Is there a ghost in the house!

Why O! Why in this day and age are there zillions of people so gullible that they believe in psychics and ghosts?

Is it due to Conmen? One who gains the trust, or “confidence”, of his victims (often called marks) in order to manipulate, steal from, or otherwise predate upon them.

Or is it just plain stupidity?

Or maybe both?

Interesting article about James Randi in the New York Times. Now as you  probably know Randi has a million dollar challenge to anybody who can prove supernatural… and up to now nobody has been able to claim the prize!!! A million dollars, I could do with a million dollars!

And the likes of John Edwards did not even go there: Surprise! surprise!

But here is a link to the Randi article (and of course Uri Geller who has been calles a psychopath also figures). http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/09/magazine/the-unbelievable-skepticism-of-the-amazing-randi.html?_r=0

Love the last paragraph

 

In July last year, Randi came closer than ever to the end. He was hospitalized with aneurysms in his legs and needed surgery. Before the procedure began, the surgeon showed Peña scans of Randi’s circulatory system. “Very challenging, a very difficult situation,” the surgeon told him. “But he lived a good life.” The operation was supposed to take two hours, but it stretched to six and a half.

When Randi began to come to, heavily dosed with painkillers, he looked about him in confusion. There were nurses speaking in hushed voices. He began hallucinating. He was convinced that he was behind the curtain before a show and that the whispering he could hear was the audience coming in. The theater was full; he had to get onstage. He tried to look at his watch, but he found he didn’t have it on. He began to panic. When the hallucinations became intensely visual, Peña brought a pen and paper to the bedside. It could prove an important exercise in skeptical inquiry to record what Randi saw as he emerged from a state so close to death, one in which so many people sincerely believed they had glimpsed the other side. Randi scribbled away; his observations, Peña thought, might eventually make a great essay. Later, when the opiates and the anaesthetic wore off, Randi looked at the notes he had written.

They were indecipherable.

 

 

And then of course an interesting experiment. You can see ghosts if you really want to! Here is how!

ghosts

http://io9.com/test-subjects-made-to-see-ghosts-in-disturbing-lab-ex-1655906924