tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30915874054407246412024-02-20T03:15:37.908-06:00I done thunk.Somewhere Between The Here & The Hereafter.Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.comBlogger75125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-44041115555711102642016-05-27T10:51:00.000-05:002016-05-27T11:00:05.083-05:00Testing Mediums in The Lab<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU3kWXhKmfBjVOy80EkNMBjVyoT1CIC-2NQvVhmWml3HSL1iFA60OyGo3K236GJe-7FUCs203eblaA7270rl4lVbIo063eqezXqnUrecS0Gj87W44yHHzil0zkRtqFG6a4udOH_uJFa9wH/s1600/smoke+%2526+Mirrors.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Smoke and Mirrors or Real?" border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU3kWXhKmfBjVOy80EkNMBjVyoT1CIC-2NQvVhmWml3HSL1iFA60OyGo3K236GJe-7FUCs203eblaA7270rl4lVbIo063eqezXqnUrecS0Gj87W44yHHzil0zkRtqFG6a4udOH_uJFa9wH/s400/smoke+%2526+Mirrors.jpg" title="Medium Marcel Cairo" width="340" /></a></div>
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If you've never heard the <a href="http://www.skeptiko.com/">Skeptiko podcast</a>, you might automatically think that it's geared to skeptics, debunkers and non-believers. Well, you would only be half wrong. Skeptiko is a podcast going on ten years that engages both believers and non-believers in a passionate dialog about an area of research that is as divisive as our current election. I'm talking about parapsychology and its place in scientific research.<br /><br />The passionate dialog on Skeptiko, the one between those who label themselves open to the paranormal, and those who are generally closed off to it, isn't always mature, respectful or even productive, but it does seem to be lowering the wall that separates two camps of thought, allowing each camp to reflect on the nature of belief and how science can actually peer into that world of subjective mystery. <br /><br />A great example of Skeptiko's power to bridge the conversation between believers and non-believers is an interview last year with <a href="http://www.windbridge.org/windbridge-institute-investigators/">Dr. Julie Beischel</a> of <a href="http://www.windbridge.org/">The Windbridge Institute.</a> The Windbridge Institute is the only scientific research center dedicated to the study of mediumship and its related fields. As Dr. Beischel states...<br /><br />Dr. Beischel: Science is just a tool. It’s just one way we learn how the universe works so it can be applied to anything. And there were a lot of people with strong opinions about what the capacity of mediums is. Can they report accurate and specific information? So I took the scientific method and I applied it to mediumship. Again, it’s just a tool you can apply to anything and so yes, it does go together because it’s something we don’t fully understand yet. So yes, [mediumship] is the perfect thing for science to tackle because we don’t understand it. <a href="http://www.skeptiko.com/psychic-medium-tested-under-tightest-labratory-conditions/">Full podcast Interview.</a><br /><br />If you've always found your thinking to be at the crossroads between science and spirituality, <a href="http://www.skeptiko.com/">Skeptiko</a> is a great place to find a voice for your own beliefs. Also, if you want to hear a Skeptiko podcast interview with your truly, you can just <a href="http://www.skeptiko.com/27-medium-research-and-the-battle-between-science-and-religion/">click here</a>. :-)</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238695351737855062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-19545188854392538962009-04-03T11:57:00.006-05:002016-03-26T10:12:33.316-05:00The Haunting in ConnecticutI really don't know what to think of all this hoopla over the release of <i>The Haunting in Connecticut</i>, an Amityville Horror style movie based on a "true story".<br><br> Hauntings are out of my realm of expertise, really, but every single case I have been called on to look into, proved to be a case of the inhabitants of the house being haunted by their own lives and circumstances, rather than the house itself being inhabited by troubled spirits.<br><br>Simply on an entertainment level, this story is totally captivating. However, I am a medium that embraces science, not Hollywood, so any guilty pleasure I derive from this story will take place in a darkened movie theater with no one watching me hiding inside my bucket of popcorn.Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-90141552495516506102009-03-23T13:07:00.005-05:002009-03-23T20:46:13.422-05:00Homemade Hologram - Super Cool!This is the coolest thing ever! Part of a GE marketing effort to promote "the Smart Grid;" you can create a visual 3-D hologram from a 2 dimensional piece of paper you print at home. It really,really works. Spin your hologram in a 180 degree angle for some really cool effects. Turn it upside down to get really freaky!<br><br>Note: You will need to install the latest version of Flash Player (free) to see the hologram in action.<br><br><a href="http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/#/augmented_reality">Click here to get started.</a><br><br><object width="445" height="364"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/NK59Beq0Sew&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/NK59Beq0Sew&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="445" height="364"></embed></object><br><br>Well worth the effort.<br><br><br><span class="fullpost"></span>Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-84508043331990949482009-03-17T23:46:00.004-05:002016-05-25T22:54:07.415-05:00Consciousness On The Operating Table<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhszAo7Hq2C5N3rUYkXu8MKgSWIsv9YuCJy6ZTLOEYigL9lrdTlDTBk0tfWvPCqry_-lS61C5-XK7uPgku7utSdZjWjqSP6LRCBnz9BMR-udK5AQ5IPh9F2Oqnvs2i09uVud2-cJTVzonah/s1600/17iku0idjle7ujpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhszAo7Hq2C5N3rUYkXu8MKgSWIsv9YuCJy6ZTLOEYigL9lrdTlDTBk0tfWvPCqry_-lS61C5-XK7uPgku7utSdZjWjqSP6LRCBnz9BMR-udK5AQ5IPh9F2Oqnvs2i09uVud2-cJTVzonah/s200/17iku0idjle7ujpg.jpg" width="200" /></a>According to <a href="http://discovermagazine.com/2009/apr/16-could-dose-ether-contain-secret-consciousness/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C=">this article</a> from Discover online, anesthesiologists may soon be able to gauge consciousness much as doctors gauge a patient’s temperature with a thermometer. Perhaps some of the mystery of consciousness itself—a question that has vexed philosophers for centuries—will be solved on the operating table.<br />
<span class="fullpost"><br />I was looking forward to my first experience with anesthesia. I had been laid out on a stretcher, and nurses and doctors were prepping my midsection so they could slice it open and cut out my appendix. After a bout of appendicitis, a short vacation from consciousness seemed like a pleasant way to spend a few hours. I had no idea what anesthesia would actually feel like, though, and suddenly I was seized by skepticism. I tried to hoist myself up, already swabbed in iodine, as I suggested that I ought to pop into the men’s room before the scalpels came out. I wouldn’t want to interrupt the surgery with a bathroom break. “Don’t worry,” one of the nurses replied. “We’ll do that for you.”<br /><br />I lay back down, puzzling over that. After a nurse put the IV into my hand, I had to interrupt again: The anesthesia flowing into my arm was not working. I just couldn’t believe that anything would keep me asleep while someone was knitting up my intestines. The nurses and doctors nodded in my direction as I tried to explain the problem to them, but I was sure they weren’t taking me seriously. I took a long, slow blink. And then there were no doctors and nurses around me. I was lying alone in a new room, recovering from my surgery.<br /><br />Ever since that experience, I’ve wondered what exactly happened in my head. It didn’t feel like sleep. It was not a blackout, either. It was as if the surgeons had simply cut a few hours out of my life and joined together the loose ends. So I decided to get more familiar with the science behind anesthesia. To my surprise, I discovered that anesthesiologists are a bit in the dark themselves. “How anesthesia works has been a mystery since the discovery of anesthesia itself,” writes Michael Alkire, an anesthesiologist at the University of California at Irvine School of Medicine, in the new Encyclopedia of Consciousness.<br /><br />The first public demonstration of anesthesia during surgery took place in 1846 in Boston. A man named Gilbert Abbott took some deep drafts of ether, and surgeons began cutting a tumor off his jaw. The audience was shocked that Abbott did not scream and squirm. One London newspaper expressed the amazement that many must have felt: “Oh, what delight for every feeling heart to find the new year ushered in with the announcement of this noble discovery of the power to still the sense of pain and veil the eye and memory from all the horrors of an operation.”<br /><br />Today anesthesiologists have a number of drugs to choose from, as well as machines to administer them safely. Every year tens of millions of people get general anesthesia. In 2008 Columbia University epidemiologist Guohua Li reported that each year only one person in a million suffers an anesthesia-related death in the United States. But for all these achievements, anesthesia remains deeply puzzling.<br /><br />To begin with, anesthesiologists have no precise way to determine when people lose consciousness. In Abbott’s day, doctors would simply ask their patients to respond, perhaps by opening their eyes. A lack of response was taken as a sign of unconsciousness. Many modern anesthesiologists talk to their patients, but judging the response is made more complicated by the muscle relaxants that they also use. Sometimes the anesthesiologist will use a blood pressure cuff on a patient’s arm to block the muscle relaxants in the bloodstream. Then the doctor asks the patient to squeeze a hand.<br /><br />This sort of test can distinguish between a patient who is awake and one who is out cold. But at the borderline of consciousness, it is not very precise. The inability to raise your hand, for example, doesn’t necessarily mean that you are unconscious. Even a light dose of anesthesia can interfere with your capacity to keep new pieces of information in your brain, so you may not respond to a command because you immediately forgot what you were going to do. On the other hand, squeezing an anesthesiologist’s hand may not mean you’re wide awake. Some patients who can squeeze a hand will later have no memory of being aware.<br /><br />Seeking a more reliable measuring stick, some researchers have started measuring brain waves. When you are awake, your brain produces fast, small waves of electrical activity. When you are under total anesthesia, your brain waves become deep and slow. If you get enough of certain anesthetics, your brain waves eventually go flat. Most anesthesiologists monitor their patients using a machine known as a bispectral index monitor, which reads brain waves from electrodes on a patient’s scalp and produces a score from 100 to 0. But these machines aren’t precise either. Sometimes patients who register as unconscious can still squeeze a hand on command.<br /><br />The problem with all these methods is that anesthesiologists don’t really know what it is they are trying to measure. So Alkire and other scientists are using neuroimaging to peer into the anesthetized brain to see what happens when it succumbs. In a typical experiment, a volunteer lies in an fMRI brain scanner, which can measure the amount of oxygen used in different parts of the brain. A researcher gives the volunteer anesthesia and measures how those brain regions respond.<br />+++<br /><br />Such studies find that the entire brain powers down on anesthesia, its activity dropping between 30 and 60 percent. The results are somewhat ambiguous, since brain regions respond differently to different drugs. But one region consistently becomes quieter than average: a grape-size cluster of neurons almost dead center in the brain known as the thalamus.<br /><br />Is the thalamus the brain’s power switch? It certainly has the right stuff for the job. A thicket of neurons sprout from the thalamus and branch across the cortex, the outer layer of the brain where we interpret the information from our senses and make decisions, then back into the thalamus. As the brain’s sensory relay station, the thalamus is responsible for sending rousing signals to the cortex when we wake up from ordinary sleep. In 2007 Alkire and his collaborators probed the role of the thalamus by putting rats in a box flooded with anesthetics, which caused the animals to keel over. If Alkire and his colleagues then injected a tiny dose of nicotine into the thalamus, the rats immediately came to and stayed conscious even as they continued to inhale the anesthetics.<br /><br />Yet studies on patients with Parkinson’s disease show that the thalamus cannot completely explain how anesthesia works. Surgeons can treat Parkinson’s by implanting electrodes deep inside the brain. These electrodes release pulses of current to tamp down the wild movements associated with the disease. Lionel Velly, an anesthesiologist at Mediterranean University in Marseille, France, ran an experiment in which he used the electrodes in the other direction, to record electrical activity in the brain.<br /><br />In a second surgical procedure less than a week after the brain surgery, Velly and his colleagues took readings from the deep-brain electrodes in 25 patients while also collecting electrode readings from their scalp. The scalp recordings let the scientists monitor the cortex, while the deep-brain electrodes let them monitor the thalamus. Velly’s team found that the cortex started producing deep, slow waves as soon as patients became unresponsive. The thalamus, on the other hand, didn’t change for another 15 minutes. The pattern Velly saw was the reverse of what you would expect if the thalamus were the brain’s master switch.<br /><br /> The secret of anesthesia may lie not in any single clump of neurons but in the conversations taking place between many clumps in the brain.<br /><br />Giulio Tononi, a University of Wisconsin neuroscientist, suggests that the secret of anesthesia may not in fact lie in any single clump of neurons. It may lie instead in the conversations that take place between many clumps in the brain. Normally information from our senses races from one region of the cortex to another, getting processed in different ways in each place. Some regions help us recognize faces in a scene, for example, while other regions help us figure out what emotions those faces are expressing. The sensory signals travel through a mass transit system made up of long branches of neurons that crisscross the brain. This system has a few hubs through which many connections pass. One is the thalamus, but certain parts of the cortex also serve as hubs.<br /><br />Although the brain may become less active under anesthesia, it usually doesn’t shut down completely (if it did, we would die). In fact, when scientists played a tone into the ears of an anesthetized cat, its cortex still produced strong bursts of electricity. But its responses were different from those of a waking cat. In an anesthetized cat, the brain responds the same way to any sound, with a noisy crackle of neurons. In a waking cat, the response is complex: One brain region after another responds as the animal processes the sound, and different sounds produce different responses. It’s as if the waking brain produces a unique melody, whereas the anesthetized brain can produce only a blast of sound or no sound at all.<br /><br />Tononi suggests that this change happens because anesthesia interferes with the brain’s mass transit system. Individual parts of the cortex can still respond to a stimulus. But the brain can’t move these signals around to other parts to create a single unified experience.<br /><br />Tononi argues that the difference between brain music and brain noise defines the very nature of consciousness. Consciousness is the brain’s ability to be in a complex state, even in response to a simple stimulus like a tone. The vast number of different states our brains can enter when we are aware gives consciousness its marvelously rich feeling. In order to produce those states, the brain needs lots of neural elements that are active and able to respond, as well as the mass transit system that links them all together.<br /><br />Working from this hypothesis, Tononi and his colleagues are trying to develop tools that can monitor levels of consciousness in anesthetized patients. They are also developing software to measure the complexity of the brain’s responses to stimuli. If Tononi’s idea is correct, anesthesiologists may be moving toward being able to gauge consciousness much as doctors gauge a patient’s temperature with a thermometer. Perhaps some of the mystery of consciousness itself—a question that has vexed philosophers for centuries—will be solved on the operating table.</span>Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-90299081594522793912009-02-25T22:56:00.006-06:002009-02-26T01:14:51.872-06:00James Randi - The Coward That Blinked<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.nndb.com/people/588/000022522/randi2.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 225px; height: 285px;" src="http://www.nndb.com/people/588/000022522/randi2.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Hat tip:<a href="http://deanradin.blogspot.com/2009/02/randi-backs-out-of-challenge-with.html">Entangled Minds</a>.<br><br>The following post comes from <a href="http://www.vithoulkas.com/content/view/1973/lang,en/">this article</a>.<br><br>In 2002 the BBC Horizon program presented <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2512105.stm">a documentary</a> that showed that the Benveniste experiment about homeopathy was a fake one and therefore... homeopathy was also fake! <br /><br />Mr.Vithoulkas had repeatedly stressed in many communications that the experiment was in any case a falsely conceived one from its very beginning (see the correspondence). The opponents of homeopathy basing in this false experiment by Benveniste their hypocritical arguments maintained that homeopathy was simply placebo effect.<br /><br />Mr Randi after this false experiment (ignoring all other experiments that showed the effect of homeopathy) declared in his website (http://www.randi.org/) that whoever could prove the validity of the action of a homeopathically potentized remedy beyond the Avogadro number would be winning one million $ as a prize.<br /><br />Mr Vithoulkas challenged this statement and with this idea a new experiment was conceived that would prove that the highly potentized remedies could actually have a biological effect upon the human organism.<br /><br />The experiment was simple: An individualized remedy would be given to a number of patients in a double blind fashion and half of the patients would receive placebo the other half would get the real remedy. The Greek Homeopathic physicians that would participate in taking of the cases and prescribing the remedies should point out in the end of the experiment the ones that they had got the real remedy.<br /><br />The protocol was structured by a group of internationally known scientists and the experiment had to take place in one of the hospitals in Athens.<br /><br />What follows is the real story (with facts in correspondence that transpired) of how through several "tricks", Mr.Randi refused to go through the experiment and rescued his million.<br /><br />We sent the following statement to Mr. Randi in order to be posted to his website but he refused to post it. <a href="http://www.vithoulkas.com/content/view/1973/lang,en/">Full Story.</a><br><br>To read more about how James Randi backed out of a challenge, read -<a href = "http://www.NaturalNews.com/025627.html">Randi Backs Out of Challenge with Homeopath George Vithoulkas</a><br><br></span>Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-6107132794427619532009-02-16T11:38:00.000-06:002009-02-16T12:15:10.596-06:00It's getting cold in here...With the recent popularity of the TV show, <a href="http://www.cbs.com/primetime/the_mentalist/about/">The Mentalist</a>, there's been a renewed interest in "cold reading" techniques that many skeptics claim is the foundation for psychic or mediumship readings.<br><br>Fraud exists everywhere in the psychic/mediumship world. At all levels. Sometimes that fraud is perpetrated with forethought, other times, it's just a byproduct of self-delusion. However, when you remove all the questionable and objectionable evidence from the mix, you are still left with volumes of evidence and experiments that beg the question, "Is there more to consciousness that meets the mind?"<br><br>So, back to the cold reading claim. I recently found <a href="http://www.wikihow.com/Cold-Read" target="_blank">a post</a> (http://www.wikihow.com/Cold-Read) that gives its readers very detailed directions in how to portray yourself as a psychic or medium. Here's the intro to the article - <blockquote><i>"Want to be a hit at the next party? Perform a cold reading, and you can amaze - maybe even frighten - people with your psychic abilities. Don't worry though; no actual psychic ability is required. Cold reading is a classic trick used by magicians, soothsayers, TV psychics, and other entertainers and charlatans. By asking a person the right questions, listening carefully, and making a guess or two, you can convince even many skeptics that you really are able to communicate with the spirit world.</blockquote></i>I am posting the intro and link here for two reasons. One, it serves as a warning to gullible people that bad psychics and mediums do exist, and they do use these techniques. Two, it serves as a reminder of how shallow and ignorant skeptical arguments are against valid scientific research into consciousness survival.<br><br>In any major research protocol dealing with anomalous cognition, rigorous steps are taken to eliminate any possibility of cold reading as a possible explanation. Eliminating this explanation doesn't prove "life after death", but it does require the skeptical community to shed, once and for all, their automated rejection of the question that is still hanging out there, and like I said earlier, begging investigation, "Is there more to consciousness that meets the mind?"<br><br><span class="fullpost"></span><br>Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-49333543102965787872008-12-17T23:49:00.000-06:002008-12-17T23:52:44.985-06:00Brett Dennen - "Ain't No Reason"Brett Dennen is a master singer/songwriter who deserves attention and accolades from music lovers worldwide. Check out his video for the song, "Ain't no reason."<br><br><br><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/amwVyRH2B8A&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/amwVyRH2B8A&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br><br><span class="fullpost"></span>Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-74537355028474301342008-12-12T11:23:00.000-06:002008-12-12T11:41:03.061-06:00The Folly of PridePride is an elevator that never stops to let you off, but always waits for you to get in. It takes you to the highest level of achievement, then lowers you to the highest level of self-deception. Case in point, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. The audacity of his corruption and lack of his self-restraint will become infamous in the annals of political idiots.<br><br>Charles W. Colson, a former aide to President Nixon, was also once a passenger on the elevator of pride, until he realized that he had to escape through the ceiling trap, and jump off.<br><br>In a revealing <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/12/10/colson.corruption/index.html">CNN.com editorial</a>, (highly recommended reading) Charles W. Colson, exposes the folly of pride that took him down with the Watergate scandal and landed him in Prison. In his editorial, Mr. Colson does an amazing job in identifying the spiritual corruption that is often the negative side effect of personal pride.<br><br>One of my favorite quotes in the editorial, is a quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who wrote from the gulag, "Bless you, prison, bless you for being in my life, for there, lying on the rotting prison straw, I came to realize that the object of life is not prosperity, as we are made to believe, but the maturing of the human soul.<br><br>No, you don't have to be a politician to ride the elevator of pride, trust me, I know. You just have to invest in the "culture of self" to such a degree that you no longer recognize the self in selflessness.<br><br><span class="fullpost"></span>Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-81640035360300885052008-08-18T06:58:00.000-05:002008-08-18T09:12:59.499-05:00Medium Smackdown - Allison Dubois Hits Me on MySpaceIn a <a href="http://idonethunk.blogspot.com/2008/06/dubious-about-dubois.html">recent post</a>, I called into question some of the actions and claims put forward by Allison Dubois, the inspiration for the TV show "Medium." Now, Allison Dubois has taken up her defense against these accusations and posted it to MySpace.<br><br>In a short <a href="http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=130517102&blogID=407164968">blog post</a>, and in a series of comments after the post, Ms. Dubois lashes out at me and Dr. Gary E. Schwartz.<br><br>My favorite quote from her lashing just might be - <blockquote><i>"Let's all hope that Gary and Marcel spend more time being buddies and less time connecting themselves to my name."</i></blockquote>So Gary, should we go fishing next weekend, or do you want to go bowling and have a few beers afterward? Oh, and by the way, Gary, I promise we won't talk about Allison this time.<br><br>Some may recall that Ms. Dubois was once a research medium in the Veritas Research Program run by Dr. Gary E. Schwartz at the University of Arizona. Ms. Dubois and Dr. Gary Schwartz had a <a href="http://dailygrail.com/essays/afterlife-research-controversy">public falling out</a> in 2005, as so did another one of Dr. Schwartz's research mediums, Ms. Laurie Campbell.<br><br>Ms. Dubois' post is short enough for me to print here (her typos included), but you need to read the <a href="http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=130517102&blogID=407164968">comments thread</a> to truly appreciate how childish and insufficient Ms. Dubois' replies to the accusations really are.<blockquote>Recently it has been brought to my attention that Gary Schwartz ("scientist" who use to study me) and his cronie Marcel have been bad mouthing me. First let me say that people in the spiritual field are not suppose to spew venom they are suppose to embrace their intuition and the otherside. They are claiming that law enforcement has never come forward for me which is so far from the truth. It's true that some have lied about not working with me and the media found the truth which supported that I worked with them. Fortunately I have a new show coming out that will allow me to bipass those in law enforcement that fear persecution. I'll let you know more about that when the official announcement has been made. I know Gary and Marcel will be very happy for me. By the way I've never met or heard of Marcel until I was informed that he can't get enough of me.<br><br>They also claim I exaggerated my work with law enforcement to Medium producers to get the show which is laughable. The producers approached me in the first place and the show would have just had a different tone if I didn't work with the law. The show is "based" on my life not a biography as you all know from my books. Maybe Gary should talk less and read more. I've been told Gary's mad because he was not invited to be a part of Oprah with me. Sounds like a poor sport. Maybe Gary should spend more time being a professor and less time throwing temper tantrums because I felt his lab was inadequate and left. Let's all hope that Gary and Marcel spend more time being buddies and less time connecting themselves to my name.</blockquote>Well, as cute and sarcastic as you are, Allison, the facts simply do not support your claims, and you have never provided sufficient evidence to silence challenges to your story. Besides, no one is questioning if the TV show takes creative liberties with the truth, that is obvious. People are questioning whether you have taken liberties with the truth in various interviews and books in which you make extraordinary claims for which there is insufficient evidence, or in some cases, no evidence at all.<br><br>So, why do I care what you say or do, Ms. Dubois? I'm glad you asked.<br><br>For starters, there isn't a day that goes by that skeptics don't use the public media to call mediums,"frauds," or challenge their moral fabric and personal ethics. Yes, I'm use to this, it's part of the territory that comes with being a medium. I'm thick skinned, and I can take it. Yet, each time a high visibility medium like yourself, Ms. Dubois, is caught or accused of manipulating the truth for their own gain, it's harder to argue against the skeptics' criticisms and win back the public trust. So, obviously, this matters to me a lot.<br><br>More importantly, though, Ms. Dubois, you were a research medium before you became a TV Medium. Your path from a science-friendly medium to a made-for-TV medium with a dubious story only places a larger target on scientists and researchers who would be daring (or foolish) enough to undertake medium research. Yes, Ms. Dubois, your actions and your story have hurt scientific research into consciousness survival.<br><br>Allison, I don't have anything against you personally, and I wish you all of the success in the world. My biggest wish, though, is that you would think about the bigger scientific picture and the overall public integrity of the "survival hypothesis" each time you make a claim that is simply fantasy.<span class="fullpost"></span><br><br>Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-76447945404891825072008-07-30T18:36:00.000-05:002008-07-31T17:36:30.556-05:00Mother, you had me, but I never had you...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTjq7-40Spzi0PrY9vuagRrsBHnlgauRNN3orrgQBwyY_GR7Crq9Yp-GGeu_O0g2ye2u3PhWDstdJEKJ7VXLG1c4C1zM4gFNfzrHVLTYAxHhJDu6UpREgVhKQ6ZyWn8Nck34rCvD5rThL1/s1600-h/Eva+Lee+Snead.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTjq7-40Spzi0PrY9vuagRrsBHnlgauRNN3orrgQBwyY_GR7Crq9Yp-GGeu_O0g2ye2u3PhWDstdJEKJ7VXLG1c4C1zM4gFNfzrHVLTYAxHhJDu6UpREgVhKQ6ZyWn8Nck34rCvD5rThL1/s200/Eva+Lee+Snead.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5228959660259765954" /></a>On Wednesday, they told me you had gone. On Thursday, I fought to carry on. On Friday, I traveled back home. On Saturday, I saw you so still, all alone. On Sunday, we said our goodbyes. On Monday, we opened your will, no surprise. On Tuesday, you returned in an urn. It's Wednesday again, and my heart still hurts.<br><br>Mom, it's been quite a week, please tell me you're not still asleep.<br><br>I miss you,<br>your son.<br><br><a href="http://www.legacy.com/SanAntonio/Obituaries.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonID=114143857">Obituary</a><br><br><span class="fullpost"></span>Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-47303858483696961782008-07-16T13:31:00.000-05:002009-02-17T10:43:32.487-06:00Indymac & Me - How a Medium Broke The Bank<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkQ9uxVPKU7KCovi6oUPwKRDl5LSO0Tqv7iTBKPVNL3PvMtPkePfRHlZrPPr5P9GGNTHS8GEIbucPbj61z5sW5IK5m6704S4kld9MlL1_LBhKSbqCJlODA0Z8fB96aFNF_TEO44DtO9Kla/s1600-h/Indy&Me.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkQ9uxVPKU7KCovi6oUPwKRDl5LSO0Tqv7iTBKPVNL3PvMtPkePfRHlZrPPr5P9GGNTHS8GEIbucPbj61z5sW5IK5m6704S4kld9MlL1_LBhKSbqCJlODA0Z8fB96aFNF_TEO44DtO9Kla/s320/Indy&Me.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5223757127317555714" /></a>Just the other day, I joked with my wife, saying that I was "The King of all Psychics" because I did more than just predict the fall of Indymac Bank, I may actually have caused it.<br><br>On Friday, June 11th, 2008, federal regulators with the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) took over Pasadena based Indymac Bank. The takeover is already being billed as possibly the biggest bank failure in U.S. history. In the political onslaught of <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/13/news/companies/schumer_indymac/index.htm?section=money_latest" target="_blank">public finger pointing</a> and blame placing that followed, the OTS pointed a very loud finger at NY Senator, Chuck Schumer, for causing a run on Indymac's deposits after issuing a public letter of concern about Indymac's fiscal viability. In turn, Senator Schumer fired back and said that the OTS had been "asleep at the switch" when it came to monitoring Indymac's lending practices.<br><br>While both parties may have cause for blame, I think it's time for me to be a man and own up to my own culpability in this dark story. So here goes my confession...<br><br>I created the advertising slogan that carried Indymac Bank to its grave.<br><br>Yes, the pen may be indeed mightier than the loan. For I wrote a slogan so clever in its simplicity, people couldn't believe our enemies hadn't thought of it first themselves. This slogan was lethal in it's precision. Though not intentional, this slogan encouraged brokers to dole out big bucks to both innocent and irresponsible FICO score refugees looking to own property in the badlands of Mortgageville. Unfortunately, the slogan was so precise in its purpose, it was completely blind to the risk posed by the shaky subprime loans that was propping it up.<br><br>There is more, though. Not only did I write a killer slogan, I wrote corporate prose that inspired thousands of other Indymac Bank employees to believe that this slogan made Indymac Bank an invincible steamroller of opportunity.<br><br>For all this creative hubris, I was paid handsomely, I was personally celebrated and I had my 15 minutes of fame extended to 16 1/2.<br><br><img src="http://www.marcelcairo.com/English/Print_files/LTFB%202_1.jpg" width="200" height="300"><img src="http://www.marcelcairo.com/English/Print_files/LTFB%204_1.jpg" width="200" height="300"><img src="http://www.marcelcairo.com/English/Print_files/LTFB%205_1.jpg" width="200" height="300"><img src="http://www.marcelcairo.com/English/Print_files/LTFB%203_1.jpg" width="200" height="300"><br><br>I am the guy who not only came up with "Let the fund begin!" (LTFB), I am the guy who talked up the verve "our guys" would feel in the field as our rally cry, "Let the fund begin!" carried them forward into battle, armed with our great loan products.<br><br>In my promotion of the slogan, I was relentless. I put "Let the fund begin!" on pins, shirts, hats, canvas bags, mugs, balls, keychains, banners, flashlights, anywhere big enough to hold our new call to crusade.<br><br>I started working at IndyMac Bank in April of 2004. I needed the job. My wife and I had moved to California a year earlier, needing a much deserved respite from Brooklyn, NY while we pursued our dreams of parenthood. My wife's job as a fashion designer had brought us to California, and I was sure that I could easily get freelance work as a marketing and advertising copywriter. <br><br>Well, it wasn't that easy. I didn't have that many connections, and the market was saturated with writers. Obviously, I hadn't realized how many failed or unemployed TV and movie writers had ventured into advertising.<br><br>By April 2004, I was a bit desperate. My head hunter called and asked me if I would be interested in a full-time gig writing for one of the country's top twenty online mortgage banks. <br><br>"Mortgage Bank?" I had no financial know-how whatsoever and despised anything to do with banks or financial services. "I'm perfect for it!" I replied, and within a year's time, my wife and I had moved to within a half mile of Indymac's mortgage bank headquarters in Pasadena.<br><br>2004 to 2005 was a big learning curve for me. Not only did I have to learn the ins and outs of the mortgage industry, I had to learn how to maneuver around the often schizophrenic mind of a government regulated money lender. By Schizophrenic, I mean that we were encouraged to be fearless in our pursuit of possible loan candidates, but at the same time, we were warned and admonished to not go so far as to be guilty of predatory lending practices.<br><br>At Indymac Bank, like at any other bank, that schizophrenic mind has a devil's advocate, a loud voice that tells you when to feel guilty and when to rationalize that guilt so you feel nothing when someone calls you on it later. That voice is the Corporate Compliance Officer. <br><br>Compliance Officers can find different meanings at the opposite ends of a Q-tip. They kill concepts like housewives kill roaches and ants; indiscriminately spraying their poison till everything stops moving, even business itself. I can remember many times when Indymac's compliance officers tried to stop "Let the fund begin!" in its tracks. I would argue and debate them every time. "Don't you get it!" I would plea. "How can we beat our competition in a cage fight, when you guys don't even unleash us from the post?"<br><br>Compliance was a huge concern at Indymac Bank. Federal regulators and consumer watchdog groups were constantly looking at what we were doing with our loan programs. Over and over again, we were lectured to not write anything in our advertising campaign that could be interpreted as enticing less than perfect credit borrowers with false promises or hiding from them the potential risks of the loans we were encouraging them to buy. Basically, we had to be as clean as possible getting risky borrowers through the door. Once inside, however, loan officers and underwriters had no problem shoving those compliance regulations into the back of their desk drawers to make room for new loan files.<br><br>Coincidentally, or not so coincidentally, the same month I started at Indymac bank, April 2004, I accepted my first monetary payment as a medium. I was paid $10 for a 15 minute reading as part of a fundraiser for the Spiritualist Church in Monrovia, CA. Though the $10 went to the church, I had broken a 20 year tradition of never accepting a penny for my spiritual work. This was an agonizing moment for me, but when the dirty transaction was complete, I had fallen from saint to sinner, from spiritual philanthropist to material capitalist, and there was no turning back.<br><br>The two years I spent at Indymac Bank, my spiritual self and my material self would wrestle with each other like rival brothers fighting for the top bunk. I was never fully comfortable with either role, medium or marketer. This past week, as Indymac Bank's massive failure graced headlines across the land, I couldn't help but feel a bit of that failure inside myself.<br><br>Though I know that my silly little slogan had nothing to do with the collapse of the bank, I think this episode serves as a perfect allegory for what can happen to our souls when our individual goals or our personal successes split us up into two equal but separate people.<br><br>As the rock group The Police once sang, we are "spirits in the material world."<br><br>When the two halves of who we are become too self aware, it's possible that those two halves can start to hate and blame each other for their codependency. This bifurcation of self is like living with a constant feeling of being homesick for a place you've never really been to. You, yourself, become aware that this feeling is irrational, but somehow you just can't really shake it.<br><br>Perhaps that's why we are here on this Earth, to experience this irrational schizophrenia of self. There are the many joys of individuality, but with them come the many pains and perils of seeing yourself as separate or different than others.<br><br>Both the separation and bond of the spirit self from the material self is what makes joy and agony such existential bedfellows. My belief is that this thing we call "life" has a lot to do with that experience. Some of us get it, and some of us don't, but it is a feeling we will quickly surrender when we reunite with the collective self that seems to guide us from a distant cliff of consciousness. So for me, Indymac will always be that station where my spirit self and my material self took different trains. They are on different tracks now, and I am homesick for that place I've never been to.<br><br>I still remember how on my last day at Indymac Bank, a co-worker tried to immortalize me by announcing, "you will always be remembered by the slogan you created." Just before I could get out a "God, I hope that's not true," I saw a John Lennon poster that humbly proclaimed, "Love is all you need." I immediately went home to work on a new slogan to be remembered by.<br><br><b>Epilogue:</b> Marcel is currently living a topsy turvy life with a wonderful wife, two adorable kids, two unruly dogs and not a good slogan in sight.<br><br>For a brilliant and entertaining NPR podcast of how the whole mortgage crises came to be <a href="http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1242" target="_blank">click here</a>.<br><br><span class="fullpost"></span>Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-2979790149664963882008-06-16T13:46:00.000-05:002008-08-01T14:04:30.031-05:00Dubious about Dubois<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.hamptonroadspub.com/bookstore/imagelibrary/books/TruthAboutMedium_150w.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px;" src="http://www.hamptonroadspub.com/bookstore/imagelibrary/books/TruthAboutMedium_150w.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>EDITOR"S NOTE:<i> I wanted to add this point of clarification which I seemed to have omitted from the post itself. I in no way am calling Allison Dubois' or Laurie Campbell's work with the Veritas Research Program into question. I am merely commenting on the controversy surrounding Ms. Dubois' public claims to having played a crucial and pivotal role in the resolution of several high profile investigations across the country.</i><br><br>I have been publicly criticized in the past for crossing the white line. The white line is the psychic world's equivalent to the "blue line" you find in the world of law enforcement. Like the blue line, the white line is an unwritten code of silence and a demarcation of loyalty. If you are a cop and you cross the blue line, you are essentially considered a dirty rat, scum-sucking snitch, yellow-bellied whistle-blower who better watch his back. So, by writing this, I am essentially warned of the pounding that may follow for criticizing a fellow medium.<br><br>I experienced a little of this last year when I crossed that white line by challenging medium, <a href="http://www.lauriecampbell.net/">Laurie Campbell</a>. Ms. Campbell is a medium made famous by <a href="http://">Dr. Gary E. Schwartz </a>in his seminal work, <a href="http://paranormal.about.com/library/weekly/aa093002a.htm">The Afterlife Experiments</a>.<br><br>Some have dubbed Laurie Campbell as <i>the most tested medium of her times</i>. This claim may actually be true of this century, though many could still argue that this distinction and honor more properly belongs to <a href="http://www.prairieghosts.com/piper.html">Leonora Piper</a>.<br><br>Described as a shy, unassuming housewife at the time that Dr. Schwartz met her, Laurie Campbell quickly rose to the top of her game and became the standard bearer for all mediums entering Dr. Schwartz's <a href="http://veritas.arizona.edu/">Veritas Research Program</a>. As a CRM (certified research Medium), Laurie was extremely generous with her time and extremely happy with the attention and business <i>The Afterlife Experiments</i> brought her. As she should have been.<br><br>Then in 2005, something changed. That change was a show called <b><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0412175/">Medium</a></b>, based on the life of fellow CRM, <a href="http://www.allisondubois.com/">Allison Dubois</a>.<br><br>In the lab, Dr. Schwartz called Allison Dubois the "Michael Jordan of mediums." However in 2005, Dubois and Schwartz fell out of favor with each other over Schwartz publication of his book, <a href="http://www.lauralee.com/index.cgi?pid=4459">"The Truth About Medium,"</a> which coincided with the debut of the show based on her life and professional claims.<br><br> According to Dubois, she had asked Dr. Schwartz not to include her name or her stories in his book. Dr. Schwartz contradicts this, saying Dubois had always been very willing to have her name associated with his research, and had signed a waiver indicating so. He has said this many times, including on my own internet radio program, <a href="http://afterlifefm.podbean.com/2008/01/15/one-on-one-with-dr-gary-e-schwartz/">AfterlifeFM Profiles</a>.<br><br>I mention Allison Dubois' falling out with Dr. Schwartz because Laurie Campbell also filed a breach of confidentiality complaint against Dr. Schwartz around this time. I'm not implying anything fishy by this, but it has been suggested to me, though I have no evidence for it, that Allison herself may have influenced Laurie's decision to file this motion as well as having been the influence behind Laurie's famous TV appearance attacking Dr. Schwartz's professional ethics.<br><br>On Octeober 6, 2007 (my 40th birthday), Laurie embarked on what I see as a calculated character assassination against the very same man who catapulted her career into the spotlight, Dr. Gary E. Schwartz. I say character assassination only because it's difficult to find another term to describe the type of journalism that was showcased on the <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=drrciHKm7TU">Geraldo at large show</a> that evening. <br><br>Originally, Fox News had posted a blurb on their website that indicated that Allison Dubois would also appear on the program. She did not, so Laurie appeared alongside investigative journalist <a href="http://loveandhealth.ifriends.net/Experts_Detail.cfm?Expert=28">Marianne Macy</a>, and together, they picked apart Dr. Schwartz with one unsubstantiated innuendo after another.<br><br>I digress. The real focus of this post is not Laurie campbell, but her former associate and current friend, Allison Dubois. Allison Dubois' own fame is centered around some very impressive claims and personal history. The claims entail her pivotal role in assisting the law enforcement agencies of different states in the discovery of information and evidence that led to the apprehension and subsequent imprisonment of several "bad guys". These claims are the foundation of the show Medium.<br><br>Ever since Allison has made these claims the springboard of her career, skeptics and debunkers have zeroed in on her. That is their job after all. Most famous of these skeptics is James Randi, who has challenged Allison Dubois to take him up on his "Million Dollar Challenge." <br><br>However, the most convincing skeptical review of Allison Dubois' claims was assembled by a skeptical online website called, <a href="http://www.twopercentco.com">The Two-Percent Company</a>. In 2005, the Two-Percent Company was fed up with claims that the show Medium was based on a "true story" that they ran <a href="http://www.twopercentco.com/rants/allison_dubois_week.html">Allison Dubois Week</a> - an entire week devoted to investigating Ms. Dubois' claims. The research they did was pretty thorough, and it left me very skeptical of her story as well. <br><br>That report is now almost three years old, and Ms. Dubois has never fully answered the credibility questions that the Two-Percent Company brought up. Ms. Dubois and the show, Medium, are no worse for the wear, as her books are still selling well and Medium is in its fourth season, still pulling in impressive ratings.<br><br>As of this week, though, the Allison Dubois saga was revived with the publication of a <a href="http://phoenixnewtimes.com/2008-06-12/news/there-s-no-good-proof-the-real-medium-allison-dubois-has-ever-cracked-a-case-but-her-fans-don-t-care/">cover story in the Phoenix New TImes News.</a> The article is extremely well-researched and managed to dig a little deeper into other claims made by Ms. Dubois which also raise the credibility issue. More interesting in some respects, the Phoenix New TImes reporter was actually able to get Ms. Dubois to open up about the criticisms she's received, plus the article is sprinkled with interviews of Ms. Dubois' children and key people involved in some of the lore surrounding Ms. Dubois' life and career. <br><br>Judging from <a href="http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2008/06/medium_allison_dubois_predicts.php">Ms. Dubois' reaction to the article</a>, the story must have come as a bit of a shock and hit a raw nerve. To some degree, I find Ms. Dubois' childish threats to the Phoenix New TImes reporter more disturbing than the possible exaggerations of the claims she has made. The reactions themselves are indicative of a person driven by vengeance rather than by science. These type of threats would be more at home in the political arena than in the world of spiritual enlightenment.<br><br>As a medium devoted to the promotion of psi research and the demotion of charlatans, I would hope that Ms. Dubois would genuinely tackle the very valid criticisms made against her rather than attack those who make them. The more ammunition we give the skeptics to ridicule and debase the search for outer consciousness, the more banging of our heads against the wall we'll experience. <br><br>So, Ms. Dubois, until you address point by point the claims you make and the claims made against you, I will consider you a liability to this profession, and if ever asked, I will publicly voice this concern. This may be of little importance to you now, seeing that very little can unbalance your success, but I think inside where things matter to you, the rising volume of people questioning your integrity really does matter to you, or else you wouldn't be lashing out so childishly.<br><br> Make no mistake, this post is not about one medium railing against another medium, or a psychic bashing driven by professional jealousy. This post is about the integrity of <b>The Great Question</b> - "Do we survive?" To me, this question must be defended before it is debated. If the people making the case for the survival hypothesis lose credibility, the question itself loses credibility.<br><br>It is not enough if Allison Dubois' claims are almost true, or somewhat true. They either are true or they are not. You can't have it both ways in this debate. As a medium, I am always aware of this pressure, so I do the easiest thing I know, stick to the truth, even if it makes me look bad.<br><br>My own personal motto as a medium is one I wrote and one that's simple to remember - "there is redemption in truth, and great knowledge in seeking it." This is a motto I hope all mediums will adopt one day, including the ones mentioned above.<span class="fullpost"></span>Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-69367997269737513252008-05-27T17:41:00.000-05:002008-05-27T18:20:24.732-05:00Houdini Resurrected in Vegas<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/crissangel/includes/images/img_VictorianDoll.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px;" src="http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/crissangel/includes/images/img_VictorianDoll.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Illusionist, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criss_Angel">Criss Angel</a>, and the amazing, French Canadian performance troupe, <a href="http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/cirquedusoleil/default.htm">Cirque du Soleil</a>, will soon debut their joint venture in Las Vegas. The show is called, <a href="http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/crissangel/en/intro/intro.asp">"Believe."</a><br><br>First off, it kind of kills me that this show is coming out, because 7 years ago, I dreamed up something very similar, including the whole visual style that Believe is using. The visuals I wanted to use, though, were based on the art work of Slovakian artist and my good friend, <a href="http://www.nicolas-mermet.com/ondrej/">Ondrej Rudavsky.</a><br><br>Do you know what it is like to have to surrender your ideas to someone else who is obviously more prolific at putting thoughts into action. It sucks big time! If you have ever seen one of your ideas successfully done by someone else, then you know what I am talking about.<br><br>Hmppfff!! C'mon, Marcel, rise above. Rise above.<br><br>So, how does Criss Angel's "Believe" compare with what would have been my original idea? Well, in "Believe", it appears that Criss Angel will stress the hidden word "lie" found within the title "Believe." My show would have stressed that creativity and imagination are really part of the grammar of our higher consciousness. My show would have stressed the whole word, "believe."<br><br>Criss Angel has recently become an active voice within the skeptical community, and his inspiration for the title of the show "Believe," comes from the father of the modern day skeptical movement himself, Harry Houdini.<br><br>The word, "Believe," is the coded anagram Houdini gave his wife, Bess, in 1926 prior to his passing. <a href="http://paranormal.about.com/library/weekly/aa103000a.htm">There is a lot of debate</a> whether or not any medium was ever able to bring this coded anagram forward from beyond the grave.<br><br>Houdini's famous <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Houdini#Debunking_spiritualists">ongoing debate with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle</a> over the authenticity of spiritualism and mediums is both famous and fabled, and it is a debate that has been played out in the public eye <a href="http://www.prairieghosts.com/magicians.html">for over a century</a>. As far as debunkers go, Houdini was the pioneer. His passion and dedication for exposing fraud inspired a generation of magicians turned paranormal debunkers. First and foremost on that list is, <a href="http://www.randi.org/">James Randi</a>.<br><br>Of course, there have also been <a href="http://www.tricksterbook.com/ArticlesOnline/MagWhoEndors.htm">many magicians</a>, who, in spite of their abilities as illusionists and mentalists, still believe that there's something to the paranormal. <br><br>Anyway, we're in a new century of this debate. Criss Angel has just upped the ante, so to speak, by giving debunking and skepticism some Vegas gloss and partnering it with the world's most original, and beloved circus.<br><br>This is a real coup. Honestly, it looks fantastic. I definitely want to see it, even if it kills me to admit utter and total artistic defeat. :-)<br><br><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5oRhBpbTrQ&feature=related">Here is the video</a> of Criss Angel revealing the show's title and inspiration.<br><br><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYmALj13thE">Here is a funny parody</a> of Criss Angel revealing the name of his Vegas show.<br><br><span class="fullpost"></span>Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-36599198713432106032008-05-21T13:05:00.000-05:002008-05-21T14:16:57.301-05:00Frankincense Makes Sense<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.threekingsgifts.com/media/frankincense.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px;" src="http://www.threekingsgifts.com/media/frankincense.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>In the story of the Three Magi, or Three Wise Men, Three Kings from the East bring the newborn king of the Jews three <i>"welcome to the world</i>" gifts; they were gold, frankincense and myrrh. <br /><br />When I first heard this story as a child, I immediately thought, "C'mon, frankincense and myrrh, what kind of lame gift is that?" The magi who brought the gold, now he was obviously tuned in to the mind of a kid. <br /><br />Frankincense and myrrh are two different types of incense, with different properties and purposes, but totally useless to a child. <br /><br />As a child, I remember my mom used to burn incense all the time. Sometimes my house would smell like a gypsy brothel (not that I know what that smells like), that I would often come home from school, enter the house and want to vomit, feeling totally nauseated. Of course, school also made me feel nauseated, so home was no escape when Mom was burning the incense.<br /><br />Now as an adult, and more so as a parent, I look at the story of the three kings in a different light. Yet, I still find myself asking the same questions as I did as a child. Why Frankincense? Wouldn't a rattle be more appropriate? Or perhaps a month's supply of cloth diapers? What's a crying baby going to do with ceremonial incense?<br /><br />Well, <a href="http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20080420185436data_trunc_sys.shtml">science has the answer</a> I've been searching for. It seems that Frankincense, which is derived from the dried up resin of the Boswellia plant, can alleviate anxiety and depression by activating poorly understood ion channels in the brain. In other words, when you burn this shit, it really calms you down and makes you chill out.<br /><br />As the parent of two toddlers, I can't tell you how many times I wished that there were some magic pill I could legally give my kids for a few moments of peace and quiet. If only I had known about Frankincense. If only my wife didn't hate the smell of incense. <br /><br />It's obvious now that King Balthasar didn't bring Jesus the frankincense; the gift was for Joseph and Mary. I'm sure Balthasar said, "Look, this boy may be the son of God, but he's still going to get gas at night and keep you up with his teething, so just keep this stuff handy." Now you see why they called him a wise man.<br /><br />So let me share with you the same wisdom, here. If you are expecting, or you know someone who's got a bun in the oven, don't buy the child some elitist, classical music CD that's supposed to make him/her smarter than their peers. Instead, get the parents a box of frankincense. It's the legal marijuana for parents. If they feel guilty about giving their children or themselves anti-anxiety agents, just tell them that they are simply following a tradition set forth in the little town of Bethlehem over 2000 years ago. Amen.<br /><br />Frankincense makes sense, and you can get it <a href="http://www.threekingsgifts.com/Pages/frankincense.html">here</a>.<br><br><span class="fullpost"></span>Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-4492784317552617572008-05-20T03:25:00.000-05:002008-05-20T05:53:12.714-05:00R. Kelley Wins James Randi's Million Dollar Challenge, Zammit Rejoices.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/RANDI.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/RANDI.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>It was an historical moment, one that science and skeptics will be reeling from for the next century. R&B singer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._Kelly">R. Kelley</a>, currently on trial for soliciting a minor for child pornography in the state of Illinois, was awarded some much needed money for his legal woes by winning the <a href="http://www.randi.org/joom/challenge-info.html">James Randi Million Dollar Challenge.</a><br><br><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi">James Randi</a>, America's best known skeptic and debunker, has made a career challenging and discrediting claimants of paranormal abilities. In his Million Dollar Challenge, Randi offers the prize money to "anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event."<br><br>R. Kelley has been claiming such an ability since his 1996 mega hit song "I believe I can Fly," from the movie, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Jam">"Space Jam."</a><br><br>In the song, R. Kelley contends,<blockquote>If I can see it, then I can do it<br />If I just believe it, there's nothing to it<br><br>I believe I can fly<br />I believe I can touch the sky<br />I think about it every night and day<br />Spread my wings and fly away<br />I believe I can soar<br />I see me running through that open door<br />I believe I can fly<br />I believe I can fly<br />I believe I can fly</blockquote>Appearing on Larry King Live, James Randi called R. Kelley's bluff, and challenged him to apply to his challenge.<blockquote>"If you can really fly," he said, "then let's test it."</blockquote>Both parties, the James Randi Educational Foundation, and R. Kelley's entourage, agreed that Mr. Kelley would have to fly at least 300 meters unaided by any motorized or non-human method of propulsion.<br><br>When the moment of truth arrived, The R&B legend took a step out on to the makeshift ledge that had been affixed to the rooftop of the <a href"http://www.thesearstower.com/">Sears Tower.</a> He was cheered on by a squad of former teenage defendants, then Mr. Kelley unbuttoned his fine, leather jacket, and whispered, "Let's fly, baby."<br><br>At exactly twelve noon, under perfect weather conditions, the R&B balladeer stepped off the Sears Tower and began to fly what ornithology experts called a,"predatory hawk formation" over a high school on the south side of Chicago.<br><br>On the ground, fans and ordinary onlookers gazed up in total disbelief. One surprised woman said she was hopeful Mr. Kelley would succeed, but her husband was more pessimistic, noting that wind resistance from a zipper malfunction on Mr. Kelley's pants might cause the singer problems.<br><br>James Randi, on the other hand, was visibly upset by the impeding loss of his coveted million dollar prize.<blockquote>"I can't believe he can fly, I can't believe he can fly! Sure, I've sung that song in the shower like everyone else, but I never thought my money would be taking a bath in it."</blockquote>Immediately following Mr. Kelley's success, <a href="http://www.thepsychictimes.com/zammit.htm">Victor Zammit</a> claimed victory for himself and the afterlife, then quietly pushed medium <a href="http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/2007/09/closing-the-boo.html">David Thompson</a> off of Sydney's Harbour Bridge.<br><br>(this piece is satirical and should not be interpreted as real news).<br><br><span class="fullpost"></span>Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-54717609795065033762008-05-14T14:12:00.001-05:002008-05-14T15:32:44.406-05:00God, Einstein, and I quote...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/22095/thumbs/s-EINSTEIN-large.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px;" src="http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/22095/thumbs/s-EINSTEIN-large.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Warriors, both of science and of faith, have for years played a tug-of-war for the heart and soul of Albert Einstein. We all knew from early on that his mind belonged to science, but what of his true essence, his belief in something grander than the playground that is our cosmos.<br><br>Currently, there is an auction making some noise in the halls of science and cheering up its atheist practitioners. The auction is of a personal letter Albert Eistein wrote in 1954 (one year prior to his passing) that "unequivocally" states his disbelief in God.<br><br>Dr. EInstein writes,<blockquote> "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."</blockquote>He also goes on to say in the letter written to the philosopher Eric Gutkind,<blockquote>"No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."</blockquote>Frankly, I don't see this "new" letter to be revealing anything we didn't already know about our quotable pal, Einstein. Einstein made it clear on several occasions that he did not ascribe to the Abrahamic concept of God, most famously in his "Spinoza" quote,<blockquote>"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings."</blockquote>Einstein, in addition to his brilliant observations in physics, also made some profound philosophical observations. It is these more romantic and social leanings which often places Einstein in the middle of this battle of beliefs. Einstein once famously stated, <blockquote>"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."</blockquote>Then there is his most confusing quote about God,<blockquote>"I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know his thoughts. The rest are details."</blockquote>However, my favorite Einstein quote, which not only establishes his disbelief in an Abrahamic God, but also distances himself from the rhetoric of hardcore atheists is this one,<blockquote>"I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being.</blockquote>To me, this quote is the essence of Einstein - a respect and humility for human kind and an understanding that our knowledge of nature, its order and the further discoveries that await us, are what give rise to <i>passionate living</i>.<br><br>Truthfully, I hope everyone stops quoting Albert Einstein after this auction. It's time we took the question of "consciousness survival" out of the hands of scientists, and put it back into the hands of science.<br><br><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/14/einstein-letter-belief-in_n_101626.html">Read more on the auction of Albert Einstein's letter</a><br><br><span class="fullpost"></span>Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-37312644169659757662008-05-13T13:02:00.000-05:002008-05-14T15:01:51.618-05:00Drunks in Heaven<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://myherooftheday.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/beer-can-casket-300x225.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px;" src="http://myherooftheday.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/beer-can-casket-300x225.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Posted by Jackson Citizen Patriot May 12, 2008 08:05AM<br><br>Bill Bramanti has booked an unconventional passage into the afterlife. Whether you like it or not is a matter of taste, and we don't mean the taste of beer.<br /><br />The South Chicago Heights, Ill., man loves Pabst Blue Ribbon so much that he ordered — and received — a custom-made beer-can casket. The 67-year-old celebrated recently with a party and filled the red, white and blue coffin with ice and beer.<br /><br />"I actually fit, because I got in here," Bramanti told the Associated Press.<br /><br />Why go to such lengths? And for Pabst beer? We don't dare understand. We should note, however, that he's not the first to prepare for mortality in what we might consider unconventional ways.<br /><br />Ancient Egyptians were buried with everyday objects, and wealthier ones would have coffins filled with jewelry and other valuable items. Some Inuits in Alaska would leave the dead in igloos, where the body could remain intact on ice for eternity. In Jamaica, death would bring on a celebration involving dancing, singing and 100-proof rum.<br /><br />No beer, though. Hmm.<br /><br />Then again, in March archaeologists in Britain dug up a 4,000-year-old skeleton with an ornate pot at its feet that one researcher said could have been "a type of beer mug."<br /><br />All that's missing were the peanuts.<br><br><br><object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ikPqLOe69K4"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ikPqLOe69K4" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><span class="fullpost"></span><br><br>Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-12123962165903915042008-03-12T21:40:00.000-05:002008-05-01T04:46:04.804-05:00Tarot for your Chemistry Class<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://calyxa.best.vwh.net/hexagons/hexpage-images/productspread-squidoo.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px;" src="http://calyxa.best.vwh.net/hexagons/hexpage-images/productspread-squidoo.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />In the cool and interesting department...<br><br>The Elemental Hexagons deck is an oracle deck based on the Periodic Table of the elements. It is somewhat like a Tarot deck in that all of the Major Arcana cards are represented, but none of the Minor Arcana are. The deck consists of 60 cards, where each card represents a single element. Just about 2/3rds of the known stable elements are represented.<br><br><a href="http://www.squidoo.com/elementalhexagons">Elemental Hexagons Oracle Cards on Squidoo</a><br><br>Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-15488682156339495762008-02-13T08:07:00.000-06:002008-02-13T08:17:51.608-06:00The Collective Conspiracy of Consciousness<b><span style=";font-family:helverica;font-size:180%;" >What do you trust more,<br />your senses or your intuition?</span><span style="font-size:180%;"><br /></span><br /><span style=";font-family:american typewriter;font-size:180%;color:maroon;" >Hyper</span><span style=";font-family:american typewriter;font-size:180%;color:red;" >reality:</span></b><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:palatino;font-size:130%;" >The <u>inability</u> of consciousness to distinguish<br />reality from fantasy, especially in technologically<br />advanced postmodern cultures.<br /><br />Hyperreality is a means to characterize the way<br />consciousness defines what is actually <b>real</b> in a world<br />where a multitude of media can radically shape<br />and filter the original event or experience being depicted.</span><br /><br /><hr /><b>WARNING:</b><br />Watching this documentary may disrupt your sense of reality.<hr /><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:arial black;font-size:130%;" >Did film director, Stanley Kubrick, help<br />President Richard Nixon fake the moon landing?</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dark+side+of+the+moon%2C+william+karel&search_type=&search=Search">The Dark Side of the Moon</a><br /><br />(You must watch all 5 segments in order/Approx. 44 min. total)<br /><br /><span class="fullpost"></span><br><br>Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-29258579275816672092008-02-06T11:29:00.000-06:002008-02-06T12:38:14.124-06:00I will survive... why consciousness does not dieWhen I posted the Humphrey article (two posts ago), I was trying to shed light on opposing ideas on consciousness that are interesting. The fact is, all ideas are mere hypothesis because science has no freaking clue what consciousness is, where it comes from, what its for and what it can do. Just look at the placebo effect. Why is it that the placebo effect is more powerful to heal sometimes than actual drugs?<br><br>Anyway, what I didn't mention in either of my two previous posts is that the survival hypothesis has an abundant and significant amount of evidence suggesting an extremely viable alternative to the materialistic interpretations of consciousness. <br><br>I'm talking about evidence that has spanned all cultures and all time. Evidence experienced by all types of people, from intellectuals to dopes like me. The evidence is pervasive, yet elusive enough to create the great consciousness debate we have today.<br><br>The current paradigm in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_reductionism">Scientific Reductionism.</a> The idea that all can be understood by science, everything reduced to some form or another of matter, and that everything in the human mind is the result of evolution, DNA, neurobiology, culture and education.<br><br>However, this idea is not shared by all top scientists, and furthermore, the intellectual framework holding up these tenets of materialistic belief are riddle with holes and gaps that cannot be dismissed or talked away with loosely held together science jargon.<br><br>Science isn't an exclusive country club, though it would like to be. Through our critical thinking and careful analysis, we are all granted admission to the deepest thoughts that are still left unanswered. Though I'm not a scientist, I can think scientifically like anyone else. <br /><br />Obviously as a professional medium, my ideas and opinions about consciousness survival have been developed through personal experience and experimentation. Of course, my subjective experience cannot replace scientific inquiry, that's why I look to unbiased scientific research to make the claims I've observed.<br /><br />Anyone truly interested in the subject of consciousness survival can easily access this data in numerous articles, papers and books available online and beyond.<br><br>Recommendations:<br><br><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Irreducible-Mind-hard-find-contemporary/dp/0742547922">Irreducible Mind</a><br><a href="http://www.sterlinghouse-bookstore.com/index.php?target=products&product_id=24"> Parapsychology and the Skeptics</a><br><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Immortal-Remains-Evidence-After-Death/dp/0742514722">Immortal Remains</a><br><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Best-Evidence-Investigative-Psychokinesis-Reincarnation/dp/0595219063/ref=pd_sim_b_title_1"> Best Evidence</a><br><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Conscious-Universe-Scientific-Psychic-Phenomena/dp/0062515020">The Conscious Universe</a><br><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Entangled-Minds-Extrasensory-Experiences-Quantum/dp/1416516778/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b">Entagled Minds</a><br><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Afterlife-Experiments-Breakthrough-Scientific-Evidence/dp/B0001I1KN2/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202320368&sr=1-1">The Afterlife Experiments</a><br><a href="http://www.tricksterbook.com">The Trickster and the Paranormal</a><br><br><a href"http://www.spiritandscience.org/Science.htm">This site</a> also has a decent summary of the evidence, science and principles supporting the survival hypothesis.<br><br><span class="fullpost"></span>Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-39284777362944279612008-02-05T14:01:00.000-06:002008-02-05T14:04:51.216-06:00Toward a theory of consciousness survivalA commenter in my previous post asked me "what is the consciousness survival theory?" Great question, as there actually isn't a unified theory of consciousness survival. I often make the mistake that many others do by interchangeably using the words "hypothesis" and "theory". These two words in the framework of the scientific method are quite different, and it is wrong to interchange them the way that I have. <br /><br />I meant, the "survival hypothesis", which stipulates that consciousness co-exists (at least for a time) in both a physical and non-physical form. The most obvious question based on this hypothesis is, "what exactly is consciousness?" <br /><br />The answer to that question is, "nobody really knows." So technically, the survival hypothesis itself is very weak, in that the focal point of the hypothesis is an undefined "thing" which can neither be described nor measured (not yet).<br /><br />I believe we are several years away from having a real definition of consciousness and decades away from the hope of having a theory that can be tested. <br /><br />Some people compare the survival hypothesis to the theory of gravity. They point out that there's still a lot about the theory of gravity we don't know or understand, yet we know it's there from observation. <br /><br />For those who are interested in the search for consciousness and a survival hypothesis/theory, here is a well-written, balanced, yet slightly skeptical summary of where we currently stand.<br><br><a href="http://www.nidsci.org/articles/whinnery/whinnery_consciousness.html">National Institute for Discovery Science: Survival of Consciousness by James Whinnery, M.D.</a><br><br><span class="fullpost"> </span><br><br>Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-86948045057385140922008-01-30T13:36:00.000-06:002008-01-30T13:54:32.583-06:00Trying to Unravel The Consciousness Conundrum Pt. 1<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/uploads/14BI368.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px;" src="http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/uploads/14BI368.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Though <a href="http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2008/01/questioning_consciousness.php?page=1">this article from SEED magazine</a> completely ignores the theory of consciousness survival, <a href="http://www.humphrey.org.uk/">Nicholas Humphrey's</a> observations posit an incredibly creative and perfectly thought-out theory on the evolutionary purpose and mystery behind human consciousness.<br><br> From the article...<blockquote>"The philosopher Jerry Fodor recently claimed, 'The revisions of our concepts and theories that imagining a solution will eventually require are likely to be very deep and very unsettling.'<br><br>If you smell theoretical panic, you're right. But are the scientific answers really so far out of reach? Have people been beguiled by the marvelous properties of consciousness into asking for the moon, while what is at issue is really much more down to earth? Everybody says they are waiting for the Big Idea. But perhaps the big idea should be that consciousness, which is of such significance to us subjectively, is scientifically not such a big deal."</blockquote><a href="http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2008/01/questioning_consciousness.php?page=1"> SEED article</a><br><br><br /><span class="fullpost"></span>Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-26735847354179521962007-12-14T07:05:00.000-06:002007-12-14T13:49:34.957-06:00Always EntertainingPoltergeist stories are always entertaining. Even when you know the story is exaggerated or plain ridiculous, you can't help but be glued to it.<br><br>The funny thing about me criticizing these type of stories is that I actually lived one myself. As a teenager, I had a poltergeist in my room, some scary things happened and eventually a Catholic priest was called in to bless my room and rid it of the "energy" so I could move back into it. <br><br>Looking back on the situation now as an adult, I still have to laugh. Not because what happened in my room didn't happen or because I don't believe that these things occur. I laugh because, when they do happen, they always read like some badly written yarn out of a 1950's pulp fiction novel.<br><br>The World's Scariest Ghosts Caught on Tape<br><br>Here's a show I imagine raised the hairs on many people's arms. It's well done and perfectly edited. This is not to say there aren't some classic cheesy ghost story elements in it, there are. My point is, whether you're a skeptic or not, it's hard to turn away from a good ghost story.<br><br> Highlights of the show...<br><br>[BAD] In one segment, James Van Praagh's questioning of the little boy, with numerous leading comments to draw a positive response, is extremely embarrassing.<br><br>[GOOD] The most compelling segment begins at minute 30 when we get to see video imagery of Orbs caught on tape. Some of the orb patterns do look like bugs flying the night, but there is a video of a grapefruit size orb that is truly intriguing.<br><br>Judge for yourself.<br><br><embed style="width:400px; height:326px;" id="VideoPlayback" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-5406487197364769612&hl=en" flashvars=""> </embed><br><br><span class="fullpost"></span>Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-7766574699032473362007-12-05T03:15:00.000-06:002007-12-05T03:37:44.715-06:00Rolando y La Recoleta<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.recoletacemetery.com/images/200611G33.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px;" src="http://www.recoletacemetery.com/images/200611G33.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>I'm going home. Well, my second home, anyway. In April of next year, I will be returning to Argentina for the first time in six and a half years.<br><br>Last time I was there, the country was weeks from spilling over into <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corralito">one of the worst economic and political crises</a> of it's history. Last time around, my father was also alive.<br><br>It will be weird visiting my father's grave site for the very first time since he died this past July. I'm not sure what I'll feel, really. I'm not sure what I feel about Rolando, even now.<br><br>My father was without equal. A real character and a true enigma. He was the type of person you'd expect to find in a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens">Charles Dickens </a>novel via a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Garc%C3%ADa_M%C3%A1rquez">Gabriel Garcia Marquez</a> fairytale. The type of trickster you take gerat delight in hearing about, but great joy in knowing he's not your father, yet for me, he is my father. <br><br>After taking in my father's grave, I'll probably make my way to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Recoleta_Cemetery">La Recoleta</a>. Whenever I journey back to my ancestral home, Buenos Aires to more specific, I always make a trek to the city of the dead, La Recoleta. One of the most amazing and artistic enclaves of marble mausoleums in the world. In addition to housing beautiful sculptured final resting places, La Recoleta is also home <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_cat">to a large colony of feral cats </a>and several Argentine luminaries, including Broadway's favorite, controversial first lady, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Per%C3%B3n">Eva Peron.</a><br><br>Traveling back in time to the more tender parts of the heart is never easy. However, I like not easy. I guess that's part of my genetic inheritance - taking the road less safe. This will always be one of my strongest bonds with my Father - our ability to find trouble even in a nursery of newborns. Yet, trouble can be rewarding in the most unexpected ways.<br><br>Some <a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=recoleta&s=int&z=t">pretty pictures</a> of La Recoleta<br><br>Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3091587405440724641.post-72374897456402020732007-12-04T20:52:00.000-06:002007-12-04T21:01:36.904-06:00Dream VisitationsOn the latest episode of <a href="http://www.afterlifefm.com">AfterlifeFM</a>, I interviewed Kevin Kovelant, blogger of Streamsofconsciouseness.org and Masters candidate in Consciousness Studies at JFK University about dream visitations and how spirit uses them as a method of communication.<br><br><embed src='http://www.blogtalkradio.com/mediaplayer.swf?displayheight=&file=http://www.blogtalkradio.com%2fafterlifeFM%2fplay_list.xml&autostart=false&shuffle=false&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/FlashPlayerCallback.aspx&volume=80&corner=rounded' width='180' height='152' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' pluginspage='http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer' quality='high' wmode='transparent' menu='false' /><span class="fullpost"></span><br><br>Marcel Cairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450579013338141210noreply@blogger.com0