Certainly, there has been much skepticism concerning the reality of paranormal powers since antiquity. A number of "natural philosophers," people that would eventually be known as scientists when more organized systems of thought came into existence, disproved such claims several centuries ago (Randi, 1982). For example, in 1692, a French dowsing practitioner by the name of Jacques Aymar was hired by municipal authorities to discover a murderer by swinging a pendulum. According to Randi, "Apparently, it was believed that guilt was detectable by this means. Aymar is said to have led the officials to a nineteen-year-old hunchback who subsequently was 'broken on the wheel' -- a particularly unpleasant death much favored as punishment for unpopular people like hunchbacks" (Randi, 1982, p. 3). Whether Aymar's success in his practice can be attributed to the same tendency of police officials today to supply a list of suspects and then credit the "psychic" with the identification of the murderer remains unclear; however, Randi adds that, "But we do know that when Jacques Aymar submitted to tests administered in Paris by the Prince de Conde, he failed them all. Aymar could hardly have avoided the tests, since he had become a national celebrity and is still touted among the faithful as a powerful operator. One wonders what the executed youth thought of Aymar's reputed powers" (Randi, 1982, p. 4). Another arcane practice known as "radiesthesia" was used by medieval psychics who used a divining rod to reveal the identity of thieves, a technique that was used inordinately often on innocent but unpopular or otherwise socially unacceptable citizens (Cavendish, 1970).
Definitions - Categories. As noted above, the definitions of psychics are quite broad. According to Abanes (1998), the term "psychic" was first used by French astronomer Camille Flammarion (1842- 1925); Flammarion's main interest, though, was in the area of necromancy (i.e., communication with the dead) via mediums; in the United Kingdom, the term "psychic" was first used by Edward Cox (1809-1879), a famous investigator of the paranormal (Abanes, 1998). The majority of psychics today are considered to be particularly "sensitive" in some fashion to information that is not normally available to non-psychic people; this otherwise unobtainable knowledge is received by them through a variety of paranormal phenomena: meetings with dead relatives, angelic encounters, disembodied voices, and color visions (Abanes, 1998, p. 44).
Previous Relevant Research. Despite the many inaccurate pronouncements that have come from psychics, people continue to look to them as reliable prognosticators. The twentieth century has seen at least three psychics whose end-time prophecies have enjoyed immense popularity: Charles "Criswell" King, Gordon Michael Scallion, and the famous Edgar Cayce. Scallion and Cayce were even featured on "Ancient Prophecies," a 1996/1997 four-part television documentary about the coming apocalypse (Abanes, 1998). Likewise, today, popular television series such as "Psychic Detectives" and "Psychics" suggest that many people either believe in their powers or are at least open to the possibility and intrigued by its potential. In fact, the use of "psychic powers" in a court of law has not been restricted to medieval France and a fairly contemporary instance took place in the city of Watkins Glen, near Binghamton, New York, where criminal justice authorities seem to believe in such powers and actually encourage their use in the courtroom in the 1980s (Randi, 1982). In his book, Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions, Randi reports, "A conjurer named Philip Jordan, whose claim to fame is that he performs the table-tipping trick and several other stunts right out of the catalog, has been retained by the police force and the Public Defender's Office to work for them in that city" (Randi, 1982, p. 4). This contracted "professional" psychic was even provided with a seat directly next to the public defender and, by measuring the "aura" around each prospective juror, made the decision as to whether that person was appropriate for jury duty. "Incredible?," Randi asks. "The trial judge saw nothing wrong with it. Apparently the New York judicial system accepts supernatural powers as genuine and allows them to be used in the courtroom process of determining the guilt or innocence of a defendant! The Dark Ages have not quite ended in Watkins Glen" (emphasis added) (Randi, 1982, p. 4).
Interestingly, not only did the judge accept this "professional" psychic and his zany voir...
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