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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointed, May 21, 2009
This review is from: Exposed!: Ouija, Firewalking, and Other Gibberish (Hardcover)
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Quite disappointed not only in the content of the book, but also the structure of it. Scientific works written by US authors tend to be more exploratory, consisting of good theory and solid example, something this book thoroughly lacked. When you take a 120+ pages book, subtract all the images and un-bold the titles, all you truly are left with is 70 pages of text that were poorly used by Henry Broch. Frequently I was lost in translation, desperately trying to understand what the author was attempting to describe. The narrative skipped from one subject to another without proper transition. The author often engaged in personal rather than scientific interpretations of the phenomena. After a while it became this inconsistency because quite tedious. I would have liked to see more comprehensive and different arguments on what may cause psychic powers, dowsing, and clairvoyance. It also would have been very useful to see various double-blinded studies of each condition so that readers are not left with the possibility to wonder whether something else may be the cause and not necessarily what the author believe it to be. Also, a good book on scientific theory would have explored other works in similar matter that can present a thorough view of all possible theories. This helps readers increase their learning on a broader scale, as it tasks us with the need to form more associations, form more questions. Not a good book. As an alternative, I'd recommend "Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death" by Deborah Blum. It's sure to arouse suspicion toward Broch's theories.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Hucksters, Scammers, and Incompetents Beware, April 23, 2009
This review is from: Exposed!: Ouija, Firewalking, and Other Gibberish (Hardcover)
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When I was a teenager, the networks began airing specials wherein magic tricks were exposed. A trick would be performed (levitation, escape tricks, etc) and the audience was left perplexed, until we were taken "behind the scenes" and told the wholly unmagical secrets behind the "magic." I thrilled at those shows and how they "took down" some of the greatest tricks of the day. "Exposed!" is much the same way. Our author, Henri Broch, exposes some of the prevalent paranormal shenanigans of our day - everything from clairvoyance and astrology to Ouija boards and the shroud of turin (which, it turns out, has been half-life dated to around the 14th century). The only real warning I have is that this book is quite technical at times and assumes much background knowledge on the part of the reader. Sometimes, in fact, it reads like some of the literature review articles in scientific journals. Chapters often go into great detail to expose sloppy experiments done by others and revealing other flaws in the reasoning of paranormal "experts." (Often, studies that get negative results are kept secret, and the few studies that yield positive results are either not statistically significant or have deep methodological flaws). The real fun stuff is when the author describes studies he has done with willing paranormal "experts" who want to, but fail to, prove their claims. As a taste, the author describes an experiment he did with a fellow who claimed to read with his eyes (while blindfolded, he could read by touch). Our author suggested that we test this by putting a cardboard partition between his blindfolded face and the object to be read. Shockingly, his powers went away once there was a cardboard partition! Hmmm.... I reccomend this book to those who have already done some of the more basic readins, like that of Sagan, Shermer, and Randi. This book is a bit more complicated and does not have as coloquial a style. Not quite for the layreader, but rewarding to those who can make the effort. As a last taste, here is a good experiment the author suggests to demonstrate the absurdity of Ouija boards. Conduct a seance with a Ouija board. Next, conduct a second one but this time, cover the letters with numbered pieces of cardboard (keeping track of what number corresponds to what letter). Record where the pointer goes during the second seance, and later, match the numbers it went to to the corresponding letters. What are the odds that pointer's pttern in seance 2 will make any sense? ...Exposed!
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Worthlittle (agitprop at its average), April 30, 2009
This review is from: Exposed!: Ouija, Firewalking, and Other Gibberish (Hardcover)
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Why worthlittle? Because I'm trying to be polite. This little book is the author's attempt to prove to the rest of us, as if we didn't know, that we don't live in a magical world, that there are plenty of charlatans and illusionists around and that it's possible to figure out some of the simpler tricks. More than half of the book is dedicated to explaining some of the simpler tricks that the lesser street magicians perform from time to time. The rest seems to be a hurried amalgamation of simple and simplistic statements about the scientific method and its benefits followed by usually flawed applications of the said method meant to disprove certain claims made by parapsychologists, astrologers or street illusionists. I have little doubt that most of what magicians or paranormalists claim to be 'magic' is either a bunch of tricks played on our minds or, if not, the manifestation of phenomena we cant' YET explain or we don't YET understand. The author of the book, on the other hand, is trying to persuade the reader that EVERYTHING can be explained NOW. In other words, it's not only that the Universe CAN be known but we already have an explanation for everything under the Sun and beyond. To prove his point, the author goes on an easy hunt after strawmen and there's plenty of them around to be found and to be exposed. There are card tricksters and charlatan astrologers and false psychics and so on. Off this abundance, the author picks some of the easier examples and then he uses what he calls 'the scientific method' to prove to us that certain easy card tricks are, indeed, tricks. There is little value to this book beyond revealing to the reader that most of the cheap tricks are easy to debunk while on the fuzzier topics such as dousing, the 'natural explanation' is missing altogether. Topics such as astrology or sceances appear to be little more than the author's using irony and vitriol because he can but not exactly tearing apart the subjects of his irritation or their claims. The book ends on rather pathetic notes as we read how the author debunks his own dog's tricks. The English rendition must have suffered from a hurried translation but I have little doubt that even the French original is not too easy to read. Often, it's not clear what the author is talking about. Within the same paragraph or on the same page, the narration jumps from the topic to be debunked to author's own interpretation of the scientific method to references to other paranormal phenomena not related to the one being exposed, to personal attacks on specific individuals the author happens to despise, to quotes from 18th or 19th century texts, to sarcastic remarks, to references to obscure events or incidents that the author assumes are known to the reader. In the end, the lesson learned seems to be "don't fall for cheap tricks" or, "whenever something appears to be supernatural, look for a natural explanation". I agree with the above, of course, but who doesn't? 150 pages or so later, I feel that I learned nothing that I didn't know already and, if I didn't have to review the book, I would have stopped reading after the first few pages. Bad style, bad or badly explained 'science', largely irrelevant 'cases' being 'exposed', a book that if read is likely to generate boredom or confusion are all demanding a one-star rating. As much as I try to find some good reason for awarding a second star, I simply can't.
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