The James Randi Foundation On Eusapia Palladino: Can Standards Get Any Lower?
Posted in Parapsychology, Skepticism on | 3 minutes | 2 Comments →
I often chuckle at the lengths some skeptics stoop to in order to preserve their confirmation bias. On Eusapia Palladino, the James Randi Foundation writes:
Born in southern Italy, spirit medium Palladino was accepted by many scientists, particularly those like Charles Richet and Schrenck-Notzing, who were devout believers in all spiritualistic claims. She specialized in levitation of tables.
A cantankerous, vain, difficult person, she became an international celebrity, and sometimes sat for tests, though she was often caught cheating on these occasions and on other non-controlled sittings as well. The prominent investigator Hereward Carrington (né Hubert Lavington, 1880-1958) brought her to America, became her manager, and took her on tour. In America she continued to be caught cheating, and Carrington came to the conclusion that she sometimes cheated (when she was caught), but that the rest of her performance (when she was not caught) was genuine.
Part of her success was probably due to her petulant attitude, which she used to discourage proper examination of her performances. As with others in her trade, she needed to control the circumstances around her and managed to do so very effectively, throwing temper tantrums and walking out of tests when things were not to her liking. She was also noted among investigators for her seeming lack of acquaintance with soap-and-water, being the source of a heavy variety of unpleasant body odors, especially in the closed séance room. She provided her examiners with plentiful reasons to regret having taken on such a formidable woman.
In spite of all this, and her repeated exposures, Carrington remained thoroughly convinced for the rest of his life that Palladino was genuinely in touch with Summerland.
Really? Really?? The article lists no author, only a link to Randi’s book, so I’m going to presume Randi wrote the article. If I’m wrong, let me know and I’ll correct this.
Let’s count the problems here:
1) Randi begins by painting Charles Richet and Schrenck-Notzing as sympathetic to “all spiritualist claims,” despite the fact that this has no bearing whatsoever on the veracity or falsehood of the abilities in question;
2) Randi then makes negative statements about Palladino’s character that have no bearing whatsoever on the veracity or falsehood of the abilities in question;
3) Next, Randi makes the bare assertion — not once, but twice — with literally zero evidence — that Palladino was caught cheating;
4) Randi makes the bare assertion — again without evidence — that Palladino’s success was probably the result of her attitude;
5) Randi closes with a snide remark about Palladino’s body odor, as if that has anything to do with the claims at hand.
Well, I don’t know about you, but that’s enough for me to declare this a major fail. Randi has the nerve to call his an “educational foundation,” yet this post was nothing more than an exercise in closed-minded, anti-supernatural propaganda. There was not a single scintilla of educational material in the article. On the contrary, there was plenty of muddied water, non-sequitur and bare assertion.
What a joke. Why in the world should any intelligent person take this “debunking” seriously? Randi should be sued for false advertising!
jayman777
says...cl:
He refers to Hereward Carrington bringing Palladino to America where she was, in fact, caught cheating. What he conveniently does not explain is why Carrington, despite knowing that Palladino cheated on occasion, still believed she was capable of genuine paranormal phenomena (e.g., because of the SPR investigation at Naples in 1908). Perhaps it is because if he told you he would have to try to debunk those sittings and he knows many readers would find his explanations unconvincing. It is easier to pick the low-hanging fruit and hope the reader is ignorant of the fruit higher up in the tree. Be sure to throw in personal insults and ridicule for good measure.
Here is a relevant excerpt from Randi’s Prize by Robert McCluhan:
“A point to mention here is that Palladino was tiresomely temperamental, which made her a difficult subject to deal with. In Naples, Feilding said, her behaviour varied considerably: when she was in a good mood she would let herself be properly controlled, even to the extent of letting her hands be tied up. But if she was tired and irritable she wouldn’t allow this. At such times she would behave deviously, demand the light be turned down, and take every opportunity to produce the effects manually. It was also unquestionable that for long periods she brazenly played the hand substitution trick. The third, fourth and tenth sittings were all of this nature, Feilding said, and if these had been the only ones they had carried out they would have concluded she was merely a cheat. But interestingly, it was when she was in an ebullient mood, the light was good, and the control was strong, that they started to get strong and convincing effects.
“Palladino herself seemed aware of this. She explained — and it seemed to be confirmed by observation — that psychokinetic effects occurred during her trance state by a process of will. The initial channel for the will would be physical: if you or I want to lift something we grasp it with out hands and raise it up, and this was a natural impulse in her also. It was by checking this impulse, allegedly, that the psychokinesis could be unlocked. For this reason she is recorded shouting ‘Controllo!’ at moments when she felt the energy building, to ensure that she was properly held and did not release it by reaching out to perform an action manually.
“Experienced investigators also learned that they needed to create the right balance. She needed to be restrained, but not too tightly as this would inhibit any effects. This was what Feilding and his colleagues did at Naples. But it had not been the case at Cambridge thirteen years earlier, where Hodgson went to the opposite extreme, relaxing the control for the specific purpose of seeing what she would do. Since she found it easy to get her hands and feet free, she used them. The natural result was that the investigators, as well as invited guests such as the conjuror Maskelyne, went way thinking that that was all she was capable of.”
Here’s one more quote from Randi’s Prize: “It would be hard to imagine a less promising method than James Randi’s, who came to Columbus [to investigate alleged poltergeist activity] waving a cheque for ten thousand dollars and boasting how he had exposed ‘many tricky teens whose fraud was perpetuated by indulgent parents and journalists hungry for headlines’. Why let such a man into your home, only to see your reputation later being trashed by the local media?”
cl
says...I didn’t necessarily have a problem with the claim that she cheated. I objected to Randi claiming it without evidence. I saw some of those snippets in your own post about Randi’s Prize. Good stuff. The whole “Controlo!” thing was – as you say – conveniently omitted from Randi’s critique, which is just another point in favor of my “confirmation bias” claim, methinks.