Ramblings of an Armchair Skeptic

Back in 1979 board chairman of McDonnell-Douglas aircraft, James S McDonnell, gave a $500,000.00 grant to Washington University. Thus was established the McDonnell Laboratory for Psychical Research. This laboratory was to be headed up by physics professor Peter R. Phillips who already had a strong background in parapsychology. When James Randi heard of this, he immediately got the idea of testing some hypotheses. He was certain that the testers chosen could be fooled by a conjurer placed in the lab under the guise of being psychical gifted. Randi sent Phillips a list of caveats that he urged the professor to heed. Amongst these was the very important rule of not letting the subjects run the experiments by changing the protocols along with other suggestions that Randi has found to be a good way to rule out those who are using subterfuge to feign supernatural powers. James Randi is after all a gifted magician and conjurer and knows very well the ways of trickery. These rules were dismiss...

In 1988 Australia a phenomenon called channeling was becoming very popular indeed. Channeling is when an ancient spirit decides to enter a human body and speak through them. This is usually for the purpose of imparting some great wisdom that the spirit feels we need to know. It looks like a painful process and involves much writhing and speaking as if one just had good swift kick in the nether regions. Australia's channel 9 decided that things were getting a bit out of hand and thought they might be able to find a way to encourage some critical thinking in the populace. They contacted James Randi for some ideas and Carlos was born. Randi enlisted 19 year old Jose Luis Alvarez to play the part of a channeler who was being possessed by a 1000 year old spirit by the name of Carlos. Jose would give free performances to packed theatres. He spouted spiritual teachings and extolled the various powers of crystals. People lapped it up and worshipped the wise spirit and his nonsensical adv...