Million Dollar Excuses; Dutch Psychic Caught Cheating; Sylvia Browne and the Virginia Miners; From the JREF Museum

Every week or so, I’m offered ingenious rationalizations from or on behalf of applicants for the $1 million JREF prize who have failed their tests. The spectrum of alibis is wide: the room was too warm, Jupiter was in Sagittarius, I ingested refined white sugar this morning, the Earth’s magnetic poles have shifted, I had indigestion, a high-pressure front moved in, there’s a full Moon, demons interfered, Randi’s negative vibrations cancelled the effect, it was Thursday …

Occasionally, I receive a more generalized—though fuzzy—explanation for the collective failure of all the hundreds of prize applicants. Get ready: it’s because of the very existence of the prize itself!

A French veterinarian, André Wassen, from Saint Privé, Yonne, France, who describes himself as a fan of “bio energy fields” and acupressure for treating animals, offers his version of that last mystery. He writes, with true Gallic certitude: 

The simple fact that money is involved makes the [JREF] challenge unwinnable. Sometimes I do some dowsing for my patients but it always has to be for the highest good. When you do it for one million dollars, your left brain is involved as well as your ego and anyway the response will be false because you do it to satisfy your own ego, to show how good you are … 

So you [Randi] take no risk, nobody will ever win that challenge. 

But on a daily basis, far away from the spotlights, some practitioners dowse, do distance healing etc … with patients who are suffering and the less they show off, the more they are successful…using these methods you describe as paranormal … 

Please note that Dr. Wassen has built in here a perfect escape-hatch: if he fails, he invokes the “show off” clause or the “evil money” influence, and all is explained. If he succeeds, it’s because he was able to suppress his ego and showmanship, he ignored the prize, and he performed “for the highest good.” Catch-22 rides again. Well, happily for Dr. Wassen, I have the perfect solution for him: 

1. We’ll remove the money from the picture; rather than sending him the prize, I will donate it to his favorite charity, anonymously, and without telling him about it, if and when he succeeds. 
2. Mutually, we will design a test for Dr. Wassen in which a negative result will win the prize; by that I mean a test in which losing against the odds will result in the prize being awarded. This would of course also make it “for the highest good.” 
3. We will agree to tell no one about any success that Dr. Wassen might have, so that his ego will not be involved. 
4. We will accept dowsing, “distance healing,” the existence of a “bio energy field,” acupressure, or any other special power that Dr. Wassen cares to specify; and, just to fend off the inevitable objection I see coming, we will agree not to describe any such ability as strange, paranormal, magical, miraculous, or supernatural. 

This challenge was sent to Dr. Wassen on December 24, 2005. He responded as follows (the ellipses are his): 

Why on Earth would I have the need to go through any challenge … the fact that we have results is sufficient. We are a group of vets who practice alternative medicine on a daily basis using any tool available, included what you call paranormal (which in fact is not paranormal at all since 4-year old toddlers can do that with success). Fortunately we have still some freedom and are not indebted to big pharma, and their double blind studies…and still consider healing as an art … 

These “paranormal” tools are gifts from the Universe to use to heal and harmonize others, available to those who try to be spiritual enough to connect to the divinity within each of us … They are not tools to be displayed in fairs and circus … to convince anyone. 

Gosh, one day you will even have the idea to coerce Jesus Christ to come to your web site to prove what he can do and that for one million dollars … and that in the name of science! 

“Big pharma” is Dr. Wassen’s derogatory designation of the pharmaceutical industry that has saved billions of lives and futures of both humans and other animals, which he and his fellow “spiritual” vets, through their individual spark of “divinity” and their “gifts from the Universe,” are fighting. Wassen also dismisses that awkward scientific “double-blind” procedure. And just where are these four-year-old kids who can also pull off this stunt? Are their parents also disinterested in winning a million-dollar prize? 

Dr. Wassen, I wasn’t really proposing that you put on a red nose, big shoes, and a clown suit to do funny tricks for an audience at a fair or a circus. Rather, I pictured a basic lab setting, a situation that appears to be foreign to you. As for your suggestion about Jesus, you must understand that we at the JREF do not pursue possible applicants for the prize; we await their contact. 

Dutch Psychic Caught Cheating 

Fellow skeptics Mike Johnson and Frank Engelen in Holland sent me information about a Dutch psychic who was caught cheating. From their notes I offer the following composite summary. 

A very strange thing happened recently on Dutch TV when they broadcast a series featuring a so-called medium, 25-year-old Robbert van den Broeke. At one point he began to reveal—supernaturally, of course—all sorts of information about a former cameraman on the show who had committed suicide some months ago. The cameraman’s wife was in the studio. 

Unfortunately for Robbert, he was far too accurate and specific. He told the widow that she’d had another life before this one, as “Hillegien Rozeboom,” who died in 1823. He also gave her the exact date of birth of Hillegien. He said that her husband in that life was named Luwert, who had the profession of “genverbrander.” The “medium” said that he didn’t know what a genverbrander was. Well, nobody knows, because that word does not exist in Dutch. It looks like an existing word, but it is not. Robbert must have thought that it was some kind of antique profession with which he was not familiar. Google to the rescue. 

Rob Nanninga, editor-in-chief of the Skepter magazine Googled the data about Hillegien Rozeboom and Luwert, and it was all true! There actually was a Hillegien who died in 1823, and so on. What about that weird profession of Luwert: Genverbrander? This turned out to be a typographical error on the website, and that same mistake was also miraculously made by the spirits who gave psychic Robbert the information! It should have been, “geneverbrander!” The second “e” was dropped. Geneverbrander translates as genever-brander, “genever maker,” or of “jenever,” an old Dutch liquor—gin. 

It appears that the medium had done some googling before his show, a conclusion reinforced by the following. Robbert’s reading/prediction on the TV program was as follows: 

Hillegien Rozeboom was married to Luwert in Coevorden. March 7 and August 7 were important, as were the years 1793 and 1823. You died when you were thirty, Luwert was a “genverbrander” by profession, I don’t know exactly what that is. 

Significantly, the Googled web site says almost the exact same thing: 

Hillegien Rozeboom, born March 17th 1793, died August 7th, 1823. Her husband was Lubbert, married in Coevorden. His profession was “genverbrander.” 

However, Robbert—or a spirit!—was wrong about her birthday. He said 7 instead of 17, and he said Luwert instead of Lubbert. Those things sound very much alike in Dutch and could be things he didn’t quite hear clearly enough through an earpiece—if that’s how he was receiving the data. It’s more probable, however, that he was simply misremembering what he’d read on Google before appearing on the show. 

Leading Dutch skeptic Jan Willem Nienhuys comments about this turn of events: 

The common opinion is that this is the end of Robbert’s career. Several newspapers carried the story, several TV stations did a news item on it, and the website https://skepsis.nl/robbertvandenbroeke/ received about 45,000 hits. The story isn’t over yet, because part four (broadcast on prime time on January 1) contains, on close inspection, various damning curiosities, and the role of Van den Broeke senior—a local bank manager who has written a book on his miracle-son—is scrutinized as well. 

Mr. Nienhuys, I must respectfully disagree with your conclusion. My experience would indicate that Robbert still has a long career as a wonder-worker ahead of him. Consider our Sylvia Browne: she has floundered around and conclusively been shown to fail dramatically, her methods have been published and exposed, but she’s certainly survived very well simply because there are a lot of vulnerable, not-so-smart people out there who need her to be the real thing, and she is supported by the media. Rationalizations will be developed, evil forces will be invoked, and I predict that Robbert van den Broeke will survive this scandal. I wish it were otherwise … 

Sylvia Browne and the Virginia Mining Disaster 

By chance psychic Sylvia Browne appeared on the infamous “Coast to Coast” radio show with host George Noory the same night that the big news story broke about the West Virginia miners who were trapped when the coal mine in which they were working collapsed. When Noory read the wire story that 12 of the 13 miners had been found alive deep below the surface, Browne confidently stated that she knew that they would be found alive. She said this immediately after Noory read the erroneous media announcement. Browne then dug herself in even deeper: as soon as Noory made the early announcement, she averred that she just “hated” psychics who said they knew what was going to happen “after the fact,” but that she had been forthcoming in this instance because Noory had asked her the question. 

Well, as we now know, only one of the 13 miners survived. Later, when the somewhat shaken Noory announced that CNN, Fox News and other media outlets were in error, Browne tried her usual ploy of restating what she psychically saw: “Yes, I just don’t see anyone alive there … well maybe one.” 

For anyone not familiar with the methods of these charlatans, this would appear to be a calamitous failure, a total screw-up; but not to anyone familiar with the likes of Sylvia Browne. Browne and Noory will ride out this total, abysmal, failure, because the believers need to cling to the notion that such fatuous claims of psychic power, are true. 

I must note here as well that when the first news came out about the disaster, the governor of West Virginia began his comments with “Here in West Virginia, we believe in miracles, and we’re praying for the miners.” When the first report was made that all 13 had survived, people were quick to attribute it to God. One miner’s young wife, 27, clutching her baby girl, said, “It just shows you enough prayers went out. It’s a miracle.” And, President Bush said, “We send our prayers.” On that same program, there was an item about a woman who’d won a huge lottery prize. The first words out of her mouth were, “God has answered my prayers!” Forgive me for not grasping the situation here: are we to believe that God ignored all the prayers for the trapped miners because He was busy arranging for that woman’s lottery number to be chosen? And to the young mother: do you now suppose that there weren’t quite enough prayers? Are we to conclude that God allowed the miners to die because the pleas for mercy directed at Him weren’t properly phrased, while the lottery winner’s prayers were better formulated? Just what are this deity’s priorities? 

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Dumb Question 

In December, 1928, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was quoted in a South African newspaper when he was asked to reply to a comment about the strange notion that people really die. Here is his response: 

It is surely clear that if this view prevails it really knocks the bottom out of all religion, as we understand religion. If there is no afterlife, why should man strive to improve himself? It is a waste if all his efforts end in annihilation. 

I am often asked, “If you don’t fear Hell, why would you behave in an ethical manner?” My response has always been that I’m insulted by the presumption that fear should be my only motive for living a moral, caring existence, and that I live that way because the preservation and comfort of my species is a need built into my programming, and I wish to further my species by being a positive influence. That’s hard wiring, not an adopted stance; I take no credit for it, since none is due. As Spike Lee said: “Do the right thing.” I’d add that one should also make every effort to determine what really is the “right thing” of course. 

From the JREF Museum 

This item is an original from the JREF collection, a 1923 letter from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to J. Malcolm Bird, secretary of a special committee set up by Scientific American to investigate the phenomena exhibited by one Margery Crandon, a spiritualist medium from Boston. Sir Arthur was at this time on a tour of America. The letter is dated May 9, from Denver, Colorado, and reads: 

My dear Bird,
I had a talk with Houdini today & he assures me that the papers misrepresent his attitude and that he is not intolerant at all—so that may ease things with the Commission. What he really wants is evidence in which he has been singularly unfortunate but my experience with my wife leads me to think that he may reject good evidence when it is put before him. He told me that he could see the foot of Mrs. Towson in the photo taken with him in Chicago but he clearly had never heard of a transformation. I should think the real argument is that where a medium is faking she would take notice that her foot was not visible. I have given H the address of [young?] Kemp with the noisy control, in Chicago whither he goes next week. If he can get results there it may help him. But he is obsessed with the idea that everyone can be & is fooled—but himself. 
Yours very sinc’ly A.C.D. 

This document is interesting in many respects. First, it demonstrates the naiveté of Sir Arthur, in his reasoning that a faker would not be caught so easily. Lots of them were, and still are. Sir Arthur actually expresses the opinion that Houdini would be “helped” by being shown genuine spiritualistic phenomena, as if that were the greatest goal imaginable. The two were not far from a schism at this point, since Houdini was six months away from publishing his negative account of a meeting/séance with Lady Conan Doyle that took place in June. She had produced what seemed to Houdini to be meaningless, disconnected guesses, but not surprisingly, the same guesses seemed very convincing to Doyle.