Brown: You stack everything on your side
from the start. You make no promises. If it
doesn't work you can just say it's the person's
fault for not, either it's a bad day and the
spirits have left you or the person is blocking
the energy. There was one discussion I had
when we filmed something along these lines
that we didn't end up using cause they were
just so terrible. It was a discussion between
a guy who was just our control subject.
so he was neither being difficult, just being
honest, and a psychic who said to him
"Now I'm sensing you live with, you either live
on your own, or you live with other people."
(laughter)
And he said, his response was "I don't know,
can you be a little more specific?" So she
reasserted "It's either on your own or with
a group of people." And again he said
"I'm really not sure what you mean. Can you be
more specific?" At which point the instructor
intervened, quite chipperly, and said
"You either live on your own or with other people!
Which is it?!" And he said "I don't know. I actually
live with my family so I'm not sure what that means."
She said "Well then you live with other people.
Don't block the energy!" And was quite
livid with him. I can't remember your question
but I just though that was funny. (laughter)
Dawkins: It was very funny yes. Off camera voice: Did you ask about the
growth of irrationality? Why people want
to be hoodwinked?
Dawkins: Do you there is ...
I'm always very bad at sort of gauging the
zeitgeist but do you feel that there is any
kind of growth in gullibility and in exploitation
of gullibility going on at the moment?
Brown: I think what the psychic industry has
been around for so long. It's, by no means
Brown: is it, you know, a modern phenomenon. Dawkins: Very big on the 19th century.
Brown: Huge in the 19th century. But in it's way
all those have been around. The spiritualists
of the 19th century that were making tables
rise in the air and tambourines bash around in
the dark are now, since infrared photography
was invented they were caught out
by photographs in the dark.
Now they've turned into the modern day
spiritualist who just talk and it's a lot more
difficult to disprove. So it's been around
for a long time in different guises.
But you know, we live in an age where
less people are going to church,
and there's a suspicion of science I think
through the relativist agenda that's sort of
that we've been through of all truth is
equal and you know, nothing is really true
and that my truth is the same as your truth,
it just comes from my culture and my values
and that's all there is. And if you buy into that
then the scientific model is just one model
which is no more or less valid than the new
age model or whatever. And that way of thinking
throws all rational discussion out the window.
All possibility of the importance of evidence and
the importance of discussing these things
as adults. Out the window and you are sort
of left with a culture where everything is
as valid as everything else. Of course that's
going to perpetuate an acceptance of
alternative medicines obviously which are huge
now, and belief in these psychics and charlatans
and that industry as well. People realize
it's a fairly easy job to get up on stage or
sit one on one with somebody in their front
room and charge whatever to trample over your
memories of a child that you have just lost.
I mean, it's revolting.
Dawkins: I'm slightly surprised that the
academic sort of pseuds cornery of
cultural relativism and things which is big
in academic departments in universities has
actually trickled down to that extent to the
sort of mass audiences that are fooled by
these fakes. It sounds as though that has
been a trickle down effect but perhaps they're
not aware of it or something like that.
Brown: I think it sort of, it feels unfashionable
to talk to people about the importance of
evidence. Of testing things. Even just a
little while. A friend of mine who's a psychic
told me about she puts crystals in her plants
and they grow better. I said "Well you've
got loads of plants. Have you ever put two
in the same window, water them the same,
maybe just put crystals in one and not the other?"
I'd do that. I don't thing that's being,
nasty or rude. It's just kind of curiosity.
Brown: But that was being very- Dawkins: Did she take offense to that?
Brown: A little. I was being western. (laughter)
Dawkins: I've actually noticed that, that
people have taken offense when I've made
very gentlest and mildest suggestion of something
just beginning to approach a sort of test.
Brown: Yeah. Well it's curiosity really isn't it?
But one person's curiosity is another's
offending somebody else. But I think, yes there
is, the trickle down effect is interesting. I think
it's always been there but I think there is, I
think with the TV as well, it's become a big
thing on TV and with the amount of TV
psychics and mediums we've had that's
brought up a whole load of career mediums
and psychics that now can easily get a spot
on TV or are cheaper to hire or cheaper to
go to than the really famous ones and it's just
become an industry that we are more aware of now.
Dawkins: Do you blame television, what do they
call them? Commissioning editors and people
like that for pandering to this sort of thing?
I mean, going after ratings by giving air time to
what they must know are fakes and charlatans?
Brown: (sigh) I think, it's the same problem with
newspapers printing horoscopes. Scare mongering
stories about MMR vaccine or things that
you know are, they're not even really facts
because sensationalist stuff sells papers.
It's the same thing with TV. Someone I know spoke
to me after a show that I did and there's a
famous TV medium psychic show where a
guy goes around and visits haunted places
and is able to channel various spirits that
are there. It's very entertaining. Very popular
program. And normally they often go to pubs
and hotels and places like that are supposedly
haunted. And this one pub had a story of a
murder and a ghost that was behind it.
Everyone knew it. Everyone in the town knew it
It was famous for it. And the film crew
came to that town to investigate it and
Brown: to do a piece on it. Dawkins: Don't tell me they stage it.
Brown: No, but they asked around so they,
so the production crew all knew about the story
so for the medium to find out about it was
no challenge at all. I mean the fact that you
can come up with the details of the murder
and the ghost was no challenge at all because
he would have known that and anyone could
have told him because it was general knowledge,
popular knowledge in the area. So he goes on
the show and he channels these spirits and
talks about the murder and comes out with
all of these details and it might look
impressive if you didn't realize that he had
access to the information. But what the
person told me when he spoke to me after the
show was that the pub owner had made up
the story about the murder and the ghost
just to create a bit of color around the pub.
So he wasn't impressed at all. And you can't
help but think those people making that show
Brown: they know it's rubbish. Dawkins: They know. Yes.
Brown: But it's a popular show.
Dawkins: And they will defend it by saying
"Oh it's good ratings. People enjoy it. Don't
be so po-faced. Just enjoy it just a laugh."
That's what they'd say.
Brown: Exactly. Then you speak to people on
the other hand who really on the basis of
program like that and other stuff that happens
to them in every day life like the phone
ringing and it's someone they've been
thinking of. Really base their beliefs, you know
they change their life. They live their lives
according to these messages that programs
like that give out. So I think there's a
responsibility that's ignored, but I don't know
how on earth you police that.
Dawkins: I have seen television alleged
documentaries in which they're talking about
ghost stories. And they will get somebody to tell,
I mean everybody's got a ghost story
which they heard somebody else
tell which perhaps they believe. Where the
television people did something I think
really quite wrong was they staged it.
So instead of just allowing the person to tell
the story they actually got actors to create
the story and they didn't claim that it was really
they were really filming it. They admitted that it
was actors. But nevertheless the fact that
it was and the fact that they had mist all
over the place and a spooky atmosphere
would have given far more vividness to the
alleged story. I forget whether it was a
ghost story or some uncanny coincidence or
whatever it was. Oh I know what it was. I
think it was um, people claiming to meet
each other in dreams when they were asleep.
And so three men went to sleep having agreed
to meet in a certain place. And the television
company actually staged a meeting with sort
of mist swirling around and things. Of course
this didn't actually happen but nevertheless
Brown and Dawkins: They put the idea into your head.
Brown: That I think taps into, by making it
visual, that's part of the problem, part of the
reason I think why these things are so
appealing and why it's much easier to believe
in a psychic or a spiritualist because what
they say they're doing is really quite
easy for us to grasp. We can make simple images,
vivid images in our mind of what that involves
or what a ghost is or what a psychic phenomenon is.
It's much easier for us to visualize that
and see that than the more complicated and
interesting reasons behind it. And, unavoidably
because you know who we are as people
and the way we like to form patterns quickly
and we need to in order to move on and have
those patterns as part of what we understand
about how the world works, we forfeit. And we
forfeit because it's easy and appealing.
And it's a very difficult thing to get round.
'Cause you can explain and you can explain,
but those explanations are less appealing to the mind.
They don't create vivid colorful pictures.
Then they...