In the first Skepticism 101 article, I looked at the origin of the word skeptic, explained how modern scientific skeptics differ from deniers and cynics, and provided just a few of the many basic tools that every critical thinker should carry in their baloney detection kit to avoid being scammed or indoctrinated into a cult-like ideological group.

I also briefly commented that though skeptics can have a wide range of viewpoints, the modern skeptics movement is often associated with a lack of belief in the supernatural. This raises many questions such as, can skeptics debunk the supernatural? And what about psychics? If you live in a major city, you can no doubt spot a psychic shop almost every two blocks. Are they scammers? Do psychic powers exist?

These questions are closely tied to the history of the modern scientific skeptical movement. There were scientific skeptics before the 20th century. For instance, Benjamin Franklin is known to have investigated and even debunked paranormal claims in his day. But many credit the legendary escape artist Harry Houdini as the father of the modern skeptical movement. An illusionist himself, Houdini developed a resentment for those he thought used magical or mentalist trickery to con people into believing they had real supernatural powers. He famously debated with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle over the authenticity of spiritualism, mediums and even fairies, which was a common belief at the time.

Further, Houdini became committed to testing the validity of the spiritualists and mediums of his day. These were people who claimed to be able to communicate with the dead (sound like anybody you know today?) often by calling upon the spirits in elaborate seances. A master of deception and misdirection himself, Houdini was able time and time again to expose charlatans falsely claiming to have mystical, paranormal powers. He became the bane of every spiritualist charlatan's existence. And because he suspected that in the event of his death, spiritualists would shamelessly claim to have contacted him from the other side, he gave his wife Bess a secret code that only they'd know. This way, if a spiritualist did try to allege contact with the great debunker Harry Houdini from beyond the grave, they'd need to also present the secret code. The code word was BELIEVE. To date, there's no definitive evidence that any spiritualist or medium had ever successfully produced the code word prior to its being made public. 

But several decades after the death of Harry Houdini, another great escape artist, mentalist, and conjurer took up the mantle of skepticism and emerged as the second father of the modern skeptical movement. That man was James "The Amazing" Randi. And for several decades now, Randi has challenged the psychic mediums, pseudo-scientists, and many other proponents of paranormal claims. He's perhaps most famous for challenging self-proclaimed psychics Uri Geller and Sylvia Browne as well as exposing sham faith healer Peter Popoff on The Tonight Show, hosted by his friend and fellow skeptic Johnny Carson. Sadly, despite exposing Uri Geller and Popoff as as cheats and swindlers over two decades ago, they continue to operate.

James Randi has also founded the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF), a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting critical thinking as well as investigating paranormal and supernatural claims. The organization is perhaps best known for offering it's Million Dollar Challenge to anyone "who can demonstrate any psychic, supernatural or paranormal ability of any kind under mutually agreed upon scientific conditions." So far, many have tried to win the million and no one has ever succeeded. This past weekend marked the first ever attempt to win the challenge before a live audience at the JREF's seventh annual skeptics conference in Las Vegas known as "The Amazing Meeting" (TAM) At TAM, Connie Sonne, a woman who claimed to have special dowsing abilities, was tested under proper scientific conditions before an audience of 600 people and 1600 more watching a live stream of the event over the internet. And like many who have come before her, she failed to win the challenge. 

So does this mean there is no such thing as psychics or the supernatural? Not necessarily. Skepticism requires always being open-minded to the possiblity. Maybe real psychics have simply never heard of the challenge or for whatever reason hadn't applied. Or maybe real psychics have already been tested and simply failed because they were having a bad day. We can't say for certain. And while sometimes skeptics debunk myths and misconceptions, skeptics are not debunkers. As I talked about in the previous Skepticism 101 article, skeptics don't set out to reject or deny claims but instead to objectively test their validity. And most claims can only be tested on a case by case basis. Absense of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absense. But given that stage mentalists with no psychic powers at all are so effective at creating the illusion of such powers, and given that anyone is capable of learning these tricks themselves by reading books on mentalism, one is left with little choice but to suspect that if psychic mediums do really exist, they're doing it the hard way.

And for more information on psychics, click here.