by James Randi
Crucifix
A specifically Christian amulet, in the form of a Latin cross, properly with a modeled figure of Jesus Christ, crucified.
See also charms.
Cryptomnesia
A psychological phenomenon (“hidden memory”) in which the subject unconsciously recalls seemingly forgotten memories and incorporates them into the present as if they are new and original thoughts and impressions. Related to the déjà vu phenomenon.
There is an alarming derivation of this genuine phenomenon which is known as “false memory syndrome.” By means of prolonged and insistent questioning, coaching, and leading of the subject, an operator can elicit almost any “memory” required, and that becomes a firm part of the subject's experience, regarded as representing an actuality. It has given rise to extensive belief in Satanist rituals and horrid sexual abuses performed upon children, who appear to recall these events only decades later. So strong is the belief in the inanity that laws have been written to accommodate this newest form of witch-hunt.
See also Bridey Murphy.
Crystal Ball Gazing
See scrying.
Crystal Power
The enchantment with crystals is understandable. People are fascinated with the wonderful organization and symmetry observed in these attractive natural formations. Even common salt assumes quite square shapes when it is given the opportunity, and more esoteric substances produce intricate forms that are typical of their composition. Water, in the form of snowflakes, is one of the most beautiful expressions of this phenomenon.
Mystics have taken up this expression of nature as further proof of their claims, and they now ascribe to crystals various powers of healing, influences to bring about financial gain, precognitive ability, and other potentials. They point to recognized attributes of crystals, long recognized and used by science and technology, as support for their own notions. One of these is the piezoelectric effect, which simply means that when certain crystals such as quartz are squeezed, a small electrical signal is given out. When, conversely, an electrical signal is applied to the crystal, it expands or contracts in response. There is nothing at all mysterious about this phenomenon, and it is fully explained within the parameters of basic physics, but it has been pressed to serve the theories that amateurs publish in the literature asserting that therefore crystals give out some sort of vibrations that psychics can detect.
Simple tests of the claim have been designed and carried out. In every case, it has been shown that the claim is spurious.
In shops that cater to the need for supernatural guidance and benefits one can now pay fifty times the former price for what was once only an attractive addition to a mineral collection but is now touted as a magical remedy for many problems and afflictions as well as a key to infinite wisdom and power.
Crystals are pretty rocks; they are not keys to psychic powers or healing modalities.
CSICOP
See Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal.
Curse of Princess Amen-Ra
In 1968, a startling story began to be picked up by the popular press. It involved a dead Egyptian princess, an ancient curse and lots of disaster, all the ingredients needed to attract attention. Author John Macklin wrote:
The Princess of Amen-Ra lived some 1,500 years before the birth of Christ. When she died, she was lain in an ornate wooden coffin and buried deep in a vault at Luxor, Egypt, on the banks of the Nile.
Macklin went on to describe how in the early 1900s “four rich young Englishmen” bought the mummy of the princess in Egypt, whereupon one of them promptly walked out into the desert and vanished. Another of the buyers had his arm shot off, yet another had his bank fail, and the last one went broke and “was reduced to selling matches in the street.”
But, according to Macklin, the curse was only getting started. The next owner had three of his family injured in an accident and his house caught fire. He wisely gave the boxed princess to the British Museum.
Things went wrong from the very first minute that the museum took possession. The vehicle delivering the mummy backed up and pinned a pedestrian. One of the two porters carrying the sarcophagus fell down the stairs and broke a leg; the other died mysteriously two days later of unknown causes. Exhibits in the room where the princess was displayed, once they got her through the door, were thrown about at night. A spirit from the coffin tried to throw a night watchman down a delivery chute. The child of a worker who showed disrespect to the princess died of measles.
There's much more. Macklin related that one worker who had delivered the princess to the museum fell seriously ill and another was found dead at his desk. A photographer sent to record the artifact found that the face painted on the sarcophagus registered on film as a “human — and horrific — face.” Apparently overcome by this repulsive result, he promptly locked himself up in his darkroom and shot himself.
Then, according to Macklin, the British Museum offered to sell this very awkward object to anyone who dared to buy it. It was now 1912. As we might expect, a brash, wealthy and enterprising American came upon the scene, heedlessly offered to buy the princess, snapped her up for a good price, and decided to ship her to New York. Macklin concluded his tale:
The mummy case was placed in the cargo hold aboard a sparkling new White Star liner about to make its maiden voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to New York.
On the night of April 14, amid scenes of unprecedented horror, the Princess Amen-Ra accompanied 1,500 passengers to their deaths at the bottom of the Atlantic. The name of the ship was the Titanic.
Though this story has been circulated and recirculated, rewritten and enthusiastically enhanced, it is still just a story. The mummy never existed and the entire tale is a journalistic exercise in bad writing and witless sensationalism, a story that the British Museum is often called upon to deny. The museum even publishes an official denial which is sent to those who inquire. But the story will show up again, count on it.
And it will be believed.
See also Tut, curse of King.
Curse of the Pharaoh
See Tut, curse of King.
D
Dactylomancy
See table tipping and Ouija board.
Daemon
The same as demon (which see) but with this spelling, possibly referring to a Greek secondary divinity between gods and men.
Davenport Brothers
The American Davenport brothers, Ira (1839-1911) and William (1841-1877), caused a major sensation in the late 1800s with a spectacular and puzzling vaudeville stage act which seemed to support belief in spiritualist doctrine. It consisted of their being tied hand and foot and then being locked into a large cabinet with an assortment of props. Bells would sound, musical instruments would be played, strange hands would appear through openings in the cabinet, and a bewildered member taken from the audience would have his clothes turned inside out and various other indignities would be inflicted on him. The cabinet was often opened quickly right in the midst of these events, and the two Davenports were always found to be still securely bound and seemingly “in trance.”
The brothers had developed their act as teenagers, following the sensation caused by the Fox sisters. Before long the father of the two “mediums” resigned his position with the Buffalo, New York, police force and took over managing what quickly got to be a very profitable operation. They were joined by William H. Fay, another Buffalo resident who became an important agent of their operation. They developed their tied-in-a-box routine and for the next ten years toured the United States with it. Then they arrived in England, a country that had accepted the idea of spiritualism enthusiastically and still embraced it even after it had begun to wane in the country where it was born. England was fully primed for belief in the Davenports.
Davis, Andrew Jackson
(1826-1910) Known as “The Poughkeepsie Seer,” Davis was the son of a shoemaker, with very little formal education. He claimed from age fourteen to
be able to diagnose illnesses by clairvoyance. For a while, he made his living at this questionable profession, then in 1847 he published his major work among many that were to come, The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind. Some thirty-four editions of this book appeared in the next thirty years. A brief quotation will serve to illustrate the pretentious nature of this opus:
In the beginning the Univercoelum was one boundless, undefinable, and unimaginable ocean of Liquid Fire. . . . Matter and Power were existing as a Whole, inseparable. The Matter contained the substance to produce all suns, all worlds, and systems of worlds, throughout the immensity of Space. It contained the qualities to produce all things that are existing upon each of those worlds. The Power contained Wisdom and Goodness, Justice, Mercy and Truth. It contained the original and essential Principle that is displayed throughout the immensity of Space, controlling worlds and systems of worlds, and producing Motion, Life, Sensation and Intelligence, to be impartially disseminated upon their surfaces as Ultimates.
This is typical of such literature, using undefined terms, generalities, and sweeping claims that are never further looked into. It has an appeal to the uneducated, who accept it as being equivalent to genuine philosophical and scientific works of which they have an equal lack of comprehension. And, to some academics, this kind of writing can appear to be a step beyond their own abilities, especially if it seems to state something they wish to accept.
Some of the contents of The Principles of Nature were plagiarized from the works of Swedenborg, a mystic whose books had just been published as Davis began his own work. Davis in some cases used as his own, word for word, long passages from Swedenborg, both in this book and in his subsequent writings. This has been accepted by Davis's followers as proof that he was inhabited by the spirit of Swedenborg while writing, rather than evidence that he might have been cheating. They reject the other, more parsimonious explanation.
Davis also said that the planet Saturn was inhabited by humans more advanced than those here on Earth, with other human civilizations on Mars and Jupiter, and more primitive humans on Mercury and Venus. In 1847 he hardly had to worry about space probes revealing the facts about these matters.
Davis invented the term Summerland to designate the undefined place to which souls went after the death of the owners. This was an attractive and welcome terminology for some of the spiritualists, since it relieved the believers of any need for a religious connection.
In his last years, Davis ran a small bookshop in Boston.
Dee, Dr. John
(1527-1608) Prophecy and other assorted supernatural abilities were attributed to a contemporary of Nostradamus, the brilliant Welshman Dr. John Dee. He was many things — mathematician, navigator, cartographer, prolific writer, master spy, astrologer, and most trusted adviser to Queen Elizabeth I of England. Described as a tall, thin, mysterious man with a long pointed beard, Dee was one of the most powerful but subtle political influences of his day.
A genuinely accomplished scholar who was never reluctant to mix a little attractive claptrap in with his otherwise valuable teachings, he practiced astrology and searched for the legendary philosopher's stone that could heal all ills and transmute base metals into gold. It is believed that Dee was the model for Shakespeare's character Prospero in The Tempest.
Beginning in 1581, Dee dabbled in almost all the magical arts, and early in his career he labored under the shady reputation of a sorcerer. Before Elizabeth Tudor ascended the throne, and while she was a reluctant resident of the Tower of London, he predicted for her a very long life and a very high position in the kingdom (a very successful prophecy!), and from that moment on, he enjoyed her considerable patronage and trust.
In spite of a certain amount of dismay she felt over Dee's open association with acknowledged rascals and rumored practitioners of black magic, the Virgin Queen appointed him to ever more important positions. Elizabeth had in Dee a skilled cartographer, mathematician, and navigator who served her well, but she valued above all his purported abilities to predict the future.
Some of Dee's magical paraphernalia are still preserved in London at the British Museum, and the prize object of the display is a magic black obsidian glass mirror seven inches in diameter fashioned in Mexico by the Aztec culture. In it, Dee claimed he could see future events by what is known as scrying. This is done by looking into a bowl of water, a crystal, or — as in Dee's case — a special mirror or speculum he called his Angelical Stone. He said that it had been given him by the angels Raphael and Gabriel. (This was later owned by British author Horace Walpole and was sold at auction to an unknown buyer in 1842.) Dee said that an angel appeared to him in the crystal and with a wand pointed out numbers and letters in a chart which spelled out messages in a language he called Enochian, using twenty-one characters. Surprisingly, this language has a real syntax and grammar, though those aspects are closely related to English.
Dee himself did not actually use the mirror, and admitted that he'd never mastered the ability to scry; he left that to others such as an assistant named Barnabas Saul, who soon lost his power and was replaced by one Edward Kelley (1555-1595), a scoundrel who claimed mediumistic and magical abilities and who transmitted the mystical messages to Dee.
Edward Kelley, the charlatan who ruined the reputation and the life of Dr. John Dee. He was a convicted counterfeiter and thus had cropped ears, so he wore his hair long and full to hide this fact.
In the later years of his life, John Dee turned his ill-directed attention to alchemy. Worse still, from 1582 on, he furthered his acquaintance with Kelley to the point of dependence. That association was the downfall of the brilliant scholar, for at that point, he abandoned all his truly useful and productive work to seek the ever-elusive shortcut to wealth and to divine wisdom. He soon found himself betrayed by Kelley and others who fed upon what was left of his fast-fleeing fame and repute. In 1583, a mob raided his home at Mortlake and destroyed many of his books, manuscripts, talismans and magical devices.
He served his last really responsible position as warden of the Collegiate Church in Manchester and was active there during an infamous event known as The Six, in which a group of children in Manchester imagined themselves to be possessed by demons. What was then referred to as a “cunning man” was brought in to observe and report on their situation. This poor man was caught up in the hysteria and was eventually executed on suspicion of being a witch himself. John Dee's only contribution to a solution was to advise the children to fast and pray. It was little comfort to the “cunning man,” whose cunning apparently deserted him when most needed.
Upon the death of Elizabeth in 1603, and the ascent to the throne of James I, who had no patience with anyone pretending to possess any sort of unorthodox (non-Christian) magical powers, Dr. Dee was stripped of his honors and his income and sent to live in the countryside incommunicado. He spent the final five years of his life in extreme poverty until his death in 1608 at the very remarkable age of eighty-one. His library of more than four thousand books on the occult, mathematics and cartography — the largest collection in Britain at that time — was dispersed soon after his death. He is buried at Mortlake.
His assistant, Kelley, was convicted of counterfeiting (again) and was killed escaping prison.
British Museum visitors may also see Dee's rose-tinted crystal, engraved gold and wax talisman tablets (in particular, the Golden Disc of the Four Castles), wands, and formula books on display.
de Freitas, José Pedro
See Arigó, José.
Déjà vu
A psychological phenomenon in which the subject experiences a situation that he or she feels strongly has been experienced before. It is believed that a unique combination of sensory inputs (hearing an unusually worded phrase along with perceiving a distinctive odor, for example) may bring about recall of a previous similar or identical combination, thus creating the illusion that the entire experience has been previously encountered.
Since this is a strange experience, it is often enthusiastically brought up as an example of a probable psi phenomenon, which it is not.
See also cryptomnesia.
De la Warr, George
(1905-1969) A civil engineer from England who became wealthy by selling quack medical equipment. By stroking a rubber pad mounted on a mysterious black box modeled on that of another quack, Ruth Drown, De la Warr said he was able to diagnose and treat diseases. He made a fortune renting out the devices and training people to use them, and he might very well have believed that they really worked.
His boxes had a number of dials which were to be twisted until the stroking of the rubber pad seemed to change in character. The setting of the dials then gave the operator a number. Each box was accompanied by the Guide to Clinical Condition, a list of numbers that could be consulted to determine the medical condition of the subject. For example, 901 would mean “toxins” and 907 would be “fracture.” A “bruise” was indicated by 80799, and 60404 meant a “secretion imbalance.”