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Clairvoyance is the claimed ability to gain information about an object, person, location, or physical event through extrasensory perception. Any person who is claimed to have such ability is said accordingly to be a clairvoyant.
Faith healing is the practice of prayer and gestures that are believed by some to elicit divine intervention in spiritual and physical healing, especially the Christian practice. Believers assert that the healing of disease and disability can be brought about by religious faith through prayer or other rituals that, according to adherents, can stimulate a divine presence and power. Religious belief in divine intervention does not depend on empirical evidence of an evidence-based outcome achieved via faith healing. Virtually all scientists and philosophers dismiss faith healing as pseudoscience.
James Randi was a Canadian-American stage magician and scientific skeptic who extensively challenged paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. He was the co-founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), and founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Randi began his career as a magician under the stage name The Amazing Randi and later chose to devote most of his time to investigating paranormal, occult, and supernatural claims, which he collectively called "woo-woo". Randi retired from practicing magic at age 60, and from his foundation at 87.
Remote viewing (RV) is the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen target, purportedly "sensing" with the mind.
William A. Nolen was a surgeon and author who resided in Litchfield, Minnesota. He wrote a syndicated medical advice column that appeared in McCall's magazine for many years, and was the author of several books. He died on December 20, 1986, at the University of Minnesota Medical Center from heart disease.
Peter George Popoff is a German-born American televangelist and debunked clairvoyant and faith healer. He was exposed in 1986 for using a concealed earpiece to receive radio messages from his wife, who gave him the names, addresses, and ailments of audience members during Popoff-led religious services. Popoff falsely claimed God revealed this information to him so that Popoff could pretend to cure them through faith healing.
Zé Arigó was a faith healer and proponent of psychic surgery. He claimed to have performed psychic surgery with his hands or with simple kitchen utensils while in a mediumistic trance, therefore he was also known as the Surgeon of the Rusty Knife. During his operations he supposedly embodied the spirit of Dr. Adolf Fritz.
Psychic surgery is a pseudoscientific medical fraud in which practitioners create the illusion of performing surgery with their bare hands and use sleight of hand, fake blood, and animal parts to convince the patient that diseased lesions have been removed and that the incision has spontaneously healed.
Spoon bending is the apparent deformation of objects, especially metal cutlery, purportedly by paranormal means. It is a common theme for magic tricks, which use a variety of methods to produce the effect. Performers commonly use misdirection to draw their audience's attention away while the spoon is manually bent. Another method uses a metal spoon that has been prepared by repeatedly bending the spoon back and forth, weakening the material. Applying light pressure will then cause it to bend or break.
Harold E. Puthoff is an American engineer and parapsychologist. In the 2010s, he co-founded the company To the Stars with Tom DeLonge.
Pierre Fauchard was a French physician, credited as being the "father of modern dentistry". He is widely known for writing the first complete scientific description of dentistry, Le Chirurgien Dentiste, published in 1728. The book described basic oral anatomy and function, signs and symptoms of oral pathology, operative methods for removing decay and restoring teeth, periodontal disease (pyorrhea), orthodontics, replacement of missing teeth, and tooth transplantation.
Morris Lamar Keene, was a spirit medium in Tampa, Florida and at Camp Chesterfield Indiana, where he was known as the "Prince of the Spiritualists". He was also the trustee of Universal Spiritualist Association. He is best known for his 1976 book The Psychic Mafia, in which he coined the term "true believer syndrome."
Erlendur Haraldsson was a professor emeritus of psychology on the faculty of social science at the University of Iceland. He published in various psychology and psychiatry journals. In addition, he published parapsychology books and authored a number of papers for parapsychology journals. He died on Nov. 22nd, 2020.
Ectoplasm is a term used in spiritualism to denote a substance or spiritual energy "exteriorized" by physical mediums. It was coined in 1894 by psychical researcher Charles Richet. Although the term is widespread in popular culture, there is no scientific evidence that ectoplasm exists and many purported examples were exposed as hoaxes fashioned from cheesecloth, gauze or other natural substances.
Douglas Scott Rogo was a writer, journalist and researcher on subjects related to parapsychology. Rogo was murdered in 1990 at the age of 40. His case remains unsolved.
The Faith Healers is a 1987 book by magician and skeptic James Randi with a foreword by Carl Sagan, that documents Randi's exploration of the world of faith healing, and his exposing the sleight of hand trickery and deceit by its practitioners.
Psychokinesis, or telekinesis, is an alleged psychic ability allowing a person to influence a physical system without physical interaction.
Barry Karr is an American skeptic and paranormal researcher, currently the executive director of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He is consulted by the media for all things paranormal. Karr has been involved in many investigations including faith healing, UFOs, firewalking, ghosts and others. He is a published author in two anthology publications, and as an editor of two others. Karr is a proponent of scientific skepticism and a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.
Antonio C. Agpaoa (1939-1982) most well known as Tony Agpaoa was a Filipino practitioner of psychic surgery.
Anthony J. Sattilaro (1931-1989) was an American physician and promoter of macrobiotics as a cancer cure.
References
- 1 2 3 4 Nickell, Joe. (1993). Looking for a Miracle: Weeping Icons, Relics, Stigmata, Visions & Healing Cures. Prometheus Books. pp. 141-142. ISBN 1-57392-680-9
- ↑ "Willard Fuller". Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology. (2001). 20 July 2015.
- ↑ Butler, Kurt. (1999). Lying for Fun and Profit: The Truth about the Media : Exposes the Corrupt Symbiosis Between Media Giants and the Health Fraud Industries. Health Wise Productions. pp. 100-101. ISBN 978-0967328102
- ↑ Hines, Terence. (2003). Psychic Surgery. In Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-57392-979-4