The Science of Ghosts

by Joe Nickell

  I do not know if Amatuzio can see the obvious, that her spirit guide is merely a grown-up version of one of her childhood imaginary friends. That the notion comforts her—just as her storytellers say their dreams and synchronicities give them peace—does not establish the existence of a spirit realm. Neither does it recommend that we believe in such, lured by doubtful—even often disproved—evidence. To do so is to sacrifice reason on the altar of superstition, to be bewitched into coping with our real, natural world by embracing the fantasies of an unreal, supernatural one.

  Psychic medium John Edward is reemerging from relative obscurity after his popular television show, Crossing Over with John Edward, ended in 2004. He appears on another cable show, gives tours, has a website (http://www.infinitequest.com), and generally makes his living claiming to communicate with those who have “crossed over.”

  I was invited by Central New York Skeptics to join them in Syracuse, New York, for an evening with Edward. (It was held at Mulroy Civic Center on Sunday, October 11, 2009. I was accompanied by CNY Skeptics president Lisa Goodlin, David Harding, and Brian Madigan, all of whom afterward shared insightful observations on what we had witnessed.) The glib Edward—real name John Edward McGee Jr.—held forth for more than two hours. He began with a joke to the effect that although he is psychic, he nevertheless needed a GPS to get to the site. The highly credulous, adoring crowd found every gag hilarious, every platitude profound, and every lucky guess or shrewd deduction proof of communication with the dead.

  OLD “SPIRITS” IN NEW BOTTLES

  Edward is part of the new breed of spiritualists (like Sylvia Browne and James Van Praagh) who avoid the risky physical mediumship of yore. During the heyday of spiritualism, magicians such as Houdini and Maskelyne used to catch mediums at their dark-room séance deceptions, such as slate writing, floating spirit trumpets, and full-bodied “materializations.” The investigators gave public demonstrations of the trickery. “Do Spirits Return?” a Houdini poster asked. “Houdini says No—and Proves It” (Gibson 1977, 157).

  The new “psychic mediums” opt instead for the simpler, safer mental mediumship, the supposed production of messages from the Great Beyond. This itself is nothing new, but now instead of the flowery language supposedly channeled from talkative Victorians, we get fragmented bits of data from spirits seeming to have diminished memories and limited speech: “I feel like there's a J- or G-sounding name attached to this” is a typical Edward offering (Nickell 2001).

  Styles change even in supposedly talking with the dead. Today's mediums employ the old fortune-teller's technique of “cold reading”—so named because the sensitive has no advance information about the sitter. He or she artfully fishes for information from the person, often asking a question which, if the answer is yes, will be treated as a “hit” but otherwise will become only part of the lead-up to a statement.

  Not surprisingly, Edward has a background in fortune-telling. His mother, he acknowledges, was a “psychic junkie” who threw fortune-telling “house parties.” Advised by one visiting clairvoyant that he had “wonderful psychic abilities,” Edward began doing card readings for family and friends as a teenager. He progressed to giving readings at so-called psychic fairs. There he soon learned that names and other “validating information” could sometimes be better fitted to the dead than the living. Edward eventually changed his billing from “psychic” to “psychic medium” (Edward 1999), setting him on the road to financial success.

  THE GROUP APPROACH

  Edward's audiences typically find him accurate and convincing. However, a study I made of one television transcript revealed he was actually wrong about as often as not (Nickell 1998).1 In Syracuse, for example, no one seemed to relate to a cat named Smokey. Nevertheless, in such cases Edward can still toss out something he “sees” or “feels,” and he may get lucky. Besides, the onus is on his listeners to somehow match his offerings to their lives, and if one person can't oblige, someone else will give it a try. Thus, when no one seemed to be “going to Thailand,” Edward doubled his options, suggesting the trip was for adoption. Finally, one woman shouted out that she had adopted a child from Korea. When no one had experienced an Edward-visualized tattoo removal, a young lady helpfully supplied her adventure of an excised mole. Edward then looked for validation of an imagined spirit named Lily: she soon morphed into a cat of that name, still living!

  Edward sometimes joked his way out of a dilemma. For instance, when one woman's late husband had not had the envisioned “foot surgery,” Edward quipped, “Do you have any other husbands?”

  Joking aside, this group approach has been a boon to modern mediums. On occasion, when multiple sitters acknowledge a particular offering, the medium can simply narrow the choice to a single person and then build on that success—a technique definitely employed by John Edward (Ballard 2001).

  GETTING BURNED WITH “HOT” READING

  According to respected journalists, episodes of Crossing Over were edited to make Edward appear more accurate than he was (Ballard 2001), even to the point of apparently splicing in clips of one sitter nodding yes “after statements with which he remembers disagreeing” (Jaroff 2001).

  Rarely, when the opportunity presents itself, Edward may turn from “cold reading” to the much more accurate “hot reading.” Although I have no evidence of him using that technique in Syracuse, he was caught cheating with it on a Dateline NBC episode for which I was both a behind-the-scenes advisor and an on-camera interviewee. Edward was exposed passing off knowledge he had gained from a Dateline cameraman during a shoot hours earlier as otherworldly revelation during a reading session. He feigned surprise that his alleged spirit gleanings applied to the cameraman. As Dateline's John Hockenberry subsequently told an evasive Edward, “So that's not some energy coming through, that's something you knew going in” (Nickell 2001).

  In his book, Crossing Over, Edward disparaged Hockenberry, who, he said, “came down on the side of the professional skeptic they used as my foil…Joe Nickell” (2001, 243). Edward also referred to Hockenberry's “big Gotcha! moment.” That's right, John, we gotcha! You were caught cheating. And your claimed psychic powers didn't even let you see it coming.

  FAST TALKER

  In his stand-up act, Edward keeps things going at such a pace that there is little time to critically analyze what is occurring. The average person is not much better equipped to avoid being fooled by John Edward's sleight-of-tongue tricks than he or she is to avoid being fooled by the artful illusions of a stage magician. Careful analysis of a recorded session by one knowledgeable of the techniques employed will prove more effective than the testimonials of someone fooled by the deceptions.

  And so Edward's Syracuse audience regarded their belief in otherworldly communication as fully vindicated. There appeared to be only about four skeptics in the audience. Ironically, Edward seemed not to know they were there—even though one has been a particular thorn in his side. Couldn't he feel all those bad vibes coming from an area of the orchestra?

  The character Melinda Gordon in CBS's fantasy TV series Ghost Whisperer, played by Jennifer Love Hewitt, is based on a real-life resident of North Royalton, Ohio. Her name is Mary Ann Winkowski, and she sports a silver Cadillac with a license plate reading “SPIRIT” (Kachuba 2007, 202). But can she really talk to ghosts?

  INTRODUCTION

  Winkowski does not claim to communicate with spirits who have “crossed over” to the Other Side, the purview of “mediums”; rather, she says she “can only see and talk to earthbound spirits,” claiming, “I talk to the spirits and find out who they are and why they didn't cross over.”

  Her belief in a dimension where ghosts hang out is nothing new. It is basically a version of purgatory, which in Catholic dogma is a place (or state) “where souls are purged of sin before going to heaven” (Severy 1971, 381). Not surprisingly, Winkowski was raised Catholic. And just as the faithful are urged to assist those in purgatory by prayer and penance (Stravinskas 2002, 626�
��27), Winkowski believes she and others can guide spirits who lag behind for whatever reason—such as being attached to a thing or place, seeking revenge, fearing judgment (for suicide or other wrongdoing), and so on (Winkowski 2007, 81–104).

  She claims to have been freeing earth bound spirits since the age of four, when her Italian grandmother began taking her to neighborhood funerals. She would “see” the dead—who are “always there, right by the casket,” she says—then envision “the White Light” and direct spirits to it. Eventually, after becoming a wife and a mother, she was so sought after that she “had to start asking for a little bit of money” and was “basically forced into making it a business” (Winkowski 2000, 11–13, 19–20, 35). In her work, she mixes Catholic and New Age practices—for example, using holy water (water blessed by a priest) to dispel malignant entities and scattering quince seeds around a house “as protection” (2000, 162–67; 2007, 228–34). By means of the power of suggestion, such actions can have a beneficial effect, at the expense of encouraging superstition.

  A QUESTION OF EVIDENCE

  In her books—As Alive, So Dead (2000) and When Ghosts Speak (2007)—Winkowski provides no acceptable proof of her alleged ability. Some of her evidence is laughable. One published photo, sent by a client, purportedly depicts spirit energy but is actually the result of the flash rebounding from the camera's wrist strap, a common phenomenon (Nickell 2001, 128–31). Other “spirit” photos showing orbs, mists, and shapes (Winkowski 2007, illustration following page 82) have similar mundane explanations (see chapter 38, “Photoghosts: Images of the Spirit Realm?” and Nickell 2008b).

  The same is true of other phenomena reported by—or to—Winkowski, including the sounds of footsteps and other noises, the effects of drafts and warm spots, and indeed almost anything: Headaches may be “a sign of a curse or negative energy,” she says, and insomnia can be a sign of “an earthbound spirit in your home” (Winkowski 2007, 198–210). Missing pieces of a board game, drained batteries, a broken toy—all may be caused by “child ghosts,” asserts Winkowski (2007, 208). She experiences a ghostly visitation (Kachuba 2007, 206) that is obviously only a common “waking dream” (one that occurs in the twilight between being fully awake and asleep—see Nickell 1995, 55). She even naively relates versions of the “vanishing hitchhiker” folktale (Winkowski 2000, 189–91).

  Contradictorily, she describes ghosts as “pure energy,” a life force that survives death (Winkowski 2007, 41), yet she maintains that earthbound spirits “smoke, comb their hair, change their clothes—all those things we always do, too. Only I've never been able to figure out where they get the stuff from” (2000, 150). Indeed, the supposed spirit-world existence of inanimate objects is revealing: apparitions of people appear fully clothed and are often accompanied by objects, just as they are in dreams, because the clothes and objects are required by the apparitional drama (Tyrrell 1973). That is to say, the source of “the stuff” that puzzles Winkowski is the imagination.

  As to her ability to talk with ghosts, Winkowski offers only anecdotal evidence, nothing constituting scientific proof. In fact, we know that death brings a cessation of brain function and consequently an end to the ability to think, walk, or talk. So why do Winkowski and others believe they can converse with spirits?

  FANTASY PRONENESS

  Although Winkowski distinguishes herself from both mediums and psychics (she claims no future-telling ability), she nevertheless shares much in common with them and other paranormal claimants, including alien abductees. Such persons tend to exhibit an array of traits that indicate a fantasy-prone personality. In their pioneering study, psychologists Cheryl C. Wilson and Theodore X. Barber (1983) listed several identifying characteristics of people who fantasize profoundly. Called “fantasizers,” such individuals fall within the normal range and represent an estimated 4 percent of the population.

  For the past several years, I have been applying Wilson and Barber's findings to the biographies and autobiographies of a number of contemporary and historical individuals, ranging from psychics, like Sylvia Browne and Dorothy Allison, to prophets, like Jeane Dixon and Edgar Cayce, as well as others, including many alien abductees, like Whitley Strieber. I have considered the possession of six or more of the identified characteristics to indicate fantasy proneness. As shown by her own statements, Winkowski—like the others mentioned here—clearly fits the profile of a fantasizer.

  For example, (1) as a child she had apparent imaginary playmates (Winkowski 2000, 10–14), although she insists they were not imaginary; (2) she claims to receive special messages from paranormal entities (2000; 2007); (3) she is a good hypnotic subject and (4) through past-life regression she has had fantasy identities in the form of “several lives” (2000, 28); (5) she has had hypnagogic/hypnopomic experiences, or waking dreams, with (6) classic strange imagery (Kachuba 2007, 206–207); (7) she frequently encounters apparitions (Winkowski 2000; 2007), and (8) while she insists she is “not psychic—at least not in the traditional sense”—she believes she channels energy, creates “White Light” and directs spirits to it, lifts curses, and so on (2000, 92, 176; 2007, 222).

  Taken together, the evidence strongly indicates that Mary Ann Winkowski, “the Real Ghost Whisperer,” is only participating in elaborate encounters of her own imagination. Like “visionaries” who receive messages from the Virgin Mary or “contactees” or “abductees” who are in touch with space aliens, mediums and ghost whisperers are merely communicating with an adult version of a child's imaginary playmate. Such fantasizers have rich imaginative lives and, often, a receptive audience, since they tap into shared hopes and fears. But they simply deceive first themselves, then others.

  Self-claimed “psychic, medium, clairvoyant, channel” Sylvia Browne has gained notoriety by appearing on The Montel Williams Show and Larry King Live, as well as by writing books that bill her as a “New York Times bestselling author.” However, there is another side to the spiritualist—a revealing and often-troubling side—as shown by some events others and I have investigated.

  UNFORESEEN CRIMINAL CONVICTION

  Long before adding an e to her surname, Sylvia Celeste Brown was involved in selling securities to a gold-mining venture while failing to foresee the true consequences: the venture failed, and she and her estranged husband were subsequently indicted on several counts of investment fraud and grand theft.

  The criminal complaint, filed in the Superior Court of Santa Clara County, California, on May 26, 1992, alleged that the Browns sold securities in the venture under false pretenses. Although telling a couple their $20,000 investment was to be used for immediate operating costs, the complaint stated, the Browns transferred the money to an account for their Nirvana Foundation for Psychic Research. Just one month later, in April 1988, the complaint stated, they declared bankruptcy in the venture.

  Reporting on the pair's arraignment, the June 6, 1992, San Francisco Chronicle noted that “Sylvia Brown claimed to have strong psychic ‘feelings’ that the mine would pay off.” (The Chronicle clipping resurfaced in a review of some old files, and at my request investigator Vaughn Rees undertook the job of obtaining certified copies of the papers for criminal case #16303.)

  The documents show that Sylvia and her estranged husband Kenzil Dalzell Brown pleaded no contest to a felony charge of “sale of security without permit,” made restitution in the case, and received one year probation each. Dalzell's disposition included “County Jail 4 mos[.] with credit for time served of 21 days,” while Sylvia's included two hundred hours of community service.

  In her book Adventures of a Psychic (written with Antoinette May, 1998 ed.), Browne blames her 1988 bankruptcy declaration on her ex-husband's “attempt to hide his illegal doings,” without mentioning her felony conviction in the gold-mine case. She laments that while “ignorant people” say, “Well, if you're so psychic, why didn't you…,” the answer, she says, is that “I am not psychic about myself.” Frankly, one might not wish to buy that excuse, or much o
f anything else involving claimed psychic powers, from Sylvia Browne—with or without the e.

  VISION? OR ADVANCED KNOWLEDGE

  A little over two years later, Sylvia was ghost hunting at “haunted” Brookdale Lodge (figure 32.1), near Santa Cruz, California (which I subsequently investigated for a Discovery Channel documentary that aired May 24, 1998). Sylvia appeared on an episode of the television show Sightings, which aired on November 27, 1994. On camera, she told lodge employees about the alleged spirit of a little girl named Sarah. Browne claimed to have had a vision in which the child reenacted her death by drowning. Astonishingly, seeming to confirm Browne's vision, the employees said that, yes, decades ago, a girl so named had in fact drowned on the property!

  Now, Brookdale indeed has an actual brook—a landscaped mountain stream named Clear Creek—that flows charmingly through the middle of its dining room (aptly named the Brookroom). Some claim that the girl—variously said to be six or nine years old (Stollznow 2007, 22)—drowned here. But could Sylvia have known the story of the alleged drowning before arriving at the lodge?

  In her book Visits from the Afterlife, she insisted she had visited Brookdale “with no clue what to expect.” Sounding defensive, she stated, “I'd give up my career in a heartbeat if the only way I could keep going would be to fool people” (Browne 2003, 46, 47).