CSICOP routs psychics on "Larry King Live" On March 6, 2001, CSICOP Chaiman Paul Kurtz and Leon Jaroff from Time magazine, (and CSICOP Fellow) appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live." The show proved to be one of the most balanced nationally televised forums for skeptics to debate psychics in recent years. Six other guests appeared on King's program: mediums Sylvia Browne, John Edward and James Van Praagh, along with Rabbi Schmuley Boteach, retired physicist Dale Graff, and former FBI profiler Clint Van Zandt. Larry King opened by bringing Leon Jarroff's March 2nd Time magazine article on John Edward to viewers' attention, and showing a clip from the Sci Fi Channel's "Crossing Over with John Edward," in which he delivers a child's message from the beyond to weeping parents in the studio audience. King then quoted a skeptical description of mediumship from Jarroff's article: "It's a sophisticated form of the game Twenty Questions, during which the subject, anxious to hear from the dead, seldom realizes that he, not the medium or the departed, is supplying the answers." Edward called Jaroff's article "insulting to the intelligence of people in the audience" and "the credibility and the integrity" of those who work on his show. When asked to respond to assertions that Edward's demonstrations were aided by eavesdropping, questionnaires, and crafty editing, Edward replied, "All of that is completely wrong," suggesting that Jaroff had not attempted to interview him or people working on the show. (Jaroff later pointed out when he tried to contact people on the show, he was told that "John Edward does not respond to criticism.") However, when pressed about allegations from Michael O'Neill in Jaroff's article Edward waffled: KING: "He quotes a Michael O'Neill, who attended one of your shows, and writes that O'Neill claims that his encounter on the show was edited and gave a false impression. Clips of him nodding "yes" spliced into the videotape about statements which he remembers disagreeing. Is O'Neill wrong?" EDWARD: "You know, I have to say that I would believe so, because I don't believe that they'd edit the show in that capacity. And again, I think that this is subjective to somebody's experience…. I can't speak for, you know, Michael, I can only speak for myself." When King asked how he would prove his abilities, Edward replied, "You know, I think that to prove it, is a personal thing. It is like saying, prove God. If you have a belief system and you have faith, then there is nothing really more than that." Throughout the night, Edward, Browne and Van Praagh insisted that any proof of mediumship was a matter of personal experience and preference, above the merely mortal realm of critical, scientific investigation. In the next segment, King asked Jaroff whether he thought John Edward and others are frauds. "I think they're very good at what they do," replied Jaroff, "but what they do is baloney"-namely cold reading. Browne bristled at the remarks. "I don't think he's done his homework very well," snapped Browne, alleging that she has "saved baby's lives," found people that were dead," and "solved crimes." Later in the program, when Browne again rattled off a resume of paranormal achievements--"finding bodies, and World Trade Center with Ted Gunderson and all that"-Kurtz retorted: "You throw out these wild claims that you've done this, have done that: they don't hold up under scrutiny." Kurtz blasted mediums on intellectual and moral grounds: "Well, I think the claims are preposterous…. If someone makes a claim, an extraordinary claim, then we ask for evidence of the facts. And there are no facts to support this. What we're faced with are psychic sharks, like card sharks: sleight of hand, sleight of mind. They're using methods of deception to confuse poor people who have suffered death and are bereaved and I think this is not only false, but also immoral." Later in the show John Edward played his wild card for scientific respectability, citing his participation in Dr. Gary Scwartz' study, conducted at the Human Energy Systems Laboratory at the University of Arizona as documented scientific evidence of his powers. "Dr. Gary Schwartz believes in the tooth fairy," Jaroff blasted back, dismissing Schwartz' scientific credibility. "He believes in UFOs. He believes in levitation." Rabbi Boteach, despite being a friend and supporter of Uri Geller, planted his feet firmly on the side of the skeptics when asked about his belief in mediumship: "Well, aren't you a bit surprised that the only message that the dead seem to be able to give to us is [that] someone had a nickname 'Miss Piggy' and they can only tell us that, you know, I had a heart condition? For goodness sake, if that's the case then-no pun intended-to hell with them…. I mean, I would think that if someone is up there in the cosmos unrestrained by the constraints of the body, they could tell us about the great secrets of existence, where is God, and how can we better human life? …Instead they're telling us things like 'I choked on a chicken bone and I'm here to tell you that I don't hold you accountable for serving me that soup.'" The FBI's former chief hostage negotiator, Clint Van Zandt, described himself as open to the possibility of psychic abilities but noted that psychic practices were clearly irrational. "One of the first things a psychic asks a law enforcement officer to do is take your reason and logic and set it aside." When asked by Larry King whether he had ever found a psychic crucial to the solution of a crime, Van Zandt responded: "I've seen law enforcement try a lot of times. When I've seen them participate in the solution of a crime, my experience and the experience of my colleagues is that it's usually been some type of vague information, like a kidnap victim was kidnapped somewhere up along the Great Lakes and we've been told, 'You'll find the victim buried near a body of water.' Well, we understand the Great Lakes are a body of water…. I know there are people who will say, 'well we've been a consultant to the FBI.' But as far as seeing a case solved or a kidnap victim recovered-either dead or alive-based solely on the information of a psychic, no." Toward the end of his show, Larry King set aside time for Browne, Edward and Van Praagh to perform readings and have them analyzed by the skeptics. Sylvia Browne did a reading for one caller from Santa Fe, New Mexico, looking for a family history for her parents. Closing her eyes and focusing on the spiritual realm, she fastened onto the name "Burgess… in and around Memphis." "I don't know if this is funny or sad, Kurtz commented. "She's engaged in guesswork.… The scientific community has been investigating these claims for a century and a half. It can find no hard evidence that people can communicate with the dead, no hard evidence that psychics can help detectives." If the denizens of the spirit realm had any chance to prove their existence to skeptics in one fell swoop, it would have been on "Larry King Live." Alas, they were content to let James Van Praagh choke on national TV. A caller from Williston, Vermont looked to Van Praagh to find out more about a brother-in-law who had "passed." He responded with vague intuitions about a throat or breathing problem, family separations, someone he couldn't trust, a tattoo, and a baby. Despite a string of generalities applicable to many American males, Van Praagh came up empty handed: KING: Ma'am, is any of that clear to you? CALLER: No, I have to say it really isn't…. KING: Does that mean, James, you missed on this one? By the end of the evening, Browne, Edward and Van Praagh were increasingly irritable. Faced with skepticism, Van Praagh was reduced to cheap aspersions of the motives of Kurtz, Jaroff and CSICOP: VAN PRAAGH: "I just want to say that it's interesting that these people here are in the business to destroy and destruct, while we are here to heal people and to help people grow. And these people, you have to look very carefully at what these people, their jobs, are. They are here to destroy." KING: "Well the Rabbi isn't here to destroy. The writer isn't. Why are they here? They're [here] to investigate or be skeptics. I mean, that's..." PRAAGH: "OK, let's hear the skeptics then, 'CSICOPs,' whatever. They're just here to destroy people. They're not here to encourage people, to enlighten people. They're here to destroy people." Van Praagh's sputtering jabs at Kurtz and CSICOP at the end of "Larry King Live" sum up the kind of venom paranormal showmen inject into any debate when the rock of mystical thinking they're hiding under is kicked aside in public. NOTE: A full transcript of the March 6, 2001 Larry King Live is archived on the CNN.com web site at www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/lkl.html. -- This is the ISTA-talk mailing list. 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