Magic Or Miracle? a Lesson Worth Remembering
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
SI Mar Apr 11 final_SI new design masters 1/26/11 2:11 PM Page 23 [ NOTES ON A STRANGE WORLD M A S S IMO P OL ID OR O Massimo Polidoro is an investigator of the paranormal, lecturer, and co-founder and head of CICAP, the Italian skeptics group. His website is at www.massimopolidoro.com. Magic or Miracle? A Lesson Worth Remembering ourteen years ago, I was aston- fooled scientists into thinking they had ished to read a brief article in the extrasensory perception [ESP]). Steve FJanuary 1997 (vol. 61, no. 846) confirmed to me that he was a friend of Journal of the Society for Psychical Re- Nuzum at the time of Project Alpha. search (JSPR) written by parapsycholo- They lived in the same town, had been gist Alexander Imich, a retired chemist friends for at least five years, and used and president of the Anomalous Phe- to exchange tricks and ideas on magic. nomena Research Center in New York. However, it appears that Nuzum—who His article, titled “Joe A. Nuzum, A had specialized in escapology at the Little-Known Psychic,” describes Nu - time—was impressed by the press cov- zum as being “of the D.D. Home1 class.” erage that Steve had been able to gather The article consisted of a long list of mir- while pretending to be a psychic, and acles that Nuzum appeared to have per- he wanted to achieve the same result. Nuzum started to perform mentalism formed over the years. However, my as- Steve “Banachek” Shaw tonishment was due not to the tricks, most of which were pretty stan- impressiveness of the list but rather to the dard purchased items, and with these he following facts: 1) the conditions under convinced psychiatrist Berthold Sch - which these presumed miracles took wartz that he was the real thing. place were not described in the article; 2) Schwartz had already been “amazed” all of the “phenomena” described be- by Steve during Project Alpha, and he longed to the classic conjurers’ and fakirs’ continued to believe that Steve really repertoire; 3) it appeared that no magi- had psychic powers even after the hoax was revealed. When Steve tried to ex- cian was ever present at any of Nuzum’s plain to him via letters that Nuzum was demonstrations; and 4) there was no ref- a colleague and was just performing con- erence to the fact that Nuzum himself juring tricks, Schwartz refused to listen. was a magician. Steve told me: Banachek and Project Alpha There is a big difference between Today Nuzum, though still claiming on what Joe Nuzum is doing and what I did. My fiasco was an experiment. For his website to have “mastered many years parapsychologists had lamented mind-over-matter studies,” runs a that the only reason there was no sci- magic shop in Pennsylvania. I contacted entifically documented evidence un - mentalist and friend Banachek who, der proper scientific controls was be- cause of the lack of proper funding to under his real name of Steve Shaw, was Project Alpha magicians Steve Shaw (with perform such controls. We had coun- one of the celebrated alumni of Project fork), Michael Edwards, and James Randi were tered and believed that this was not featured on the cover of the Summer 1983 SI. Alpha (in which young magicians the case and the lack of such docu- Skeptical Inquirer | March / April 2 01 1 2 3 SI Mar Apr 11 (PL) _SI new design masters 1/21/11 10:59 AM Page 24 cusation was that in my letter I sug- gested a possible explanation for just “In retrospect I should have known that one of the effects described by Imich, the “Gray’s Anatomy case”! Joe [Nuzum] would have had no problem I wrote, in fact: using people for his own benefit.” Mr Imich, for example, describes an effect by Nuzum he witnessed, in —Steve Shaw which the corner of a selected page of a book appeared inside an enve- lope. A simple suggestion: Mr Imich could invite Nuzum to perform the same phenomenon again, but asking him, this time, never to touch the book (not even to take it [off] of the shelf). It would be interesting to see mentation lay in the parapsycholo- reply (JSPR 61[848], July 1997). How - if the same phenomenon will mani- gists’ pro-biased beliefs when they en- ever, his words regarding our doubts, I fest again (provided, of course, that both book and page are chosen at tered such experiments. MacDonald regret to say, were quite disappointing. Douglass gave a half a million dollars random by the experimenter, and not to study . Psycho kinetic Metal As usually happens in such cases, our “suggested” by Nuzum ...). Bending, PKMB, to Washington real question was avoided. University. Here was our chance to As Randi and I had pointed out in Apparently Imich overlooked these lines prove our point. our letters, the fact that the effects pre- in my letter. I went in not to take advantage, sented by Nuzum looked as if they were Remembering this episode today, not to gain anything, not to take taken directly from a magic catalog however, gives me the chance to also money, trips and vacations (unlike stress once more that it is not the duty of Joe), but simply to prove a valid should have raised flags. We did not in- point. I went in knowing full well sist, as Imich implied, that Nuzum’s ef- the critic to reproduce a claimed miracle. that I was going to expose the fraud fects were necessarily done by trickery. As should be widely known by now (but I was perpetrating. It became very But they at least may have been done in is apparently not to many researchers), hard at times. These were good peo- such a way. What is the real question, the burden of proof always rests on the ple, with good hearts, who became claimant. In this particular case, I would my friends. It was very hard knowing then? Given the highly suspect nature I was going to have to hurt these of Nuzum’s demonstrations, it was for have considered it quite impressive if people who had become a personal Imich of the utmost importance to as- Nuzum could perform his miracle with part of my life. Had I known they certain that they were not the result of a book provided by me. I would have would mean so much to me, maybe I trickery. The only way to do this was to made sure not to let him get anywhere would have done things a little dif- near the book before the test, a precau- ferent, I certainly would have kept ask a competent magician to participate my distance emotionally. in the tests. Randi, Steve, or I would tion that Imich did not take. Quoting On the other hand, I should have have loved to attend such demonstra- from his notes (JSPR, 61[846]: 336): “He read the signs in Joe Nuzum. I should tions, but the suggestion was ignored. took from my book-shelf a volume of have known that he certainly would Surprisingly, however, Imich wrote: Gray’s Anatomy and [he] opened it at page not have cared about hurting other 354” (emphasis added). people or lying to them; in retrospect The crusaders against the paranor- I should have known that Joe would mal usually do not tackle difficult In a postscript to his article, Imich have had no problem using people cases. They prefer to deal with events added that a report about “the latest, for his own benefit. easier to criticize. Mr. Randi, too, does never-previously-described paranormal not mention the “Gray’s Anatomy case,” events produced by Joe Nuzum” was in Project Alpha was designed to show an event out of the range of magical preparation. Fourteen years later, some how competent magicians can com- technique and much more difficult to are still waiting for some reliable proof of plete the same tasks as self-proclaimed discredit. I have challenged Mr. Poli- at least one real phenomenon produced psychics. It appears, however, that some doro to repeat this event, but I am not sure if he himself is a magician. by this self-proclaimed psychic. However, experts still don’t believe the phenom- we stopped holding our breaths a long ena aren’t genuine. Aside from the fact that this was the time ago. n A “Challenge” Met first time I had heard of such a “chal- lenge” (and the fact that Imich did not Note Because my comments (along with appear to have any qualification to 1. Victorian British medium Daniel D. Home, those of James Randi) were published judge whether an event is “out of the sometimes referred to as a super-psychic, was sup- posedly capable of moving objects, levitating, and in the Journal of the Society for Psychical range of magical technique” or not), producing all manner of supernatural phenomena Research, Imich decided to give us a what most surprised me about this ac- at will. 24 Volume 35 Issue 2 | Skeptical Inquirer.