Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions - James Randi [106]
Thus the results are rather remarkable, by their figuring. If I hear cries of "Unfair!" at this point, I fully concur. And I object, as well, to the specialized terminology the authors use to describe the 11 negative reports. They are not called "failures" or even "errors." They are referred to as "considered inadequate."
But we need to examine these figures even further, as the two authors apparently did. They tell us that 46 of these 150 persons were present at the readings, and that of those absent, 35 did not give any information in their letters appealing for help. Thus 69 persons among the 150 did give information to Cayce. Now, you and I would agree, I'm sure, that prophet Edgar Cayce, with the patient present, has a much greater chance than otherwise of finding out something about the illness involved, and a greater opportunity to discover many other facts that can surely be worked into the reading as evidential information. So in a total of 115 (46 + 69) of the 150 cases it was possible to make accurate statements about them and probably get a "positive" report from the patient thereby. That's a big 76.6 percent, friends.
Another point: Why did the 74 patients make no report? Remember, they almost had to be believers in Cayce to ask for a reading. It was their lives they were dealing with. Do you seriously think they would respond with a negative report, or fail to send in grateful thanks and affirmation for a success? Not very likely. Thus we may safely assume that the majority of the 74 cases were not successes—pardon me, were "considered inadequate."
Even if we are exceedingly liberal with these folks, and give them 50 percent of the 74 no-reports as "positives," their 85.5 percent suddenly shrinks to 68 percent. But I refuse to do that, because I maintain that my argument as to the probable reasons behind the no-reports is correct. The authors are stuck with a bad analysis, and to make matters worse they proceed in their book to elaborate on this sample of just 0.5 percent of the available data to arrive at totally misleading figures. Statisticians are prone to murder and maim for much less provocation.
My own (admittedly amateur) analysis concludes that only 23.3 percent of the sample has any hope of being demonstrably positive at all, and knowing the criteria and the quality of the data, that small percentage of the one-half-of-one-percent sample shrinks even further.
Before we leave the Sleeping Prophet to his permanent nap, it would be well to deal with another of his supposed powers, one which is always trotted out in discussions as "heavy" proof of his abilities. Locating buried treasures is one field that would seem to be safe from most fraud or second-guessing. After all, if a "psychic" can locate long-lost or secreted treasure, fakery seems impossible. In his attempts at this miracle, Cayce took no chances. He called in Henry Gross, the famous "dowser," who put his forked stick to work along with Cayce's powers to find purported millions in jewels and coins buried along the seashore. Gross joining with Cayce was a little like setting out to sea in a leaky boat, then at the last minute throwing in some cast-iron life jackets.
Presumably, Edgar Cayce dozed while Henry Gross dowsed, wearing out several sticks in the process. They dug up tons of mud, sand, and gravel, looked under rocks, and in general disturbed the landscape something awful. No treasure. Weeks of work gave them only blisters. How could such a powerful team of psychic-plus-dowser fail to locate the prize? Rely on the alibi manufacturers to come up with something suitable:
The psychic impressions were picked up from the spirits of departed Indians and pirates, and such undependable shades are known to want to play jokes on the living.
Maybe the treasure was there but had been removed
Cayce was reading in the past again. There were doubts, fears, and cross-purposes at work among the seekers.
Were the directions Cayce gave based on headings from true north or compass north
Was the information given to Cayce