Montel Williams may be going off the air, but it appears there’s no shortage of talk show hosts willing to sell themselves out for a ratings boost. Just look at the Thursday, May 15th episode of Dr. Phil, on which self-proclaimed psychic James Van Praagh came by to promote “Ghost Whisperer” and shill his new book, Ghosts Among Us: Uncovering the Truth About the Other Side.

Dr. Phil usually comes across as quite reasonable and logical, and has even advised against using psychics on previous shows. At the start of this particular episode, he claimed to be a skeptic in matters of the paranormal. And Dr. Phil did indeed question some of Van Praagh’s assertions-but this was done rather light-heartedly, while still promoting Van Praagh’s book.

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I recently stumbled upon the website for New Mexicans for Science and Reason. Thanks to Kylie Sturgess over at PodBlack Blog for bringing this to our attention. For more background information you may refer to this article on USA Today’s website.

I was able to find a page called Best and Worst of the Year Awards, a compilation of outrageous claims and blunders, many of which have been publicly debunked by skeptics. After taking a gallop through the 2007 list, I thought it might be amusing to throw up a personal highlight reel from NMSR’s list.

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Regulating Psychics? It’s About Time!

British psychics are in for a rude awakening. A new set of laws may force them to prove their talents in court, or “give disclaimers describing their services as entertainment or as scientific experiments with unpredictable results.”

Daylight Atheism sums up the situation quite well:

The law currently in force in this area is the Fraudulent Mediums Act of 1951, which does in fact make it illegal to fraudulently claim to possess psychic or clairvoyant powers. But the key word is “fraudulently” - meaning that any enterprising prosecutor would have to prove that not only that the defendant has no psychic powers, but that they were aware of this and deliberately set out to deceive. This is a high bar to surmount, which is why the Act has hardly ever been used to prosecute psychic claimants…

But now, as part of an effort to harmonize consumer-protection laws across the European Union, the Act may be repealed. The new regulations proposed to replace it ban “treating consumers unfairly”, and psychics worry that this language could be used against them, to force them to prove their claims are genuine. Gee, you think?

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Are you one of many Americans who believe they’ve experienced the presence of a ghost? Your own brain could be deceiving you. I am not referring to intelligence or alertness, but the electrical inner-workings of the brain. Electrical interference could be the culprit, rather than a supernatural entity. Let me explain.

Electromagnetism

Electromagnetism refers to an invisible magnetic field generated by any electric charge in motion. Transformers, light bulbs, and anything else that conducts or uses electricity emits an electromagnetic field. Much like light or sound waves, these electromagnetic waves can be perceived by our senses and brain. In fact, electricity exists within the human brain, which sends messages via electric currents.

Is it possible that the electrical currents in our brain can be affected by external electrical currents in our environment, causing the brain to sense things that aren’t really there? Parapsychologist William Role seems to think so (Role, 2008). In a 2008 episode of Megascience, Dr. Roll performed an experiment in a Georgia motel thought to be haunted.

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