THE ASSOCIATION FOR RATIONAL THOUGHT NEWS
PRACTICING THE ART OF CLEAR THINKING IN ALL WALKS OF LIFE

Volume 2, No. 1
October, 1992

The Association for Rational Thought is a new organization
committed to encouraging clear, rational, well-informed
thinking. ART encourages the investigation of paranormal and
pseudo-scientific claims from a responsible, scientific
viewpoint and the distribution of the results of such
investigations to the public. You are cordially invited to
become a member of ART. Membership information is on the
back page.

Come to the October Meeting!
Saturday, Oct. 10, Greenwich Tavern and Restaurant 10:00 AM.
Reports on pseudoscientific hot spots in the tri-state--
Discussion of topics for this year's meetings. Lunch and
conversation with new officers afterwards.

Support a Vital Voice for Reason in the Tri-State--Pay Your
Dues!
Continue to receive meeting notices and The Association for
Rational Thought News--Pay your 1992-93 dues today. Send a
check for $15.00 payable to The Association for Rational
Thought to Treasurer Peggy Borger, 4419 Ashland Ave.,
Cincinnati, Ohio 45212-3212 in the enclosed envelope. Keep
down the costs of mailing reminders--send your check now.
ART dues pay for the newsletter and meeting notices mailed
to members.

April Meeting: Election of Officers; Oran Dent on Magic and
Military Deception
President Joe Gastright presided over the first annual
meeting of The Association for Rational Thought on Saturday,
April 25, at the Greenwich Tavern. The membership elected
these officers for the coming year: President, Keith
Brabender; Vice-President, Dick McGrath; Secretary and
Membership Secretary, Mary Pacinda; Treasurer, Peggy Borger;
Investigations Officer and Media Resources Chairman, Joe
Gastright; Newsletter Editor, Virginia Jergens; and
Publicity Coordinator, Porter Henry. The Meeting Organizer
slot is unfilled--if you would like to help plan meetings
for small groups of lively skeptics as Meeting Organizer,
please call President Keith Brabender at 351-0921 and
volunteer.

Porter Henry reported that skeptics and amateur magicians
came from all over the country to attend the CSICOP
conference in Lexington, Ky., on the history and practice of
magic

ART member, psychologist and magician Oran Dent gave a
highly entertaining demonstration of the military's use of
deception, illustrating each point with a magic trick and
explaining how such deception exploits weaknesses in human
perceptual processes. He explained that perception is not
what you see, but a hypothesis about what your visual
sensations mean. If your hypothesis is faulty, your
interpretation of the world is faulty. Both generals and
magicians rely on leading their victims to pick faulty
hypotheses, hypotheses that reflect the real world
incorrectly. Oran demonstrated that such misleading is not
difficult.

Oran divided into simulation (creating what is false) and
dissimulation (hiding what is real). Simulation includes
mimicking, or imitating, as in a spy;s impersonation of an
enemy soldier. Simulation also includes inventing, in which
an enemy is misled into an incorrect hypothesis by inventing
a new, but false reality--rubber tanks and wooden guns to
simulate the real thing. The use of decoys is also a form of
simulation. Dissimulation includes masking--electronic
jamming, or smoke screens--and repackaging, in which one
thing is disguised as another. A military unit might be
repackaged by dressing it in the uniforms of another unit,
thus encouraging the enemy to develop incorrect hypotheses
about troop movements. Another form of dissimulation is
dazzling, in which the aim is to confuse the victim, who is
then unsure of what she saw, and thus unable to form a good
hypothesis. Camouflaging ships and coding communications are
forms of dazzling.

Success in forcing your victim to develop a faulty
hypothesis, the heart of deception, is a matter of
systematically rearranging what your victim believes he
perceives. Begin by choosing a strategic goal and deciding
how you want your victim to react. From there determine what
you want your victim to perceive and what you must hide or
show to produce the desired perception. Then analyze the
pattern of the thing to be hidden or shown to see which
aspects are amenable to which kind of simulation or
dissimulation--masking or mimicking or whatever. Provide the
masking or mimicking, make sure the your victim gets the
message and is able to see your carefully arranged version
of reality and will accept it as real, and voila, your enemy
accepts a field of imaginary tanks and guns as real. The
same procedure will of course persuade an unwary viewer that
she has just seen a spoon bent by unaided mental power,
which explains why magicians make good consultants in
paranormal investigations. It takes someone who knows how to
lead a viewer to incorrect hypotheses to recognize someone
else who is using same techniques. Oran Dent's presentation
is good evidence that the magician provides much more than
entertainment--he provides a method invaluable to any viewer
trying to evaluate extraordinary claims.

Executive Committee Meeting

The newly elected Executive Committee met August 8 to plan
for ART's second year. Investigations Officer Joe Gastright
reported that CSICOP has sent him to talk to a family in
Hamilton, Ohio troubled by ghosts for the past seven years.
Family members have come to believe that they see ghosts in
reflected light in snapshots and elsewhere. Joe will report
in full at the November membership meeting. Treasurer Peggy
Borger reported that ART has $314 in the bank, including a
generous $100 gift to support the newsletter.

Articles of incorporation, a first step toward tax exemption
as a non-profit corporation, were prepared by Peggy Borger
and signed at the meeting. The committee scheduled monthly
meetings on second Saturdays, October through June, except
when CSICOP events conflict with second Saturdays. See the
calendar below for details. The newsletter will be published
quarterly in October, December, February, and April, and
will serve as a meeting notice for those months. Postcard
meeting notices will be mailed in months when the newsletter
is not published. The committee raised annual dues from $10
to $15 a year to cover the cost of the meeting notices and
the newsletter. The committee also chose topics for the
October, November, and December meetings; details are
included in the calendar below.

Cold Spring Mary Sightings Not an Isolated Event

Tri-state TV stations and newspapers widely reported the
predicted appearance of the Virgin Mary, venerated by
Christians as the mother of Jesus, at St. Joseph Roman
Catholic Church in Cold Spring, Kentucky, on August 31. A
sizable crowd, although not the hordes predicted, gathered
at the site under the watchful eye of the local police and
the Kentucky National Guard. Participants prayed, sang, and
compared notes on rosary beads which allegedly turned gold,
sightings of the sun Ospinning,O and other paranormal
events.

This event, with its attendant possibilities for excess
spending by the Cold Spring authorities and the Kentucky
National Guard and excess profit-making by Cold Spring
citizens, is neither isolated nor unique, but part of a
pattern of increasing incidence of Mary sightings, according
to Ari L, Goldman ("When Mary Is Sighted, a Blessing Has Its
Burdens," New York Times, September 6, 1992, p. A1). Goldman
reports that church authorities say that such incidents have
"increased sharply across the country in recent months."
Gabriel Meyer, editor of Mary's People, a monthly magazine,
Goldman reports, estimates that there are about 150
investigations of such alleged visitations underway
worldwide. Explanations include the example set by the
visions alleged to have occurred in Medjugorie, in former
Yugoslavia, where 17 million people have visited over the
last 10 years, seeking physical and spiritual healing in
visions of Mary, and the approach of the millenium in the
year 2000, widely expected by religious scholars to produce
many such incidents.
Periods of great social and political change, particularly
when accompanied by poor economic times, are also thought to
provoke such sightings.

The news media, however, rarely mention such secular
explanations, usually accepting by implication the
paranormal explanations offered by those who see the
apparitions. Church authorities prefer to downplay such
incidents because they threaten to replace the authority of
the church with the voices of visionaries. Like the news
media, they are also reluctant to bring reason to bear on
the problem. One cause for their reluctance is the immense
popularity of Mary among the faithful, who are likely to
accuse anyone who appears to doubt the visions of being anti-
Mary. The burden of providing alternative hypotheses rests
squarely on local skeptics.

Sources a skeptic may want to consult to prepare for the
next time Mary sightings are predicted include Dr. Sandra
Zimdars-Swartz's history of such sightings over two
centuries, Encountering Mary, published by Princeton
University Press. Any standard introductory psychology
textbook can provide information on perception and how the
human mind may be misled. And keep in mind Oran Dent's
notion that perception is a hypothesis about reality, and
thus be quite wrong.


Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. --I
Thessalonians, 5.21

Calendar
October 3, Saturday, 10:00 AM. Executive Committee Meeting.
Greenwich Tavern and Restaurant.
October 10, Saturday, 10:00 AM. Business Meeting. Greenwich
Tavern and Restaurant, 2440 Gilbert Ave., Cincinnati.
October 16, 17, 18. 1992 CSICOP Conference. "Fairness,
Fraud, and Feminism: Culture Confronts Science." Dallas,
Texas. Topics include Multicultural Approaches to Science:
The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly; Gender Issues in Science
and Pseudoscience; The Future of Skepticism: The Price of
Reason; Fraud in Science; Crashed Saucers; The Paranormal in
Science. Keynote Address by Richard Dawkins, professor of
zoology, Oxford University and author of The Blind
Watchmaker and The Selfish Gene. Registration, $125.00;
Hotel, double, $68.00 plus 11% tax per night. For
information call Mary Rose Hays at CSICOP, 716-636-1425.
November 14, 15 CSICOP & CODESH Workshops. Boston. Saturday:
Skepticism and the Paranormal: Where Do We Stand? (Topics:
Does ESP exist? What is the evidence for extraterrestrial
visitations and abductions? Past-life regressions? Is
reincarnation true? Does faith-healing work? Is there life
after death?) Sunday: What is Secular Humanism? (Topics:
Definitions of "Secular Humanism;" Aspects of Humanism:
Atheism, Freethought, Critical Thinking, Affirmation of
Life, Humanism as a Positive Alternative to Religion, The
Ethics of Humanism, Sexual Morality, Humanism and
Church/State Issues, Practical Action: The Modern Challenges
to Humanism and Ways to Respond.) Registration: $30. each
workshop, $50 for both. For information, call Barry Karr at
716-636-1425.
November 14, Saturday, 10:00 AM. Executive Committee
Meeting. Greenwich Tavern and Restaurant.
November 21, 10:00 AM. Regular Monthly Meeting. Greenwich
Tavern and Restaurant, 2440 Gilbert Ave., Cincinnati. Joe
Gastright, Investigations Officer, will report on his
investigation of a family in Hamilton, Ohio, troubled by
ghosts.
December 12. CSICOP Workshop. Ft. Lauderdale. Same program
as November 14 and 15 workshops. For information, call Barry
Karr at 716-636-1425.
December 19, 10:00 AM. Regular Monthly Meeting. Greenwich
Tavern and Restaurant, 2440 Gilbert Ave., Cincinnati. We
will view and discuss a videotape made by Joe Nickell,
author, University of Kentucky technical writing instructor
and CSICOP Fellow, of a Jerry Springer show including a
refrigerator reading (a cold reading, no doubt) and other
attempts at the demonstration of psychic powers.
1993 Regular Monthly Meetings: Jan. 9, Feb. 13, Mar 13, Apr.
10, May 8, June 12.

How to Get to the Greenwich Tavern & Restaurant
The restaurant is at 2440 Gilbert Ave. (Telephone: 221-
6764), east of I-71 and north of downtown Cincinnati.

If you come south on I-71:
Drive south on I-71. Take Exit No. 2, Gilbert Ave. and
Reading Rd. The exit ramp forks. Take the right fork, marked
Reading Rd. In a block or so you will come to two left turn
signs, the first to Reading Rd. and the second to Elsinore.
Turn left on Elsinore. Go about one block to Gilbert Ave.
Turn left on Gilbert. Go north on Gilbert about .6 mile to
Curtis Avenue, on the right. Turn right on Curtis. Greenwich
Tavern parking is off Curtis to the right, and Walnut Hills
Business District parking is off Curtis to the left a little
beyond the Greenwich Tavern lot. The restaurant is at 2440
Gilbert Ave., one door north from the corner of Curtis and
Gilbert.

If you come north on I-71:
Drive north on I-71, Take Exit No. 2, Reading Rd. and
Florence Ave. The exit forks. Take the right-hand fork to
Florence Ave. At the stoplight, turn right on Eden Park.
Drive one block and turn right on Gilbert. Go north on
Gilbert about .6 mile to Curtis Avenue, on the right. Turn
right on Curtis. Greenwich Tavern parking is off Curtis to
the right, and Walnut Hills Business District parking is off
Curtis to the left a little beyond the Greenwich


Address Changes & Corrections, Newsletter Contributions:
Please send address changes and corrections and
contributions to the newsletter to V. H. Jergens, Ed., 1032
Grandin Ridge Drive, Cincinnati, Ohio 45208. The deadline
for the next issue of the newsletter is December 1.


Support The Association for Rational Thought--Pay Your 1992-
93 Dues Today. Dues are $15 Payable to The Association for
Rational Thought. Envelope Enclosed.