FURTHER INFORMATION and ACTIVITIES Professor Richard Wiseman

FURTHER INFORMATION AND ACTIVITIES Professor Richard Wiseman Washington Irving Bishop and ideomotor action Washington Irving Bishop was a Victorian mind reader. During Bishop’s performances, he would have a spectator hide an object in the auditorium or room. Bishop would then lightly hold onto the spectator’s wrist and ask them to think about where they had hid the object. Amazingly, Bishop would then walk alongside the spectator and make his way to the object. There were many variations on the procedure. In his most famous stunt, for instance, Bishop invited a group of spectators onstage, explained that he would leave the auditorium, and asked them to mime a murder scene in his absence. Bishop then returned, held the wrist of a spectator and had them concentrate on the ‘murderer’. After working his way around the group onstage, Bishop correctly identified who had carried out the terrible deed! How were these amazing mind reading feats achieved? Bishop pushed and pulled his helpers in many different directions, and used small changes in resistance - called ‘ideomotor’ movements - to figure out the location of a hidden object. The term ‘ideomotor’ (from the word ‘ideo’, meaning ‘mental representation’ and ‘motor’, meaning ‘muscular action’) was first used by the Victorian physiologist William Benjamin Carpenter in 1852. These tiny movements are made unconsciously, and experiments conducted by several famous Victorian scientists revealed that they are also involved in many other seemingly paranormal phenomena, including dowsing and Ouija Boards. Detecting ideomotor movements isn’t easy, but here is a simple exercise to help you develop this remarkable skill. Arrange four objects in a row. Ask someone to stand on your right-hand side and think of one of the objects. Next, take hold of their left wrist with your right hand, placing your fingers on the top of their wrist and your thumb on the bottom of their wrist. Explain that you are going to move their left hand over each of the objects. Ask your guinea pig not to consciously move their left hand but instead to relax their arm and simply ‘will’ their left hand to move in the correct direction. If you are over the wrong object they should think of the phrase ‘move on’, whereas if you are over the correct object then they should think of the word ‘stop’. Now move their left hand over each of the objects and try to discover the chosen object by feeling when you encounter most resistance to movement. ALEXANDER AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE PSYCHIC READINGS Alexander was billed as ‘The Man Who Knows’ and spent much of his life appearing to be able to divine the innermost secrets of others. Like many psychics and mediums, Alexander was using various psychological techniques to give the illusion of paranormal ability. Here are some of the most frequently used techniques and the psychology behind them. Flattery: Everyone likes to believe nice things about themselves. During a reading, psychics often tell people what they want to hear. They might say that they get the impression that their client seems especially kind, considerate, friendly and reliable. Also, they might, for instance, mention that the client has lots of untapped creative ability, possesses spiritual and mystical potential, and has an uncanny knack for telling people what they think without causing hurt. People accept these types of statements because they want them to be true. Double headers: Many psychics use statements that predict both one trait and the exact opposite. For instance, they might suggest that a client is highly sensitive and yet also surprisingly down-to-earth. Or they might say that the client sometimes enjoys spending the night with a good book and other times they like to head out to parties. These types of statements are true of everyone, and so feel accurate. Ambiguity: Psychics often make comments that are ambiguous. For instance, they might mention picking up on ‘a big change concerning property’. This could refer to many different situations, including, for instance, moving house, inheriting a house, finding a place to rent, or even buying a holiday home. Other ambiguous comments often include ‘you are connected with something of a caring nature’, ‘you are going through some sort of change’, and ‘someone in your life is being especially difficult’. Each time the client reads meaning into vague comments. Turning lemons into lemonade: Psychics have various ‘outs’ to help them avoid outright failure. If a client says one of their comments isn’t correct, they might suddenly broaden it out. For instance, ‘I can sense someone called Jean’ could be transformed into ‘Well, if not Jean, perhaps Joan, or maybe even a Jack, but certainly a name starting with a J. Or they might say that they were talking metaphorically, such that ‘seeing someone standing by the port waiting for a ship to arrive’, actually represents something new coming into their life. Research into the psychology of psychic readings shows that they work best when the client believes that the reading has been personally created for them (maybe it is apparently based on their birthdate or the lines on their hand) , the client believes in the authority and abilities of the psychic, and the reading contains mainly positive comments. Try giving a fun psychic reading using the standard readings presented by Alexander in Hocus Pocus. But if you do become a skilled reader, remember to only use your newfound powers for good! JOSEPH BANKS RHINE AND PARAPSYCHOLOGY Parapsychology is the scientific study of seemingly psychic phenomena. Joseph Banks Rhine was one of the most important figures in the history of the field, and carried out a large number of laboratory-based studies into the possible existence of extrasensory perception. Much of his work was conducted using specially printed decks of so-called ‘Zener’ cards (with each card depicting either a circle, cross, wavy lines, square or star), and involved mixing up the cards and having people guess the order of the deck. Rhine believed that the results of these studies strongly supported the existence of psychic ability. However, his work proved highly controversial, with critics pointing out various methodological shortcomings and statistical errors. For instance, during some of Rhine's telepathy studies, one participant concentrated on the Zener cards whilst a second participant attempted to pick up their thoughts. During some of these studies the two participants were in the same room, meaning that the ‘receiver’ may have inadvertently picked up subtle signals from the ‘sender’, such as sub-vocal whispering or postural changes. In addition, the participant's guesses were often manually recorded, and so susceptible to error and bias. Over time, Rhine tightened his procedures to deal with these criticisms and the results of his high-scoring participants started to decline. Critics concluded that this was because the methods had been improved and errors eradicated, whereas Rhine attributed the decline to researchers and participants becoming bored with the dull and repetitive nature of the card guessing experiments. More recently, parapsychologists have carried out other types of studies and claimed that the results support the existence of psychic ability. Again, critics have argued that these positive findings are due to poor controls and statistical errors. Perhaps the most recent debate has focused on the work of parapsychologist Daryl Bem. Bem reported a series of experiments in which participants seemed to be able to see into the future. This work was reported in a well-known psychology journal and attracted lots of attention. Some psychologists failed to replicate his results, and others argued that his studies suffered from several problems, including the non-reporting of certain data and using lots of different tests for analysing the data until one yielded a positive result. Interesting, other researchers then pointed out that many mainstream psychology experiments also suffer from the same problems! As a result, many researchers now believe that parapsychologists and psychologists alike should take steps to guard against these problems. Does psychic ability really exist or is it all an illusion? Was Rhine right to believe in paranormal powers? We won't know for sure until studies using these new safeguards have been conducted and properly scrutinised. www.hocuspocuscomic.com .

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