M. Lamar Keene - The Psychic Mafia

The Skeptical Inquirer, magazine. Published by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), P.O. Box 703, Buffalo, NY 14226-0703. Subscription $25.00/year.

This quarterly magazine examines paranormal claims from a scientific point of view. It has been criticized for being too critical of the claims, but on the whole Ive found it to be a much-needed counterweight to the flood of uncritically pro-paranormal literature out there. Its probably the only magazine evaluating these claims from a consistently critical point of view. The writing is sometimes a bit stodgy, and has to strike a balance between scientific content (which turns off many readers) and popular-science writing (which people criticize for not being scientific enough). But theres no other magazine like it, and open-minded people owe it to themselves to take out a subscription.

from Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY. Call 1-800-421-0351 for a free catalog:

Randi, James. The Truth About Uri Geller, Flim-Flam! , The Faith Healers.

Enough has been said in these footnotes about Randis books and his history as an investigator, so anything I say here would be redundant. Besides Gardners books, theyre the most spirited attacks on paranormalism in print, and few people are as qualified as Randi to examine these claims. Essential reading.

Frazier, Kendrick, editor. Paranormal Borderlands of Science and ScienceConfronts the Paranormal.

These are althologies of the first ten years of The Skeptical Inquirer. Good stuff.

Marks, David, and Kammann, Richard. The Psychology of the Psychic.

Its scope may be narrower than most, but this is a solid appraisal of the most spectacular psychic claims of the mid-1970's. Two researchers at the Stanford Research Institute claimed scientific proof of paranormal abilities, such as Uri Gellers and Ingo Swanns remote-viewing. Marks and Kammann tried to replicate the results, with no luck; then they checked into what really went on during those experiments, and found a history of stonewalling, fraud, deceit, and just plain poor science. Even arcane and technical issues are well-explicated in this book.

Other publishers:

Gardner, Martin. Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, Dover Books. Science:Good, Bad and Bogus. Avon Books, and Prometheus Books.

The two best books to begin with.

Abell, George O. and Singer, Barry. Science and the Paranormal. Scribners, 1983.

A good overview of various paranormal claims, consisting of brief essays about everything from Velikovsky to psychic healing.

Randi, James. The Mask of Nostradamus. Scribners 1990.

Schultz, Ted, editor. The Fringes of Reason: A Whole Earth Catalog. Random House.

The Whole Earth catalogs and its quarterly update magazine frequently dealt with semi-paranormal and fringe-science issues in a somewhat uncritical way; for example, acupuncture and many brands of Holistic medicine were recommended with little evaluation outside of New Age encouragement. The one issue they did on the fringe from a very criticial point of view, and where they turned around and attacked many New Age beliefs enjoyed extremely high sales, so they assembled this wonderful overview of the New Age.

The book is more even-handed than the Skeptical Inquirer, and demonstrates an empathy for the claims that many skeptics miss. Essays include historical and sociological insights that illuminate such curiosities as Theosophy, Flat-Earthery, and even saucer-worship in a broader social context.

Stang, Rev. Ivan. High Weirdness By Mail. Publisher not known.

A hilarious collection of addresses for UFO fans, Jesus contactees, Spiritualists, psychic readers, fringe scientists, and lots of other cognitive flotsam. Stangs commentary is wonderfully sarcastic, sparing nobody, and the sheer scope of this work makes this a must-read.

Sladek, John. The New Apocrypha. Stein and Day 1973.

Sladek assembled this well-researched overview of fringe science just before CSICOP got underway, and in many ways its an indispensable guide.

Interesting Historical Note; After writing this, Sladek wrote a hoax astrology book under the pen name James Vogh, claiming that theres a thirteenth Zodiac sign (Arachne, the Spider). He managed to fool a LOT of people with this one.

. Not to be confused with Mofo, the Psychic Gorilla.

. The best analogy I can think of is pretty much in another ballpark. I used to hear a lot of criticism that the PBS series South Africa Now was far too left-wing. However, when considered against the rest of PBSs news shows The McLaughlin Group, Firing Line, Wall Street Week, AdamSmiths Money World and the like one realizes that the marketplace of ideas has been skewed far to the right, and that overtly left-wing shows just dont exist.

In other words, when literature on the paranormal is dominated not only by the supermarket tabloids, but by a variety of New Age magazines and the old war-horse Fate magazine, an arch-skeptical stance is needed to provide just a touch of balance.

For the contents of Appendix 1, see Martin Gardners book: Science: Good, Bad andBogus. It has a chapter (23) on Allen Spraggetts book Arthur Ford: The Man WhoTalked with the Dead, a reprint of a New York Review of Books, May 3, 1973 and subsequent letters. As this book is easily obtainable no part of it will be reproduced here.

Some books recommended by your distributor.

Ruth Brandon, The Spiritualists. Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1983.

Brian Inglis, Natural and Supernatural. London: Abacus (Sphere Books), 1979.

R.L. Moore, In Search of White Crows. New York, 1977.

Janet Oppenheim, The Other World - Spiritualism and Psychical research inEngland, 1850-1914. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge UP 1985.

James Webb, The Occult Underground. LaSalle: Library Press, 1974.

James Webb, The Occult Establishment. Glasgow: Richard Drew, 1976.

Both volumes of James Webb contain a wealth of material on various occult organizations.

Note from the Anonymous Typist: The following bibliography appears more or less as it did in the original publication of the book. However, I dont share their appraisals; so, Im taking advantages of my Omnipotence as editor to add a few embellishments here and there.

Ive added a list of additional books at the end of this bibliography.

The authors believe this bibliography to be the most comprehensive of its kind in a book such as this for the general reader. It includes, besides objective and critical works on spiritualism, many hard-to-find titles on such associated subjects as stage mentalism, carnival torture feats, and the specific methods of fraud used by particular mediums: for example, the regurgitation mediumship of Helen Duncan.

Readers who wish to go deeply into the psychology and psychology of spiritualistic fraud will find sufficient leads here to launch them well on their way.

Some books in this bibliography, such as Fodors and Carringtons, take the view that though fraud exists, genuine psychic phenomena also exist. This is the view of William Rauscher, Allen Spraggett and, to a lesser extent, Lamar Keene.

Abbott, David P. Behind the Scenes with the Medium. Chicago: Open Court, 1907.

Anderson, George. It Must Be Mind-Reading. Chicago: Ireland Magic, 1963.

Anderson, George. You, Too, Can Read Minds. Chicago: Magic, 1968.