When you read this, I'm supposed to be away in China attending the Carl Sagan tribute in Beijing. I'm not. I'm recovering at home. Those China plans changed suddenly when an emergency arose and soon I had medical persons probing inside my poor body. I'll be a week or so recovering, and will try to get the pages up in time. China will still be there, and I hope I will be, too....

And no, it had nothing to do with my left ventricle! Speaking of which, Sylvia Browne has broken the 100-day mark! Way to go, Syl!

Another gem from Mark Twain, addressing some Bible-thumpers:

You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that WE are the ones that need help?

Reader K. Tristan Mayer offers this news:

I made a comment to you a few months ago about being amused that the Penta-Water guy's name is "Cheatham." Here's an article from a usually-respectable online magazine for life scientists, which approaches the NIH's sinkhole of tax dollars known as NCCAM (coffee enemas! energy healing!) pretty damn uncritically. It's at:

http://www.the-scientist.com/yr2001/dec/bunk_p10_011210.html

Here, we find that during an American Cancer Society (ACS) meeting years ago, they had a session on what they simply and directly called, "quackery." In following years, when the effect of "political correctness" entered the field of science, that part of the meeting was titled "questionable methods," then it became "unproven therapies," before the ACS finally adopted the very devious designation, "Complementary and Alternative Medicine" (CAM) with its emphasis on treatments that either "complement" or are "alternatives" to conventional ones. Presently, a popularly used "safe" term is "integrated therapies" that are combined with "mainstream modalities." Tristan writes that he can only assume that "combin[ing] with mainstream modalities" means "coffee enemas and vitamin C are fine, as long as you combine your voodoo with treatment that works, too."

Yes, that's the picture, as it is presently. You can see from this that there's a sort of magic being applied here. Changes in the terminology are being used to make the nonsense more palatable! The medical establishment has surrendered to pressure, and eye-of-newt and toe-of-frog — with the AMA's beaming approval — can now be combined with antibiotics and a CAT-scan, and everything is peaceful and dandy. The coffee enemas are something I would heavily resist (too sweet!) but I can't really tell what nonsense is included with my medical treatment, now that differences between quackery and the real thing have been blurred. Says Tristan:

Change its name and it's still quackery, though; if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck... Oh, and the name of the author of this piece? Steve Bunk. Of course. How can we not get smug when they make it so easy for us?

At the JREF, we're often asked for analyses of "cold reading" encounters. It's a time-consuming job, indeed. Here's one for your consideration. Bear in mind that in reading this, you don't see the body-language that is evident, nor the facial expressions.

Not too long ago, I appeared on "The View," a popular USA morning TV show, on which we discussed those who purport to be demonstrating supernatural powers. One of those was Char Margolis, and her performance was rather transparent. Ms. Margolis is the author of "Questions from Earth, Answers from Heaven." But here I give you a somewhat longer example of her work, one that serves well to demonstrate just how easily a TV host can fall for the fakery. On May 10, 2000, "FOX NEWS LIVE" featured this same "psychic" doing a "reading" for host David Asman, on-air, live. In the transcript that follows, "CM" is Char Margolis, "DM" is Mr. Asman, and "Bridget" is the co-host.

The actual text of the reading is shown indented. The reading lasted 2 minutes, 40 seconds. NOTE: Char Margolis went into this reading already knowing that David Asman had lost a loved one. We don't know if the name of that person appeared in the media, but Margolis knew that he was emotionally tuned to finding evidence that would support his belief in survival-after-death. What follows is an excellent example of "cold reading" technique, and typical reactions and participation from the victim. I will insert my observations at appropriate intervals.

CM: Can I ask you something? Just.... just say yes or no to me, okay? Do you... think of people close to you, both living and deceased, 'cause I don't know why I'm getting this, but I was picking up an "a" or "m." Do you have anybody that's an "a" or an "m"?

DA: Mmm-hmm.

Margolis is here preparing the subject for the fact that she will be asking questions, rather than telling him something — which is what he might have expected her to do as part of a "reading" rather than playing a guessing game. She asks him to think of anyone — living or dead, related or not, in this country or anywhere else — a field of possibilities that includes literally thousands of persons. However, she is certain that he will be most concerned about his lost loved one, and the casual observer does not know that she is already zeroed in on this much smaller field.

Notice the disclaimer, "I don't know why I'm getting this," which also prepares the victim for the fact that she's floundering around, and he will have to help her in developing the information. It also prepares him for imminent failures that might follow. She offers the victim two possibilities to choose from, "a" or "m." Those letters can be the initials of a first or a last name (of a person or a pet), or can represent a title or any other appellation. These letters are often used to try to arrive at a woman's name; for a man's name, it's most often "j" or "w."

Already, it's obvious that she is telling him nothing. She is asking him questions, and he is expected to answer these questions or fill in details so that she will have something to work with. As I've often said, it's very much like the old "20 Questions" guessing game.

CM: Deceased?

DA: Ahh.... one deceased, one alive.

Margolis knows that she's right on this guess, as we already know. But she puts it as a question just in case David is identifying someone else who is not dead. He not only tells her the status of the persons involved, but freely volunteers further information by telling her that there are two people involved, one alive, one not, something that she didn't know and didn't tell him. She takes this in stride, and merely changes her approach, adapting it to now accommodate two persons.

CM: Is the one deceased an "m"? Or an "a"?

DA: An "a."

Margolis is first going after the deceased person, obviously the one in which David is most interested, and since that proves correct, she drops the living possibility and doesn't come back to it. The next question she asks, also cuts the field in half:

CM: Is that a fe.... female or male? I don't know....

DA: Female

Again, David has supplied information that Margolis should already know. The fact she clearly tells him, "I don't know," should be more significant to him, wouldn't you think? But in this game, "I don't know" simply indicates to the willing victim that he should tell her what it does mean. And he does.

CM: Female? Is it "a-n"?

DA: Uh-huh.

CM: Anna? Or Anne?

DA: Uh-huh.

Once she knows the first two letters of the name, there are very few possibilities here. If she had been wrong on the "a-n" guess, David would very probably have given her the entire name. An interesting experiment would be to offer your friends the first two letters of a woman's name — "a" and "n" — and ask them to guess what the name is.

CM: Is that the woman you were trying to get ahold of?

I'm surprised to see this "slip" by Margolis. She should have made every effort to not refer to the fact that she was already aware of David's need to "get ahold" of someone. At this point, she sees the obvious expression on David's face, and she doesn't need an answer to her question.

DA: Now that's kinda weird. I gotta tell you, that's kinda weird.

At this point, Margolis knows that she has David "in the bag." She hastens to bolster her position and take advantage of his startled acceptance. She speaks rapidly, perhaps to prevent David from mentioning their previous conversation in which he had revealed his needs about this reading. What she says is just blather, but it might appear to the observer as meaningful.

CM: As soon as you started talking about that.... I mean, we didn't talk before about any of this, right? I don't know anything about you. You know, I honestly don't even remember your first name.

I find it difficult to believe that Margolis doesn't know her victims first name! But here she's putting on the "innocent" act of the gifted psychic who is only there to assist and console.

DA: (laughs) Hold on, folks, hold on. This is.... this is a little weird. Yeah, yeah....

CM: (interrupts) But my feeling....

DA: .... you're onto something.

David's comment at this point encourages Margolis to take some chances. She's ahead, she's got the hook in very deep, and if she's right on her next guess — which is very likely to be true — she's grabbed the brass ring. But notice that she invokes her "escape" possibility by stating that this is only her "feeling," and not something of which she is certain.

CM: My feel.... is this your grandma?

DA: No....

David's facial expression here gives away his answer even before his first "no." To get around this, Margolis quickly tosses in her second guess as he begins to answer, and this one also fails, so she drops it completely, retreats to something she knows is correct — the name, though she still has two unresolved possibilities there — and fills in her escape from both these misses with the inevitable good-news, sappy, retreat that every one of these performers uses: the deceased person loves you. So what's the only other possibility?

CM: (interrupts) Or your mom?

DA: No, no. (pause) No, no, no.

CM: I don't know who it is. All I know is, this Anne or Anna is with you, and she wants you to know, that she knows, that you love her....

DA: Now where did you get that? I mean, where did you.... can you....is it....

The victim displays confusion, and has forgotten the two misses — very obvious mistakes — that have just occurred. Typically, he has latched onto a "hit," which is minor, but he is pursing that, because it has great significance for him. Often, in such cases, the victim has no recall whatsoever of the misses, but only of the hits. In analyzing readings for some persons who have submitted them to me, I find that when I point out the big miss-to-hot ratio, the victim will frequently deny the misses that occurred, and is flustered when they are produced from a transcript or a tape. I need hardly comment on the "she wants you to know, that she knows, that you love her" statement. Enough to bring on caries....

Margolis now flounders a bit, and goes for one of the tried-and-true "examples," in case David thinks to mention the preparation she had for this reading, and starts to answer his own question. She rapidly reconstructs the one hit that she's had in this entire reading, after some vapid metaphysical philosophy.

CM: You know, I.... see, I believe that we communicate though thought. With spirits, and with the universe, and with each other. How many times have you gone to pick up a phone to dial someone and you pick it up and, oh, I was just going to call you! It's.... thought has, has power. Thoughts have wings. Thoughts create reality, so my feeling is, that she came to me in a thought to let you know that it's really her. I don't know who she is. All I know is I heard the name Anne, "a," I got the "a" or an "m," it was "a-n," and it was close.

Forget the old picking-up-the-phone mythology thrown in here. Notice that Margolis is wrong on the name. It's actually Anna. But David does not correct her. He's too busy rhapsodizing over the solitary fact that Margolis almost guessed a name he could identify with.

DA: That's kinda.... that's.... this is very spooky, folks, this is very spooky.

CM: But I know that she....

DA: Wow.

CM: I know that she really is some.... wants you to know that she's there....

DA: Yeah.

CM: .... with you.

DA: Yeah.

David is enchanted, taken in, entranced. He's not thinking, just reacting. And what Margolis has said here is meaningless, a mere fill-in. It says nothing. She has to move on and try to come up with something else meaningful, if she can. So she goes for one of the most common ploys in the book: some connection — any connection — with water or with electricity. It's obviously very difficult to have any event or situation that does not involve water or electricity in some way, so this gimmick is very popular with the "psychics." We frequently see, in police reports on meetings they've had with psychics, that the "water/electricity" phrase comes up. It's an excellent catch-all.

CM: And the only thing is, I'm seeing.... I don't know.... I'm seeing something about water. (pauses) I don't know what this means. I.... I don't know.... do you.... is, is there anyone that, that drowned around you?

The above pause is very important. She waits here, to see if David supplies a reaction. He does not — which to her is a "no" answer. She gets bold and goes for the drowning possibility.

DA: No.

CM: Or are you thinking of going to some....

She's widening the possibilities here, still hoping to get something connected with water. But David interrupts her before she can get much further. Once more, though she told him at the very beginning that she only wanted yes-or-no answers, he is eagerly, freely, volunteering vital information, which is something that she very much wants — and needs. So he interrupts her:

DA: This particular person, uh, died....

CM: Did she....

DA: .... in a car crash.

Suddenly, it becomes obvious to Margolis that she has to get out of this particular direction of probing. She quickly interrupts, but the possibility of water here is very attractive to her, because if she can somehow make David recognize a connection, again, any connection, she can salvage the entire thing.

CM: No, not her. This is somebody else. Are you thinking of, of get.... of doing something, either living by water.... (pause) ....or doing something on a boat?

DA: No.

Again, the very useful pause. David gives no physical reaction — which means, "no" — and Margolis retreats a bit. She decides she'll be satisfied with a "boat" connection, if she can get it. But she doesn't get it, and she drops it.

CM: Okay. I don't know, then. I don't know. I don't know what that was....

DA: Maybe that was coming from Bridget.

As we find typically, David is here trying to offer Margolis an "out." The victims are usually very helpful in this respect, not wishing to offend or to embarrass the performer. In the trade, it's called, "running up the stairs to the gallows." This is a factor that the performers depend upon, and it is often extended after the reading is finished, when the victim re-constructs what was said — incorrectly — and usually to the advantage of, and with the help of, the performer.

CM: I don't know.

DA: You were.... The first one was dead-on, so that's kind of scary.

Think about it. Just what was "dead-on" here? Only one thing, a name, and that was only half-right! The rest of the reading was a fiasco, with error after error — but all of that has been forgotten by David, who clings to the one (partial) "hit." He has a lot emotionally invested in this reading being evidential.

CM: No, no, no, but there's something about.... you're going to have to be careful. You're going to invited to somewhere with water. Just make sure that.... that everything's safe.

DA: Uh-huh.

Suddenly, Margolis has just jumped through another escape-hatch: she has switched everything into the future, to save her bad guess about "water,"and she hurriedly provides advice that is pretty obvious, particularly if it's supposed to be coming from supernatural sources. Inevitably, David will be "invited to somewhere with water." There's no time frame given. It could happen that day, or years in the future. When it does happen, he will be expected to recall this prediction. Just think for a moment: how many places are you invited, over any undefined time period, to "somewhere with water"?

And, if anything should occur to David — anything at all — when he's near water, Margolis can chortle that she warned him about it. If that never happens, it will be attributed to the fact that she properly prepared him to avoid it....

CM: You're going to be either invited on a boat.... are you thinking of going to the Hamptons? Or....

A wild guess, and it's another wrong one. But consider if it had been right: that would have been a major coup for Margolis. And it's not very unlikely that someone like David either has thought about going to the Hamptons, or has gone there, or will go there, but in the event that someone even mentions that possibility to him in the future, he would have good reason to recall Margolis' statement, and to assign undue significance to it.

Bridget: Oh, no.

CM: Somebody actually suggested....

Bridget: We were going to invite you....

Bridget, the co-host, has been listening to all this, and has made a connection. It's not exactly right, nor do we know if it even involves the Hamptons, it may only be a boat ride. But the desire to make a connection - any sort of a connection — creates a willingness to overlook such minor discrepancies. Even David attempts to save this bad guess:

DA: Somebody actually suggested that I take a boat trip to Cuba, so maybe, ah....

CM: I don't know what this is, but.... (stops abruptly) ...are you serious?

DA: Yeah.

CM: Did they?

DA: Yeah.

Wait a minute here. Didn't Margolis "get" anything about Cuba? Just what did she "get"? Nothing! Why should she be so astonished? And she doesn't even seem to know when David is giving facts, or being frivolous. At this point, Margolis retreats one more time and gives vapid, obvious, quite "safe" advice to her victim:

CM: All I know is, you need to be careful around.... make sure everything's safe around a boat, or if you're going around....

DA: Alright. Well, all of this....

CM: That's the message she's giving me for you.

Hold on! Who is "she," anyway? Margolis has jumped back to "Anne," who is actually "Anna," and credited her with these startling revelations! And just how many times did Margolis clearly state that she didn't know something she was supposed to know? She said, "I don't know," thirteen times in 160 seconds, for an average of once every twelve seconds! So just what does she know?

Consider: during this encounter, Margolis asked 17 questions of David. That's about one question every 9 seconds! In my opinion, that's not much of a "message," especially if it came from Heaven, and was supposed to be full of meaning and value. All of the "message" came from David, not from Heaven! But it's not difficult to see how a session like this could be considered significant by the incautious observer. As mentioned above, the victims tend to hyperbolize and to freely edit what has taken place. It is the "improved" version that gets repeated — and perpetuated.

This reading by Margolis is typical, using several of the usual gimmicks to make it appear that the information given was much more accurate and meaningful than it actually was. It's not difficult to imagine how much more effective this could have been, had it been performed in private, away from television cameras. Margolis would doubtless have taken many more chances, and the overall impression would thus be much greater due to the fact that the creative editing and the usual in-head re-shaping would have taken place.

Margolis is certainly not one of the best performers of "cold reading" that I've seen, but she is quite successful as a professional "psychic." Frankly, I've seen better readers in the UK and in parts of Europe.

Reader Rogier J.A.W. van der Peijl sends us this:

While talking about these [psychic, paranormal] things with my father I suddenly remembered a TV show that ran for a while here in The Netherlands. It is not directly linked to the supernatural and such but it shows how gullible people are. The show did some research on advertising that companies used, and how people responded to it.

In the final episode of the show they showed a test they did themselves. They came up with the idea to see how easily people were fooled by using bottled spring water. As you know, lots of people drink only this and never out of the tap (I don't know why, because it tastes just as good). First they had someone design a nice-looking label for the bottle they were going to use. Then they acquired the necessary number of plastic bottles and filled them with ordinary tap water.

All these bottles were taken to a supermarket which had agreed to participate in the test and a stand was build. A hidden camera was put in place. On the TV show, the videos were shown with reactions of the people who tasted it for free at the stand and then bought a couple of the bottles. As you can imagine, the reactions of the people who tasted the "spring water" were wonderful..... The water tasted wonderful and so much better than ordinary tap water..... All the bottles they had prepared were sold, and for quite a high price. Eventually, all the persons who had bought the water were given refunds and it was explained about the test. Hopefully you have found this interesting and somewhat amusing.

Yes, Rogier, though not surprising. People really trust their ability to see through sham and fakery, but are often shown to be quite unable to do so.

Next week, I'll try to have a report for our readers that indicates just how incapable even well-educated persons are to penetrate the most obvious demonstration. We tested a young girl for the million-dollar prize.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention, lest you should be wondering. We still have the million dollars....