Thorncrown Studios

Episode 1 – Mentalists vs. Scientists

Welcome to Patterns of Supernatural Phenomena. Our purpose is to prepare
you for what is to come. Whether you are a follower of Jesus Christ or not a
believer at all, I want you to understand what has happened in the past and
what is happening right now, because all of it points toward the future. You
see the clock behind me. Time is running out for each one of us and for the
entire world.

Welcome to Patterns of Supernatural Phenomena.

As we begin the series, you should know a little about me. I am a mentalist and
a past member of the Academy of Magical Arts at the world-famous Magic
Castle in Hollywood. I have spent a significant portion of my life studying
illusions and our deep susceptibility to them. As a performer, I know how
easy it is for the most intelligent and sophisticated among us to be utterly
fooled by the simplest forms of trickery.

I’m retired from performing now, but for a number of years, starting in 1970,
my wife, Carel, and I presented a program entitled, Beyond Reality, that
toured in the Midwest. Many years later, I created a new program called
Illusions of Power. In both, I displayed many demonstrations that appeared to
be psychic or supernatural in origin, including mindreading, predictions,
psychokinesis, spirit contact and much more. For half the program, I
presented these effects as though I had real power. But at the midway point, I
stopped and informed the audience that everything they had seen had been an
illusion. I have no psychic or supernatural abilities at all.

Though I never told how I performed the illusions, I made it very clear that
everything they had seen had been subtle trickery. I had fooled them. I had
lied to them. Then I talked about why we are so easily fooled and where the
only true spiritual power is to be found. And that is in Jesus Christ, our Savior
and King. Nevertheless, over and over I observed a disturbing phenomenon.
Even after being as clear as possible that everything they had seen was a trick,
there were audience members who refused to believe me. They insisted on
thinking that I had real supernatural power.

After one program a young woman came up and said to me, “When you told
me that you were entering my mind, I could just feel it. It was so strange.” I
informed her that, whatever she had felt, it had nothing to do with my
entering her mind. I had never done any such a thing. In the presentation, I
had lied to her. What she had experienced had been generated entirely inside
her own head because she believed my lies. I had a difficult time convincing
her of that and she was far from the only one. I have had people get up and
leave my performances because they were afraid of what they were seeing me
do.

In the middle of one presentation, I asked a lady from the audience to assist
me. As I told the sad, lying story which was the basis for the effect, suddenly,
she started sobbing in front of the whole audience. She so deeply believed the
lie that I was telling that she couldn’t control her emotions. That was jarring
even for me. I had to try and comfort her, while I kept the lie going.

Why are we humans so easily fooled? A major reason is because most of us
desperately want to believe that there is more to life than what we see, that
strange, hidden powers are possible and there are people who possess them.
When we lose loved ones, in our sorrow and loneliness, we long to
communicate with them. We want to know where they are. Are they all right?
Do they still love and remember us?

After one program, a very sophisticated gentleman came up to me. He had
been a top-level executive in a major corporation. Several years before, he
had lost his wife. With tears in his eyes, he asked whether it might be possible
to communicate with her. I told him what I believe very strongly after years of
research, that, no, it is not possible. When you go to a medium, you are not
communicating with the one you lost, no matter how much it might appear
that way. It may all be a trick, and I know how to do that kind of trickery, or
you may be communicating with something unseen and very dangerous.
Sadly, in the long history of mentalism and fraudulent psychic phenomena,
some of the people most easily fooled have been scientists. Why has this been
so? There are several reasons: Some tend to be arrogant. With arrogance, they assume that they are so intelligent and their systems are so well designed
that no one could outsmart them.

The second reason may be surprising. Many are naïve. They are naïve
because, as secular humanists, they don’t understand or even believe in the
true nature of evil. They think people are basically good and well-intentioned
because most of their friends are. If they have any practical concept of evil at
all, it’s from pop culture and the horrors on the evening news.

Understanding evil is not easy or comfortable. It can be frightening, especially
when we realize that some of the worst evil often appears to be ravishingly
beautiful, joyful, comforting, even filled with ecstasy. Deadly traps are never
set with flashing signs that warn, DON’T WALK HERE OR YOU WILL DIE. They
are baited with desire.

The naiveté of scientists is well documented. Mentalists and fake psychics
learned a long time ago that, in too many cases, once a scientist trusts you and
becomes a friend, you can get away with almost anything. If you doubt this, I
suggest that you do some research. Look for the Wikipedia page on Project
Alpha and James Randi.

The late James Randi was a magician researcher, who performed under the
name, The Amazing Randi. In 1979, then chairman of McDonnell-Douglas
Aircraft, James S. McDonnell, announced an unusual grant. Because of his long
interest in the paranormal, he had donated $500,000 to Washington
University in St. Louis to create what became known as the McDonnell
Laboratory for Psychical Research.

The director, Peter R. Phillips, a man who had spent a decade studying
parapsychology, announced to the press that the center would focus on
psychokinetic metal bending among children. James Randi had seen the fraud
perpetrated by fake psychic Uri Geller during research at Stanford University.
He viewed this as an opportunity to prove that such research was worthless
due to a lack of objectivity and shoddy protocols.

Randi believed that the men running the tests at Washington University could
be easily fooled by simple, but well-executed, tricks. To prove this, he enlisted
the help of teenage mentalists, Mike Edwards and Steve Shaw, who
volunteered to participate in the program. Years later, Shaw performed under
the name Banachek. Of course, the true backgrounds of these young
mentalists were not known to the researchers.

Even as his two secret volunteers entered the program, James Randi offered
his services as an expert in fraudulent phenomena. He said that he wanted to
help discover anyone who might try to fool them and he gave them a list of
protocols that they should follow. His offer and his list were ignored.
Over the next four years, including 160 hours of laboratory testing, a whole
range of ill-conceived experiments were conducted. Over and over, they
seemed to prove the existence of real psychic power as various objects
appeared to bend and do other weird things under Shaw and Edward’s
control.

The trickery was so simplistic it’s amazing they weren’t caught. For instance,
each experiment was videotaped by an installed, stationary camera. The
young performers found the place in the room where the camera couldn’t see
them. Over and over, they used this blind spot to switch items and do other
acts of trickery with the objects given to them for the tests. The duped
scientists were exultant. As had been planned from the beginning, finally the
truth was revealed. What was the only fact that had been proven in this long
and expensive project? Scientists who claimed to be skilled researchers could
be easily fooled.

But there is a tragic background to the entire study that was unknown to
Randi, Shaw or Edwards. One of the lead scientists involved, Berthold E.
Schwarz, had become deeply interested in the supposed powers of Steve
Shaw…because his young daughter was dying with no medical help that could
save her. He desperately hoped that Shaw’s psychic powers could heal her. A
broken heart destroyed his objectivity. So often, broken hearts mislead all of
us, don’t they?

As a mentalist who knows the subtleties of fraudulent illusion, I come to any
discussion of the paranormal with a healthy dose of skepticism. Also, I should
say that I have been a Hollywood writer and executive producer of network
television. I’m best known for such TV series as The Equalizer that starred
British actor, Edward Woodward and Gabriel’s Fire that starred James Earl
Jones. As a media storyteller, I know the amazing power that stories have to
take control of people’s emotions, creating a fantasy that appears so real.
When we shot The Equalizer on the streets of New York, desperate people
would come up to Edward and plead for his help. They thought he really was
The Equalizer and not just an actor playing a part. Edward took to carrying the
business cards of public organizations that might actually help them. But even
with all of that sad experience, I am not a hardened skeptic. I have seen far
too much to believe that application of the the scientific method is the limit of
reality.

We live in a mysterious and dangerous world filled with strange, confusing
and often frightening manifestations. We live in a world where existential evil
exists. When he began his practice, noted psychiatrist M. Scott Peck
confronted a disturbing reality. Even with all of his education, he was
unprepared to deal with some of the people who came to him for help. They
didn’t fit into any psychiatric category, so he had to create a new one. The
category he created he labeled “Evil.”

Dr. Peck discovered that true evil existed in some of the people who entered
his office. Often it was well camouflaged by illusions and subterfuge. From his
therapeutic experiences, he wrote an important book entitled, The People of
the Lie. I strongly recommend it. From my experience, I know that terrifying
evil can be in people, but also it exists in a reality that is outside the human
and material.

We are living in a blizzard of paranormal and supernatural manifestations.
The Internet is awash in eyewitness accounts from stunned and frightened
people. More and more videos are being produced and books are being
written about it. In spite of all that, in my opinion, very little light is being
shown to explain what is going on and why. Over the years, I have discovered

that almost all supernatural or paranormal experiences fit into categories and
often are presented in strategic patterns. What in the world do I mean by that?
If you take this journey with me you’re going to find out.

I come at our subject from a grid that has three elements. First, from being a
mentalist. Second, strangely from my military background. A long time ago I
spent a dangerous and very memorable year in combat. As a young man, I led
a rifle platoon with one assignment. Search for hidden enemies and when you
find them destroy them. I can tell you that we did just that and it was horrible.
How does that apply here? Over many years, I have come to believe that the
human species is under attack by a vicious, unseen, and dedicated enemy.

What is the worst thing you can do if you live on a battlefield? Refuse to admit
that a war is going on and refuse to admit that you are in danger. The third
and final element in my grid of understanding is a Christian worldview based
on the Bible. How that applies you will see.

While I believe that a great, unseen war is going on and supernatural evil
surrounds us, not all supernatural experiences are evil. Far from it. Let me
leave you with a story. I grew up in Wheaton, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. As
a young adult, I worked in the city and commuted by train. One night I came
home and got off at my usual stop. I started to walk around behind the train
to get across the tracks, when, suddenly, hands grabbed my shoulders and
pulled me back. A moment later, a freight train roared past, going toward the
city on the track that I was about to cross. If I had done so, I would have been
dead. I turned to thank the person who had saved my life, but no one was
there. The entire area was deserted. Indeed, welcome to Patterns of
Supernatural Phenomena.