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Out of Body and in the Lab: New Experiments Stimulate Seeing Self Elsewhere

KENDRICK FRAZIER In one experiment, volunteers view- researchers instituted fake bodies, virtual ed the backs of their bodies imaged from fake bodies, real objects, and virtual Two sets of studies published indepen- a distance of two meters projected onto objects. Once again, there was a sensory dently in the same issue of the journal 3-D video display goggles. Their backs drift of position toward one’s own virtual Science demonstrate how the illusion of were stroked for one minute, sometimes body and the fake body when the a bodily self outside one’s own body can in synchrony with stimulation of their stroking was synchronous. be stimulated in the laboratory. The “virtual” body. The participants were “With the use of virtual reality and studies forge ways to better understand immediately then blindfolded, passively multisensory conflict,” the Swiss-German both out-of-body and near-death expe- displaced, and then asked to move back researchers say, “we induced an illusion riences and, perhaps more fundamen- to their original position. As hypothe- that makes it possible to quantify selfhood tally important, the strong degree to sized, they moved closer to their “vir- by manipulating attribution and localiza- which our sense of self is associated tual” body’s position. tion of the entire body. Our results show with our mind’s of our phys- A second experiment tried to rule out that humans systematically experience a ical body. whether this drift toward the virtual virtual body as if it were their own” when The studies are similar in many body was due to a general motor bias visually presented in front of them and aspects. They both found ways to to overshoot the position. Here the stroked synchronously. They say the find- induce elements of the out-of-body experience in healthy volunteers. They both used head-mounted video displays to provide people with an image of themselves from a different perspective. They used various controls and used the sense of touch by stimulating, in differ- ent conditions, both the actual person’s body and seemingly the illusory one. In both studies, the volunteers experienced feelings of dissociation from their own bodies—it seemed as if the tactile sensa- tions were in the “other” body. The first, more detailed study, “Video Ergo Sum: Manipulating Bodily Self- Consciousness,” in the August 24 Science is by a Swiss-German team of researchers (Bigna Lenggenhager, Tej Tadi, Thomas Metzinger, and Olaf Blanke). Their investigation of bodily self-consciousness produced an illusion during which healthy participants experienced a virtual body as if it were their own and localized their “selves” outside of their bodies at a different position in space. They designed their experiment drawing on clinical data in neurological patients reporting out-of-body experi- ences. These earlier data, they say, sug- gest that the spatial unity between self and body can be disrupted, leading to the striking experience that one’s self is in another physical location.

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ing is “corroborated by the participants’ that they look at their bodies from the per- “The present illusion is fundamen- mislocalization of their own bodies to a spective of another person. The illusion tally important because it informs us position outside their bodies.... Illusory demonstrates [that] the sense of being about the perceptual processes that self-localization to a position outside one’s localized within the physical body can be underlie the sense of being located inside body shows that bodily self-consciousness fully determined by perceptual processes.” the body,” he says. Correlated visual and and selfhood can be dissociated from Participants were first seated in a tactile information are both important. one’s physical body position.” chair wearing head-mounted displays Concludes Ehrsson: “This finding rep- The researchers acknowledge that showing his or her image as seen from resents a fundamental advance because they have induced only some aspects, not two meters behind. The experimenter the natural ‘in-body experience’ forms the all, of out-of-body experiences. But they then stood beside the participant, in foundations for self-consciousness.” speculate that humans’ daily experiences view, and used two plastic rods to touch An accompanying news report in of an embodied self and selfhood, and simultaneously the person’s actual chest, Science on both experiments quotes the illusion they report in their study, which was out of view, and the apparent Ehrsson, who has tried out the lab situ- both rely on mechanisms in the parietal chest of the “illusory body.” After two ation on himself: “You really feel that you are sitting in a different place in the room and you’re looking at this thing in front of you that looks like yourself and you know it’s yourself but it doesn’t feel like yourself.” The research provides a physical “The research provides a physical ex- planation for phenomena usually explanation for phenomena usually ascribed to otherworldy influences,” Peter Brugger, a neurologist at Uni- ascribed to otherworldy influences. versity Hospital in Zurich who was not involved in the experiment, told sci- ence journalist Sandra Blakeslee in her report on these experiments in The New York Times (August 24). Blakeslee has just published a book on closely junction of the brain, which is concerned minutes, the participants answered a related research titled The Body Has a primarily with sensory activities, such as questionnaire asking to affirm or deny ten Mind of Its Own (Random House), on receiving and interpreting information perceptual effects. Three were designed to how the brain maps out every point of from all parts of the body. They further capture the experience of an illusion and the body, helping provide our sense of suggest that “experimentally creating illu- seven served as controls for suggestibility self-awareness. sions of the globalized, multisensory and task compliance. Ehrsson reports that Brugger is also quoted in the Science awareness of selfhood in a controlled the participants affirmed the illusion news section article. He notes that nei- manner with virtual-reality technology statements and denied the controls, and ther experiment replicates the full-blown opens a new avenue for the investigation that the difference in ratings was statisti- out-of-body experiences in which people of the neurobiological, functional, and cally significant. report “an enormously compelling sensa- representational aspects of embodied self- Another experiment sought objective tion of separation from the body.” Even awareness.” They urge expansion of such evidence of the illusion by registering so, he said, these illusions may be as close studies into all these areas. skin-conductance response (SCR) as a as it is possible to get in the lab. The second study (“The Experi- measure of the emotional response when Near-death and out-of-body experi- mental Induction of Out-of-Body Ex- the illusory body was seemingly “hurt” ences are frequently reported by people periences”) was conducted by H. Hen- by hitting it with a hammer after a suffering severe and sudden injury or ill- rik Ehrsson of the Karolinska Institute period of stimulation. He observed sig- ness and by others during sleep paralysis, in Sweden and the Wellcome Trust nificantly greater threat-evoked SCRs strong exertion, or intense meditation. Centre for Neuroimaging in London. after the illusion was conditioned. According to Brugger, the new research Using a similar experimental setup, he “The observed SCR difference pro- is a first step in figuring out exactly how likewise demonstrated “a perceptual illu- vides objective evidence that the partici- the brain creates the sensation. sion in which individuals experience that pants were emotionally responding as if their center of awareness, or ‘self,’ is they were located behind their physical Kendrick Frazier is editor of the SKEPTICAL located outside their physical bodies and bodies,” says Ehrsson. INQUIRER.

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Weekly World News Dies in Print, Lives On on the Web Studies Challenge For the past twenty-eight years, every sion series in which recognizable charac- time that Elvis was sighted behind a fast- ter actors appeared as “experts” on a Garlic, Beetroot food counter, every time that Bigfoot variety of subjects—WWN and its many showed up in drag at a Washington, features, including the pseudonymous Treatments D.C., social event, and every time that Ed Anger’s column, “My America,” will against HIV Nessie crossed the Atlantic to do battle be available only in electronic form. So, with a North American rival, the Weekly the next time that a president and First During the same week that our Sep- World News (WWN) was there with the Spouse adopt an infant extraterrestrial tember/October 2007 cover article on story, right at the checkout stand of your or the cries of the tormented souls of the AIDS denialism vs. science was pub- local supermarket. However, with the damned emanate from a newly created lished came the news from scientists publication of the August 27, 2007, fissure in the earth, you’d better hope reaffirming what the article said about issue, that all changed. The next time that you have ‘Net access, because you AIDS denialism and obstructionism in that the reporters at the WWN spot any- won’t learn about it while your groceries key parts of South Africa’s government. thing . . . unusual, you’ll have to read are being swiped across a checkout scan- The Academy of Sciences of South about it on the organization’s Web site at ner. Somehow, it just won’t be the same. Africa said its studies had found no sci- www.weeklyworldnews.com. entific basis for the use of nutritional —David Park Musella The black-and-white paper that un- supplements as a first-line defense abashedly chronicled the exploits of Bat Until recently, David Park Musella was against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Boy and a cadre of other unlikely crea- an assistant editor with the SKEPTICAL It was an implicit rebuke to South tures and events—and still had the veins INQUIRER. Africa’s health minister Manto Tshabalala- to call itself “The world’s only reliable Msimang, who has been much criticized newspaper”—has ceased publication. for questioning the safety of anti-HIV The tabloid that mocked the tabloids— drugs and promoting homespun treat- though I always wondered if everybody ments such as garlic, beetroot, and who was reading along got the joke— lemon as effective agents against the dis- has changed to “Web-only” status. ease (New York Times, August 23, p. 2). According to no less a source than The academy’s report noted that a the respected news service Reuters good diet was important in maintaining (“Weekly World News to close [aliens not the body’s defenses against AIDS and so blamed!],” July 24, 2007), WWN has didn’t rule out the usefulness of good shut down its presses due to the pres- nutrition in countries such as South sures that are currently being felt by Africa. But it stated that a healthy diet everyone who trades in the marketplace plays a secondary role to drugs like anti- of periodicals, pressures generated by retrovirals in the body’s fight against the rising costs of materials and the pres- AIDS. To make matters worse, Nicoli ence of the Internet as a publishing Nattrass, author of the SKEPTICAL venue, among other factors. Having INQUIRER cover article, now tells us that operated at a $160 million net loss for South African President Thabo Mbeki 2006 (again according to Reuters), the continues to support the health minis- point was reached at which those pres- ter, despite recent revelations about her sures made implosion imminent, and alcoholism (the cause of her recent liver the parent company, American Media, transplant) and the fact that she was decided to shut down WWN, one of its convicted of theft in Botswana (while many supermarket tabloids. being treated for kleptomania). After all of those years on the racks— not to mention a brief stint as a televi-

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Tributes to Barry Beyerstein, Champion of Critical Thinking, Skeptical Inquiry Barry Beyerstein is dead. I have lost a years were spent in Camrose, Alberta. economic notion which critics lam- friend and colleague of thirty-plus years, He then moved with his family to pooned in terms of “something for and you, dear reader, have lost a cham- , British Columbia, when he nothing” and “funny money.” He pion of critical thinking and skeptical was in junior high school. His parents nonetheless managed to win his seat, inquiry. Barry died on June 25, 2007, were both born in Canada of Scan- and he served one term in Ottawa as a “with his boots on,” working at his desk at dinavian heritage. His father, who had Member of Parliament. (SI, September/ been a bank manager before becoming a In contra-balance to such paternal October 2007). He was sixty years old. career chiropractor, was a colorful char- “freneticism,” Barry’s mother, now in Those of you who knew Barry only acter of many talents. He graduated her nineties and still leading an active through his writings will remember a from the granddaddy of all chiropractic life, was a strong and calming influence thoughtful man dedicated to reason and colleges, the Palmer School of Chiro- and pursued only one career outside the intent on exposing to critical scrutiny every practic in Davenport, Iowa. Over- home: she was a school teacher. sort of pseudoscientific claim. Those of you lapping his lifelong chiropractic practice Everyone of more than only passing who had the opportunity to meet him—at were many avocations, including that of acquaintance with Barry will recognize a CSICOP conference or through partici- stage magician, real estate speculator, the echoes of both parents’ characters in pation at ’s annual Skeptics’ and building contractor. When he Barry’s makeup. His mother’s calmness Toolbox in Eugene, Oregon, where Barry would build a house, the family would and her love of teaching provided the was on the faculty from its outset some fif- live in it for a while before it was sold. steady hand to Barry’s character devel- teen years ago—will remember a man with Indeed, Barry and his family moved opment and probably also influenced a warm smile, an eagerness to engage in thirty times within his neighborhood his career choice, but his father’s wide- conversation, and a remarkable willingness while he was growing up! If that mixture ranging interests and his ability to to listen to what you had to say before of careers were not enough, Barry’s become expert in so many things at once offering his astute commentary. Few peo- father also wrote and published his own was reflected in Barry’s amazing knowl- ple could match Barry’s ability to put oth- self-help books and operated a cosmetics edge of such a wide array of subjects. ers at ease and project a sincere interest in manufacturing business that was based Barry was a member of the first grad- what they had to say. One couldn’t help on his own cosmetic preparations. He uating class from Simon Fraser Uni- but like the man. was also a founding member of the Al- versity, where he earned a bachelor of arts Barry was born in , berta-based Social Credit party, which (Honours Psychology) degree. He then Alberta, on May 19, 1947. His early had as its central political plank a bizarre attended graduate school at the University of California at Berkeley, where he was awarded a PhD in Ex- perimental and Biological Psychology. It I found Barry through a short article in Scientific American some twenty years ago. was in Berkeley that he met Suzi, and the Shortly after we met, we, along with his brother Dale, founded the British two went on to become a poster couple Columbia Skeptics. Since then, I have become close friends with Barry, his wife for happy marriage. After graduation, Suzi, his brother Dale, his daughter Lindsay, and his son Loren. Barry fulfilled his dream of returning to Barry Beyerstein was the quintessential skeptic: polite, learned, resolute, honest teach at Simon Fraser, where he spent his and frank. He never asked more of claimants than what they claimed. As for myself, entire professional life, ultimately being Barry enriched my life. I learned a lot from him and got to meet many fascinating promoted to full professor. His scholarly people through him. research related to brain mechanisms of Barry was a humanist. His hope was to leave this world a little better than when perception and consciousness, the effects he entered it, and I know he did. His achievements in science are noteworthy. To of drugs on the brain and mind, and the name just one accomplishment, he and his brother all but eliminated contribution of olfactory perception to from the B.C. landscape. Other targets are too numerous to mention, but all were human cognition and . worthwhile. In terms of Barry Beyerstein the Barry’s sudden death was a shock. skeptic, he was a Fellow of CSI and a I think our only grip on immortality is what others think of us, that is—the judg- member of its Executive Council, asso- ment of history. I, for one, will do my best to see that Barry’s legacy lives on. ciate editor and frequent contributor to the Scientific Review of Alternative —Lee Moller Medicine,andmember of the Editorial Lee Moller, a software developer, helped to co-found the B.C. 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Board and again, frequent contributor would immediately want to know what to the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. He wrote I was looking at so that he could fix it. books, book chapters, and articles exam- On one occasion, the eaves were ining various paranormal and alternative clogged with leaves, and when he saw therapeutic beliefs, founded and chaired me looking in that general direction, he the B.C. Skeptics, and was interviewed insisted on helping me clean them. I relentlessly by the media whenever any did not have a long ladder, and so he weird claim made the news. further insisted that we go to a hard- One would think that all this should ware store and buy an extension ladder. be enough accomplishment for one man, We carried the ladder several blocks but there is more. (Remember his father, home, holding up traffic whenever we the chiropractor/politician/magician/et had to cross a street, and then cleaned cetera!) Barry was also a founding mem- the eaves. That was Barry. Doorbell ber of Canadians for Rational Health didn’t work properly? “What are you policy; a member of the Advisory Board looking at?” “Just the doorbell.” of the Drug Policy Foundation (Wash- “Doesn’t it work? Let me fix it.” ington, D.C.); founding board member There were lots of other Barrys of the Canadian Foundation for Drug too, among them Barry the Policy; and contributing editor of the Family Man: devoted to Suzi and International Journal of Drug Policy. He his children Lindsay and Loren, often served as an expert witness in civil and to his mother and criminal trials, where he testified Christine and broth- regarding drug effects on consciousness, er Dale; Barry the memory, perception, aggression, and on Jazz and Scotch afi- such topics as addiction and recidivism. cionado (these were two He once addressed the House of Com- of the Barrys that particu- mons Standing Committee on Health larly appealed to me): we during discussions leading up to the pas- spent many a happy even- sage of the Controlled Substances Act. ing lifting our spirits (sin- More still: he was active, along with his gle malts, of course) to the brother Dale, in the British Columbia sounds of Ben Harper, Made- Civil Liberties Association. leine Peyroux, and Horace Sil- And then there was Barry the ver; Barry the Bookworm: it is rare Handyman. Barry and Suzi worked with to meet someone who has read as widely an architect to design their superb and deeply as did Barry—and many oth- home in Port Moody, a suburb of er Barrys as well. Vancouver, and as long as I knew Barry, When his children were young and he was busy renovating it with great they asked the inevitable “What hap- skill. For example, while the house was pens when we die?” Barry wisely taught being built, he did all the wiring him- them that we live on through the self, and the result passed inspection impact that we have had on others and with flying colors. He installed several through their memories of us. Barry’s huge, seven-and-a-half-foot doors that impact has been enormous, and he will were once part of a ship. Barry the live on for a very long time. Handyman was indeed so willing to — help others that it was sometimes diffi- cult not to take advantage. He would James Alcock is professor of psychology at often, on his way to a CSICOP meeting York University in Toronto and a fellow of in Buffalo, stop off at our place in the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He Toronto for a couple of days, and then has written or co-authored many books, we would drive to Buffalo together. All including Psi Wars (Imprint Academic, I would have to do is look pensively at 2003) and a Textbook of Social Psy- some part of our house, and Barry chology, 6th Ed. (Prentice-Hall, 2004).

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Ralph Estling, Eclectic became a school governor before retiring He had a lifelong interest in philat- in 1989 due to ill health. ely, with an extensive collection covering Writer, 1930–2007 He continued his love of reading and the first century of world stamps, in- Ralph Leonard Estling, who died in July writing, his main activity for several hours cluding every single American stamp at the age of seventy-seven, was born in a day, for the rest of his life. His interests before 1940. Palaeontology also in- the Bronx, New York. His father was a were eclectic, covering history, literature, trigued him, the Somerset area being janitor of Jewish immigrant descent. abundant in fossils, which he collected. Encouraged by his sister, Estling showed He had an extensive worldwide circle of an early, precocious literacy. After the friends and spent his final years doing family had moved to the West Coast, he what he enjoyed most in a place he secured a place at the University of loved with his devoted wife by his side. California, Berkeley, where he earned After an enjoyable and active sum- his B.A. in English literature and also mer day on July 6, 2007, Estling died edited the humorous Pelican Magazine. suddenly but painlessly at home in his After national service, his love of the favorite chair, after a remarkably rich classics drew him to Perugia, Italy, where and accomplished life. he studied Italian. He then entered the —Chris Brewchorne U.S. State Department in Washington to train as a diplomat. His first posting Chris Brewchorne, a potter, was a friend in 1957 was as third secretary at the and neighbor of Ralph Estling. E-mail: old Embassy in London, where he met his [email protected]. eventual wife, Gillian, a British protocol assistant. His diplomatic career contin- the arts, science, and philosophy, with a ued for the next eleven years, rising to special affinity for cosmology and evolu- *Ralph Estling always carried a Vice Consul, with postings to Athens, tion. He used his accumulated knowledge Peanuts cartoon in his wallet: to educate, debate, and provoke others to Teheran, Saigon (where he was caught Linus, “I have heard that it is better up in the Tet offensive), and finally Hong do the same, with a towering intellect to light a single candle than to curse Kong. In 1968, he found himself at tempered by humor* and a genuine com- the Darkness.” odds with the State Department over passion for others. He wrote regular Charlie Brown, “That’s true, al- though there will always be those aspects of foreign policy and resigned his pieces for the New Scientist for sixteen years, SKEPTICAL INQUIRER’S Forum sec- who will disagree with you.” post. He moved to San Francisco, and in Lucy (standing alone in the night) 1969 married Gillian to settle down tion for fourteen years, and articles and shouts, “You stupid Darkness!” together after their many years of sepa- short stories for various publications, rated globetrotting. including The London Magazine. For the next two years, Estling poured his efforts into writing. He penned a total of six fiction books in differing styles, plays, and verse. His writing style was intellectual, full of subtlety and irony but Paul MacCready not popularist. Being a humble man (1923–2007) writing primarily for enjoyment, he did not aggressively pursue publication. His Paul MacCready was a visionary aeronautical last book, Far House, set during the engineer trained at Caltech, the father of Vietnam conflict, was accepted by a pub- human-powered flight (the Gossamer Condor lisher who went bust shortly before the in 1977 and the Gossamer Albatross, which book was to be published. crossed the English Channel in 1979), win- In 1971, the Estlings moved to En- ner of more than thirty prestigious awards gland where he trained as a teacher. He including the Collier Trophy for achieve- taught English Literature in Cornwall, ment in aeronautics and astronautics, and then in Somerset where he and founder and head of AeroVironment Inc., a Gillian settled in the idyllic village of strong supporter of efforts to encourage crit- Dowlish Wake in a fifteenth-century ical thinking and creative thinking, and a former parsonage. Estling taught for fif- Committee for Skeptical Inquiry Fellow. He teen years in Yeovil, where he also died August 28 at his home in Pasadena, California, at the age of eighty-one. !