Skeptic: Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
Further Reading for issue 23:
Pyramid Power
- Sources & Bibliography
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Notes and citations for Junior Skeptic #23: “Pyramid Power.” Includes quote-by-quote sources for all quotations used in this issue. Followed by a bibliography.
READ sources & bibliography for Junior Skeptic #23 > - Interview with MythBusters star Kari Byron
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Junior Skeptic Editor Daniel Loxton spoke with Kari Byron to learn more about the MythBusters tests of pyramid power, and about Kari’s experiences as part of the cast. Find how she became involved with the show — and what challenges the team faced probing this bizarre paranormal claim.
READ this previously unpublished 2006 interview > - Interview with Pyramid Power author Max Toth
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Pyramid power was an iconic 70s brand of weirdness, and Max Toth was one of the men who made it that way. To learn more about the history of pyramid power — how the idea jumped from Eastern Europe to North America, and how it flourished here as a business and pop culture fad — Junior Skeptic Editor Daniel Loxton spoke with Mr. Toth at length. Toth’s reminiscences comprise a guided tour of a paranormal business scene, and a valuable primary document.
READ this previously unpublished 2005 interview > - Exposé de M. A. Bovis au Congrès International de Radiotellerie à Nice by Antoine Bovis in original French
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Dozens of books (and hundreds of paranormal websites) tell the same legendary origin tale of the ‘discovery’ of pyramid power: how a Frenchman named Antoine Bovis stumbled upon the secret while standing inside the Great Pyramid in Egypt. Yet, over decades of books, articles, and New Age speculation, it seems that no one ever attempted to identify the source of this colorful legend.
Junior Skeptic Editor Daniel Loxton set out to pin it down — which turned out to be a frustrating ordeal. All published versions of the story dead-ended with a single secondary source, while facts about Bovis remained elusive. For weeks, Loxton dug through old books, newspaper archives, and government records, and sent enquiry after enquiry to skeptical, psychical, and Theosophical libraries across the world.
Finally, a breakthrough: a hand-bound collection of Bovis’s original, self-published, French-language paranormal booklets turned up in the hands of an antique dealer in Germany. This was acquired for the Junior Skeptic library, and the relevant material was translated.
The twist? Pyramid power’s origin tale is a complete fiction. Bovis never even visited Egypt. We are happy to share the entire original French-language booklet, which has never before been available to researchers.
DOWNLOAD a scanned copy of Bovis’s booklet (3.6 MB PDF) > - English translation of key passage from Exposé de M. A. Bovis au Congrès International de Radiotellerie à Nice by Antoine Bovis
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In a 1930s pamphlet, mystic Antoine Bovis described the ‘discovery’ of pyramid power in his own words — a version that completely falsifies the colorful yarn that paranormal authors have told and retold for decades.
READ the relevant section in English > - Excerpt from Pyramideenergi by Danish skeptic Jens Laigaard (in English)
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Jens Laigaard’s Danish-language, book-length critique of pyramid power is one of the vanishingly rare sources to examine the Bovis origin legend.
READ the relevant section in English >
READ the the entire text of Pyramideenergi in the original Danish (external link) >
Junior Skeptic #23
Pyramid Power
Many people believe pyramids can harness strange supernatural energies. Some say pyramids can magically preserve fruit, or even sharpen steel razor blades. Who are the people who make these claims — and why? (Featuring MythBuster Kari Byron.)
READ background materials >
