Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions - James Randi [10]
What I have to say is directly said and easily understood. No complex reasoning or involved formulas are summoned to prove my case, and I ask only a fair hearing and a just decision from my reader. But, as many of us have discovered in courts of law, there is often a great difference between The Law and Justice. It is when these two entities are in harmony that civilization is best served. I invoke that possibility.
A few years ago it was my privilege to perform at the White House for Mrs. Betty Ford. In planning the show, I ran into a small problem with a silk handkerchief that I intended to use, and I requested Mrs. Ford to hand it to me when I asked for it from the stage. One of her aides objected, not wishing her to become involved with the performance, but this beleaguered lady reached out to accept it, bypassing the objection, and smiled broadly at me. "Mr. Randi," she said, tucking the silk into her belt, "I shall be pleased to wear your colors." I never felt better in my life.
I ask that my reader acquiesce and wear my colors for a while as we investigate the matters at hand. The colors are true, the cause is right, and though the victory may not be immediately apparent, it is nonetheless certain.
The next chapter is typical of the book: It calls things by their proper names and uses blunt language. In it I will prove two little girls were liars, I will demonstrate that a highly respected author and personality was really a rather silly, naive man with an overdeveloped ego, and I will show that several "experts" were self-seeking incompetents who went along with a profitable gag. I will be castigated by some for this, but it is high time that such things be said boldly and directly, without fear of recrimination. I have said these things for years in my lectures; now I am putting them in print.
I offer half an apology for the exhaustive analysis of the Cottingly Fairies episode presented in the following chapter. To demonstrate so thoroughly that there are no fairies at the foot of the garden may well appear to be a case of "overkill," but I believe that this is important to an understanding of the other arguments presented in these pages. I will also bring this into focus by listing twenty points that cover nearly all the causes of misunderstanding that have arisen in discussions of so-called paranormal events, and I will refer to the Cottingly incident and present other examples to illustrate these points. As a professional conjurer, I have been accustomed to using various subtleties to deceive, but never in the way that I condemn in this book. I am fully aware of many standard and even more nonstandard ploys used to achieve these ends, and the Cottingley Fairies hoax discussed in the following chapter includes most of them. In killing the gnat with a sledgehammer, I set up the other targets. Please bear with me throughout the carnage.
Fairies at the Foot of the Garden
Come out, come out!
Come out upon the hill!
Up there, down there—
Fairies—everywhere!
—Anonymous
The Christmas 1920 issue of London's Strand magazine featured a piece by that eminent author and celebrity Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. The adventures of the great detective had brought The Strand large profits and enormous circulation in England and abroad, and any submission by Doyle was most welcome. The article, entitled "Fairies Photographed—An Epoch-making Event," was an account, presented as fact, of two girls of Bradford, Yorkshire, who had photographed a number of fairies and gnomes they regularly encountered in Cottingley Glen. This case features all the classic faults of such investigations. Gullibility, half-truths, hyperbole, outright lies, selective reporting, the need to believe, and generous amounts of plain stupidity are mixed with the most outrageous logic and false expertise to be found anywhere in the field.
I will outline first the case for the defense. Since such claims immediately meet with disbelief, the proponents of this tale were and are on the defensive as soon