Ted Serios

I have no idea which side of the argument is more accurate, but in his SPR encyclopaedia article, Stephen Braude writes:
"The primary source of this skeptical allegation was the article, ‘An Amazing Weekend with the Amazing Ted Serios’, in the October 1967 issue of Popular Photography, written by David B Eisendrath and Charles Reynolds. That article left most (if not all) readers thinking that the authors had successfully exposed the pretensions of an alleged psychic. However, the article was seriously misleading, and few learned later that no one had accepted Eisenbud’s challenge (in the following November issue)5 to duplicate Serios’s results under conditions similar to those imposed on Serios (more on that issue below). Before long, Eisendrath’s and Reynolds’s criticism evolved into the unverified assertion that Serios’s feats had been duplicated easily by the magician the Amazing Randi, and soon many people had accepted that falsehood as an established fact. The noted science author Martin Gardner undoubtedly moved this process along by repeating the allegation in his book, Science, Good, Bad and Bogus,6 and by claiming in the journal Nature that Randi ‘demonstrates it [the Serios phenomenon] regularly and with more skill.’7 However, Gardner’s claim is completely unsubstantiated. Randi never even attempted publicly to duplicate the Serios phenomenon under conditions resembling those that prevailed during Serios’s tests. He did, however, fail to duplicate the phenomenon under the much looser test conditions allowed on the television show Today on October 4, 1967."

https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/ted-serios

There is a problem I have with the Psi Encyclopedia. They tend to ignore skeptical papers in their own journal.

The Psi Encyclopedia is supposed to represent the Society for Psychical Research but many negative papers about mediums, psychics or psychical research cases published in the Journal for the Society for Psychical Research are not cited on their new encyclopedia project. I know the project is 'work in progress' but it really does them no favours. It is suppression of information.

Example. Stephen E. Braude's piece in the Psi Encyclopedia does not refer to this paper:

W. A. H. Rushton. (1968). Serios Photos: If Contrary to Natural Law, Which Law? Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 44: 289-293.

Rushton was a professor of physiology. He successfully replicated the Serios photographs by fraudulent methods (using a reflecting prism that contained a microfilm picture against the camera lens).

There is also a critical review by electrical engineer Colin Brookes-Smith of Eisenbud's book.

Colin Brookes-Smith. (1968). Review of The World of Ted Serios by J. Eisenbud. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 44: 260-265.

In that review he goes on to give several naturalistic explanations for how the thoughtographs might have been produced. Now he may have been right or wrong, but that is beside the point. It is no surprise that this review is not cited on the Psi Encyclopedia.

Users here say Wikipedia is biased but both the Rushton study and the review by Brookes-Smith is mentioned on the Wikipedia article for Ted Serios not the Psi Encyclopedia.

Now as I am a skeptic and not liked on this forum I am not expecting my post to be liked. But I am 100% correct about this. Proponents should agree with me about this. The Psi Encyclopedia is a strongly biased source, they do not want to refer to negative information from their own journal. The same happens on many other of their articles.

I personally find it funny that they fail to cite studies from their own journal and doing this they are not representing the entire story. What they are doing is no different than what proponents usually accuse pseudo-skeptics of doing. Cherry-picking information or not looking at all the literature.

Funny you mention that Brain-

Yes- We drew straws, and I lost,,, I had to spend a couple hours of what I assumed would be a waste of time, because I figured you would ask. And yes, I found it was a total waste of my time...

I checked the Rational sources. The were 4 listed by the way, pretty lame for the substantial nature of your claims. 

I also, just for comparison checked out Wiki. Imagine using Wiki as the fair arbiter of information! Yikes!!!

Wiki had 22 sources, Rational had 4.

Of the 4 rational sources. 
1-100 words or so describing name birth and death dates and the Jules E. book. VERY thin on actual psi info. 
2- the Jules E. book which reportedly supports (or at least reports) Serios' claim for the most part
3- A photography book which essentially says Randi and other skeptics claim it was a fraud
4- A Randi book.

Oh one last thing- 
Rational's only web link, and one of Wiki's 4 listed, is the "skeptic's dictionary".

Imagine the need for such a thing. Reminds me of the book two very close relatives used to have as young Jehovah's Witness's. They carried them around so they would have the answer to any of the multitude of questions they may be asked. Sort of a JW Cheat sheet. Interesting to see that you guys (Skeptics) have a "bible" of sorts to keep you on the same page... Literally..  

Don't you ever wonder why you need to be lead around like a bunch of cattle and fed pre-written answers??

Anyway- so yes, I HAVE read the available on-line material and found that:
-The counter augments come almost exclusively from one person, guess who?: Randi. Most others simply point to Randi.
-Randi has decided to call it fraud (of course he would)
-Randi, even though he claimed to be able to, NEVER successfully replicated the event 
-Ted Serios offered to demonstrate this under controlled conditions, and Randi never took him up on it (strange right?)

So. No I'm not planning to make this a multi-day and $$ effort of buying the complete books and reading them. But I've found out, to my utter surprise that there is little or nothing here. 

Next time you might want to research this stuff yourself so you can understand how superficial the material is that you base your reputation on. 

If you did research this, and are satisfied with the information, it is a testament to how little information you need to be convinced. Although you are already convinced aren't you? You just needed something to agree with your POV to point to. 

Don't fret about that though, that's what most people do, so you are not alone.

I believe you misunderstand the aims of Rationalwiki.

Please read this:

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWi...article%3F

Rationalwiki is not an encyclopedia, it does not have to use sources. It is not neutral... yes sometimes done in a funny way.

You can always check their sources.  I doubt they would lie and then put a reference.  One could say, Am I the only one who recoils when I see anyone presenting evidence from an avid psi believer.  It's the same story - you present your evidence and there will always be evidence to the contrary.

You apparently missed my point...

I don't recoil; when I read a post from a skeptic,, I recoil when the evidence they point to is not from a serious source. There is a HUGE difference.

You can always check their sources.  I doubt they would lie and then put a reference.  One could say, Am I the only one who recoils when I see anyone presenting evidence from an avid psi believer.  It's the same story - you present your evidence and there will always be evidence to the contrary.

Maybe how I said it is not that clear. So let me try saying this way,,

I don't expect people to take the word of any wide-eyed psi believer who happens down the road. However, when someone has an opinion and offers evidence, I think it is reasonable to look at the source of the evidence to assess its credibility. We do that every day. 

It is the source of your evidence I am recoiling from. And the source of your evidence is very suspect. If you were a bit more objective, you might see that..

Rationalwiki is all about refutation. All about shooting holes in things.. All sort of things. 

It is not odd to see a book written about a topic such as lucid dreaming or mediumship. These are things that people are truly interested in, and may have some interesting information to share. You can't compare that sort of resource, with one that is all about denying all manner of things. They just aren't equivalent.

W. A. H. Rushton was the President of the Society for Psychical Research (1969-1971). I am going to email Robert McLuhan, the owner of the Psi Encyclopedia about this. Hopefully he will then include Rushton's important paper on Stephen E. Braude's article.

All I can say is... read Braude's first hand investigations on the subject. He's always been an accurate, finicky researcher of tremendous integrity.

No he is not entirely accurate. He ignores skeptical literature on the subject, even papers that are negative written by psychical researchers. In most cases he will only look at positive evidence. See the Rushton example above.

Maybe how I said it is not that clear. So let me try saying this way,,

I don't expect people to take the word of any wide-eyed psi believer who happens down the road. However, when someone has an opinion and offers evidence, I think it is reasonable to look at the source of the evidence to assess its credibility. We do that every day. 

It is the source of your evidence I am recoiling from. And the source of your evidence is very suspect. If you were a bit more objective, you might see that..

Rationalwiki is all about refutation. All about shooting holes in things.. All sort of things. 

It is not odd to see a book written about a topic such as lucid dreaming or mediumship. These are things that people are truly interested in, and may have some interesting information to share. You can't compare that sort of resource, with one that is all about denying all manner of things. They just aren't equivalent.

I think we should ban Rationalwiki from being cited on this forum. Are you with me on that? All I have seen so far is it cause problems. In my OP I tried to be fair by citing both positive and negative sources. I did not even refer to the Rationalwiki article I created...

Also dont take everything rationalwiki says so seriously. A lot of the time the articles are just for fun, as I said before it is not an online encyclopedia like Wikipedia. Many of the articles are deliberately done in a snarky way. See my link above for clarification.

I think we should ban Rationalwiki from being cited on this forum. Are you with me on that? All I have seen so far is it cause problems. In my OP I tried to be fair by citing both positive and negative sources. I did not even refer to the Rationalwiki article I created...

Also dont take everything rationalwiki says so seriously. A lot of the time the articles are just for fun, as I said before it is not an online encyclopedia like Wikipedia. Many of the articles are deliberately done in a snarky way. See my link above for clarification.

Appreciate the thought.

Interesting for me, Leuders, is the second paragraph in the quote above.  I don't see anything "fun" or otherwise wholesome about skeptical snarkiness.  Its what really turns me off to guys like Krauss, Dawkins, and other materialists.  I find that type of approach insulting, disingenuous and utterly, intellectually dishonest.  Further, I do not believe it advances the cause of its proponents.  I think it actually pours gasoline on the fire of "anti-science" if you will.

Sorry for the rant, but my personal desire for this community is for it to be as devoid of both proponent and skeptic "snarkiness" as possible.  For there to be honest, polilte, discussions from both skeptics and proponents.

As I mentioned previously, I've found you to be quite respectful thus far so please don't take my rant as an attack against you. 

I think we should ban Rationalwiki from being cited on this forum. Are you with me on that? All I have seen so far is it cause problems. In my OP I tried to be fair by citing both positive and negative sources. I did not even refer to the Rationalwiki article I created...

Also dont take everything rationalwiki says so seriously. A lot of the time the articles are just for fun, as I said before it is not an online encyclopedia like Wikipedia. Many of the articles are deliberately done in a snarky way. See my link above for clarification.

OK if not taken seriously then why in the world would anyone use it as a reference?

If you are serious about banning it from the forum, you have earned points from me. Not that you need or want them. 

Now as I am a skeptic and not liked on this forum I am not expecting my post to be liked. But I am 100% correct about this. Proponents should agree with me about this. The Psi Encyclopedia is a strongly biased source, they do not want to refer to negative information from their own journal. The same happens on many other of their articles.

I personally find it funny that they fail to cite studies from their own journal and doing this they are not representing the entire story. What they are doing is no different than what proponents usually accuse pseudo-skeptics of doing. Cherry-picking information or not looking at all the literature.

As I hope I made clear, I wasn't endorsing what Stephen Braude's article says because I don't know about the subject. But I thought it was helpful to make it clear there was another point of view.

And yes, I have seen some indications of concern about some articles in the Psi Encyclopaedia, which I think are all written by indviduals. In particular, Tom Ruffles, who's in charge of the SPR Facebook page, said there that the unbalanced nature of a recent article on Sai Baba made him uncomfortable. As I'm sure you know, the SPR itself has a policy of not adopting a position on the existence of psi, and I'm sure that's the best approach for a learned society.