by Joe Nickell
Jacie, at age four, was also seen at times to laugh and appear “to have conversations with invisible companions” (McEneaney 2010, 69). She said they were her daddy and his friends from work. Having invisible companions is common to those with a propensity to fantasize (Wilson and Barber 1983) and is not, of course, proof of spirit communication—no matter how often the former is equated with the latter.
PREMONITIONS
McEneaney begins her discussion of premonitions by relating a premonitory dream experienced by Abraham Lincoln, who “told several people about his dream, and he also wrote it down in his journal” (2010, 119). Lincoln described seeing a corpse upon a catafalque, around which were military guardsmen and many mourners: “‘Who is dead in the White House?’ I demanded of one of the soldiers. ‘The President,’ was his answer. ‘He was killed by an assassin.’ Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd which awoke me from my dream. I slept no more that night and although it was only a dream, I have been strangely annoyed by it ever since.”
Now, putting aside the fact that McEneaney's text is corrupted (differing from the original in some of its punctuation and containing—horrors!—a grammatical error), and given that Lincoln did not keep (as she reports) a journal, he probably did relate such a dream. However, he thought at the time that it was someone else who was killed, as he told Ward Hill Lamon, a friend who had accompanied him to Washington for his protection (Nickell 1999, 17). It was Lamon who, from memory, reconstructed Lincoln's words some three decades after the fact (Lamon 1895, 115–17).
The important point to make is that there is nothing remarkable about Lincoln having dreamed of death—even his own assassination. In the Civil War strife, death was all around him. Moreover, not only had an assassination plot been thwarted prior to his first inauguration in 1861, he had subsequently received numerous death threats and once had a hole shot through his top hat by an intended assassin. Lamon and others around him constantly remonstrated with him about his safety.
Likewise, it is really not surprising that World Trade Center workers and their family members had forebodings of disaster. The towers had already been the target of a most serious attack in 1993. Osama bin Laden had issued fatwas in 1996 and 1998 calling for jihad (holy war) against the United States. And the World Trade Center workers had not only the same unease that everyone has about their unforeseen future (even in the most peaceful times), they were also working in what had previously proven to be a prime terrorist target. As Martin Gardner wrote (concerning supposedly precognitive dreams of the sinking of the Titanic), “With respect to dreams about major disasters that make the headlines, we have no inkling of the millions and millions of times that people dream of such a disaster and nothing happens” (1986, 9). Not only will some people be motivated for various reasons to exaggerate or even fabricate such a dream (for personal aggrandizement, for example, or to promote supernatural beliefs), but even a completely honest person may unconsciously exaggerate. Gardner explains:
After telling about a precognitive dream for the umpteenth time, one no longer recalls the dream's actual details, especially if it occurred many years ago. Dreams are hard enough to remember accurately ten minutes after waking! One is soon recalling not the dream itself but pictures that formed in the mind during previous tellings. The only way a precognitive disaster dream can have evidential value is when its details are written down before a disaster and dated in a way that can be verified, such as being described in a letter or published before the event or stated on a radio or television talk-show.
(In at least one instance—a prediction of the assassination attempt on President Reagan—even that was faked by a later, backdated taping [Frazier and Randi 1981]!)
So the after-the-fact stories McEneaney relates are simply not impressive. Take that of a woman who formerly worked in the South Tower who dreamed she was looking at “the southern tip of Manhattan” (i.e., in the direction of the World Trade Center) when she beheld “a huge explosion” and “saw something that looked almost like a mushroom cloud over the city.” In the dream, she said to her husband, “Bin Laden just blew up New York. Grab the dogs and get them away from the windows in case they shatter” (quoted in McEneaney 2010, 132). Another woman, known as “Julia C.,” says she had a dream just two days before 9/11 concerning a previous country home: suddenly a big truck raced up the driveway and disappeared into the house, whereupon she saw “this huge gaping black hole with jagged edges” then “a flicker of a fire and black smoke”—images of a truck bombing she later equated with the destruction of the twin towers by crashing planes (135).
As still another example, one victim's dream journal contained a reference to an “atom bomb” that was “in the shape of a paper plane,” but if that seemed significant in light of 9/11 (it was the last entry, made a month before the tragedy), it appears less so when we note that the 9/11 disaster did not involve an “atom bomb” and that, in any case, the journal's dream bomb “did not go off.” Actually, the woman's dream occurred the day after she was hired to work at the World Trade Center (McEneaney 2010, 143) and may simply have been prompted by the previous bombing there. It is simply retrofitting to so selectively equate dream images with the 9/11 events. This is what yet another person (with only a late connection to the World Trade Center site) obviously did. She had had a dream of “two predatory birds”; however, McEneaney (2010, 139) states: “It wasn't until later” that she “came to see the birds as lethal aircraft.”
MEDIUMISTIC OFFERINGS
Following the World Trade Center disaster, before the month was out, some family members had begun to visit so-called psychics and mediums (those who supposedly intercede on our behalf to relay messages from the spirit realm). Unlike the “physical mediumship” of the past—when spirits seemed to actually materialize or produce distinctive effects in dark-room séances, practices that repeatedly proved fraudulent—today's “mental mediumship” carries fewer risks of exposure. At the same time, the dead often seem uncertain, or perhaps they mumble, as when McEneaney herself received mention of a man whose “name was John or began with the initial J” (2010, 201). Not surprisingly, her husband indeed had a friend of that name. If not, a Jim or Jason or Jesse or another would have filled the bill.
McEneaney was really impressed with the psychic offering, “Your husband's name starts with E. Is it Emile?” (2010, 200). The fact is, his name was Eamon—yet McEneaney is willing to credit the reader with a hit. She wonders how a psychic could have gotten so close by identifying the first letter. Perhaps it was a lucky guess; perhaps McEneaney remembers exactly what was said and when. Or perhaps a friend of hers, who had apparently been to the psychic and recommended her to McEneaney, had mentioned her (and her husband's name) to the psychic—something the friend might not even remember having done.
McEneaney appears woefully unaware of psychics’ techniques. Consider cold reading (so called because the psychic works “cold,” without advance knowledge about the sitter). It is a method of artfully fishing for information while giving the impression that it comes from spirits of the dead. Often the reader uses what I call “the question trick”: he or she asks a question that, if answered in the affirmative, is considered a hit, whereas otherwise the psychic will treat it as only part of the lead-up to a statement or to additional questions. Using body language, the sitter's own responses, and other cues and clues, the shrewd medium operates like a skilled magician but employs instead of legerdemain what might be called “sleight of tongue.”
Such readings work better with the credulous, who often count only hits, while misses are either interpreted as necessary (retrofitting again) or forgotten. McEneaney does concede “that not everyone who received a message from a medium or psychic was happy with the experience” (2010, 202). One psychic told a woman that “in another life,” her husband and son (both of whom had perished at the World Trade Center) “liked to go out in a bang and they were together when Mount Vesuvius blew up.” The woman found such of
ferings neither helpful nor comforting (202).
The same woman, however, was more impressed with the clever, fasttalking “psychic medium” John Edward (real name John Edward McGee Jr.). Yet he had mentioned not a husband and son but a husband and father-in-law (apparently the latter was also deceased). Edward fared much better when he told her that she was “wearing a piece of clothing that had belonged to her husband,” which she was (McEneaney 2010, 203). That seems quite accurate, but suppose he had actually asked if she had with her something of her husband's (which would perhaps be more likely than not) and the woman retrofitted the more specific “clothing” to the “something.” It is difficult to judge the accuracy of such claims without complete and precise facts.
Edward uses a number of techniques, including a shotgun approach: a statement to an area of the audience rather than a single person, whereby he has multiple opportunities for someone to validate one of his offerings. He has also been known to use the technique of hot reading, passing off information gleaned earlier as having just come from the Other Side. He was caught cheating in this way on a Dateline NBC episode (for which I was both an advisor behind the scenes and an interviewee on camera [Nickell 2010]). If Edward or any other medium could actually communicate with the dead under scientifically controlled conditions, he or she could accept James Randi's Million Dollar Challenge, retire, and enjoy the accolades of science.
CONCLUSIONS
Given the overwhelming tragedy of 9/11, made very personal to those whose loved ones perished, we can well understand the emotions involved: the grief, the longing for a connection with the deceased, the wish for a final good-bye. Perceived signs, apparent visits, premonitions, or even pretended messages supposedly relayed by psychics and mediums may seem comforting—but at what expense? Such illusions come at least at the cost of sinking into superstition, at worst of falling vulnerable to fantasizers or charlatans. Sadly, this is the legacy of McEneaney's Messages.
Janis Amatuzio, MD, is a forensic pathologist—one who routinely conducts death investigations and performs autopsies to determine the cause, manner, and mode of death (as, for example, cardiac arrest resulting from arteriosclerosis due to natural causes).1 She claims her work has also given her evidence of life after death.
In two books—Forever Ours (2002) and Beyond Knowing (2006) (figure 29.1)—she has gathered much evidence toward that end. However, it is of extremely poor quality. Consisting of “the dreams, visions, and extraordinary experiences that so many people report following the death of a loved one,” the tales represent the very anecdotal evidence that science has found good reason to distrust, as we saw in the previous chapter.
For example, a woman named Laura, whose husband had succumbed to disease, was heartened by an experience that to her was profoundly mystical. While driving, she heard on the radio what she and her husband had regarded as “our song,” containing phrases about “being well in heaven” and “watching over you.” She told Amatuzio (2006, xv), “In that moment I changed; I mean, I knew without a doubt he was reaching out to assure me that all was well.”
Now, what is Laura really saying? Of course, the experience was understandably poignant, and it no doubt seemed, as she said, “an astonishing coincidence.” But to suggest that her husband was “reaching out” via a song implies that somehow his spirit controlled the record-playing mechanism at the radio station, or telepathically influenced the disc jockey to make that selection, or—the mind boggles.
DREAM SYNCHRONICITIES
Amatuzio and many of the people reporting their experiences to her are impressed by coincidences—especially those she terms “extraordinary synchronicities” (2006, 6). (Psychologist Carl Jung [1960] used the term synchronicity to describe “meaningful coincidences” that appear to occur in an acausal manner.) One problem in this regard is that people tend to overestimate the rarity of such synchronous events. (For a discussion, see Falk 1981.)
Some of Amatuzio's synchronistic anecdotes involve dreams. For instance, after one of her lectures on mystical experiences, a woman named Theresa told her of a dream she had had. In it, her friend Marge had taken her on a shopping trip and had tried on a maroon dress and gold locket. Theresa stated, “I remember I woke briefly after my extraordinary dream and saw it was midnight.” The next day she learned from another friend that Marge had died during the night. When Theresa asked what time that had happened, she received the spine-tingling answer, “About midnight.” The following afternoon, when she visited the mortuary, there lay Marge's body clad in a maroon dress and wearing a gold locket (Amatuzio 2006, 141–44).
Such tales are almost formulaic: someone appears in another's dream, the dreamer wakes conveniently to note the time, and he or she later discovers that the death transpired at exactly the time noted. (That the time in the foregoing story was “midnight” bespeaks of its fairy-tale quality.)
Psychologist C. E. M. Hansel (1966, 195–96) notes the elusiveness of dreams as evidence:
Remembering some event from one's waking life of a few years back is a relatively clear-cut process compared with recalling a dream of last night. Many people recount dreams with the greatest confidence, but since a dream is a private experience there is no way of checking its factual content. It is not surprising that a large number of so-called psychic experiences involve them. The great danger in recalling the content of a dream is not only the ease with which it may be changed or embellished, but that the dating of a dream presents extreme difficulty. If a person after hearing about some event, remembers having dreamed some days before that it would happen, no one can check this fact. He may be remembering something that really happened, or the dream may have been produced and placed at a suitable position in his past at the time he hears the story.
He continues:
Most memories of past events can be located at some point in time by virtue of the fact that they arise in a context; there are events before and after them. If this context is lacking, it will be difficult to place the memory in time, and it will lack reality. A dream largely lacks this context, and when it is recalled, there is little to guarantee that it happened last night, some other night, or that it was not primarily generated at the time of recall. Just as perception is affected by memory, recall is affected by contemporary conditions, and when the memory is vague, as when a dream is recalled, the amount of material added to it may be large.
Dream synchronicities and other anecdotally reported mystical experiences have been collected by the thousands, but, notes Hansel (189), “none of the stories investigated has withstood critical examination.”
Amatuzio's anecdotes are no exception. As she presents them, they are not even admissible as evidence, lacking sufficient documentation, failing to meet the burdens of evidence and proof, violating the rule of best evidence, and consisting of mere hearsay—among other deficiencies (cf. Hill, Rossen, and Sogg 1978, 48–53, 131–35, 208–209).
EVIDENCE?
It is surprising that a forensic expert would be so inattentive to good evidence. Indeed, she actually admits, “I knew that as a scientist and a physician, I could not ‘prove’ these experiences to be real,” placing the word prove in quotation marks as if proof were little more than a semblance of reality. Instead, in the most fuzzy, New Age fashion, she speaks airily about “the wisdom and truths arising from these mysteriously beautiful experiences” (Amatuzio 2006, x).
Like everyone, she recognizes that we humans are cerebral and emotional creatures. We both think and feel. For example, we can scientifically prove the fact of death and investigate its cause on the one hand, and, on the other, we can respond to death with appropriate sadness for the deceased and compassion for that person's loved ones, among other emotional responses.
The problem lies in trying to think with our emotions. Not only does Amatuzio (2006, 181, 199–201) advocate trusting “intuition” as a means of “knowing” (as if intuition never fails!), but she attempts to make it seem intellectually respectable through pse
udoscientific speculations about quantum physics and cell biology (137–40). Thus, she concludes that when we begin to “awaken”—to use intuition—“we see the truth about life and gain a deep knowing, a glimpse through the mysterious veil separating the living and dead. I believe in my heart, I know, that life goes on…forever” (200).
But does she not know what neurological science has established, that once the brain has been destroyed, brain function ceases? With that cessation ends the ability to think and move, no matter how much we want to believe otherwise. Ghosts—even headless ones (Nickell 2006)—may haunt people's imaginations, but there is no scientific proof that they otherwise exist.
FANTASY PRONENESS
Nevertheless, like a number of other New Age doctors—such as Judith Orloff (2000), who claims psychic ability and advocates “intuitive healing”—Amatuzio “knows” the “truth” of her beliefs. Although she is intelligent and scientifically trained, she has many of the traits associated with a fantasy-prone personality—one common to many “mediums,” “psychics,” and “visionaries.” (So does Orloff: see Nickell 2004, 215.) That personality type was characterized in a pioneering study by Sheryl C. Wilson and Theodore X. Barber (1983) that identified some thirteen shared traits. (Anyone may have a few of these—I do—and only rarely would someone have all of them. As in previous studies [Nickell 2004, 296–303], I consider six or more traits in an individual indicative of fantasy proneness. Called “fantasizers,” such people are sane and normal, representing an estimated 4 percent of the population.)
Among the fantasy traits that Amatuzio exhibits are (1) having imaginary companions in childhood (she had “not one but two imaginary friends,” named “Rara” and “Gerry” [4]); (2) fantasizing frequently as a child (with her “friends,” for hours on end she “made up new games, fairy castles, and magic places” [4]); (3) experiencing imagined sensations as real (her imaginary friends and two stuffed animals “seem as real to me today as they did then” [6]); (4) experiencing hypnagogic or hypnopompic hallucinations (she describes a bedside visitation by “a large, light-filled being” [9]); (5) receiving special messages from spirits, higher intelligences, or the like (her “being” told her he was her “guardian and guide” [9]); (6) having out-of-body experiences (in one incident she has the sense of being “outside myself looking into the cadaver laboratory” [13]); and others.