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Post #1 Pseudoscience Watchlist - Money is Often Involved

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Post #1 Pseudoscience Watchlist - Money is Often Involved

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Definition: We can tell that something is on the pseudoscience watchlist when money is often involved. This means that money is the main motivation behind convincing us to believe; you can RECOGNIZE BIAS here as there is something to be gained by the purveyor.

Connection: Tarot reading has become more and more popular over the past decade. The person performing the reading will turning over a series of cards from a tarot deck in order to predict a client's future or answer questions they have about their lives. However, most of the time, the reader will do all of this at a price. It is their job so needing you to believe in their abilities is a priority to sell you their product. Often, tarot readers can take advantage of a vulnerable population by promising answers in the face hardship at a cost. They attribute their abilities to paranormal sources that are not rooted in actual explainable science.

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Post #2 Pseudoscience Watchlist - Convinces by Faith or Belief (in Spite of Evidence)

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Post #2 Pseudoscience Watchlist - Convinces by Faith or Belief (in Spite of Evidence)

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Definition: A claim is made but concrete evidence is not provided. The person or entity that is trying to convince you of the claim will try to explain away factual evidence and use belief, religion, or faith an explanation or as evidence instead.

Connection: The article I have provided discusses monks that practiced Shugendo, a sect of Japanese Buddhism. They would undergo live mummification - eating only pine bark, crystals, seeds, chestnuts, pine cones, and pine needles for thousands of day before entombing themselves in an underground chamber or coffin until death. They would then be dug up, dried with charcoal and incense, and placed in shrines. They were convinced and conveyed to others that through this practice they could achieve "a deep state of meditation that could put them beyond the bounds of life and death. It was believed that deeps act of suffering such as this contained power and could bring about miracles. Many monks entered the practice for altruistic reasons under the belief that it would heal their loved ones from sickness or help their village win battles. There is no concrete evidence proving that this acts conjured the power to do these things but these monks willingly endured this suffering due to their deep belief or faith.

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Enclosed in a shrine, the skeletal frame of a man is posed in meditation, legs crossed beneath bright abbot's robes while his bony hands rest on top. Thin, leathery skin stretches across what's visible of his body.

At first glance, what springs to mind is a single word: mummy.

But to devotees of ascetic Buddhist practice in Japan, this is much more than a mummified human being. He is a sokushinbutsu (即身仏)-a so-called "living" or "instant" Buddha-who achieved a state of deep meditation that places him beyond the bounds of life or death.

To do so, he engaged in a series of rigorous ascetic practices, culminating in self-mummification. Shrines with other sokushinbutsu can be found around Japan, with more than half the known sokushinbutsu around the sacred mountains of Yamagata prefecture. How did this practice emerge, and why did so many choose to become sokushinbutsu? This is the real story of Japan's self-mummified monks.

How does one become a sokushinbutsu?

The practice is linked to a sect of esoteric Japanese Buddhism called Shugendo, which has its roots in ancient mysticism, shamanism, and mountain worship.

"Shugendo roughly translates as 'the way of cultivating special powers," says Caleb Carter, associate professor of Japanese religions and Buddhist studies at Kyushu University. "These powers were allegedly acquired by Buddhist priests who performed austerities in the mountains such as ablutions under freezing waterfalls, meditation in caves, and severe dietary restrictions during extended periods of seclusion."

The birth of sokushinbutsu remains tangled in a blend of recorded knowledge and myth.

The story goes that the monk Kōbō Daishi studied esoteric Buddhism in China and brought back what he learned to Mount Yudano in Yamagata, then Mount Kōya in Wakayama prefecture, leaving a lasting impact on Shugendo and other forms of esoteric Buddhism in Japan. According to legend, Kūkai is the first sokushinbutsu and is still alive-in deep meditation-in Mount Kōya. The link between the sokushinbutsu and sacred mountains remains a through line in becoming a living buddha.

"Mountains have long been believed to be the dwelling places of local gods, demonic forces, auspicious dragons, even buddhas and bodhisattvas," Carter explains. Like other practitioners and devotees, those aiming to become sokushinbutsu went to these sacred places "to master their terrain, receive the right ritual knowledge, and successfully mingle with their deities-even become deities in the process."

How each monk approached becoming a sokushinbutsu varied. Generally, after becoming a member of one of the temples or seminaries and living a devout life, the monk choosing to reach this form of enlightenment would enter seclusion. He would partake in a centered on abstaining from grains. For some, t his meant eating only tree bark, pine needles, pine cones, seeds, chestnuts or even stones and crystals for a period of a thousand or several thousand days.

There are no known women sokushinbutsu as women weren't allowed to enter many sacred spaces, including the summit of sacred mountains, for much of history. Today, rules have changed and there are a number of female priests in various Buddhist sects in Japan.

After fasting, monks would entomb themselves in a stone chamber underground or in a coffin, chanting prayers until they passed on. Some were left underground for three years, then exhumed in a preserved state before being placed in the temple. Others were exhumed immediately upon their deaths and dried using charcoal and incense smoke, then reburied and left underground for three years before being placed in shrines.

It's not clear how many sokushinbutsu have existed throughout history. The process of self-mummification is such that there is no way of knowing how many monks attempted it and failed, their unpreserved bodies left to decay and disappear. However, in the 1960s, Japanese researchers credited for rediscovering and studying the sokushinbutsu in the region documented 21, with written records of others whose physical remains no longer exist.

The highest concentration of sokushinbutsu (13 of 21) are in Yamagata prefecture, scattered in temples around Mount Yudano, part of the sacred Dewa Sanzan, along with Mount Haguro and Mount Gassan.

While their practice may seem unthinkably extreme, sokushinbutsu exist as part of a larger religious framework that includes other ascetic acts requiring physical exertion and endurance. Today, you can still participate in ascetic acts-like firewalking, climbing a sword ladder in bare feet, and cold endurance-as a layperson at festivals, temples, or sacred sites. Similar acts also exist in Taoism and Buddhism practiced in India, both of which also influenced the historical development of Shugendo.

For most, participation in these physically difficult-and often painful-acts draw the mind and spirit into focus.

Becoming sokushinbutsu for the benefit of others

The oldest of the Dewa Sanzan sokushinbutsu is Honmyokai, who entered deep meditation in 1683. Originally a retainer to a feudal lord, it's said he joined a Yudano seminary to pray for his lord's recovery from a deathly illness. To become a sokushinbutsu, he began living in seclusion where he ate an ascetic diet of pine needles for nearly a decade. When he was near death, he entered a stone chamber and chanted a prayer until he passed on. Folklorist and researcher Ichiro Hori, who was part of the original team of researchers studying the sokushinbutsu, notes that Honmyokai's desire was to free people from suffering and illness.

The most well-known of the Dewa Sanzan sokushinbutsu is Tetsumonkai, who became a sokushinbutsu in 1829. While his origin story varies slightly depending on the source, it's generally believed he killed two samurai and fled to a temple, beginning a life of ascetic practice. He also traveled throughout northern Japan, providing spiritual guidance and even medical support through his knowledge of herbs. Like Honmyokai, altruism is a theme through Tetsumonkai's story. During the Edo period, an illness that attacked the eyes spread, reaching an epidemic. According to Hori, Tetsumonkai purportedly gouged out one of his own eyes as an offering to the Mount Yudano deities to save those suffering from the disease. Following the precedent set by those who came before him, Tetsumonkai fasted and entered deep meditation, becoming a Buddha enshrined in Churen-ji Temple.

There are many other sokushinbutsu who have existed and many whose stories have been lost to time. Each we have records of decided to undergo the process for unique, personal reasons. Yet, the process is often done for altruistic reasons, whether for the benefit of an individual, a village or for society at large.

The rationale for becoming a sokushinbutsu seems, therefore, not simply to accomplish the act for its own sake, but rather for what the practitioner can achieve for others-both during their mortal lives and in their afterlives as living Buddhas.

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Why did these monks in Japan choose to mummify themselves?

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The sacred mountains of Yamagata are home to 13 sokushinbutsu, who are believed to be in a state of deep meditation between life and death.

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Post #3 Pseudoscience Watchlist - Results Can't be Reproduced or Verified

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Post #3 Pseudoscience Watchlist - Results Can't be Reproduced or Verified

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Definition: When someone makes a claim but does not use

the steps of the SCIENTIFIC METHOD to verify the hypothesis. Any experiments that are conducted cannot actually be measured and do not yield similar results if repeated. You cannot confirm the accuracy of the information that is .presented and therefore, it is unreliable and not necessarily based on facts.

Connection: The article I shared was put together by Buzzfeed and consists of personal stories from multiple audience members who have experienced ghostly encounters. It claims that it can turn the harshest skeptics into complete believers. The article mainly consists of ANECDOTES which are unreliable or biased and do not produce measurable facts. There is no way of repeating any of the stories to yielding similar results. Several stories are also provided by anonymous sources so they cannot be verified. Overall, these paranormal encounters are not matched with any hard evidence.

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18 Chilling Paranormal Encounters That’ll Turn Even The Harshest Skeptics Into Total Believers

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“I was almost asleep when I felt myself being tucked into bed. I opened my eyes and saw the blankets being tucked under me. I felt a fear like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. I grabbed the blanket and ran into the guest room.”

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Post #4 Pseudoscience Watchlist - Use of Scientific Sounding Language that is Meaningless

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Post #4 Pseudoscience Watchlist - Use of Scientific Sounding Language that is Meaningless

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Definition: When an idea is being presented while using scientific sounding language or big words to convey professionalism and convince the audience of it's validity but in reality the words are meaningless or inappropriate for the topic in question.

Connection: The picture I provided is of an EMF(electromagnetic field) reader. Traditionally, it would be used to detect or measure electromagnetic fields in an area which are mainly present around phones, WIFI, heating units, generators and other devices that involve the movement of electrically charged particles. Ghost hunters will use an EMF meter to detect anomalies which seemingly cannot be explained. They will make claims that spirits are present because their energy creates a disturbance in the electromagnetic field. These big scientific sounding words are used as proof of paranormal presence. However, in the context of ghost or spirits, these words don't actually mean anything as there is no proof that ghost can contribute to EMF readings. They are simply taking scientific words and using them in unscientific scenario's to prove a point.

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Definition: Confirmation bias is when you or the person presenting an idea already have a strong belief in what is being presented and filter out any information that contradicts that belief. You only end up using the information that confirms what you already belief creating a bias and a major red flag.

Connections: The article I have chosen discusses the evidence on autism and vaccines and how the discussion started. To DEFINE the CLAIM: Vaccines can cause autism.

Essentially an article was published by a reputable doctor from a hospital in London, along with several co-authors, that claimed that the MMR vaccine caused autism. However, after publication, most of the authors pulled their name from the article and several experiments that were conducted following the SCIENTIFIC METHOD were released, DEBUNKING the claim. It was also revealed that the doctor had cherry picked cases instead of taking random sample in an attempt to gain notoriety. The original claim raised quite a bit of controversy when it first came out and still sparks heated debates especially within far right political parties. It is used as pillar in the anti-vaccination to further their agenda. However, they did not take the time EVALUATE THE SOURCE before using it's information to push their narrative and continue to ignore the REPUTABLE SOURCES disapproving their ideals.

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Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

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The issue was first raised by an article published by Andrew Wakefield in 1998. He was a GI doctor at the Royal Free Hospital in London, a very well-known hospital, and he published in The Lancet, a prestigious journal. He looked at 12 children, eight of whom the parents reported developing autism after getting the MMR vaccine.

The study was described as a consecutive case series-but it wasn't even really that, because there was no control group or control period. But even a case series can't tell you whether one thing causes another thing. It is simply a description.

But once that paper was published, Wakefield got a lot of press and told people that he had shown vaccines had caused autism, which again, that study couldn't even do.

The paper was ultimately retracted. Within a short amount of time, several of the authors pulled their names.

There were lots of problems later found with what was published. For example, the cases were not consecutive [i.e., they did not include all of the children studied]. They were cherry-picked cases. And we know that, given that the age when children receive the MMR is also the age when some children regress into autism, there will be a temporal relationship; by chance alone, some children would develop autism after vaccination. So, from a scientific perspective, the paper didn't show much.

But you had a very well-credentialed, very charismatic person coming from an outstanding institution publishing this paper in a very prestigious journal, and he really ran with it.
Do you think it was just Dr. Wakefield himself that made people think vaccines cause autism, or were there other factors?
I think autism was ripe for vaccine safety controversies for a few reasons: It becomes apparent to the parent early in childhood, around when we give a lot of vaccines. Autism seems to be increasing in incidence or prevalence, so there's more of it out there. And we don't fully understand what causes it.

So, you have a lot of parents who are watching their children develop normally and then regress into autism. And they want to know why.

In addition, you had autism advocacy groups, where parents came together looking for answers and looking for support for their children. So, you have parents thinking, what happened? What caused this? And then they think, my child had just gotten vaccinated. And then they talk with other parents of autistic children who say, wow, my child just got vaccinated, too.

Parents are looking for answers, understandably. And so the issue was very ripe for it to be associated with vaccines-not by cause and effect, but by timing and temporality.
What research was done to look into this perceived link?
The attention this question got led to a number of large epidemiological studies that looked at kids who were vaccinated with the MMR vaccine and those who weren't, so there were control groups. And those studies found no association between the MMR vaccine and autism.

Once it started to become clear that the MMR vaccine was not associated with autism, the hypothesis shifted from the MMR vaccine [as a cause of autism] to thimerosal, which at the time was used as a preservative in some childhood vaccines. Thimerosal was never used in the MMR vaccine, but it was used as a preservative in multidose vials of other vaccines.

That led to a number of large studies looking at thimerosal in vaccines and autism, and those studies also found no relationship. Then the hypothesis shifted again to the number of vaccines given at one time, so there were studies of that, which also found no relationship between vaccines and autism.

At this point, we have 16 well-conducted, large population-based studies, carefully designed, done by different investigators in different countries, using different but strong methods. And all have found no relationship between MMR vaccine, thimerosal in vaccines, or the number of vaccines given and autism. The evidence is compelling.

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The Evidence on Vaccines and Autism | Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

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How a retracted study from the 1990s led to a persistent myth about vaccines.

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Post #6 Red Flags - Suppression By Authority

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Post #6 Red Flags - Suppression By Authority

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Definition: When a claim or idea is trying to be sold on the premise that some sort of authority such as the police or the government are trying to hide or suppress it. This idea is used to convince the audience that the idea must have some truth to it if some one of higher power cares enough to intervene.

Connection: I have included a picture of the moon landing because it is still a major conspiracy theory circling the internet. The idea is that America faked the first moon landing because they were in a race with Russia to see who would get there first. This competitiveness dates back to the cold war which still to this day perpetuates noticeable tension between the two countries. Conspiracy theorists promote the idea that the government is trying to hide this truth to maintain their reputation which feeds the public's amusement especially with the innate need to challenge authority. There is evidence that the moon landing took place but there are multiple different theories of how they could have forged or faked it. There isn't one theory to complete a defined claim of how the landing was faked. There are also no accurate sources or evidence to disprove the claim leaving theorists without a full SUMMARY CONCLUSION to tie their ideas together.

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Post #7 Red Flags - Confusion of Correlation with Causation

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Post #7 Red Flags - Confusion of Correlation with Causation

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Definition: When two things happen at the same time or in a predictable pattern, there is a correlation. However, it would be a red flag to automatically assume that one thing caused the other without an actual explanation. Coincidence does not equal fact.

Connection: The classic story for explaining correlation vs causation is when, for a brief period, there was an assumption that ice cream caused drowning. In the summer, both cases of drowning and ice cream sales would sky rocket. They happened seemingly around the same time so people assumed that eating ice cream would increase the chances of drowning. However, in reality, there was no DEMONSTRABLE VALIDITY to the claim. They ended up being unrelated; there were more drownings because people go out swimming more in the summer and there were more ice cream sales because it was hotter and people craved ice cream more.

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If you look at the graph, you will see that sale of ice cream and drowning accidents per month are highly correlated. This may lead to two theories:

A: Selling ice cream somehow courses more drowning accidents

B: People are drowning, increase ice cream sale

In today's world, someone would probably post theory A online in an engaging, emotional post, and people would rally in protest and demand ice cream be made illegal and that everyone involved in the trade is sent to jail.

But as scientists, we are committed to the truth. And the only way to find the truth is to design some experiments. To investigate hypothesis A, we could close all ice cream stands or give away free ice cream to see if it changes the number of drowning accidents. Then given that we have learned, and can still remember, how to make a t-test correctly, we will probably find no significant change between selling ice cream and people drowning.

This will falsify hypothesis A, and we should congrats ourselves on good science (falsifying a hypothesis is just as important as verifying them even though you don't make the same headline). But we can't call it a day because falsifying A says nothing about B.

The correct scientific way is to tie some people to a rock and drop them in the ocean, to see if we sell more ice cream. The ethical complications of this experiment should be discussed in another article, right now, we are doing ice-cold, ice-cream science. After performing this experiment, we would most likely find the ice cream sale, unlike our conscience, was unaffected.

Mediators

Let's say that our intervention study on stopping ice-cream sales proved a small but significant effect on the number of people drowning, then we may wish to investigate this phenomenon further. In this case, we could develop hypothesis A.1.

A.1: Eating ice cream makes you a worse swimmer. And bad swimmers have a higher chance of drowning.

In this case, the swimming ability is the mediator. The beauty of this hypothesis is that it is built on two sub hypotheses that can be tested separately in two different studies. It would also be easier to detect a significant correlation since the correlation between drowning and ice cream is given as the correlation between ice cream and swimming multiplied by the correlation between swimming ability and a person's chance of drowning.

It is worth noting that no link was found between eating and swimming abilities when scientists investigated this link between eating and swimming abilities.

Confounders

So we can conclude that it's both hypotheses A and B is false and should look elsewhere for an explanation. And I am sure it has been screaming in your mind this whole time. It is the season that courses both.

In this case, the season variable season is called a confounder, and Ice cream sales and drowning are both children of this confounder. A simple mathematical trick to see this is to condition the confounder. For example, we could only look at drowning and ice cream sales for the same month in different years.

Death by drowning, and ice-cream manufactured in the USA in July

Now the correlation is completely gone.

Colliders

Since you found out about the season, I hope you took a moment to feel clever, of course, your wrong. Few people turn the calendar, see it is June the first, and think time to increase their ice cream10% consumption, and then try to hold their breath underwater for 10 seconds longer than in April.

But the season is defined by the earth's rotation, which courses more sunshine on one part and course the temperature to rise. Both the amount of sunshine and the temperature affect ice cream sales and the number of people going swimming. While this is just another example of mediators, it's also an example of a collider.

an example of a collider

The short point is that conditioning can be a powerful tool, but it doesn't tell about what courses what. Only interventions do.

Trying to put what we have learned today into a model that looks like this.

This, however, is still a very simplified model that fails to capture much of the complexity of our little ice cream problem. For example, if we added geography, culture, or economics, we would see a much different story, but right now, that's all considered noise. Generally, in our attempt to fully understand the world, we can keep adding nodes to our causal model until we don't have any noise unaccounted for.

We also haven't discussed how notes affect each other. Would one-degree extra average temperature translate to 10% more ice cream sales(multiplier) or make everyone buy one more ice cream independent of all other factors (addition)?

However, I think I have been rambling enough about this problem, so I will end with the point all scientists wish to make. The world is more complicated than it seems.

Credit:

Drowning data: Injury fact

Icecream data: United states department of agriculture

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A story of ice-cream, Drowning and causal modelling.

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If it weren't for the last bit, statistics courses would be very short since finding correlations is useless if it doesn't explain causation. However, the first bit is always the most important since...

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Definition: If an idea is said to be based on old or ancient wisdom that has been passed down, it may be based on false information. In ancient times, very little was known about the sciences and since then, science had advanced at such an exponential rate that 'ancient wisdom' is often outdated or irrelevant.

Connection: The article that I have shared discusses the use of healing crystals and stones and how their use dates back to ancient civilizations. It lists similarities across several cultures such as Indian, Greek, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Indigenous cultures, to push the idea that healing crystals are a very widespread idea and have lasted the test of time. However, there are no studies or scientific evidence that prove that they actually do anything. There are several articles circulating the internet, stores that have popped up, and entire sub cultures, around promoting the use of crystals using 'ancient wisdom'. It has created a DISTORTED VIEW OF TRUTH for many people because they assume that being an older idea while being prevalent in modern society must imply some sort of truth.

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The History of Crystals: How Ancient Civilizations Used Healing Stones

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Share Pin Post Email Linkedin A Timeless Dance Between Stone and Soul: Explore The History of Healing Crystals Sage Wilder An old soul with a storyteller’s heart and a seeker’s spirit. She weaves ancient wisdom into modern mysticism, guiding others on a journey of self-discovery through the magic of crystals. As a child, she once buried a piece of quartz in the garden, believing it would grow into a crystal tree—only to later realize that the real magic was in the quiet lessons the earth had to teach her. Long before cities rose and fell, before parchment recorded the deeds of kings or stars were charted in the heavens, there were crystals. Born of the Earth’s molten heart, these radiant stones emerged as nature’s memory—keepers of vibration, time, and spirit. Across continents and millennia, ancient civilizations turned to these gleaming treasures not just for beauty, but for something deeper: healing, protection, guidance, and sacred connection.
Let us embark on a journey through time, walking alongside priestesses, warriors, shamans, and sages—those who once looked upon crystals as divine allies. This is the ancient tale of healing stones, a whisper from the past that still echoes in our hands today. 🔺 Crystals in Ancient Egypt: Gifts of the Gods In the golden lands of Kemet, where the Nile flowed like a serpent through sunbaked sands, the ancient Egyptians revered crystals with a devotion that bordered on the divine.
Lapis Lazuli was more than a gem—it was the Stone of Heaven. Its deep indigo hue, flecked with gold, was associated with royalty and the goddess Isis herself. Priests carved it into scarabs and amulets, believing it held the power to awaken higher consciousness and connect the soul to the stars. Cleopatra was said to wear powdered lapis as eyeshadow, invoking protection and spiritual insight.
Carnelian, the burning stone of life force, was worn by warriors and placed on mummies to protect them in the afterlife. Turquoise—called mefkat, meaning “joy”—was used in ceremonial jewelry and burial masks, symbolizing rebirth and divine favor.
To the Egyptians, crystals were not merely adornments—they were living guardians, placed on the third eye during initiation rituals, buried with the dead, and used in magical rites to invoke the power of gods. 🏺 Mesopotamia and Sumer: The First Crystal Healers In the cradle of civilization, where the Euphrates and Tigris met under star-filled skies, the Sumerians were among the first to record the use of crystals. They ground them into elixirs, carried them into battle, and inscribed them with spells in cuneiform script.
Quartz, obsidian, and hematite were especially revered. They believed stones could trap energies, spirits, or intentions. Amber, known as

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Definition: Using moral, ethical, or political ideas to convince the public that a claim is true instead of relying solely on the science itself is called using ideological support.

Connection: Climate change is ongoing issue and as time goes on, there is more and more pressure on the government to do something about it before the earth become irreparable. However, there is a claim that climate change isn't real and that it is just a ploy by left-wing politicians to control the economy and restrict freedom. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence from the science community but it is combatted with political values to justify belief. They use this type of influence to paint any SKEPTICISM as a secret political agenda instead of a tool to pursue the truth which is a huge red flag.

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Post #10 Reasons For Belief - Unexplained

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Post #10 Reasons For Belief - Unexplained

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Definition: A person's belief can be influenced when faced with something that they can't explain on their own. They know there is an explanation but don't know what it is so they often look for the easiest way to explain it on their own or fill in the blank.

Connection: Astrology predictions or readings are based off a zodiac sign that is assigned to you based off of your birthday. A lot of these reading are vague and therefore can be applied to most people's lives. For example, a reading could say you will be able focus better on completing your task or chores this week. Most people have everyday task and chores to complete and the rate at which they complete them varies so this reading could apply to almost anyone.

People can read these predictions and because, they pertain well to their lives, automatically believe that astrology can make accurate predictions about their lives. They don't have an explanation at the top of their heads to explain the accuracy so they may automatically buy into the phenomenon. Also, LACK OF PRACTICE with critical thinking can stop them from questioning the phenomenon further because they may not even know to do so and the urge to quickly solve the unexplained may take priority.

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Post #11 Reasons For Belief - Perception and Observation

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Post #11 Reasons For Belief - Perception and Observation

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Definition: Our ability to make decisions is based mainly on personal perception which can be influenced by what we observe in combination with psychological beliefs; observation dictates perception. However, our senses are not the most reliable as they can be easily influenced as well.

Connection: Magicians perform tricks that to the naked eye look like magic. Most of the time they are slide-of-hand tricks, optical illusions, or have some sort of explanation using special equipment. However, the way the audience observes the performance can alter their perception. They can only form opinions on what they have seen and, if they other preconceived notions about the paranormal, can make the jump to the idea of magic. A BARRIER TO CRITICAL THINKING, at a magic show is the reaction of other audience members as well. It is known as GROUP-THINK which in this case means that you might not continue to question what you are seeing if the people around you are also in awe or lack a logical explanation.

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Post #12 Reasons For Belief - Emotional Connection

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Post #12 Reasons For Belief - Emotional Connection

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Definition: When it comes to reasons for belief, emotional connection can influence us by pushing us to turn a blind eye to facts because we want to believe that something is true because of personal or emotional investment.

Connection: The object I provided is a picture of Ouija board which symbolizes the fascination with communicating with the dead. A Ouija board is one tool that can be used; Another avenue is consulting with medium which someone who is said to be able to access the beyond or 'spirit world'. People who have experienced the death of a loved on will often pursue these methods to deal with their loss. They desperately seek that reconnection because of their grief which can convince that subtle results have some truth to them. For example, a common DEBUNKED trick that a medium will use to 'prove' a spirit is present is asking for a sign. The client will often hear a knock (triggered by a hidden button push on the mediums side of the table). The medium might also present generic claims about the spirit to prove their identity. For example, they could say that the spirit is wearing a green dress but they could've taken the likeness from an obituary image. A client could ignore the CRITICAL THINKING process and avoid EVALUATING EVIDENCE to force belief to cope with their loss.