“If real, astral travel would be incredibly useful,” Radford wrote for Live Science.34 “There would be no need to send humans into dangerous conditions—such as the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan—to find out what the situation is (or if a meltdown is imminent); instead, engineers should be able to simply visit the site astrally to survey the damage and report back without danger of radiation contamination.”
Astral projection hasn’t been harnessed in any useful way, primarily because it isn’t an objective phenomenon, but that doesn’t mean governments and militaries haven’t tried to utilize related claims of clairvoyance. Remote viewing, a cousin to astral projection and a process by which some say they can see great distances with their mind, has been researched and implemented unsuccessfully by the United States’ Defense Intelligence Agency and Central Intelligence Agency, as well as by the Government of the United Kingdom, despite the fact that scientific evidence never showed its effectiveness.35 In the United States, the military’s $20 million research unit examining the potential of divination via remote viewing for identifying potential targets and threats, dubbed the Stargate Project, was launched in the 1970s and shut down in 1995 after it failed to produce useful data36. The UK Ministry of Defence also looked into remote viewing in 2001 and 2002, but similarly found that it was not a valuable method for obtaining information.37
THE IDEOMOTOR EFFECT
The power to know unknowable information isn’t only claimed by former government spies and people who say they are psychics. A number of believers still think Ouija boards and other mysterious items can offer any person a connection to an unproven spirit realm. As is often the case, Hollywood and popular media have contributed to this myth indirectly. I say indirectly because viewers often see a film made for entertainment, like the 2014 thriller Ouija, and then use that fiction as “evidence” to substantiate their supernatural beliefs. Most of those believers, however, are probably unaware of the fact that the Ouija board was invented as a parlor game and is a registered trademark of Hasbro, Inc. I also doubt that they’ve thought to test the board’s alleged powers by blindfolding the players and recording the activity, or about why their hands have to actually be touching the planchette for the game to work. A person’s hand must touch the device because the participants (often unknowingly) guide the piece via the ideomotor effect, which allows our subconscious minds to influence our bodies even when we don’t consciously decide to take action. If believers were aware of these facts, maintaining faith in a magic board might not be as easy.
The Ouija board was created as a sort of board game, but there are many believers who have designed similar devices that they claimed could yield legitimate connections with the spirits of deceased humans. One of the most famous examples of these believers is Dr. Robert Hare, an early American chemist who created a number of “spiritoscopes” in an attempt to prove the existence of an afterlife. Brandon Hodge, a collector and writer focusing on the realms of horror and the occult, called Hare a “huge pop-culture figure” and drew attention to his conversion from skeptic to spiritualist.
“This is sort of the equivalent of Neil deGrasse Tyson coming out on Cosmos and saying, ‘Heaven is real and the spirits can talk to us.’ And so it made an incredible splash,” Hodge said in a mini-documentary entitled Ghosts and Gadgets: Communicating with the Spirits.
He added that spirit communication devices like those created by Hare and others are “very convincing.”
“As even the most jaded teenybopper girl that’s used a Ouija board at a slumber party can attest, it’s a very powerful feeling when that planchette starts gliding across that board and spelling out things that you don’t think that the spirits know,” Hodge said. “And even if you attribute it to ideomotor response, and it is unconscious muscular action that’s pulling information out of your subconscious and translating it into this novelty board that glows in the dark with a plastic planchette in our modern times, it’s still amazing that the human brain is capable of autonomously and cooperatively producing these messages.”
The ideomotor effect isn’t just used for spirit communication devices. It’s also the same force that guides dowsing (or divining) rods, the pseudoscientific instruments that believers say have powers of divination that have never been scientifically proven in a controlled setting—even after thousands of such tests.38 Many people claim to locate everything from lost car keys to underground water, oil, and gold using these instruments, but just like Ouija boards, the rods simply amplify slight (and subconscious) movements of the hands. To test this, you can use something else other than a dowsing rod, such as pendulums or bent wires. Some skeptics are confused by the notion of dowsing, because if you pick up a TV remote or a banana it will equally “guide” you to water and missing household items, but James Randi has described it as a “compelling belief.”
“Please be aware of this, however: though you may be puzzled over this seemingly strange conviction embraced by the dowsers, unless you have actually experienced the ideomotor effect at work in yourselves, you cannot have a proper appreciation of how absolutely compelling and irresistible it can be and is,” Randi wrote.
ASTROLOGY AND HOROSCOPES
While dowsing rods and Ouija boards are still thought by many to hold supernatural powers, astrology, sometimes referred to as the “grandfather of paranormal beliefs,”39 is a much more commonly practiced form of spiritual divination. In fact, belief in astrology seems to be growing over time. According to the National Science Foundation’s 2014 Science and Engineering Indicators study,40 about 42 percent of Americans at least partially accept astrology as a science, the highest percentage in any year since 1983. The problem with the popularity of this belief system is perhaps best illustrated by Carl Sagan, who said, “Every newspaper in America, with very few exceptions, has a daily astrology column. Astrology is bunk. Astrology is fraud. How many of them even have a weekly science column? Why that disproportion?” Although Sagan made this statement in the 1980s, I can’t help but think about how relevant it still is for many cultures even today.
Early forms of astrology using birthdates have been practiced as early as the second millennium BCE, according to some experts.41 Due to its age, there are a number of variations in methods. There is sidereal astrology and tropical astrology, for instance, which differ in their definitions of a “year,” as well as Chinese astrology, horoscopic astrology, and more. However, while there are key distinctions between some of these traditions, astrology itself (especially in its more modern contexts) generally boils down to the notion that future events and personalities can be predicted by the positions of celestial bodies such as the stars, sun, and moon, including on the date of a person’s birth. This claim is particularly difficult to accept considering that, as American mathematician John Allen Paulos has pointed out, “the gravitational pull of the delivering obstetrician far outweighs that of the planet or planets involved.”
“Remember that the gravitational force an object exerts on a body—say, a newborn baby—is proportional to the object’s mass but inversely proportional to the square of the distance of the object from the body—in this case, the baby,” Paulos wrote in Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences.42 “Does this mean that fat obstetricians deliver babies that have one set of personality characteristics, and skinny ones deliver babies that have quite different characteristics?”
One of the biggest hurdles believers in astrology must face is that the astrological signs are related to the sun’s position compared to arbitrarily defined star groupings, as opposed to objective ones. Ancient humans created the constellations we know today as far back as 3200 BCE43 by using their pattern-seeking brains to connect the dots between stars and form pictures of important symbols of power and good fortune, but in many cases the stars only appear to be in line with one another from our perspective on earth.44 Take Pisces, for instance, a constellation of the zodiac between Aquarius and Aries. Pisces is composed of
about 18 main stars that are in no way connected, including Alpha Piscium, which is about 139 light-years away from Earth,45 and Eta Piscium, Pisces’ brightest star, standing at a distance of about 294 light-years. 46 These stars have different magnitudes and distances from the sun and Earth, and are only tied together by our perception. While these stars make up part of the fish constellation in the West, in Chinese astronomy, Eta Piscium is known as the Official in Charge of the Pasturing, which references an asterism it forms with its close neighbors.47
This problem for believers in astrology is magnified by the fact that each star is moving relative to the sun, usually at many kilometers per second,4849 so, while the stars and constellations may seem fixed in the sky, they do change (albeit slowly) over time. And, in addition to these gradual movements of the stars themselves, Earth’s axial precession creates further troubles for those who believe in astrological star signs. The sign for Pisces, for example, is defined as spanning from elliptical longitude 330 degrees to 360 degrees (the twelve 30-degree signs make up the 360 degrees of the zodiac),50 but its corresponding representation in the stars has been largely displaced by the constellation of Aquarius as a result of the precession of the equinoxes.51 The question now is, with all these changes, uncertainties, and disconnects within astronomical systems, how can astrologers claim to link personal behaviors and future events to the positions of stars? As astronomer Dennis Rawlins has said, “Those who believe in astrology are living in houses with foundations of Silly Putty.”
The fact is that the placement of celestial bodies has never been shown to affect personality traits or to be predictive of future events.52 Much like typical psychics, astrologers and horoscopes in general exploit the Forer effect by relying on their customers to interpret vague predictions as solid hits, while ignoring obvious misses. The problem with modern astrology, I think, is that some people take it too seriously as a future-telling force. They take what were once nothing more than simple patterns and apply a much deeper, transcendent interpretation to them. Author Joyce Carol Oates described this phenomenon, which can be equally applied to astrology, religion, and a number of other things, quite clearly: “Homo sapiens is the species that invents symbols in which to invest passion and authority, then forgets that symbols are inventions.”
To analyze astrological claims from a more personal perspective, I decided to look into the horoscope for my sign, which is Pisces according to astrology despite the fact that I was born while the sun was in Aquarius. This exercise provided further insight into the problems with this system of fortune-telling.
Fish appear to be individuals, but have you ever seen a school of them swimming together? They act as one. Each is part of a greater whole.53 And you Pisces Fish are more aware of your interdependency than any other sign. It’s as if Pisces live in an ocean and the spirit that flows through you is like the one ocean that flows through all fishes (sic). The symbol of the Fish is also the symbol of Christianity,54 the predominant religion during the past two thousand years—also known to astrologers as the “Age of Pisces.”
Pisces are spiritual in nature and emotional in expression. Pisces’ intuition and imagination are at once Pisces’ strengths and weakness.55 Pisces are attracted to the mystical side of things,56 and herein lay potential danger, for when pulled beneath the currents of everyday life, the realms of imagination and the subconscious offer little structure. Without the foundation of reality, it becomes easy to flounder and to lose direction. Pisces’ own salvation, however, can come from helping others less fortunate than yourself, especially those who have fallen into the misty realms of drugs, alcohol or spiritual confusion.
The Pisces motto might be “Reality is just a shared illusion,” and, in a higher sense this may be true. Nevertheless, you still need to survive in this “shared illusion” of reality, and sometimes this becomes a struggle for you compassionate Fish, who can feel the pain of the world as if it were your own. There’s no easy escape for you. Your best path is to follow a creative or spiritual pursuit while doing your work in the real world.57
While this particular Pisces profile doesn’t in itself disprove astrology, it does show how vague and generalized the readings are while simultaneously demonstrating just how wrong they can be. I am clearly not a “spiritual” or “mystical” person, nor am I a Christian, so I didn’t identify with much in this particular reading. In another experiment, I looked up my daily horoscope. Here’s the first result from an online search:
This is not a day for deep thought. You might not even be able to get a grasp on the essentials, so just do your best and try to figure it all out later. Get a friend to help piece it together.
This could apply to anyone and everyone and, if someone is feeling particularly overwhelmed (as people almost always are), they might even feel a special connection to it. Believers in astrology are welcome to continue in their belief, of course, but I’m waiting for some real, testable predictions, as opposed to the usual vague platitudes. When a Tarot card or a horoscope correctly predicts that I’ll get a parking ticket Monday night and stub my toe on Friday at 6:22 a.m., I’ll be more inclined to listen.
I’d like to end this chapter with a short story on the topic of astrology that I wrote in 2012. It’s called “Centaurus”:
ETHAN WAS ONLY 12 YEARS OLD WHEN HE PICKED UP HIS FIRST BOOK ON ASTROLOGY. HE WAS FASCINATED BY THE IDEA THAT THERE COULD BE A TRANSCENDENT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE STARS AND EVENTS ON EARTH, CAPABLE OF REVEALING THE INNERMOST SECRETS NECESSARY TO UNDERSTANDING LIFE ITSELF.
HE READ THAT HE WAS A SAGITTARIUS, BORN ON NOVEMBER 25, AND INSTANTLY IDENTIFIED WITH THE SIGN. HE KNEW IT WAS TRUE AS HE READ THE POSITIVE ATTRIBUTES OF THOSE BORN BETWEEN NOV. 22 AND DEC. 21: LUCKY, GREAT LISTENER, AND ENERGETIC. BUT HE ALSO FELT THAT THE NEGATIVE PERSONALITY TRAITS DESCRIBED HIM PERFECTLY: HE WAS EASILY BORED AND OFTEN TOO IMAGINATIVE. AFTER A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME, ETHAN WAS NO LONGER JUST A CASUAL ASTROLOGICAL OBSERVER; HE BELIEVED SO WHOLEHEARTEDLY THAT, AT THE AGE OF 16, HE ADOPTED A PSEUDONYM—CENTAURUS—TO REFLECT HIS TRUE SAGITTARIAN PERSONALITY.
ONE DAY, AT AGE 17, WHEN RECEIVING A PROFESSIONAL READING, THE ASTROLOGER TOLD CENTAURUS THAT, BASED ON THE ALIGNMENT OF THE STARS, HE COULD EXPECT A TRAUMATIC TRUTH TO BE REVEALED IN THE COMING WEEK. CENTAURUS WOULD GET DEVASTATING NEWS THAT WOULD FUNDAMENTALLY RESHAPE HIS LIFE AS HE KNEW IT, ACCORDING TO THE FORTUNE TELLER.
TWO DAYS LATER, IT HAPPENED: CENTAURUS’ MOTHER ASKED TO SPEAK WITH HIM PRIVATELY. “ETHAN, YOUR FATHER AND I LOVE YOU MORE THAN ANYTHING—AND I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT. IT’S TIME YOU KNOW SOMETHING, THOUGH … YOU’RE ADOPTED.”
CENTAURUS WOULD LATER DISCOVER THAT, NOT ONLY WAS HE ADOPTED, BUT DUE TO A MIX-UP WITH THE SHORT-FORM BIRTH CERTIFICATE, HE AND HIS ADOPTIVE PARENTS HAD BEEN CELEBRATING HIS BIRTHDAY ON THE WRONG DAY. HE WASN’T BORN ON NOV. 25. HE WAS BORN ON NOV. 20. HE WAS A SCORPIO.
“The most cursory look at cold-reading and suggestion tells us that Tarot cards are not evil; psychics do not ‘usher in’ the Devil or his minions; and even the creepy old Ouija board can be shown to operate via quite everyday, natural, physical forces.”
—Derren Brown
NOTES
1. See the discussion in the Introduction, especially as relates to the James Randi Educational Foundation.
2. B. R. Forer, “The Fallacy of Personal Validation: A Classroom Demonstration of Gullibility,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 44, no. 1 (1949): 118–123.
3. In ancient Rome and elsewhere, for instance, alleged diviners inspected entrails of sacrificed animals in a search for omens. This process is called haruspicy or haruspication.
4. Ashleigh Rainbird, “Miley Cyrus Hires Dog Psychic to Help Her Get over Death of Beloved Pet Floyd,” Mirror Online, July 22, 2014, www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/miley-cyrus-hires-dog-psychic-3897981.
5. The case is Cathy Green et al. v. Melissa Bacelar et al., case number BC598098, in the Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Los Angeles, Centr
al District.
6. “The Man Behind the Mystery,” Banachek Miracles of the Mind, www.banachek.com/about-us/.
7. Suroh got his name from a simple reversal of “Horus,” an ancient Egyptian deity associated with the sky, war, hunting, and protection.
8. https://www.facebook.com/SurohTheSeer
9. Suroh the Seer displays a *For entertainment purposes only* notice on all of his websites and banners.
10. While researching for the book and playing Suroh the Seer, I faced the same real moral dilemmas alleged spiritualists face on a daily basis. In one scenario, the participant was so convinced of my powers that she basically begged me to charge her and forced me to come up with excuses not to take payment for services rendered. While the experience as a whole was great, I did not enjoy lying.
11. Last names have been excluded due to privacy concerns.
12. D. Druckman and J. A. Swets, eds. Enhancing Human Performance: Issues, Theories and Techniques (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1988), 22.
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