Paranormality: Why we see what isn't there (14 page)

The first four principles of psychic deception – selling the duck, taking the road less travelled, covering your tracks, and changing the route – ensure that people do not figure out the solution to the tricks that are happening right in front of their eyes. The fifth principle – air-brushing the past – ensures that they are unable to accurately remember what happened. Without spectators realizing it, important details vanish from their minds and they are then left with no rational way of explaining what they have witnessed.

BOX

THE GURU AND THE REFRIGERATOR

A few years ago a colleague and I travelled to India to investigate top Godman Swami Premananda
⁵⁴
.
 
Born in 1951, Premananda claims that his religious calling became apparent when he was a teenager and a saffron-coloured robe suddenly materialized on his body. Since then, Premananda has performed his alleged miracles on an almost daily basis, materializing objects in his bare hands and regularly regurgitating egg-shaped stones. In the early 1980s Premananda established a religious retreat in a remote part of Southern India, and at the time of our visit this self-contained village was home to the guru and about 50 of his followers. Drawn from across the world, this merry band of devoted disciples were convinced that their leader’s miracles were genuine and had dedicated their lives to his teachings.
 

My initial glimpse of Premananda was somewhat strange. On the first day of our visit I went to the retreat shop to buy a cold drink. The owner said that unfortunately his refrigerator had broken and that he was waiting for Premananda to solve the problem. I instantly conjured up a mental image of Premananda’s followers cramped into a meeting hall with their guru leading the group in refrigerator-based prayer. A few moments later the shop door swung open and in walked Premananda clutching a bag of tools. The Swami yanked the refrigerator away from the wall, took a spanner out of his bag, and started tinkering away at the back of the machine. Within minutes the refrigerator burst into life. Sensing that his work here was done, Premananda quickly re-packed his tools, bought a chocolate bar, and left.
 

That afternoon we were informed that Premananda would meet us at six o’clock the following morning to demonstrate his paranormal powers. Early the next morning I dragged myself off the wooden plank that constituted my bed and made my way to the meeting hall. Six o’clock came and went. As did seven o’clock, followed by eight o’clock. It seemed that Premananda was playing the ‘guru game’; testing our level of devotion by arriving several hours after an agreed time. (When I play the same game with my students it is referred to as ‘unprofessional behaviour’.) After four hours waiting in an increasingly hot and sticky hall, I decided that enough was enough and made my way towards the exit. As if by magic, the door swung open and in walked Premananda, surrounded by a small group of followers.
 

The Godman smiled and quickly made a sweeping motion with his hand. A small stream of ‘vibhuti’ – a fine ash used in Hindu worship – started to trickle from his fingertips. A few moments later the ash ceased and Premananda appeared to pluck two small gold trinkets from thin air. Miracles over, I handed my Polaroid camera to one of the devotees and suggested that we all step outside for a group photograph. The resulting image clearly showed an odd purple haze surrounding the group and two additional blobs of purple directly above Premananda and me. Premananda looked at the photograph and modestly pointed out that many religions associated the shade of purple with sainthood.
 

Careful observation of the guru at work suggested that he had hidden the objects that he miraculously found in the folds of his garment, and was secretly picking them up when people weren’t watching. When we eliminated the possibility of this by placing a clear plastic bag around his hand, the materializations suddenly dried up.
 

And what about the purple haze on the photograph of Premananda? When I returned to Britain I took the photograph to the Polaroid laboratories. The technician explained that when a Polaroid photograph is ejected from the camera, pouches containing developing chemicals are broken and the chemicals are dragged across the image. The technician then looked at the code number on the back of my photograph, consulted a big book of numbers, and revealed that the chemicals would have been past their sell-by date and therefore prone to a purplish discolouration. As a result, the scientific community has been reluctant to view the image as compelling evidence of sainthood. Personally, I am more convinced.

Field footage of the Premananda test

http://www.richardwiseman.com/paranormality/Premenanda.html
 

END BOX

Davey’s ground-breaking work constitutes the very first experiment into the reliability of eyewitness testimony. Since then, psychologists have carried out hundreds of such studies that have demonstrated that the same type of selective memory clouds our ability to recall everyday events.
 

Around the turn of the last century, German criminologist Professor von Lizst conducted some dramatic studies on the subject
⁵⁵
.
 
One such study was staged during one of von Lizst‘s lectures and began with him discussing a book on criminology. One of the students (actually a stooge) suddenly shouted out and insisted that von Lizst explore the book from ‘the standpoint of Christian morality’. A second student (another stooge) objected and a fierce argument ensued. The situation went from bad to worse: the two stooges started to trade punches and eventually, one of them pulled out a revolver. Professor von Lizst tried to grab the weapon and a shot rang out. One of the students then fell to the ground and lay motionless on the floor.
 

      
Professor von Lizst called a halt to the proceedings, explained that the whole thing was a set-up, had his two stooges take a bow, and quizzed everyone about the event. Von Lizst was amazed to discover that many of his students had become fixated on the gun (a phenomenon that psychologists now refer to as ‘weapon focus’) and so, without realizing it, had forgotten much of what had happened just a few moments before, including who started the argument and the clothing that the protagonists were wearing.
 
In the 1970s psychologist Rob Buckhout conducted a similar experiment, staging mock assaults in front of over 150 witnesses
⁵⁶
.
 
Again, the witnesses tended to focus on what they thought was important – the nature of the assault – and so failed to remember a much other information about the incident. When they were later shown six photographs and asked to identify the perpetrator, almost two thirds of them failed to do so. On another occasion an American television programme broadcast footage of a mock purse-snatching incident and then asked viewers to try to identify the thief from a six-person lineup. Over 2,000 people called the programme and registered their decision. Even through the footage clearly showed the face of the assailant, just over 1,800 of the viewers identified the wrong person
⁵⁷
.
 

A large amount of research has revealed the same finding time and again. We all like to think that we are reliable eyewitnesses. However, the truth of the matter is that, without realizing it, we tend to misremember what has happened right in front of our eyes and frequently omit the most important details.

Your brain is constantly making assumptions about which parts of your surroundings are most deserving of attention and the best way of perceiving what is there. Most of the time these assumptions are correct, and so you are able to accurately perceive the world in a highly efficient and effective way. However, once in a while you will encounter something that trips up this finely-honed system. In the same way that a good optical illusion completely fools your eyes, so those claiming psychokinetic abilities perform the simplest of magic tricks but fool you into thinking that you have witnessed a miracle. They subtly discourage you from considering the possibility of deception, use sneaky methods that you would never consider, and ensure that any possible evidence of trickery is quickly airbrushed out of your memory. Seen in this way, rotating pencils and bending spoons are not proof of the impossible, but are instead vivid reminders of just how sophisticated your eyes and brain really are. The people performing these demonstrations do indeed have remarkable powers, but their skills are psychological, not supernatural.
 

4. TALKING WITH THE DEAD

In which we meet two young girls who created a new religion, discover what happened when the world’s greatest scientist confronted the Devil, learn how to commune with non-existent spirits and unleash the power of our unconscious minds.
 

It is 10 p.m and we are just about the start the session. Ten unsuspecting members of the public and I are sitting around a wooden table in the front room of a house in London’s East End. The room is in near darkness, illuminated only by a couple of candles on the mantelpiece. I ask everyone to lean forward and place their fingertips lightly on the tabletop, take a deep breath and call upon the spirits to join us. Nothing happens. I tell everyone not become dispirited and to suspend any scepticism that they might have. Once again I speak into the darkness and ask the spirits to make their presence known by moving the table. After a short time the table gives a small, but real, shudder. It is a good sign, and I have a hunch that we are all in for an interesting night.
 

Over the course of the next 30 minutes the table shudders several more times. A man in the group then says that he is going to have to nip to the toilet. As he stands up, the tabletop emits a tremendous creaking sound and suddenly tips up on two legs. It is a dramatic movement, and it feels as if someone has kicked the table from below. Several people in the group scream and the man decides that perhaps his trip to the toilet isn’t that important after all. All four legs of the table return to the ground and the table starts to skid from one side of the room to the other, sometimes pinning members of the group to the wall. After about an hour the movements suddenly cease and we solemnly thank the spirits for making their presence known. The candles are blown out, the lights are turned on, everyone discusses the strange events that they have just experienced, and the man finally gets to go to the toilet.

I have staged many such séances over the years and the results are always the same. Regardless of whether the group consists of believers or sceptics, the table always moves. Even if everyone takes turns removing their fingers from the tabletop, the table continues to tip and shake.
 

Table-tipping was first practised in Victorian parlours throughout Britain, and the phenomenon is as puzzling to the modern-day mind as it was to those living then. But when it comes to talking with the dead, table-tipping is just the tip of the iceberg. In other types of séance, the Victorians asked the deceased to spell out messages by moving an upturned glass towards alphabet cards and even to scribble words directly onto pieces of paper. Investigations into these curious phenomena yielded surprising insights into the power of the unconscious mind, the fundamental nature of free will, and how to be a better golfer.
 

This remarkable story starts with two sisters who managed to fool the world.

Clever Like a Fox

Around the turn of the last century Thomas Hardy wrote a poem in which he described witnessing God’s funeral. Hardy’s verses vividly express the sadness experienced by the religious if they come to doubt the existence of a divine creator.
 

Throughout the nineteenth century more and more people came to experience the painful feelings described by Hardy as established religion came under a serious and sustained attack. The great Scottish thinker David Hume set the ball rolling by criticizing the then sacrosanct idea that alleged evidence of design in nature constituted compelling proof of God, with Hume eventually publishing his ideas in a blasphemous book entitled
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
, originally considered so controversial that it was published anonymously and didn’t even carry the publisher's name. Hot on his heels was the English philosopher John Stuart Mill, who argued that the public were a fairly rational bunch, and so should be allowed to choose their religious beliefs, or not, without any interference from the state. And then along came Charles Darwin with his dangerous idea that men and beasts may not be quite so different after all.
 

Organized religion began to feel the pinch. For centuries priests and clergymen had fought the Devil, but now found themselves facing a new and far more daunting enemy – congregations that dared to demand evidence for their God. They proved a tough crowd. The Victorians were enjoying the benefits of unprecedented scientific advances, from steam engines to sewing machines, photography to petrol, telephones to tarmac, phonographs to paperclips, and jelly babies to ice cream. Suddenly, age-old stories about a man who could feed 5,000 people with just five loaves of bread and two small fish simply failed to cut the mustard. To many it seemed that the church had little to offer but blind faith and somewhere warm to sit on Sundays.