h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There was a rather entertaining programme on TV a few years back; about an hour long, Randi had invited "experts" from every branch of the psychic phenomena to come on the show and demonstrate their own particular "powers" under his controlled conditions. As they failed, he would spend a couple of minutes pouring scorn on each one, and ridiculing those who had the temerity to believe in their scams. Except one.

The guy who came on to do "map dowsing" was shown, but not allowed to touch, three sealed envelopes containing target co-ordinates which Randi himself had picked from a pool of some 50-100 envelopes. (My memory is a little hazy on the size of the target pool, but it was large.) The guy waved his crystal over the available maps, and wrote down three co-ordinates. When the envelopes were opened, the three co-ordinates were all within a couple of feet of his dowsing results - this was insignificant error on the large-scale maps they were using. Randi just said something to the effect of "of course if you do enough experiments you'll run across coincidences" and walked away with a dismissive wave. It was at that point I lost all respect for his so-called "objectivity".

I remember him. > He just passed away I believe...bet he wishes he could get another word in.....hmmmm....maybe he will!

It must have been very recent; He was featured in an episode of "Horizon" about homeopathy just before Christmas...

No mention of his demise here: http://www.randi.org/

I would be trust Randi about as much as a televangelist.

If you refuse to believe in anything more exciting than plumbing, you miss out on a great deal of entertaining theorising.

OOOooops Sorry then randi and peet! No harm intended!*trying to get foot out*

There is a guy at Glasgow Uni. (Prof. Archie Roy I think his name is, old Astronomy guy) who studies this sort of thing, trying to get as much evidence as possible. I have heard him speak and he takes great trouble to give evidence and not sound sensational. Yet he definately reckons there is something going on, he is just not sure what. I saw him on TV checking out someone who claimed to be a psychic, and barber. They got fourteen, I think, people round a table and had the psychic walk in, look around, and then leave. He went to a different room, picked one of the people and procedded to write about them. The statements he wrote down were then chopped up, set down as questions and asked to all the people round the table. Most of them found about twenty five percent (I think) of the statements to apply to them, except the one person the psychic had chosen, who reckoned about seventy five percent applied. I don't know how he did it, and there was obviously a large margin of error, but very interesting it was. I definately reckon there is stuff of which science knows nothing, at the moment, but I'm sure, if researched properly, it will eventually be understood.

Didn't he do a lot of experiments in the old part of Edinburgh a couple of years ago?

I should point out that I was no one famous in my supposed "past life". But at the last count there were at least 24 minor celebrities all claiming to be Nell Gwynn in a former life.

May well have done. I think he works with the Psychical Research lot at Ediburgh Uni. I think most of the research in Edinburgh's Old Town turned out to be explainable draughts and imagination but I don't think everything was explained.

So howcome nobody was ever a 'peasant who didnt do much' in their past life?

That's the geezer!!

A bloke I know through a friend bought a flat a couple of years ago and quickly found that he was having trouble with the lights. They would be on when he came home - at least they would be as he came up the road, when he came into the flat they were off and the bulbs were cold. (Yes he was certain it was his own flat incidentally - often this happened when he was coming home with friends.)

Any way he was away a lot as he works for an American investment bank and he let his girfriend have a key. This situation seemed to be working fine, until she woke up one morning to find the other side of the double bed and the other pillow had an imprint of where someone had been lying next to her. She went home and refused to go back. So Matt sold the property - the estate agent was unsurprised when four months after he bought it, Matt turned up in their offices.

"So howcome nobody was ever a 'peasant who didnt do much' in their past life?"

If at all possible I'll return and be that person

An ex landlord of mine once told me how his mother used to go around the house and remove all the light-bulbs before going to bed and keep them in a pillowcase in the bath???? Apparently if she didn't they'd unscrew themselves.
The final straw for her was when one of the bulbs she'd left in the bath somehow ended up embedded in one of the panes of glass in the front door the following morning, the pane was broken but the bulb wasn't.
The room I was renting at the time would have been his mothers room when she was alive and I suspected a complete wind up, never believed a word of it until I found an old newspaper with a write-up of the story and a pic of the lightbulb stuck in the door.

TSF

Most people move a lot in their sleep! An imprint in the bed doesn`t mean a lot. It was most likely hers. Is this the best `evidence` for ghosts we`ve got? Real, provable, repeatable evidence? Oh dear.

One possible explaination of the "lights on, nobody home" phenomenon (if you'll pardon the expression!) is reflections from street lighting; Depending on the angles involved it's possible for a whole pane of glass to appear illuminated from the inside when in fact it's the reflection of a street light (or security spotlight) which is out of your direct line of sight... I've seen this happen, and it can be quite convincing even when you know why it's happening.

Hey I never put it up as being provable evidence bornonthe20thAugust so there really isn't any need for the sarcastic little "oh dear".

It is just someone else's experience and it would be nice if the sceptics for once would leave it as an anecdote rather then demanding proof of everything. As it happens the imprint was clear and separate from her own - she hadn't just rolled over in the night. The street lights is a good explanation but I believe Matt - he did physics at Cambridge and doesn't believe in ghosts as such. He just felt uncomfortable in the house and sold it on that basis.

I think people are far too harsh with demanding proof and repeatable experiments and all of that. Surely if ghosts/spirits are dead people, or at least images of the past...then like human life, they would be random. So some experiments would work, and some wouldn't...

The problem with proof is that it is relative. There could be a scientifically controlled experiment in some documented haunted location, and ghosts of all types could filmed, photographed, captured on infra-red camera and on other jiggery-pokery, all before a live audience, and there would still be people who will never believe, even amongst those who witnessed these things.

People's beliefs (not necessarily religious beliefs as this also includes scientific beliefs) are so deeply entrenched that even if they are proven wrong people will still carry on believing them. There are, sadly, some people who don't want the facts as this will alter their perception of the world.

Very very true.

ghosts are fascinating as a phenomenon on their own, I don't really care if they can be explained. Actually I reckon there are far more interesting explanations than 'spirits of the dead ...' since there are so many different 'types'.

Bornonthe... you appear to be pouncing on anything which to you can be easily-mocked (I notice there was no defence of 'The Amazing' Randi, f'rinstance) and ignoring most of it.

I have felt a small person(I believe a child) walk across our bed several times~~my husband mentioned it once, said he'd noticed it several times. The hubby laughed quite hard when I said the wee one wiggled my big toe and *giggles* when leaving. Along with the familiar thud of our cat (months after he died)Jumping from the hight dresser onto the bed.That last just a few months I never mentioned it to my husband as he often calls me a believer in the *whimsical* HE brought it up to me,after HE felt it.