by James Randi
It was also believed, in some cultures, that dreams resulted from divine visitations, demons or spirits of the dead. The Bible records that Joseph interpreted dreams for Pharaoh, and there are several other prognostications achieved through dreams, such as those in Genesis 20:3, 31:23, and 37:5; Job 33:15; Numbers 12:6; and 1 Kings 3:5.
In actuality, a dream appears to be the reaction of the brain to various sensory inputs experienced while asleep. It explains away what would otherwise be disturbing and/or misunderstood information. The dream is not a supernatural phenomenon.
Drown, Ruth
(1891?-1943) A Los Angeles chiropractor of the “sealed black box” school, Drown obtained a British patent for her “camera” device which she said produced a photographic image of an organ, from a drop of blood from the patient.
In England, Drown met “radionics” worker George De la Warr, who developed her ideas into a separate movement and caused a minor war between the two schools. Radionics dealt with various quack devices that were used for medical diagnosis and treatment.
Drown was called a fraud by the FDA when it looked into her practice, but that did little to slow her success.
See also Dr. Albert Abrams and George De la Warr.
Druids
(from the Celtic der, for “superior,” and wydd, for “priest;” Pliny claims the word derives from the Greek drus, but that is highly unlikely; also known as Semothees) Priest-magicians of Gaul, England, the north of Scotland, and the Hebrides. In the first century, the Roman emperor Tiberius issued a decree against the Druids “along with the whole pack of such physicians, prophets and wizards.” Druids were written about by Julius Caesar in his Commentaries on the Gallic War, and by Celtic authors. In 1598, the tomb of a very famous Druid chief Chyndonax was discovered near Dijon, France, covered with Greek inscriptions.
Augury (see also divination) was a popular form of prognostication used in Druid ceremonies, and they were said to be competent at controlling the weather, producing visual illusions, fire walking, and speaking with animals.
Halloween is essentially a Druidic festival.
Dunninger, Joseph
(1892-1975) One of the most famous and proficient mentalists of all time.
Joseph Dunninger created a high standard of mentalism for others to follow. He rose to fame as a result of his exciting radio appearances.
Born the son of a tailor on New York's Lower East Side in 1892, Joe Dunninger was interested in conjuring as a boy. Among the many acts he went to see at that time, he was impressed by a two-person mind-reading routine performed by Mr. & Mrs. John T. Fay. (John was the son of Anna Eva Fay, a spiritualist who had been very popular in vaudeville in the late 1800s and had attracted the interest of magician/investigator Harry Houdini. John's wife was Anna Norman. After John's death by suicide, Mrs. Fay went on with the act, billed as “The High Priestess of Mystery,” eventually headlining shows in 1908-1910.)
However, unlike the “double” act done by the Fays, Dunninger's was a one-person act, never using any assistants — or at least not so that anyone ever knew about it. He was very mindful to assure his audiences that he worked entirely alone, and published a carefully worded but quite genuine offer of $10,000 to anyone who could prove that he used paid confederates. Though many tried, no one ever collected, and for a very good reason: He never used any.
Becoming a very highly paid and fully booked mentalist at posh affairs all over the United States (though he had an overpowering fear of flying and traveled almost exclusively by train all of his life) Dunninger made most of his early fortune before income tax laws went into effect in this country, and he invested heavily in oriental artifacts, eventually amassing the largest collection of rare Tibetan art in the United States outside of a specialized museum in Staten Island, New York. His home in New Jersey was filled, wall-to-wall, with sculptures, wall hangings, exotic rugs, dozens of carved crystals, and gold figures of deities. In the basement was a mass of material from the Houdini home, most of which he eventually sold to the Houdini Hall of Fame Museum in Niagara Falls, Canada.
With his elegant, commanding mannerisms onstage including a strange pseudo-Oxford accent affectation, Dunninger was known to the public only as a mentalist, “The Master Mind of Mental Radio.” He appeared on radio starting in 1943, and on television frequently in the fifties and sixties performing the most astonishing series of stunts that were ever devised by anyone. The list of persons he used in these presentations read as a Who's Who. Jack Dempsey, Bob Dunn, Harry Truman, the Duke of Windsor, and Babe Ruth — it seemed as if Joe Dunninger could reach into anyone's mind at will.
On one occasion, Dunninger had the U.S. postmaster general in position at the main post office in New York City. On his live TV presentation, he asked that official to reach into the thousands of letters going by him on a conveyor belt and to choose just one. A few minutes of “concentration” and Dunninger wrote down on a large pad of paper what he believed the address was on that letter. You guessed it: When the postmaster read out the address, it was the same one that appeared on Dunninger's pad.
Joseph Dunninger maintained an enigmatic image all of his life. He never quite said that he read minds, but he didn't say that he didn't, or couldn't. Publicly, he stayed away from magicians and seemed apart from their interests; personally, he loved to talk tricks and to root around in magic shops. Though he always disclaimed any supernatural powers, he could leave an audience with absolutely no other explanation of what they'd seen. When asked for an answer to the enigma, he had several answers. “Any child of twelve could do what I do,” he might say, “with thirty years practice!” Or “I'm not a mind-reader. I'm a thought-reader. If a man comes up to me an hits me in the eye, I don't have to be a mind-reader to know his thoughts; he dislikes me.”
Dunninger's final series of programs for ABC-TV, recorded in 1971, were never broadcast. By that time he was suffering from Parkinson's disease and could not summon up the strength of presentation he'd previously displayed.
E
Ectenic Force
See psychokinesis.
Ectoplasm
(from the Greek ektos and plasma, meaning “exteriorized material”) A term originated either by wealthy amateur scientist Schrenck-Notzing or by physiologist Charles Richet, this designates the amorphous substance said to be extruded from all the bodily orifices of the spirit medium during séances. It could assume the form of a hand or a face, but in photographs it generally resembles a piece of coarse net like cheesecloth. The resemblance is very close.
Ectoplasm, as generally described and photographed, could be simulated by means of netting coated with luminous paint, which in the heyday of spiritualism was usually water-based. Though early writers on spiritualism had actually solved the true nature of some of their experiences with ectoplasm, they failed to realize that fact. Dr. Gustav Geley (1868-1924) described his encounter with the strange substance during a séance with Eva C. (Eva Carrière) during which a “luminous hand” touched and patted him. A “drop” of luminous substance, he reported, fell to his sleeve, where it continued to glow for about twenty minutes. This behavior is exactly what would be expected of cheesecloth coated in luminous paint.
A book on the subject complains that ectoplasm's
resemblance to such materials as cheesecloth has often provoked allegations of fraud, as well as making it possible for fraudulent mediums to simulate ectoplasm.
At risk of being thought rather difficult, one might suggest that the words ectoplasm and cheesecloth could be interchanged in that last paragraph, to produce an interesting comparison.
If it can be imagined that mediums might actually cheat, it would appear to be wise for a cheater to secure the luminous cheesecloth by means of a cord, so that it might not fall out of reach or be left behind when the lights came up in the séance room. Consider, then, the following naive account of a séance with medium Margery Crandon:
In the “Margery” séances in Boston . . . ectoplasm w
as photographed. . . . In several of these photographs the ectoplasm is visible . . . [in] a form then reduced to a species of placenta attached to the medium by a cord which, in its turn, calls up the appearance of an umbilical cord.
The possibilities are evident.
Sitters are prohibited from touching the ectoplasm, for fear that the medium may be harmed. It may be that the reputation of the medium might also suffer.
In illustrations of ectoplasm often-shown in credulous books, it is obvious that some cotton wool has been teased out and stuck on the medium's chin. But to the spiritualists, this is ectoplasm or an etherial body in the process of forming.
Also often seen is a photo of a paper cutout with a length of white cloth fastened to it, stuck up on the wall with a thumbtack above the medium's head. The believers describe this as a “spiritoid form draped in a white ectoplasmic veil.” Incredibly, they actually believe this.
Ectoplasm is differentiated from apport and ideoplast, which see.
Eddy, Mary Morse Baker
(1821-1910) Though Mrs. Eddy, the founder of the Christian Science church, was said to be an ill-tempered, neurotic woman who suffered from chronic problems — what she called “nerve disorders” and “spinal inflammations” — all her life, she denied that illnesses were real, claiming that they all resided in the mind and were the result of “error.” That is the basic teaching of her church, that illness and death are malfunctions and can be avoided by proper conduct. All medical help, therapy, medication, or other such services are strictly forbidden to church members.
Nonetheless, Mrs. Eddy wore glasses and walked with a cane (though she was never photographed nor seen in public using them), had false teeth, and for most of her life took morphine for pain to the point where she became seriously addicted.
She was married three times. Her first husband was a Mason named George Washington Glover, and thereafter membership in the Masonic Order was the one single “outside” affiliation that was allowed to church members by Mrs. Eddy. Six months after their marriage, Glover died of (imaginary) yellow fever. Her second husband was Daniel Patterson, a dentist (and thus a medical man!) and a homeopath (thus almost a physician), who left her after twenty years of stormy marriage. The third was Asa Gilbert Eddy, a spiritualist who died of (imaginary) heart failure six years after their marriage. Mrs. Eddy, despite the results of a careful autopsy, maintained that her husband had actually been poisoned by malicious animal magnetism, which see.
The church specializes, to this day, in the treatment of diseases solely by means of the consultations and prayers of “practitioners.”
Edwards, Michael
See psychokinete.
Egely, György
Often, the evidence offered in support of psychic powers has to be examined critically, and in particular credentials of those endorsing such matters. A good example is the Hungarian would-be parapsychologist György Egely, who has enthusiastically endorsed the powers of such psychics as Uri Geller. He has stated that he is a Ph.D. professor and physicist at the Central Research Institute for Physics (CRIP), in Budapest. He also says that he “examined by electron beam scattering” a spoon bent by Mr. Geller and that he has no explanation for the event.
The would-be parapsychologist “Dr.” György Egely.
A simple inquiry at the Research Institute for Atomic Energy (RIAE), CRIP’s successor, resulted in information that:
1. Mr. Egely “is not and never was a professor at the Institute [CRIP].” He once worked at CRIP briefly as a mechanical engineer, but was dismissed “because he failed to produce any useful work.”
2. he “is not a professor of anything at any Hungarian university.”
3. he has received a “doctorate” — but under Russian standards which are no longer recognized in Hungary — and by Hungarian standards is not considered to be a Ph.D.
4. he “is not a physicist.”
5. the “electron beam scattering” examination could not have taken place at CRIP because “the Institute does not have, and never has had, the equipment for such a test.”
A further inquiry to Dr. Gyula Bencze of Budapest reveals that
“for several months Mr. Egely was a guest lecturer at the Eotvos University in Hungary, where he began lecturing on paranormal subjects and, as a result, the Dean of the Science Faculty banned him from doing any further teaching activity there.”
How often are such inquiries made? Not often, and though an endorsement of a psychic event may come from individuals with excellent, genuine, qualifications, unless their expertise includes certain special talents needed for proper investigation of such matters, it is often useless.
Eglinton, William
(1857-1933) An English materialization medium and, from 1884 on, a slate writer contemporary with Henry Slade. He enjoyed a certain period of success beginning in 1876, mostly because of the endorsement of Dr. Charles Richet, but almost immediately he was caught cheating when wigs, beards, and cheesecloth “ghosts” were discovered on his person during a séance. Then in 1886 he was thoroughly exposed as a fake by Professor Lewis Cargill. Such reversals did little to affect the belief of his followers, however.
Eisenbud, Dr. Jule
See thoughtography.
Elemental / Elementary Spirits
Entities said to inhabit the four medieval elements. Salamanders inhabit fire, sylphs the air, gnomes the earth, and nymphs the water. It is not stated which ones frequent discos.
Elements
Certain materials (such as carbon, iron, oxygen, and gold) are themselves unique substances which are not combinations of other ingredients. These are the proper chemical elements.
The alchemists believed that all substances were combinations of sulfur, mercury, and common salt, which they said were themselves composed of the four basic “elements”: fire, air, earth, and water. (Sulfur and mercury actually are proper elements, but salt is a combination of the metal sodium and the gas chlorine, each of them elements.) Every element, to the alchemists, had specific attributes. These were:
Fire: colors red and orange, hot and dry conditions, motion, light, and heat, animals, strength.
Air: color yellow, hot and damp conditions, light, activity, bravery, intellect.
Earth: colors brown and black, cold and dry conditions, fertility, passivity, silence.
Water: colors blue and green, cold and damp conditions, intuition, wisdom, cleansing.
Early Tibetan scholars recognized, in addition to these four basic elements, a fifth which they called “ether.” The five elements of the early Chinese were fire, earth, water, wood, and metal.
In medieval times, only 10 of the real elements were known to occur in a natural, uncombined state. We now know of 107 elements, 90 of which occur on Earth naturally, 17 of which are created during nuclear reactions or radioactive decay.
Elixir of Life
See philosopher's stone.
E-Meter
A device consisting of a sensitive electric meter, a battery, a “resistor bridge,” and two metal handles. These are connected in parallel so that touching the handles together causes a maximum deflection of the meter, indicating a resistance of zero. In effect, when the handles are held by a subject, one in each hand, the device measures the resistance of his body. The reading will decrease or increase depending on the pressure of the grip and the moisture present, as well as the emotional state of the subject, via a phenomenon known as “galvanic skin effect.”
Another version of this idea attempts to be a diagnostic tool. In this mode, one electrode is “grounded” to the arm of the patient, and the other is a probe that is used to explore the hand, which serves as a homunculus, the thumb representing the head and neck, the index finger the right arm, etc. The harder one presses down on the probe, and the damper the precise spot on the hand, the lower the resistance reading.
In 1950, Volney Mathison demonstrated a “galvonomic box” to later-Scientology guru L. Ron Hubbard. (Interestingly enough the
patent number stamped on that machine turned out to belong to a variety of threshing machine patented in 1860 with the U.S. Patent Office.)
A Dr. Reinhold Voll of Germany claims to have discovered the principle of using the “galvanic skin effect” as a diagnostic tool. Dr. Ernst Roscher of Frankfurt also claimed to have invented a slightly different version of this diagnostic application designed to determine whether medicine would be effective for a patient. An attempt by Roscher to market his Probe in the United States through JS&A Products was made in 1983.
