Customer Reviews

Exposed!: Ouija, Firewalking, and Other Gibberish

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

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.

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!

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.

I am going to get bashed for my review but I had a real hard time enjoying this book. I love all of those TV specials you see on networks like Discovery where investigators try to prove or debunk various myths. When I saw this book, I thought I'd give it a try as the description seemd to fit exactly what I was looking for with regards to a light and fun read. I was way off!

The book is written in a very scientific manner. While science is the main subject used to debunk each test, the way the book is written makes it feel very texbook. Quite frankly, I found it boring! I suppose comparing it to a TV show is unfair because TV can "re-enact" a test for everyone to see but you can't really show that in a book. However, the author writes in a very matter of fact way that sticks to the statistical results without adding any real color. I'm sorry, but that translated to boring...unless you are a scientist.

I also found it strange that the a lot of the author's reasons for debunking something is based on a small sample size or referring to some other study that was done 20 years ago. While other studies MAY HAVE proved that stuff like ESP is garbage, I find it hard to take it seriously if I don't know all of the details that went into the sudy. The author is making an assumption that you know about the study done at the University of "blah blah blah" in 1979 and that you accept those findings as fact.

I also didn't like the mulitple references to the author's other book. I found it to be similar to product placement on TV. While I understand he doesn't want to describe something he has already written about, he needs to remember that some readers are not familiar with his work so he should always provide some basic information to help set the story. Even writers that use the same character throughout their books will provide some high level overview of the characters.

Maybe I am too judgemental and spoiled by the specials shown on TV these days but this book was not my idea of fun. Give me a magician in a mask on TV to show me why magic is fake and that will keep my attention.

For those who think that the United States is a nation of idiots that embraces such pseudosciences as astrology, numerology and even creationism as if they were scientific truth, Henri Broch's Exposed offers only small comfort: it is clear from his book that this idiocy is not just a national phenomenon but a global one. Just as the U.S. has authors like Martin Gardner, Carl Sagan and James Randi who are out to expose these pseudosciences for the frauds they are, France has Broch.

Exposed focuses on certain so-called psychic powers that are used to predict the future, read minds and contact the dead, among other things. Ouija boards, dowsing, astrology and clairvoyance are all discussed. As Broch repeatedly points out, most of these so-called talents disappear whenever exposed to scientific testing. The typical response from the purported psychic is that the testing (and skepticism in general) creates a negative atmosphere that weakens the necessary forces.

The essential adage when dealing with these abilities is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. The burden is on the psychic to show his ability works, not on the observer to disprove it. The second most important adage is that of Occam's razor: when dealing with an event, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. If you hear a strange noise in your house, check for mundane things like flaws in the plumbing before assuming that it is a ghost.

How well does Broch do in exposing these frauds? Excellently. How is he as a writer? Just okay. Maybe it's something lost in translation, but his attempts at humor often fall flat. He also has a tendency to get overly detailed, losing the big picture as he discusses the minutia of the testing.

Of course, there are plenty of intelligent people in the U.S. (and elsewhere), which is fortunate, or Broch wouldn't have much of an audience. Maybe Exposed will do a small part in raising that number. Compared to a Sagan or Gardner, Broch is a lesser writer, but the message is important enough to give this book a four-star rating.

The advance notice for this book promoted it as a "...deconstruction of these [paranormal frauds]..." and promised that the author's "...hands-on experiments demystify the mysterious and explain the inexplicable." However, the book itself fails completely to live up to that promise. Even though I understand and agree with all that the author says, this book is a serious disappointment.

It is broken into numerous very short sections, each devoted to debunking some supposed paranormal phenomenon, such as fire-walking, Ouija boards, etc. However, these sections are so brief that the analysis is aggravatingly shallow. They read like articles in Skeptical Inquirer magazine, though not nearly as well researched and absolutely not as well written. The one in-depth chapter was devoted to the Shroud of Turin, and all of it was information that has appeared elsewhere in much greater depth.

Further, nearly every analytical point in the book is made up of an assertion that something or other is a fraud, followed by "...as I showed in my book, such-and-such." All of the books, articles, and websites referred to in this way are French language offerings.

In the same vein, the book is translated from the French original. I think the translation is pretty good, but it was just enough unlike what a native English speaker would write to be noticeable. This isn't a big thing, but it is there.

Finally, the Amazon price for this book is going to be about $17. The book is a very skimpy 144 pages of text. Frankly, I don't think what's in it is worth the price. Anyone interesting in this sort of book can do MUCH better by ordering a copy of James Randi's excellent _Flim-Flam! Psychics, Unicorns, and Other Delusions_ which is available for about the same price.

In summary, this book was a real disappointment. It's shallow, poorly written, and, in my opinion, overpriced. I don't recommend it at all.

I was looking forward to this but ended up quite disappointed.

Part of it is probably that I'm just too much of a skeptic to begin with - I found it impossible to believe that there are people who wouldn't see through most of this malarkey instantly. Who needs long winded explanations of involuntary muscle tremors?

A number of the things debunked are just long known apparatuses used by stage magicians for centuries.. is it necessary to "expose" these? Any book on historical magic would give a more complete and realistic treatment.

Another problem may be that English is apparently not the author's native language. This book just doesn't lend itself to smooth reading - it's not "off" much, but it's enough to bother me.

Finally, the debunking is over-kill. The only chapter I found interesting at all was the one on the Shroud of Turin and I'd read most of that elsewhere. The only new piece of information for me was the tale of the theft of the shroud from another town. The rest drones on with too many "proofs" of what is already obvious.

I wouldn't recommend this to anyone.

Originally asked for on Interlibrary Loan from another library. This was to learn more about Ouja and how its debunked for a story being researched for. The material in this book is covered elsewhere better and with more research.

Not only that, it does not delve into the subjects noted in the title itself. You would've thought it should be titled Exposed! Clairvoyance, Dowsing and ESP and other Gibberish.

Clearly the author attempted something he dreamed of doing - writing a book on how he figured out or found out about each of these subjects. He clearly missed the mark - very little new or improved upon information from the late 1960's & early 1970's.

He would have had a winner with me if he had kept to one subject like Dowsing or How argumentative techniques work.

Throughout this book, the author affirms that his purpose is not to prove that dowsing, Ouija, clairvoyance, etc., don't work. Rather, by applying the scientific method in carefully-controlled experiments with individuals who maintain having powers in those areas, he proceeds to test their claims. When the results prove to be negative (which is always the case), the author does not declare the test subjects as charlatans (in most cases, the test subjects really did believe that they were gifted); he simply states that the tests have proven negative in that particular experiment. In other cases, he provides the reader with explanations for various phenomena - explanations that are based on the laws of nature rather than parapsychology. He also provides advice on recognizing deceptive techniques in the arguments used by pseudoscientists. The writing style is friendly, often tongue-in-cheek, authoritative and generally quite engaging. However, in several cases the author uses scientific jargon as well as terms that are particular to the fields under investigation; as a result, the text may not be accessible to as broad a readership as the author would have liked. I agree with other reviewers that readers with a science background would have an advantage. In my case, as a physicist, I enjoyed most of the book; however, I had a hard time with some of the text/terminology in the chapter on astrology. I feel that this book would likely be of most interest to science buffs.

Exposed! tackles a number of interesting subjects in the paranormal and mystical realms, two areas which capture the imagination of quite a number of people across the world. A reader would hope that a book focused on this, even if it is to debunk these so-called mysteries, would be equally interesting. Sadly, this is not the case. Exposed! reads like a boring, low-grade dissertation by an author who is clearly prejudiced against practitioners and believers alike.

Exposed! is translated from the original French, however, I'm not entirely sure that the translation is at fault here in respect to getting into the reading. It almost feels as if there's a showman such as Geraldo Rivera on stage saying "here, ladies and gentlemen, is a woman from Nice who says she can detect the spirits of the dead trapped in underground streams with her pinky finger... watch her fail!" Disproving mediums, for example, was something Harry Houdini was passionate about, and while he may not have had the science to prove the falsity of a medium's claims as author Henri Broch does, Houdini certainly made it more interesting.

The scientific experiment descriptions in Exposed! are uninteresting and not exactly necessary. Do we really need to know the statistical probability of obtaining specific responses from a group of randomly chosen people? Not really.

Exposed! would have been better had Broch provided some sort of definition about each particular subject with perhaps a little historical background, such as interesting or famous people who were mediums. Instead, readers of Exposed! are exposed to tedious, boring writing on a subject that should be fun to read.