Channeling: The Carlos Hoax.

"Carlos" was the name of a 2,000-year-old spirit allegedly channeled by José Alvarez when he toured Australia in 1988.  Channeling was all the rage in Australia and an Australian television program contacted James Randi about finding someone who might show Australians that channeling was something doubtful. Randi approached Alvarez, a performance artist and friend who had long toyed with the idea of creating such a character. The rest, as they say, is history.

"We like to be deceived." - Blaise Pascal
James Randi Speaks: The Carlos Hoax http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0hgP3ioAeA

 Carlos Hoax Cont'd http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBFzdvtwNaw&feature=relmfu

 

James Randi (born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge; August 7, 1928) is a Canadian-American stage magician and scientific skeptic best known as a challenger of paranormal claims and pseudoscience. Randi is the founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF).

In 1988, Randi tested the gullibility of the media by perpetrating a hoax of his own. By teaming up with Australia's 60 Minutes program and by releasing a fake press package, he built up publicity for a spirit channeler named Carlos who was actually artist Jose Alvarez, a friend of Randi's. Randi would tell him what to say through sophisticated radio equipment. The media and the public were taken in, as no reporter bothered to check Carlos's credentials and history, which were all fabricated. The hoax was exposed on 60 Minutes; Carlos and Randi explained how they pulled it off. (see wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi)

If you see something that's not there and it talks to you your nuts. If you see something that's not there and it doesn't talk to you  that's okay but if you hear something from something that's not there I don't want to hear about it.

 

 

Back then there was no Internet, Wiki or YouTube in 1988. Just New Age bookstores with various books dedicated to New Age stuff. I remember seeing someone channel in Toronto in the 80's Even though a book I read said never to drink coffee or smoke before you channel he did. I really began to have doubts about New Age stuff when I noticed the inconsistency of the information. Of course reading Thomas Troward warning about the power of suggestion around 1900 really hit home. Another thing was not the DVD "The Secret" itself but a book that criticized it. It wasn't what was in the video that was important but what was left out of the video. The video could portray things in the light it wanted will taking what had been said out of context. With this in mind think of the television shows of psychics. A one hour television show is actually taped for 2 hours or so and edited down to fit the one hour time slot, say 45 minutes allowing for commercials. I remember seeing one episode that was actually  about 25 minutes long the rest was commercials. Since only the hits are shown on television and not the misses that gives some indication of the accuracy. 

Some people probably still believe the Mayan calendar runs out Dec 21 2012 and the world ends.

  

Cognitive dissonance and 2012

Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance. They do this by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and actions. Dissonance is also reduced by justifying, blaming, and denying. It is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology.

Experience can clash with expectations, as, for example, with buyer's remorse following the purchase of an expensive item. In a state of dissonance, people may feel surprise, dread, guilt, anger, or embarrassment. People are biased to think of their choices as correct, despite any contrary evidence. This bias gives dissonance theory its predictive power, shedding light on otherwise puzzling irrational and destructive behavior.

A classical example of this idea (and the origin of the expression "sour grapes") is expressed in the fable The Fox and the Grapes by Aesop (ca. 620–564 BCE). In the story, a fox sees some high-hanging grapes and wishes to eat them. When the fox is unable to think of a way to reach them, he surmises that the grapes are probably not worth eating, as they must not be ripe or that they are sour. This example follows a pattern: one desires something, finds it unattainable, and reduces one's dissonance by criticizing it.
• The Great Disappointment of 1844 is an example of cognitive dissonance in a religious context.
• True-believer syndrome demonstrates carrying a post-cognitive-dissonance belief regardless of new information.
Mayan calendar and Gregorian Calendar

Is 2012 any different than 1618 or 2407 other than the fact we’re living through it? Remember 2000!

There has recently been still another revival of the talk about the end of the world. Once again newspaper articles are being written and public meetings held, both in America and in Great Britain, where more or less sensational statements are made to the effect that the end of the world is now due, and may be expected at any moment. Ever since the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 the prophets have been exceptionally busy in this direction, and on several occasions groups of people have actually sat up all night waiting for the end. ...
Lecture delivered by Emmet Fox at Victoria Hall, London, on September 6, 1933.

There is a simple test by which anyone can tell a true teacher from a false one.
It is this:
If he points you to his own personality; if he makes special claims for himself; if he says that he has received any special privileges from God that are not equally accessible to the whole human race anywhere; if he attempts in his own name or in that of an organization to establish under any pretense a monopoly of the truth about God, then, however imposing his credentials, however pleasing his personality may be, he is a false teacher, and you had better have nothing to do with him.

If, on the contrary, he tells you to look away from himself, to seek the Presence of God in your own heart, and to use books, lectures, and churches only as a means to that one end, then, however humble his efforts may be, however lacking his own demonstration may seem, he is nevertheless a true teacher and is giving you the Bread of Life.

You are what you really believe yourself to be. You experience what you really believe yourself to be. All there is to any phenomenon is our belief in it. There is no difference between the thing and the thought of the thing. We often hear it said thoughts are things, but the actual truth is that things are thoughts. From this it follows that when you “un-think” a thing it is disappears. The world you live in is the world of your own beliefs. You created it by thinking it, and you can destroy it at any moment by un-thinking it.

Again I would impress upon the reader not to forget the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind (usually called in medical books, the unconscious) is that part of your mentality of which you are not aware. You may be unaware that you have been holding a certain thought or a certain belief, and yet it may be in your subconscious, and if so it will affect your life, in spite of the fact that you did not consciously know of its existence. You probably picked it up in childhood.
Alter Your Life

Emmet Fox 1938

True-believer syndrome

is a term coined by M. Lamar Keene in his 1976 book The Psychic Mafia. Keene used the term to refer to people who continued to believe in a paranormal event or phenomenon even after it had been proven to have been staged.