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Press Release

For immediate release 30 September 2009

From Sceptic to Psychic?

Can a scientist become a psychic and win a million dollars?

Dr. Matthew Smith leaves behind the safety of academic life today to pursue a unique and rather ambitious project. After more than fifteen years of researching ‘paranormal’ experiences from a scientific perspective, Matthew will set aside his scepticism to see if he can discover and develop his own hidden psychic abilities. In a year-long project, he will work with some of the world’s leading mediums and psychics to discover if he has any hidden psychic talents. Leading parapsychologists will monitor his progress by subjecting him to scientific tests along the way.

At the end of the year he will take the million dollar challenge offered by American magician and sceptic James Randi for anyone who can demonstrate genuine paranormal abilities.

'It’s one heck of a challenge, but I’m really looking forward to delving into the world of the psychic. There’s only so much you can learn from conducting experiments on other people. Sometimes you just have to get in there and try it for yourself!', said Matthew.

Matthew’s first challenge will be on Saturday 3rd October when he will be giving readings at a psychic fair in Witney, Oxfordshire. ‘They will be readings based on tarot, and maybe a little cold reading!’, explained Matthew, ‘I’m keen to find out how good my readings are before I’ve even started any psychic development.’ Matthew will give readings for free and ask his clients to compare his with those they get from other readers at the fair.

Deb Blakeley, organiser of the psychic fair said, ‘I applaud Matthew for trying this out for himself. He may surprise himself! And I welcome any attempt to find out more about how psychic readings might work.’

Matthew leaves his post as Associate Professor of Psychology at Liverpool Hope University on Wednesday 30th September after ten years at the University. Shortly after he arrived at the University, he was asked to be the resident parapsychologist and sceptic on Living TV’s Most Haunted Live to pass a critical eye over the ‘paranormal’ activity experienced by the investigation team.

Matthew added, ‘This challenge takes me outside of academia, and out of my comfort zone, to explore these topics from a very different perspective.’

Matthew is writing about his experience for a book, Million Dollar Psychic, to be published next year.

Saturday 3rd October: Psychic Fair, Langdale Hall, Market Square, Witney, Oxfordshire, OX8 6AB. For details, contact Deb Blakeley: Tel. 01993 702233; Email opalhealing@aol.com.

Matthew Smith Email spiritualjunkie@me.com

Ends

Links
Million Dollar Challenge (James Randi Educational Foundation)
Third Eye Workshops
Liverpool Hope University

Pick a card

With just over week to go before the psychic fair, I think I'm just about able to remember the basic meanings of each of the 78 tarot cards. This has been aided by a nifty little memory system based on one described by our good friend Derren Brown in his book Tricks of the Mind!

I guess there's only one way to find out how much I remember... Care to call out a card?

59 seconds later...

I've said before I'm a slow reader. I've only just got round to finishing Richard Wiseman's latest book 59 Seconds. I enjoyed it. It's Richard's take on the whole self-help industry in which he corrects some of the myths about self-help psychology. He also uncovers surprising snippets of useful information about techniques that are supported by scientific research. These range from how putting a pot plant in your office can increase your creativity to how a picture of a baby in your wallet can increase the chances of being returned if you lose it!

In light of my upcoming attempt to give readings at a psychic fair (less than two weeks away!) it was some of the stuff towards the end of the book that especially caught my attention. The final chapter focuses on personality, and draws attention to a number of things that can reveal something about our pesonality. Of particular interest to me was how much can be determined about our personality just from our hands. First, did you know that the ratio of the length of your index finger to your ring finger is related to your tendency towards typically 'masculine' personality traits? And did you know the way you clasp your hands can also reveal your tendency towards typically 'left-brain' or 'right-brain' ways of thinking?

Perhaps if I don't get the hang of the tarot cards I could always do a scientifically supported version of palm reading?

Who'd be a dentist?

Why would anybody want to spend their entire working lives poking and prodding around inside other people's mouths? I think it takes a certain personality (i.e., weird) to want to do something like that. Very odd.

I've got the dentist this morning. Not looking forward to it.

You do the math(s)

So that's how it was done! Deep maths. Should have guessed really, shouldn't we? All that stuff you did at school... that was shallow maths. If only we'd had a few double periods of deep maths and we might have been able to win the lottery!


Of course DB wasn't going to reveal how he really did it, but he did give us some plausible sounding 'explanations', including a strenuous denial that he did NOT fix the lottery machine. All of this feeds the ongoing debate over how he really did do it. What amazes me is the number of people, in particular journalists, who seem to be so pissed off that he didn't reveal his actual method!

After Friday's show, Channel 4 aired a show featuring that other DB that seems to get under people's skin, David Blaine. This show included more examples of Blaine's street magic where he performs close-up tricks with things like cards and coins and focuses on the wild reactions from his audiences. The exception was the final item: A bullet catch. Traditionally, this has involved catching a bullet between the teeth and is (surprise, surprise!) usually achieved by some kind of trickery. Blaine's version seemed to be a little different. He didn't attempt to catch the bullet in his teeth, but instead held a small metal cup between his teeth and stood there while a fellow magician fired a .22 calibre rifle at him. The high speed cameras seemed to show that is what indeed happened!

Blaine's show was titled What Is Magic? This question is fitting for both Brown and Blaine as they both do a fine job of blurring the line between what is real and what is not.

How did he do it?

Still wondering how Derren Brown predicted the lottery numbers on Wednesday night? Supposedly all will be revealed in The Events tonight on Channel 4 at 9pm. If you missed the live broadcast on Wednesday night you can watch it on YouTube.


From the moment he revealed his prediction there has been much debate over how he achieved it. Theories range from camera trickery (i.e., the use of a split-screen) to laser technology (a laser beam somehow projecting the numbers on to the ping-pong balls that formed his prediction). Some have even suggested that Derren spent the last year recording all of the possible combinations and splicing that together with the live broadcast. However, I have a feeling it would take longer than a year to pre-record the millions of combinations that could come up! Some of the more common theories have been collected together here.

No matter how he achieved it, Derren Brown and Objective Productions have again produced an amazing effect that has got us all scratching our heads wondering how on earth he might have done it. I know I'll be watching tonight to hear his explanation, whether it be the truth or some other fantastic deception!

Brown knows

Psychological illusionist (i.e., magician) Derren Brown is up to his old tricks again. Or rather, he's up to some new tricks. He has a new series called The Events starting on Channel 4 this week. He's opening the series with a rather audacious stunt in which he plans to predict the winning numbers in this Wednesday's National Lottery.

Coincidentally (!) I took part in a psychic lottery experiment yesterday as part of an ongoing study being run by Mick O'Neill. The aim was also to attempt to predict this Wednesday's winning lottery numbers. No trick here, Mick has spent a few years collecting data in an attempt to see if it is possible to predict the numbers using psychic means. For what it's worth the numbers I 'predicted' were: 3, 4, 8, 9, 17 and 38.

The draw is broadcast on Wednesday 9th September on BBC1 at 10.35pm. Mr Brown will be on Channel4 at the same time.

It's a goat thing

The movie based on Jon Ronson's book The Men Who Stare at Goats is premiered this week at the Venice Film Festival. It's due to be released in in the USA in November and in the UK in January. The film stars Ewan McGregor, George Clooney, Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges. You can view the trailer here.

When I read Ronson's book I was aware it was being made into a film, but couldn't really see how it would translate to the screeen. It would seem that the film is inspired by the book. That is, it's a story based upon the ideas in the book.

Don't worry, there are still men staring at goats.

Mystic Moo

In a series of posts earlier this year, I showed an interest in learning to read Tarot cards. Can they really show an insight into our past, present and future lives? In an attempt to discover a little more about how tarot and other psychic readings work, I have set myself a challenge.

Four weeks from today I will be sitting at a table at a psychic fair giving readings. That's right. I'll be giving readings. This means that before then I need to learn what each of the tarot cards actually mean! There are 78 cards in a tarot deck that each have their own meaning (in fact they can each have two meanings, depending if they appear in an upright or reversed position) so this isn't going to be easy. I'll let you know how I get on (but if you read tarot, I guess you'll already know).

Something Unknown

This film could be interesting. Or, then again, it could be crap.



The full title of the film Something Unknown is Doing We Don't Know What comes from a quote by Sir Arthur Eddington referring to the the Uncertainty Principle in quantum physics. The film is about the science behind psychic phenomena.

Happy memories

Some initial results from Prof Wiseman's happiness experiment were announced yesterday. It seems that on average we, as a nation, were about 7% more cheerful at the end of last week compared to the beginning of the week. So there. This was determined by way of a couple of polls undertaken at the start and end of the week. Of course, it's not possible to determine how much, if any, of this increase in the nation's happiness might be attributed to the science of happiness experiment.

Participants in the study were assigned to one of five conditions. Four of these groups were asked to spend a few moments each day engaged in an exercise that previous research had indicated might influence feelings of happiness. One group was asked to use those moments to focus on expressing gratitude for one thing in their lives (this is the group I was assigned to) while a second group spent the time simply smiling. A third group was asked to carry out an act of kindness and the fourth group was instructed to recall a pleasant event from the day before. The remaining participants were in a 'control' group in which they were asked to just think about the previous day's events.

More than 26,000 people took part and it would seem that reported levels of happiness in all groups, including the control group, increased over the course of the week. So everyone's a winner! The biggest increase was seen in the group asked to recall a pleasant event from the day before. They showed a 15% rise in reported happiness over and above the folks in the control condition.

The difficulty is that even if these kinds of exercises do have an impact upon perceived happiness, and the initial results from this study seem to suggest they do, then the effects are likely to be rather transient and so many other things will have a far greater impact on our how we feel on a particular day. And are we dealing with underlying 'happiness' or whether we're in a good mood?

Still hats off to Richard for attempting such an ambitious project!

The price of wisdom

Am I being a grumpy old man or is 50 quid a lot to pay to listen to a talk? It's the ticket price for An Evening with Deepak Chopra at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester next month. I'm sure it would be very interesting and uplifting, and I'd like to go, but £50 seems rather steep, don't you think?


Deepak Chopra has written over 50 books on spiritual topics ranging from love, healing, life after death, and so on. Indeed, two of his books are sat on the bookshelf in front of me (SynchroDestiny and The Book of Secrets). So maybe he can justify the £50 price-tag and I'm sure he'll fill the 2,400-seater hall. But it is a shame that he (or rather the organisations surrounding him) is charging a price that will mean a lot of people who would really benefit from hearing what he has to say are put off.

Anyway, if you're not put off, here is the link to the event via which you can book a seat. I doubt I'll end up going myself, but if I do I'll be the one tutting under my breath and moaning about the price of the ice-creams.

Happy now?

Compared to this time last week, are you more or less happy than you were? It's hard to tell isn't it? Unless, of course, you've taken part in a scientific experiment to measure just how happy you are. Well, I have. And I'm, er, still not sure if I'm any happier or not. I may have a better idea on Wednesday when some initial results from the study are to be announced.

Did you take part? Do you feel any happier?

The study was being conducted by Professor Richard Wiseman, Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire. I know Richard well having worked as his Research Assistant a little over ten years ago and I have always been amazed at the way his research captures the public's imagination. This particular project is linked to his latest book 59 Seconds, which is "a triumph of scientifically proven advice over misleading myths of self-help" (not my words, the words of Derren Brown).

My copy of the book arrived from Amazon this morning. I'll let you know if it's as good as Derren thinks it is.

Joy to the World

How are you feeling this Monday morning? However you're feeling, my old friend Prof Richard Wiseman is up to his old tricks again and conducting an experiment for us all to take part in. This time he's trying to make the world a happier place. No he's not campaigning for all tapes of The Vicar of Dibley to be burned (though there's an idea...). He is simply wanting as many people as possible to take part in a week long happiness project at www.scienceofhappiness.co.uk.

It will take less than a minute a day to take part and, who knows, this time next week you may be as happy as, or even happier than, Larry.

Zen Bound

It's not always easy to predict what will happen in a day... This morning I was talking to an old friend in Fiji, as you do. He mentions a game you can download for your iPhone called Zen Bound. I download said game. I get hooked.

It's a rather bizarre little game. As the link to the website, above, will tell you, it is "a calm and meditative game of wrapping rope around wooden sculptures". I said it was bizarre. But strangely compelling.

The sham continues...

Those pesky pranksters at NASA have even got Google under their spell. You can now explore the moon's surface on Google Earth. The clip below has a man pretending that he went to the moon in 1972 (he's very convincing) and inviting us to tour the moon "as I did" in Apollo 17 (yeah, right).



You can even view human artifacts left on the surface of the moon from each of the missions. Or rather you can view 3D models of them because... er, they're not really there and NASA made the whole thing up! They should just come clean and admit it was all one big joke that got out of hand. I mean, it was the 60's. One guy probably just gazed skywards and said, "hey, wouldn't it be cool to walk on the moon!" and next thing you know they're being given millions of dollars to knock up plans for a lunar landing craft.

Still, fair play to them. They know how to keep a secret.

A freelance what?

"So, I hear you're leaving us?" Sam half stated, half asked.
"I am indeed", I replied.
"Where are you going to?"
"Um, I don't know! I haven't got another job, if that's what you mean."
"Hey, that's... brave!"
"Yeah, I'm getting a lot of people telling me I'm brave. Either that or foolhardy!"
"Yes, some would say foolhardy."

When he said he thought I was brave, did he really mean to say I was foolhardy?

When people ask me what I'm going to do when I leave Hope, I tend to respond by saying I'm not sure. I'm trying to get into the habit of saying I'm going to be 'freelance'. "A freelance what?" usually comes the reply. It's a fair question. By way of an answer to this I feel like the woodwork student who is asked by his teacher what it is he is making:

"I'm making a portable", replies the student.
"A portable what?", asks the teacher.
"I don't know yet... I've only made the handles!"

Not moonwalking

And why is 'moonwalking' called 'moonwalking'? Since when did walking backwards in such a way to make it look like you're walking forwards replicate what Neil and Buzz (but not Michael) did on the lunar surface?

Over the last few days I've seen the clips from the lunar landings (faked or otherwise) a number of times and at no point have I seen the astronauts walking backwards but eerily looking as though they should be moving forwards. Or have I missed those clips?

Perhaps with Michael Jackson's death, the moonwalk can now be reclaimed by NASA? Assuming of course that Michael Jackson's death hasn't been faked as well...

Not walking on the moon

40 years ago today the first men walked on the moon. Or did they? The conspiracy theorists will tell you it was all a hoax, and that Capricorn One was so close to the mark that they had to change the premise of the film from a faked mission to the moon to a faked mission to Mars.

Personally I feel sorry for the guy who had to stay in the command module, so never got to walk on the moon. So let's celebrate the 40th anniverary of Michael Collins' great sacrifice.

Slow down, you move too fast

We were up early this morning so we watched the Disney-Pixar movie Cars on DVD. Freya lost interest after the first 10 minutes or so, but Rachel and I found ourselves watching it all the way to the end even though we'd seen it before. It's such a good film!

Behind the amazing animation is a story about the importance of having to slow down once in a while. Life isn't all about winning.