For those of you who watched the latest television special by Derren Brown, Derren Brown Investigates: The Man Who Contacts the Dead, this might be of some interest. For those who haven’t, please feel free to either immerse yourself in the scenario or else simply to avert your gaze and twiddle your thumbs for the next few moments.

The show, which aired on Channel 4 at 10pm on Wednesday of this week (you can watch it here on 40D) featured the self-styled psychic medium Joe Power. Derren approached the show from a sceptical perspective, which means that he suspended his opinion the subject of psychic mediumship until his investigation was finished and he was able to draw a conclusion based on a convergence of the available evidence.

Joe Power, however, seems to have taken umbrage to this and made a recent post on his website, which you can view here. In the post, he criticises Brown’s sceptical approach, apparently misunderstanding the meaning of the term, and accuses him of using foul play and coercion in an attempt to publicly defame him.

I composed a quick guestbook entry on Joe’s website, the content of which is moderated before posting. The entry in question suspiciously has not yet manifested on the website, which seems odd since others have been able to post quite freely since my attempt. For fear that it might never see the light of day and be condemned to lay lifeless on the cavernous floor of my laptop hard drive I have decided to reproduce the email here. You can read it in full by clicking here

I genuinely am curious as to what his reply might be and welcome any explanation that he might be able to provide in regards to my questions.

Feel free to peruse it at your leisure.

Filed under: Funny Stuffs, Like Woah... Interesting..., Reasoning, Scary Shiz-am!, Supernatural?, The Mind and Suggestibility by Mark Brewer
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Recently rumours have been circulating in magazines and news articles about people who are being cured of their chronic fatigue syndrome (or M.E) by a fantastic new treatment, known as the Lightning Process by Phil Parker. The final straw that spurred me on to making this post was noticing a recent a BBC news segment, featuring the daughter of some jumped-up celebrity – no doubt with a penchant for New Age remedies and biting tree bark, or whatever these hippies like to do. She, like a few others, claimed that her post-viral fatigue (which these hippy-hoo-ha types always enjoy misrepresenting as M.E) was cured in a matter of hours by this wondrous method. The Lightning Process can, they say, render them completely fit and well after a ten minute session with a trained Lightning Process practitioner. It is, they continue to ramble, based on  an exciting and new technique called NLP.

Phil Parker himself claims to be a graduate of osteopathy and cranial osteopathy. He also pedals that he has training in applied kinesiology. He confidently asserts that he is a guru in NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming – which is, suspiciously, a registered trademark).

The problem is that I know precisely what NLP is, having researched the subject for a number of years. It is a crude falsification of psychotherapy, which makes use of its own brand of pseudoscientific jargon, designed to baffle the unwitting customer (yes, people pay for this bullshit) into believing that it has a foundation in tested and approved science. I also know that the rest of these complicated nouns are designed to appear as scientific fields, with their Greek derivations of “logos” tagged surreptitiously onto the end. However, they all remain ridiculous descriptors of nothing more than Voodoo-pseudo-chunga-dunga-hubba-chububba-witchcraft. Much like homeopathy, these other practices have never been proven to work or, in fact, proven not to work respectively by science.

Phil Parker doesn’t even seem to mind that the pseudosciences that he claims to be a master of aren’t even suited to remedying a bum-rash, let alone a complex physical syndrome like CFS. Chronic fatigue, contrary to the expert opinion of our world media, is a physical condition. It is not, as country-bumpkin types enjoy sneering, ‘all in your head’. It has physiological causation and there is an actual academic debate, based on medical science, as to its source happening right now between leading American research universities and our own British ones. The focus of those concerned with helping people and curing them of this debilitating ailment should be placed firmly on this fact, rather than allowing our media to pander to the underhanded, scheming money grabbers who have a tendency to play on people’s sense of wish fulfilment.

Having suffered with chronic fatigue syndrome for over five years, I have spoken to medical doctors and specialist CFS/ME clinics at length. I have spoken at conferences for the medical community and the educational community. Both myself and others have all raised our curiosities, before now, to doctors and psychologists (not psychiatrists) about the Phil Parker Lightning Process, perhaps out of that same sense of wish fulfilment. I would love to sit in a chair for ten minutes, be told that my illness was a result of my own overactive imagination and be sent home with my life whole and intact. Sadly this was not to be the case. Every legitimate doctor that I mentioned the Lightning Process to actually laughed. Of course the medical community have examined the Lightning Process and concluded that it was probably less effective than popping a stuffed toy up your bottom. I suppose that the old adage, “ask a stupid question and receive only stupid answers,” is appropriate in this case. Of course having someone chat with you isn’t going to cure a physiological illness. The world simply doesn’t work that way.

Now, I was entertaining the idea of writing a full-length article on the workings (or shortcomings, as is the case) of the Lightning Process, but I noticed that the website, ‘The Skeptic’s Dictionary’ has completed the task better than I could. Therefore, I would delight in redirecting you to that very same article:

CLICK HERE

Hopefully this will clear up any deluded ideas that you might currently possess about CFS/ME and indeed the Lightning Process itself.

Happy reading.

Filed under: Reasoning, Scary Shiz-am!, Science, Supernatural?, The Mind and Suggestibility by Mark Brewer
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A world-wide psychological study by Professor Richard Lynn has revealed that religiosity in humans tends to decrease as intelligence-quotient results increase. Critics of the findings have branded the method, “simplistic”. Personally, I find the fact that the test has been kept simple only lends to its power. The unencumbered experiment yields a distinctly vivid result.

The experiment has shown, in general terms, that there is a clear link between public intelligence and belief in the divine. Whilst this does serve to prove that intelligent folk may simply have too much time to think things over and come to the wrong conclusion, it also gives them all a darned good excuse at the pearly gates!

Imagine:

God: Oh, non believer, why hast thou forsaken me?
Atheist: You made me too intelligent. I could never have believed in you if I’d wanted to.
God: *Little tear*

If you are interested in perusing the scientific findings at your leisure then you may view the graph here:

IQ vs. Religiosity Graph

Filed under: Funny Stuffs, Like Woah... Interesting..., Science, Supernatural? by Mark Brewer
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This was probably one of the most satisfying pieces to watch that I’ve ever seen on BBC 3. It’s quite wonderful to watch the reactions of the so called ‘spirit mediums’ when it is revealed that the whole backstory was fictional.

Filed under: Funny Stuffs, Reasoning, Scary Shiz-am!, Supernatural?, The Mind and Suggestibility by Mark Brewer
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If any of you happen to have a vague interest in rock music and Sky television then you will likely have spent at least one afternoon flicking between the four rock music channels on offer. Of the four you will likely be least familiar with Rockworld.TV. This isn’t a plug… Far from it. I am merely writing to state that I have observed a strange anomaly. If you are even slightly acquainted with the channel you will probably be aware of a band called the Troubadours. Their  self same, dirgey, griping acoustic set is cycled on the Rockworld.TV tube all day, every day.

I have made a stunning discovery about their lead singer. He is none other than pop legend Peter Noone of Herman’s Hermits fame.

Here is a picture of the Troubadours’ lead singer:

And this is the wonderful Peter Noone from Herman’s Hermits:

I think it’s safe to say that the Pete Noone Doppelganger situation is one of the government’s best concealed conspiracy situations in the history of mankind. I only hope the Reptillians saw this coming…

Filed under: Funny Stuffs, Like Woah... Interesting..., Supernatural?, What Mark\'s Up to by Mark Brewer
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What with the recent influx of people turning to “alternative remedies” and relying on methods like Homeopathy to carry them through periods of ill-health, I feel it’s an opportune time to help present some of the facts and histories of these methods so that you can make well-informed and truly open-minded decisions about their efficacy.

This is an issue about which I both feel strongly and in another sense couldn’t really care less. I just feel that people make ill use of the “open minded” paradigm and essentially misunderstand it. Or else simply use it to justify their unfounded and ridiculously circular belief that supping on a teat-capped 10ml bottle of mineral water will cure their ailments much better than prescribed medicine.

Please feel free to peruse it at your leisure.

CLICK

Filed under: Reasoning, Supernatural?, The Mind and Suggestibility by Mark Brewer
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The bleached, earringed bambino himself. Revolting.

Perhaps it is a testament to the efficacy of the spirit medium’s showmanship that this technique is so little heard of. The art of “cold reading” has long since been available to the public as a completely viable explanation for the apparent talents of self styled psychics and spiritualists across the globe. The linguistic tricks involved, I feel, are important to be aware of and this is a fantastic 13-point guide to the subject that I found on Skeptics.com.

It’s a good and easy introduction to the field, should you choose to persue the interest further. There is quite a large industry of underground literature for those willing to look. If one cares to think on the subject for more than… Say half an hour… The implications become quite staggering.

Ignore at your own risk.

Click

Filed under: Reasoning, Scary Shiz-am!, Supernatural?, The Mind and Suggestibility by Mark Brewer
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Disclose me the info, bitches.

Founded by Dr Steven Greer, the Disclosure Project have been working for years to try and reveal the truth behind mysterious U.S Government activity regarding extraterrestrial life. Since it’s foundation, the group have gathered together hundreds of testimonies from millitary officials regarding these incidents.

Whether the existence of EBE’s and the technology they supposedly make use of is the truth or not, the aim of the group is incredibly important. We know, at least, that these governments are doing SOMETHING with tax payer’s money. Discovering truth on this matter is paramount to me.

Click

Filed under: Reasoning, Scary Shiz-am!, Supernatural? by Mark Brewer
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