Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions - James Randi [74]
Swann must have reveled in all this. He was to go on to greater victories in New York, where the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) tested him for out-of-body experience under what Panati called good conditions in his book Supersenses. According to Panati, "Swann... was observed by scientists, and a television camera recorded his every move." The task was to look into a small box psychically—that means without peeking—and describe the contents. He did just that, eight times out of eight! The only flaw was that he was not being observed. In addition, Panati was wrong about the TV camera. Don't you wish your job was as easy as Swann's? By the way, my $10,000 offer * is open to him, of course. Funny he's never taken me up on it.
Having heard the exciting news of this repeatable, flawless experiment, Panati joined Arthur Koestler in agitating for a concerted drive to raise interest in and money for a repetition of the magnetometer miracle in other labs. Panati called for "a joint or international effort, where several prominent scientists, from several institutes throughout the world, would get together to witness Swann influencing a magnetometer." Puthoff and Koestler thought it was a great idea. But, they were warned by another parascientist, don't forget that negative vibes may interfere! He suggested that they bring in a "psychic" disguised as a student so that contrary thoughts would not be present to inhibit the effect. I can see it now: the "psychic" in a white coat, the parascientists in caps and bells...
Gordon's Law tells us: If a research project is not worth doing at all, it is not worth doing well. Hear, hear.
Targ and Puthoff have said repeatedly that in their research they do not retain successful tests and reject failures. This is not true. Not only did they do so in a series of thirteen ESP tests with Uri Geller—an experiment included in their 1974 report in Nature—but also in other tests as well. In fact, Geller, Swann, and another "psychic" named Pat Price were all tested at the Stanford Research Institute in a similar manner, and many tests were not reported on. Why? Two important long-distance tests were done with Geller, and both were failures. One was rejected—after it failed—because the target was deemed "unsuitable." They failed to report another Geller test in which he merely "drew pictures in the air." You can be sure it would have been trumpeted to the world, had it worked. It didn't, so no report was issued. In a desperate grab at the passing brass ring, Targ and Puthoff declared, after another simple [ten-target] test with Geller, that three of his ten guesses were "fair" even though he had "passed" on the entire set! (The subjects tested were allowed to "pass" on any test before or after it was done. That meant the test would not be counted in the final results if the subject was unsure of it. But the rule was that a test, once passed, was not reported at all.)
No report was issued on a sealed-room "remote-viewing" test of ex-policeman Pat Price that failed, nor was the total number of tests ever revealed. That number may have been in the hundreds. Price, like Swann and Puthoff a dedicated Scientologist, had been projecting his mind to far-off cities with no success. Although Targ and Puthoff had previously noted that electromagnetic shielding of the room enhanced results when Price was tested, this time they blamed the shielding for the failure and decided not to report on the tests! So, contrary to their official reports, all the Price tests were not included. When this same "gifted" (their term) "psychic" completely failed to guess office objects in another remote-viewing test, again no report. A simple test of his ability to detect flashing lights set off in an adjoining