Moore was glad that he discovered the site:

Great link: I found that my parents have been lying to me about my birth date for the past 51 years! Thank god I found that out...

I took the liberty of re-designing the traditional zodiac, using what I believe are more suitable figures.... What sign are you born under, dear reader?

Well, on the "reverse astrology" matter, I also heard from Cameron Raecke again, the one who originally suggested the possibility of setting up a site that would demonstrate the fallacy of the basic astrological notion. Carmen tells us:

In this week's commentary, you point people to a "reverse astrology" site, saying that it is a site of the type that I described to you in an earlier email. I am sad to report that this is not the case. What the reverse astrology (RA) site does is to guess one's astrological sign based upon the author's readings of astrological websites and textbooks.

This raises a few concerns. First of all, proponents of astrology could argue that he, not being a "properly trained" astrologer, did not implement astrological principles correctly in his site. I'm not saying this is a very good argument, I'm just saying that it could be used and would be effective in convincing many people. A second concern I have with this, is that testing based upon the alleged personality traits of each astrological sign is a little bit like testing acupuncture by seeing what happens when you compare people who are poked in the "right" places and people who are poked in the "wrong" places.

One of the basic claims in astrology is that one's astrological sign is directly correlated with one's personality traits. This statement by itself is simple to test, and there's no need to get into any details, such as which signs are supposed to be angrier or more introspective than others. If you can show that there aren't any such correlations at all, then you have single-handedly shown the absence of any single set of personality/sign correlations, no matter how any given astrologer might decide to map them. And you can't be criticized for being out of your field, due to not being an astrologer. Also, it's far more elegant this way. Emily Rosa simply tested whether TT [therapeutic touch] practitioners could detect a human energy field. She didn't try to test their success rates at healing people with the flu. Simple, elegant, and effective. No need for details when they're unnecessary.

Comment by Randi: Yes, probably. But in Emily's case, the TT people had said that they could detect the "human energy field," and their whole claim rested on that ability to first detect it, then "shape" it. Therefore, when they failed to show they were able to detect it, their entire claim fell apart. With astrologers, we get many different claims. Some say that they can predict lucky and unlucky events, but don't say a thing about personality traits. My point is that you must design a test based on the actual claim being made. Mind you, if an astrologer claimed that one's astrological sign is directly correlated with one's personality traits, Cameron's test would be just fine....

Another major difference between my proposal and the RA site is that the RA site doesn't use questions from any accepted personality test. It simply has a long list of characteristics, such as "ambitious" and "blunt," and the user is asked to rate himself or herself according to how well that descriptor applies to them. There are serious questions as to how well this test gathers accurate information about people. That is a problem, and would be a valid rebuttal in the face of a negative result. This is why a standard, accepted, psychological personality assessment test should be used.

Randi: Serious problem here. To get any of these people to agree to accepting anything, is next to impossible. We've shuttled back and forth among recognized modalities with them, endlessly, and in some cases had to give up. But I'm interrupting Cameron's comments.....

A third problem with the RA site is that it does not tally results. I looked at the source of the page, and no data is submitted to the server. All of the calculation is done on the user's browser, so there isn't even a way to see how accurate the site's guesses have been with large numbers of test-takers. Oh, and if you want to see something funny, enter in no information whatsoever (all of the values are initially set to "0," the neutral response), and click the button to calculate your sign. The site claims that you are definitely every single sign, yet definitely not any of them. On top of that, it claims to have succeeded in guessing your sign based upon this. I think there's something a little screwy with the math.

Cameron then goes on about what he thinks that site should do, and I have no arguments with him on that matter. However, I've decided to spare you all those details. He concludes, "As you can see, my proposal was really nothing like the RA site linked to in this week's commentary."

Apologies, Cameron. You're quite correct, and I appreciate the input.

Reader John Dulak shows us that the recent Mark Twain reference here was somewhat differently worded from what we published. It's always interesting to see how slight mis-quotes can sometimes change meaning. I like both ideas, but the following is what Twain intended. Writes John:

The quote is from "The Dammed Human Race — Was the World Made for Man?" It is included in the excellent collection of short Twain items "Letters From The Earth" edited by Bernard DeVoto. The entire quote follows: (Twain's numbers are almost a century out of date but he expresses the spirit of his thought as only he can.)

Such is the history of man. Man has been here for 32,000 years. That it took a hundred million years to prepare the world for him is proof that that is what it was done for. I suppose it is. I dunno. If the Eiffel Tower were now representing the world's age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle-knob at its summit would represent man's share of that age; and anybody would perceive that that skin was what the tower was built for. I reckon they would, I dunno.

Yes, folks, I blew it again. No one was more surprised than Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait when I announced that he'd changed his subject for The Amazing Meeting. It was Bob Carroll of the Skeptic's Dictionary (www.skepdic.com), not Phil, who offered to speak for us on "Christian Terrorism — The War Against Science." Phil will still be handling "Planet X" and the absurd claim of Fox-TV that the Moon landing was a hoax. That's discussed on his web site, www.badastronomy.com. Mind you, Bob was willing to speak on anything I suggested, because he's expert on just about anything. And Phil wants to get a panel together to discuss all known subjects.... Please examine the photos shown here, and try to keep me from confusing the two. If they exchange name-tags at The Amazing Meeting, I'm in trouble. Again....

Examine this close-up photo I took last week of the keypad outside the door of the JREF. Now, we're very well protected here, with an excellent security system in place, and it's properly used. However, I recently noticed the appearance of the keypad and concluded that a clever would-be intruder could determine the 4-digit access code. Can you?

Mind you, the combination is now changed, so don't get ambitious. I'd like to see how many of you can come up with probable guesses for the "old" code number just by examining this photo. This much is pretty sure: you should be able to narrow it down to 6 combos, one of which is very likely to be the correct one.

This will be interesting!

A reader whose name I've lost (!) submitted this item:

Maestro, concerning the depths to which those "scientific" cable channels will stoop in order to titillate the mass of viewers, I noted a couple of years ago (when I was reviewing TV for a weekly alternative newspaper) that both The Learning Channel and The Travel Channel presented programs in the same week which included segments on the Amityville Horror case. The Learning Channel, which most TV watchers assume is factually valid, never mentioned the fact that the Amityville brouhaha was exploded as a hoax long ago, while The Travel Channel, which has a vested interest in making vacation destinations seem more romantic than they are, openly admitted that there are no spooks in the "horror" house and ghost hunters should stay home and not make pests of themselves.

My son and I watch this stuff every so often. He's at the age at which boys tend to get interested in these "unsolved mysteries" and I watch with him so I can laugh at the lack of proof these programs present and keep him on track. (This frequently annoys him because, like Agent Mulder, he wants to believe. Parents can be such wet blankets.) When it comes to cryptozoology, I tell him, stick to King Kong.

Hmmm. Cryptozoology is a very valid, active, and productive science. It's really worth having Junior take a look at, so he can see reason and logic at work....

Reader Christine Klunder contributed the following interesting piece. This is someone who accepted the claims made by Sylvia Browne (now into her 431st + day of our challenge, and still not responding!) and put a lot of money and effort into trying to rationalize Sylvia's philosophy and actions. We're grateful for her candor and we salute her courage....

Greetings. I have been reading Mr. Randi's commentaries for about a year now, and occasionally emailing him with short questions and such. At one point I mentioned to him that I used to be a member of Sylvia Browne's religion, but wised up and left. This seemed to intrigue him, so he asked me if I would write a short article about my reasons for leaving. I thought about it, including the hatred I will engender from her "groupies" (as someone once put it) as well as the probable snipes from ultra left-brain thinkers, and decided what the hell — I don't really care what either side thinks of me, anyway.

Now, I am going to state up front that I am and will be until my dying day one of "those New Age types" even though that classification doesn't quite fit. It's because of personal experience more than anything else, and there's no one who's going to convince me otherwise. I'm sensitive, but I'm not a psychic, nor do I ever aspire to be, and I don't believe in things like iridology, or most of the other -ologies, and crystals are just pretty things. I do my best to use my God-given common sense, and I listen to other points of view (such as Mr. Randi's webpage, among other things), as variety helps me hone my own discernment. And I will leave it at that. Now for the grist.

Randi: Just a small pause here. It's very refreshing to have input from someone like Christine who puts it all up front for examination. She establishes her philosophy, her beliefs, and her credentials, with no apologies, and moves on. My kinda girl! I'm disturbed by her comment that "there's no one who's going to convince me otherwise" about her convictions, because she's effectively saying that contrary evidence will not change her opinions, but that's her stance, and we must respect it. She continues:

Sylvia's religion is called The Society for Novus Spiritus, and informally as the Gnostic Christians. Registered as a religion in California, it is structured much like the Catholic Church: it has reverends (as opposed to priests), bishops, and cardinals, who can perform legal weddings, funerals, etc. While Sylvia doesn't have a title per se, she's basically the Pope — "our spiritual leader," as they say. There are two actual formal groups, one in Campbell, CA, and the other in Renton, WA, with remote devotees all over the USA and other countries. I hesitate to call them "churches" or "parishes" as they meet in rented Masonic Halls and operate out of offices located elsewhere in both cities.

The religion has its own literature, of course, consisting of several spiral-bound books containing information from Sylvia and her "spirit guides." Many of these books have now been professionally published in oddly-abridged versions. The main books are the "Journey of the Soul" series, dealing with basically all the answers to life that Sylvia knows/has-been-told-by- her-guides/has-guessed-at, and it's from these books that 99% of the sermons are taken from. At the time I left, they numbered eight books of 60 or more pages, each costing $25, but there's probably nine now. There are also a number of smaller books on various subjects like women's health, a Novus Spiritus catechism, astrology (wherein she just makes observations based on her experiences with hundreds of people, since she claims not to believe in it), general questions and answers to her guides, children's coloring books, etc. They also sell tapes of most of her paid lectures (though they all sound almost exactly the same, they're supposed to be on radically different subjects) and on various meditations. There is also a recommended reading list of commercial titles, including the Bible, Qu'ran, Bhagvad Gita, things by other psychics, philosophers, historians, etc. There are also organized study groups, who get together and study the Soul series.

At the time I joined, my marriage to a controlling person was crumbling, I had had to move back in with my parents to have a baby that I had decided to give up for adoption, and I was having a terrible time of it afterwards, even having to go on Prozac. I was in serious spiritual need and thus ripe for plucking. Already enamored of Sylvia after seeing her on the Montel Williams show numerous times, when I heard that one of her "churches" (her word) was just two hours south of me in Renton, I jumped at the chance to check it out. I liked it, it provided what I needed at the time, so I began to make the trek every Sunday. I bought all the stuff, got baptized, certificate and all — though it turned out that Sylvia's signature on it was a xerox. That first year, there were things that didn't quite jibe, but I dismissed them according to the church motto, "Take what you want, leave the rest behind" — basically meaning that you can listen and accept whatever you want, and that's okay. If I didn't want to believe that we all came from another planet called Nuvo, that was okay, or whatever.

I must note here that a major function of the church was to exercise and expand individual psychic awareness and abilities, which I did, and which did work for me even though I was really a rather casual user. It was repeated often that learning comes from everywhere, so be aware of all. So I was. I began to learn things on my own, and I was interested in sharing them with people at church.

Randi notes: be aware that this "opening up" is often expressed by those who get into such movements, but that also includes involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous, the YMCA, Parent-Teacher groups, as well as bridge, chess and Mah Jong clubs. Christine, as she relates here, was in a vulnerable and sensitive position. In my opinion, she may have simply accepted her obviously new circumstances, with the community support she now had, as evidence of expanded perceptions. Just an observation. She continues:

Unfortunately this is where the major holes began to be very apparent.

Wanting to help teach, I looked into becoming more active in the church. I thought, perhaps a deacon...but the test for becoming one consisted of an open book test on the "Journey of the Soul" series, in which you had to find the exact quote from the book, and since I didn't agree with everything in it, in my view, taking and passing the test would be hypocritical. So I thought I'd try the study group route. But I was told point blank that that time was for discussion of the books and Sylvia's other teachings only, and that I couldn't bring up anything I personally had learned, even if it were relative.

Basically, I could learn things, but I had better make it fit Sylvia's mold, or I had to keep my mouth shut.

I couldn't reconcile this with the books and her words, which said that this religion was without dogma, and that we were here to learn and teach, just like the Gnostics of old. It stuck in my craw. But I stubbornly continued to attend for a while more, since I liked the people and the energy. I tossed aside more and more, however.

I also began to cast a more critical eye on Sylvia herself, even though I still gave her the benefit of the doubt for a long time. A very abridged list of things I noticed: I listened to her cast very vague, negative "I know about them, I'm psychic" aspersions on people like Oprah and Dr. Zahi Hawass (on her first trip to Egypt, which I was on), then turn around and be buddy-buddy with them, in the case of Hawass at least; I and my parents watched her as she accepted the [JREF] Million Dollar Challenge on Larry King, and we all know what happened there; in Egypt she was perpetually surrounded by her office staff, who were worshipful and watching over her like storm troopers, and to whom she gave special teachings and lectures not available to the rest of us, even though she said "we were all specially called" there; the tone of her webpage, which was obviously written by her office staff, always made me retch with its worshipfulness...I could go on.

Eventually I also came to the opinion that she was brainwashed as a kid (but is purposely perpetuating it now), if her autobiography is to be believed, because she was told repeatedly from a very young age that spirit guides are good and that you should listen to them rather than your own instinct and logic. Logic dictates that if they're also humans, they can lie and manipulate just as well as those in body [incarnate], and inclusion of partial or minor truths makes the lies all the more believable. And conversely that also makes the actual truth harder to discern. (BTW, I told mine to take a hike.)

That's the story, in short, of my break with Sylvia Browne and her religion. I sold my books on eBay, despite email warnings from other believers that if I had bought them as part of a study group I could be sued by her corporation for selling them (I hadn't). Wish I could say I made money on them, but alas I took a loss.

I am very much the wiser, though. And from what I hear, so are many other "New Agers" in my area.

It's hard to comment on this article. I'm glad that Christine is out of Sylvia's hands now, and I hope that she continues to develop her independence and courage.

Next week, I hope to feature another story from a former Sylvia devotee, I think much stronger than this one. I'm just checking it out now....

Reader Jaime Arbona quotes from last week's web page, the description given by PsiTech of their own abilities:

Technical Remote Viewing is a highly structured skill developed by the U.S. Dept. of Defense for the purpose of supplying adjunct information on intelligence gathering missions.

Jaime suggests they continue with:

And this is the reason that we were able to prevent 9/11 before it happened. And we know exactly where Bin Laden is. We just don't want to capture him so our IAUT (intelligence-agents-under-training) can practice with real-world scenarios.

Another Psi Tech quote comes from Charlie Cotterman. In reference to the Washington-area snipers, they said:

PSI TECH will continue to work this case as time permits...

Charlie comments:

As time permits? AS TIME PERMITS? People are randomly being slaughtered, and these highly-trained psychoactive paragons of the paranormal are going to find the killer AS TIME PERMITS?

"Hmmm...this guy looks suspicious...I see a loaded rifle in the vehicle too...he's parked...let's see, his location is...Oops, time for a coffee break, be back in fifteen..."

Yeah. I can't picture Psi Tech being so busy solving other pressing problems that they couldn't help us with this one. The bottom line is that they were wrong, anyway. Maybe there's a lesson in there somewhere....?

Visit http://oberon.spaceports.com/~astrocat/index1.html. It's "Devoted to the exposure of the direct-mail astrology industry, including clairvoyants, psychics, astrologers, parapsychologists, lucky charm vendors, numerologists, tarot readers et al."

It's a pretty sad story of how people can get sucked into paying the soothsayers fortunes and getting zilch, nada, rien, nichts, and nothing in return.

Reader Bruce Gemmel reminds us that Canada's Anthony Carr, self-proclaimed "World's Most Documented Psychic," probably won't be documenting the prediction he made about actor Richard Harris: "Richard's cancer will go into remission; the third Potter film wins him industry-wide applause."

This confident item appeared in "Stargazing" (a column written by Carr and Tony Brenna in the Toronto Sunday Sun) on October 27 — two days after Harris died of cancer. But major "documented" fiascos are nothing new for Mr. Carr. He predicted in 1955 that a major political/athletic figure would be assassinated at the 1996 Summer Olympics. Funny, I don't remember that. In 1996, the stars above told Carr that the Irish "will be coming into their own, generally. Everyone will want to think, dress, and act Irish." I don't think I've even got a green necktie. And singer Madonna, said this astute prognosticator, would be "establishing herself as a real 'star' and as a dramatic actress, in the blockbuster 'Evita,'" for which she'd even win an Oscar. That film bombed big-time, and Madonna doesn't like to discuss the matter, thank you. Said Carr in 1997, "Legendary actress June Allyson will make an appearance, along with James Stewart, in a special anniversary special commemorating the mysterious disappearance of revered 1940's band leader Glen [sic] Miller." James Stewart died the same week this prediction appeared.

Anthony Carr said that actor Christopher Reeve would "rise from his chair and perambulate" in 1999, and that O.J. Simpson would "either admit his guilt in 2000, or new evidence will prove that he is a murderer." Carr predicted in the January 5, 1999, issue of the National Examiner, that Muhammad Ali would make a miracle recovery from Parkinson's disease, that an iceberg the size of California would threaten to wipe out Hawaii, and that Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy would give birth to twins. She died in the plane crash with her husband.

Did it ever occur to Anthony Carr that he should either (a) stop documenting his guesses, or (b) find a more suitable line of work?

Egads! Zounds! I was scolded for my ignorance of UK soccer, again! I'm told that a draw is not a loss, that teams get 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss. Total points at the end of the season decide positions. I was misinformed; it seems that I was misled by referring to the bookmakers, who for payoff purposes define a draw as a loss. So, for Geller's team Exeter, it's now won 4, drawn 4, lost 9. Still doesn't sound too good, to me. I wonder why?

Shawn Bishop notes this about Bearden, the "free energy" machine inventor:

When a person writes as much nonsense as Tom Bearden, the question is inevitably asked as to whether they are self-deluding or deliberate charlatans. The comparisons between Tom Bearden and L. Ron Hubbard are striking. Both are former US servicemen (Hubbard in the navy, Bearden a Lieutenant Colonel in the army). During WW2 Hubbard was relieved of command of his submarine chaser after an inquiry found (in as many words) that he had fantasized an incident off the coast of Oregon in which he had successfully attacked and destroyed two Japanese submarines.

Wittgenstein said that the most difficult thing in the world is to not deceive yourself, and on balance I believe that Bearden is self-deluding.

Martin Gardner has identified a type of person that he calls a "hermit scientist." These are people who develop their own theories without discussing them with other scientists. In Britain, people like this are often called "garden shed inventors." They are convinced of the rightness of their theories, and sensible debate with them is all but impossible. Not all hermit scientists are idiots. Heaviside and Tesla worked very much on their own, but for every Heaviside or Tesla there are probably a hundred Beardens.

It is disappointing that Tom Bearden has said nothing since the MEG saga broke, but this is par for the course. If the MEG were just a box of tricks with a transformer, it would be little different from Joe Newman's 1980's device. What is different is the claim that it produces energy from the quantum vacuum. In a recent BBC television interview, Professor Stephen Hawking talked of growing scientific interest in this area. As a result, the commonest way of expressing perpetual motion/free energy claims nowadays is to dress them up in quantum jargon.

Brady J. Phelps, Ph.D., is a behavior analyst and Professor of Psychology at South Dakota State University. He recently found out that John Edward would be performing at Omaha, Nebraska, at $45 a pop, and wrote me asking advice on how he might discover the Edward routine. As it turned out, very little that I suggested could be used, except that I told him to take along a concealed tape recorder.

Next week, we'll have a report from Brady on the outcome of that visit. It should be very revealing.....!

Adding to the anthropocentric view of astrologers that we discussed last week, reader William Rucklidge offers us this lyric excerpt from the show "At The Drop of Another Hat" by Flanders and Swann, that wonderful UK musical comedy duo:

Jupiter's passed through Orion,
And come into conjunction with Mars,
Saturn is wheeling through infinite space
To its pre-ordained place in the stars.
And I gaze at the planets in wonder,
At the trouble and time they expend,
All to warn me to be careful,
In "dealings involving a friend."

Aussie Tom Dullemond submits this satisfying news item put out on the news.com.au website on the 31st of October:

Alternative Therapies Crackdown

Alternative health products promising cures for diseases such as cancer and AIDS will be stamped out as part of a NSW [New South Wales] government crackdown announced today. The move follows the death of a child with a heart defect, whose parents chose a South American herb treatment instead of the advised conventional medicine.

The Government has appointed University of NSW Professor of Medicine, John Dwyer, to head a committee which will review existing laws and regulations governing alternative therapies. NSW Health Minister Craig Knowles said the onus would be on the manufacturers making claims of miracle cures to prove they were true before they were allowed to continue on the market. Products on the market included contraptions made from children's toys, he said.

"When you see something of this nature, they are 100 bucks and promise a cure for AIDS ... a cure for Hepatitis C, a promise for a cure for cancer — it is just wrong and needs to be stopped," Mr. Knowles told reporters. Denying the crackdown was a "witch-hunt," he said while there were many legitimate alternative therapies, the focus would be at the "Dodgy Brothers end."

Advertisements of alternative products promising cures for major illnesses had risen in recent years with a sweep of websites conducted by the Health Care Complaints Commission counting 77 sites in NSW. Laws to investigate and prosecute "quacks" and the powers of health professionals boards such as the NSW Medical Board would also be strengthened as part of the crackdown. Penalties for marketing bogus health products would be increased and a public education campaign initiated.

Those last five words are the most important. We can only hope that this new attitude will be put into effect with vigor, and that the powerful, well-financed, quackery lobbyists won't manage to water down the legislation or get it reversed.

Reader Derek Heron writes:

I live in the town of Falkirk, Scotland. We recently had a visit from Uri Geller. He was here at the invitation of Mr. John Walker, a local historian. The background to the story can be found by following the link http://uk.news.yahoo.com/021023/17/dcc2p.html

However there was one news story that, although not reported on national television, was covered on Scottish Television. I thought it might amuse you. Tom Shields of the Scottish Daily Record recounted the story a few days later. I have reproduced it below.

Uri's Way Off Key

The psychic powers of Uri Geller, in Falkirk last week to pinpoint an ancient battle site, were tested by an unlikely source. Among the media persons following the spoonbender around the Stirlingshire town in his quest to solve the seven centuries-old mystery, was the BBC's tenacious reporter Kate Fawcett. But Kate had her own mystery to solve — the whereabouts of her missing car keys. And who better to ask than Geller himself?

After a suitable period of psychic concentration, the great man told her the keys would be found down the back of the seat of another vehicle in which she had got a lift. A search proved fruitless. No cigar for Mr. Geller, especially since the keys turned up in the car park of Carmuirs Golf Club, one of the sites he had graced with his psychic presence.

Folks, The Amazing Meeting — January 31st through February 2nd of 2003 — is forming up fast, and we urge you to get your registrations in quickly so we'll get a better idea of how many we have to fit into the Renaissance Hotel here in sunny Fort Lauderdale. We now have signed-up registrants from 19 US states, 2 Canadian provinces, and 3 foreign countries! That's from Alberta, Arizona, Brazil, California, Colorado, Connecticut, England, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Quebec, Rhode Island, Scotland, South Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin. I'll bet we can find among that crowd, every possible variety of philosophy and opinion. Sounds exciting!

Remember, those special room rates are limited. And since some have asked whether they must be accommodated at the Renaissance, the answer is, no. If you have other places in the area where you can stay, that's just fine. But you really should try the Renaissance. It's a winner.

We've now worked in two general panel discussions, which will probably be heavily attended. That's always been my experience, at such gatherings. Nothing like a good free-for-all, down-and-dirty, no-holds-barred, riot!

There will be telescopes set up the night of the 1st, for astronomical viewing. I see that Jupiter and Saturn will be up for us, and they're superb objects to see "up close." We'll arrange for clear weather. Sylvia says she'll do that for us.....