Monday, May 30, 2005

Danish clairvoyant has not applied to Randi's One Million Dollar challenge

One of the most popular and discussed TV programmes the recent years in Denmark is "The power of the spirits" (Medium ship spotlighted on Danish TV) and "Sense for murdering" (Danish website) with Marion Dampier Jeans. It deals with people who have had supernatural experiences with ghosts, poltergeists and creepy stuff like that.

Marion claims to have become "one of the acknowledged mediums in Great Britain".

She is working with ectoplasm:

"In physical medium ship, the Spirit operators use this abundance of etheric energy, ectoplasm, and matter in order to produce the various manifestations. Through the directed use of mind, they release this energy-matter from the physical medium's body and use it. "

There's no solid evidence to prove the exists of ectoplasm. Photographs published in the early twentieth century claiming to show ectoplasm were false. Ecto mists in photos are probably caused by breath on in cold environment, car exhaust, and steam from any source and smoking. I don't know what else ecto mists could be. Still many people hold out faith that ectoplasm exists without any evidence.

Is the (non)existence of ectoplasm her proof of life after death or is it a series of messages received from a clairvoyant or trance medium? Or is it seeing an apparition of someone you know to be dead? - or does extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof?

The six reasons I wrote about here are close parallels to what is paranormal in Marion's claims.

Marion Dampier Jeans has offered one million dollars to any skeptic who can rebut the evidence for the existence of the afterlife. She has not applied for Randi's challenge to see whether a psychic can really do what he claims to be able to do. Randi makes all conditions as favourable as possible to the psychic and she will in cooperation with the JREF set the requirements of the test. If she has paranormal, supernatural or occult power abilities there's 100% chance of winning.

If not she might have a series of lucky guesses....

Science should not be treated as a belief system, and using things like magic and psychism as evidence is not acceptable.

From The Haunted Museum: Tricks of the Fraudulent Mediums

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