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Post #1: Paranormal & Pseudoscience Assignment 1

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Post #1: Paranormal & Pseudoscience Assignment 1

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Made by Celine Pasion & Gabby Thomas-De Muzio

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Definition: The all natural red flag includes the endorsement from large companies, or individuals who claim to have a product that is endorsed from ‘all natural’ components. The issue with this red flag is that more times often than not, many of these endorsements of products, usually never contain all natural components, or have several harmful ingredients added that can be harmful to the consumer.

Connection: This article provided demonstrates the All Natural red flag because the authors April Franzino and Birnur Aral discuss beauty buzzwords such as “clean” and “natural” when describing products. Considering that U.S. cosmetic laws have not been changed since 1938, it is common for ingredients to be unregulated and deemed “all natural”. The article then takes a deeper look into what Sephora claims to be their “clean” line. GH Labs then goes further into investigating what terms like “all natural” and “organic” imply. Furthermore, they take the initiative to describe how “all natural” products beauty consumers are using can cause more harm than good.

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The beauty buzzword and movement of the moment: "clean." Along with other terms like "green" and "natural," it's used to describe every type of skincare, hair, makeup, and fragrance product, from moisturizer to makeup, shampoo to soap.

People are more concerned than ever about health and the environment, and it's leading us to question what's actually in the products we apply directly to our skin. Retailers know that consumers want cosmetics and beauty products that aren't laden with potentially harmful ingredients - for example, Sephora recently launched " Clean at Sephora," an initiative in which the beauty brand badged over of its 2,000 products as "clean," in this case meaning free of ingredients like sulfates, parabens, formaldehydes, phthalates, and mineral oil.

But identifying the "cleanest" makeup products or "safest" cosmetic brands on the market isn't all that simple. Despite a booming beauty industry, U.S. laws for cosmetics safety are virtually unchanged since they were created back in 1938. Here - unlike in Canada and Europe, where well over 1,300 unsafe ingredients are banned for use in beauty products - unbelievably, the FDA has prohibited only 11 ingredients or related compounds.

While legislation is pending to change this, progress is slow. The Personal Care Products Safety Act, supported by the Good Housekeeping Institute and beauty industry-leaders, would require the FDA to review the safety of at least five ingredients per year (at which rate it could take hundreds of years to even test for risks and dangers!). Yet this small step has remained stalled in the Senate since it was proposed in 2015. And there is no established industry-wide definition for "clean" or "natural" beauty claims.

So, what does "clean" beauty really mean?

Beauty brands use the term "clean" to signal that products don't contain certain ingredients (natural or synthetic) that they consider controversial or unsafe, like parabens and talc. The problem is, without regulation, anything can be called "clean"- whether proven unsafe or not.

As for other "clean beauty" terms, there's an overload of related claims and buzzwords on product packaging and in marketing - and misinformation about what they mean (or don't). Our Beauty Lab scientists help you decipher the most common clean beauty lingo:

How can you really go "clean" with your beauty routine?

The GH Beauty Lab's top tips on making truly natural and sustainable clean beauty choices:

1. Do an ingredient check.
For a deeper dive into ingredients, the Beauty Lab recommends consulting resources like the Made Safe Hazard List and the Environmental Working Group Skin Deep database. Both nonprofits aim to collect the latest science on ingredients and offer recommendations for safety-certified products across categories.

2. Choose fragrance- and dye-free.
Products that contain no fragrances or dyes are by nature better for the environment, as they use fewer ingredients, and people can have sensitivities to both. Even fragrance from natural sources can cause reactions. Plus, brands aren't required to list the ingredients in "fragrance" on labels, so in many cases there's no way to know what's in those products.

3. Pick less packaging.
The more minimal the packaging, the better for the earth. Whenever possible, seek out products with fewer components and without parts or materials that can't be recycled (aim for codes 1 and 2) and unnecessary elements like outer boxes. Keep your eye out for the winners of GH's new Sustainability Awards for beauty, home care and toys, to be announced this fall.

4. Buy (green!) beauty that gives back.
Seek out beauty brands that donate a portion of their proceeds or make a contribution to environmental causes.

April Franzino Beauty Director April Franzino is the Beauty Director at Good Housekeeping, part of the Hearst Women's Lifestyle Beauty Group.

Birnur Aral, Ph.D., Good Housekeeping Institute Director, Health, Beauty & Environmental Sciences Lab Birnur Aral is the director of the Health, Beauty & Environmental Sciences Lab at the Good Housekeeping Institute, where she oversees all Lab tests and applications for the Good Housekeeping Seal, the Green Good Housekeeping Seal and the GH Innovation emblem.

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Birnur Aral, Ph.D., Good Housekeeping Institute

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Here's the Truth Behind All Those "Clean Beauty" Claims

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The Good Housekeeping Beauty Lab's scientists cut through the confusion around the clean, green, and organic beauty movement in makeup, skincare, hair, and more, separating fact from myth about the meaning of the natural beauty trend so you can make the right choices for your life.

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Definition: The Ancient Wisdom red flag includes the belief that people from ancient times had a better understanding of human anatomy and the universe in comparison to our modern knowledge researched by scientists. Individuals who believe this red flag, often base their medical practices on it. Whether or not these ancient techniques show successful medical results that have withstood the test of time are irrelevant to those who believe in it.

Connection: This article demonstrates the Ancient Wisdom red flag because it discusses the potential benefits of bloodletting. A brief history of the origins of bloodletting in ancient Greece is described, including the imbalance of bodily humours. The article continues on with the history of bloodletting across the globe. It even offers up a quote from a physician named Sharon Moalem who stated in his book Survival of the Sickest that since so many people have done it for thousands of years, there must be some positive results. The article then lists the supposed benefits of bloodletting such as “May help stave off illnesses” and “May reduce risk of cancer”.

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Bloodletting is one of the oldest medical practices in history. The earliest records of it for health purposes come from 3,000-year-old Egyptian texts. We also have texts indicating that Ancient Hindus bled sick individuals in the hopes of healing them. Ancient Syrians were known to use leeches for bloodletting as well. The practice was in fact common all over the world, right up until the late 19 th century.

Despite three-millennia of global popularity, these days bloodletting is commonly considered one of the world's most assuredly outdated medical practices. It's become the go-to reference for jokes about barbaric quackery that harms instead of heals.

But what if it might be unwise to dismiss the practice of bloodletting completely? As wacky as it sounds, bloodletting might actually be good for people, especially for men. Below we cover a brief history of bloodletting, before taking a look at its potential real-life benefits. For real.

A Brief History of Bloodletting

In Western medicine, bloodletting was based on the ancient Greek idea that the human body was composed of four humors (or bodily fluids): blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile, which corresponded to the four Greek classical elements of air, water, earth, and fire, respectively. All sickness was thought to be the result of an imbalance of the humors in the body and the job of the doctor was to bring them back into equilibrium. Inducing vomiting, ingesting diuretics, and draining the body of blood were thought to be effective ways to harmonize the four humors. The famous Greek physician Hippocrates believed that bloodletting was an externally-induced parallel to female menstruation, which functioned to "purge women of bad humors." After likely being passed on from the Greeks, Islamic authors also advocated for the practice, and soon bloodletting became prevalent throughout both European and Arabic countries.

Bloodletting was thought to be beneficial in healing nearly every disease, from acne and asthma, to cancer and smallpox. Even the loss of blood from a wound was treated by...removing more blood! Bloodletting the already-wounded was thought to reduce inflammation (which is why it was employed prior to surgery as well). Bloodletting wasn't limited to curing disease either, but was also used as a preventive measure to avoid getting sick.

The methods and tools to draw blood from sick patients also varied widely. Leeches were a common bloodletting implement for those times when a doctor felt a slower, more controlled blood loss was called for; in the 1830s, France imported over 40 million leeches to be used for this purpose! For faster blood loss, sharpened sticks, shark's teeth, knives, and arrow points were used to "breathe" a vein in the neck or forearm or an artery in the forehead. There was even a specific tool for the job - a spring-loaded, multi-bladed mechanism called the scarificator. The most common bloodletting instrument, however, was actually the barber's straight razor.

For centuries, the local barber not only offered close shaves and sharp haircuts, but also provided medical services including bloodletting. In fact, the iconic barbershop pole with its two brass balls and red and white stripes is a vestige of the days when barbers would slit customers' arms to relieve their ailments. The brass ball at top represents the bowl that the barbers kept leeches in for drawing blood, and the brass ball at the bottom of the pole represents the bowl the barbers used to catch blood from their patients/customers. The red represents blood, while white stripes symbolize the bandages that barbers would hang on a pole to dry after washing. The pole itself may represent a stick that patients would grip during the bloodletting procedure to encourage blood flow.

Bloodletting reached its peak in the 18 th and 19 th centuries. Doctors from that time often bled patients until they fainted, which to them was a sign that they removed just the riiight amount of blood. Some historians speculate that what killed George Washington wasn't his respiratory infection, but rather the shock of undergoing four (four!) bleedings within 24 hours.

After a three-millennia run of being the go-to treatment for every ailment under the sun, the effectiveness of bloodletting was strongly questioned in the late 19 th century, and had been almost completely abandoned by the medical establishment by the dawn of the 20 th. We now laugh and roll our eyes at our ancient forbearers for their childish and barbaric naivety to think that purposely bleeding could heal sickness.

And yet as it turns out, there might be some benefits to bloodletting after all. As genetic physician Sharon Moalem notes in his book Survival of the Sickest, "the notion that humans across the globe continued to practice [bloodletting] for thousands of years probably indicates that it produced some positive results. If everyone who was treated with bloodletting died, its practitioners would have been out of business pretty quickly."

Well, recent research suggests our ancestors may have been on to something when they sliced each other open or stuck leeches on their faces, as controlled (emphasis on controlled) bloodletting potentially provides a myriad of health benefits.

The Benefits of Controlled Bloodletting (AKA Phlebotomy, AKA Donating Blood)

Most of the benefits of bloodletting are related to iron, so to understand bloodletting's positive effect, you must first understand the role this mineral plays in our bodies.

Iron and Health

Our bodies need iron for a whole host of metabolic processes. Its primary function is to help carry oxygen from our lungs through the bloodstream and release it to the body where needed. What's more, iron helps enzymes in the body detoxify poisons and convert sugars into energy. When a person has anemia, or an iron deficiency, they look pale, feel fatigued, and are easily confused and disoriented.

But here's the thing: Our bodies aren't the only organisms that require iron to survive and thrive. Little tiny organisms that can make us sick also need this mineral. When bacteria, fungi, and protozoa enter our body, they immediately hunt for iron so they can survive and spread.

The connection between iron and bacteria growth was discovered accidently by a research assistant of scientist Eugene D. Weinberg. Weinberg was investigating whether diet could mitigate the effectiveness of antibiotics, so he and his team filled petri dishes with bacteria, an antibiotic, and an organic or elemental nutrient (that varied from dish to dish). A few days later, a research assistant noticed that one dish was so jam-packed with bacteria, that she thought she had forgotten to put in the antibiotic. So she created the dish again, making sure the antibiotic was in there, and sure enough when she came back a few days later, the dish was once again overloaded with bacteria.

Can you guess which elemental nutrient was also in the dish? You got it: iron. The iron was such a boon to the bacteria that it completely counteracted the efficacy of the antibiotic.

Because potentially infectious agents require iron to survive and thrive, the access points on our bodies - mouth, eyes, nose, anus, and genitals - are iron-free zones. Proteins called chelators patrol our bodies' openings and lock up any stray iron molecules in those areas so that bacteria and the like can't use the iron to survive and possibly spread to other parts of the body.

But let's say some nasty bug gets past this first line of defense and you get sick with something. Well, part of the body's immune response is to reduce the amount of iron circulating in your blood so that the infectious agent can't use it to multiply. Something similar happens when cells become cancerous. Cancer cells need iron to grow and spread, so the less iron available, the harder it is for the cancer to thrive. Of course in many cases, the body's natural iron reduction isn't enough to stop the spread of the cancer, but the body gives it a try nonetheless.

The Benefits of Bloodletting

While our bodies need iron for nearly every function of our metabolism, an excess of this mineral can leave us more vulnerable to sickness and ill-health. In an age where a lot of our food is fortified with iron, many Westerners likely have too much of it floating around in their system (especially men, as we'll explain in a bit). Because iron resides primarily in our blood, periodically letting some of it out may help bring balance back to our bodies (the ancient Greeks were on to something after all!). This is especially true if you have the genetic disorder hemochromatosis, which makes your body store excess amounts of iron, necessitating regular bloodlettings. But even if you don't have hemochromatosis, you may stand to benefit from getting rid of some blood every now and then. Below I highlight some of the possible health benefits of donating blood on a regular basis:

May help stave of illnesses. When you donate blood, you're reducing the amount of iron in your body. Based on what we know about how infectious agents use iron to survive and grow, reducing iron levels through blood donation may theoretically help stave off illnesses. At least that's what some researchers and doctors like Sharon Moalem theorize.

Moalem points to a few incidents to bolster this theory. The first was in a Somali refugee camp where diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, and brucellosis were present. Despite the prevalence of these diseases, very few of the refugees showed signs of infection. A doctor named John Murray had a hunch that their low levels of iron due to malnutrition were contributing to the immunity of the nomads in the camp. To test his theory, he gave half of them iron supplements to treat the anemia they were all experiencing. The other half continued on their regular diets. Sure enough, the rates of infection went through the roof among the refugees who received the iron supplements. Something similar happened in New Zealand when doctors injected babies with iron supplements. Infections increased dramatically.

While I couldn't find any studies that directly showed a connection between donating blood and reducing illness, those anecdotal examples provide a starting point for an argument that reducing iron levels though blood donation may help stave off sickness. If anyone is aware of research on this topic, I'd love to be directed to it.

May reduce risk for cancer. A few studies suggest there's a connection between reducing iron through blood donation and reducing cancer risks. For example, one study found that individuals who underwent iron reduction through phlebotomy to improve vascular health also saw a decreased cancer risk. Another study also found an inverse relationship between iron levels and cancer risk, particularly in men. However, a 2008 study found no such connection between iron levels and cancer levels; what's more, the researchers found no connection between regular blood donation and reduced cancer risks. Researchers are still exploring the connection between blood donation, iron reduction, and cancer risk, and while the results aren't definitive, if something as simple as donating blood has the possibility of reducing my risk, I'm all for it.

Reduces hardening of the arteries and heart attack risk. A study of nearly 3,000 middle-aged men found that those who regularly donated blood had 88% less risk of heart attack. Scientists have a few theories as to why this is. First, there's the iron thing. Several studies have shown a connection between high iron levels and increased risk for cardiovascular diseases. One study found that high iron levels immediately constrict blood vessels and reduce blood flow in your circulatory system. When you have reduced blood flow in your arteries, they begin to harden. What's more, high iron levels in the blood can oxidize cholesterol, and the product of this oxidation deposits itself on the walls of your arteries causing build up which can lead to heart attacks and strokes.

Besides reducing iron levels, donating blood on a regular basis also reduces blood viscosity, or thickness. Blood that's too thick doesn't transport nutrients to your tissues as well. Generally, men have more circulatory problems due to high blood viscosity than pre-menopausal women. Researchers theorize that a woman's monthly period helps keep blood viscosity in check.

Finally, donating blood on a regular basis can help keep cardiovascular problems at bay because with each visit you basically get a mini-physical that checks your cardiovascular health. Each time you donate blood, you'll find out your blood pressure, pulse, and cholesterol levels. You can use that info to make changes in your lifestyle if they're creeping to levels that put you at risk for cardiovascular problems.

May improve insulin sensitivity, thus decreasing risk for type 2 diabetes. Excess iron can blunt insulin sensitivity, making you more susceptible to type 2 diabetes. Even if you're not at risk of diabetes, studies have shown that donating blood regularly can help you stay lean and trim by reducing your body's iron, thus increasing your insulin sensitivity.

For an in-depth look on the connection between iron reduction through blood donation and insulin sensitivity, check out this report from the American Diabetes Association.

Burns calories. A study by the University of California San Diego found that on average, you burn about 650 calories when you donate blood. Even after you eat your Nutter Butters afterward, you'll still have burned 400 calories, just from reclining in a chair.

Regularly purging yourself of iron is particularly beneficial for men's health. On average, men have more iron in their bodies than women - 4 grams versus 3.5. One reason for this appears to be a correlation between testosterone levels and iron levels; high testosterone suppresses a peptide called hepciden that regulates iron levels. Lower hepciden in men due to higher testosterone means higher iron levels.

Also, women lose 1 gram of iron each month when they menstruate, making iron deficiency a common disorder for this sex. Men, on the other hand, don't have a natural way to keep iron levels in check. Iron deficiency isn't a good thing, but excess iron isn't either, and researchers believe one of the factors (among many) contributing to women's longer life expectancy is that they simply have lower amounts of iron in their system compared to men thanks to reduced testosterone levels and monthly periods.

Start Bloodletting Today!

Instead of going to the barbershop for a good old-fashioned bloodletting, or letting a vampire bite you so you can become undead and have a vampire baby that's imprinted on by a werewolf, you can visit your local American Red Cross or blood institute to donate a pint of blood. Besides providing a life-saving substance to someone in your community, you also may be reaping the health benefits above.

If there's nothing preventing you from donating blood, make it a goal to donate on a regular basis. Most blood institutes allow you to do so every eight weeks.

I'd been a sporadic blood donater since high school, but ever since learning about its possible health benefits - particularly for men - I've made appointments to donate blood every two months well in advance.

Granted, it's completely possible that donating blood on a regular basis is actually providing little health benefits to me. But I'm okay with that. There's more to gain than to lose from donating blood. You're getting rid of excess iron, which can possibly make your body healthier, and someone in your community gets potentially life-saving blood. If all this research turns out to be a bunch of hooey, at least I saved someone else's life if not my own!

So what are you waiting for? Bring back bloodletting by making an appointment with your local blood institute or American Red Cross today.

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The Benefits of Giving Blood | The Art of Manliness

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Bloodletting is one of the oldest medical practices in history. The earliest records of it for health purposes come from 3,000-year-old Egyptian texts. We also have texts indicating that Ancient Hindus bled sick individuals in the hopes of healing them. Ancient Syrians were known to use leeches for bloodletting as well.

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Definition: The appeal to authority red flag relates to the idea of authoritative imagery to have an individual believe in the credibility of a product. Appeal to authority can relate to any type of endorsement of something with having an individual who is influential to the public eye, whether it be a celebrity, doctor, scientist, etc. The red flag with appeal to authority is often the fact that the individuals who are endorsing these products are more often than not being paid to endorse it to the public, due to the fact that they are seen more as an authority to the majority of the public.

Connection: This photo is an endorsement made by a famously known celebrity named Kim Kardashian, for a lollipop that acts as an appetite suppressant. The red flag that relates to this photo is appeal to authority, due to the fact that Kim Kardashian has millions of followers on this specific platform who will buy into the product, due to her being a celebrity, who is considered an authoritative figure when it comes to dieting and beauty culture. The way this photo works as a red flag to appeal to authority is through the way it is photographed of Kim sucking on the lollipop that is said to be an appetite suppressant.

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Definition: The red flag ideological support relates to the idea of moral, ethical and politically correct decisions that may not always be considered scientifically correct. Ideological support is when support is given from a political, ethical, religious, or moral perspective. This means that ideological support is usually always considered a red flag due to the fact that it can not be considered scientifically correct.

Connection: The video provided relates to the red flag of Ideological Support as it discusses the refusal of medical treatment due to religious belief. In the HLN broadcast, a news reporter covers the story of Mariah Walton, a disabled woman, who wishes to take legal action against her parents after they refused to take her to medical professionals concerning her life threatening illness. Due to their Mormon faith, when they heard about the congenital hole in her heart as an infant, they did not seek surgery to close it, but rather turned to prayer. The surgery could have also been done in later years but her parents instead chose to continue to pray over her and use alternative medicines.

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Woman disabled after 'faith healing' parents refused medical treatment

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Definition: The red flag of mystical energy is the idea that any type of form or energy can be seen as believable due to the fact they throw in the word ‘energy’ for a plausible effect. Mystical energy gives off the idea that it can be seen as an unearthly effect that gives off great abilities, and draws power into individuals. Mystical energy relates to nothing that is remotely meaningful, but in fact gives a pretty name to something with little to no meaning.

Connection: The red flag of Mystical Energy could be attributed to the video provided, as the individual in it known for his online persona Antphrodite, uses tarot cards to discern why the audience members may no longer be in contact with people who were once in their lives. Rather than trying to get in contact with said individual and finding out how their relationship stopped, the audience members instead listen to Antphrodite and believe that the tarot cards can divine some form of answer.

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NO CONTACT? 🚫 WHY? WILL THEY RETURN? 🚫 PICK A CARD

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Post #7 Reasons for Belief: Emotional Connection

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Post #7 Reasons for Belief: Emotional Connection

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Definition: Emotional connection relates to the reason for belief through creating a flow of multiple feelings that have an individual feeling connected to a specific set of statements that they may be told. Emotional connection is the idea of feeling overcome by emotions that create a deep attachment to various statements that may have an individual feeling connected to the specific actions of statements that match their mindset.

Connection: Emotional Connection is present within this article as many of the decisions the article writer, Joanna Moorhead, are based on her emotional connections to past relationships. She also finds many others who follow her mind set. After her father passed away, Moorhead stated she missed him and wishes to communicate with him beyond the grave. She came to the conclusion to try to book a private session with a medium as well as join a group session. While some of the statements from the mediums might not have been always accurate, the ones that were had resonated with her.

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'Say hi to Grandad from me," shouts Miranda, 16, as I head off out. My father died six years ago. He hasn't been in touch since. Then again I've not expected him to be. But should I be doing more to encourage a posthumous relationship with someone who was such an important figure in my life, whom I loved and I still miss?

Some people do try to keep up with family members on "the other side": the Spiritualists' National Union estimates that around 100,000 Britons attend its 322 churches regularly, and it claims many of these people have intermittent, or even regular, communication with dead loved ones. All you need to do, it seems, is turn up and be "open to the moment". So I'm off to the spiritualists' HQ, a grand-looking 19th-century pile next door to Stansted airport, to find out whether they can raise my dad. Thankfully, explains Steven Upton, the SNU's public relations person, the positioning of the runway means there's no aircraft noise at all in the panelled drawing rooms, making it all the more peaceful for the mediums to be able to "tune in" to the voices from across humanity's final frontier.

There are different ways of being "open" to a message from beyond the grave. You can book a private sitting, which was the preferred route of many of the bereaved widows and mothers of the first world war, in spiritualism's heyday; or you can attend a public service, beloved of spiritualists such as the author Arthur Conan Doyle, at which one, two or more mediums will perform, fielding a variety of spirit callers and then trying to work out who the messages are for.

Joanna and her family in 2002. Her father, Michael, is second left and her mother-in-law, Laura, is on the right.

To maximise the chances of a chat with my dad, I'm going for both. So by early afternoon here I am, ensconced in a vast drawing room with Steven's wife Stella Upton, a schoolmarmish 59-year-old who is happy to put out some feelers to see if anyone is there for me. Stella doesn't want me to tell her anything before we start: the point about spiritualism, which started in 1848 when three American sisters called Leah, Margaret and Kate Fox claimed to be getting messages through a series of rapping noises, is that it's all evidence-based.

The Fox sisters later admitted it was a hoax, but intriguingly that didn't put the dampeners on it. Spiritualists believe the messages are their own proof: the idea is that the invisible visitors proffer information that only the recipient could possibly know about or understand.

As far as the Uptons are concerned, that moment in the Fox household was the equivalent of an Alexander Graham Bell or a Guglielmo Marconi eureka: a connection was made, a new form of communication was born and, in that instant, death was changed for ever. It's the kind of breakthrough we get these days from mission control in Nasa; only instead of news from the stars, mediums get news from the heavens. So here I am waiting for Stella to wow me with the details and information she will soon be tuning into, like a living and breathing radio with an extra wavelength.

To limber up, Stella stares off into space. I'm prepared for a long wait but - no - the lines are crackling almost immediately. The caller, says Stella, is a gentleman. "Is your father in the spirit world?" she asks. He is: but how do I know it's him? First things first: the evidence. "He's a very softly spoken man," ventures Stella. And he was.

"He died of an illness not an accident," she goes on. He did, but so do most of us. She doesn't think he was a religious person (he was a devout Catholic); she keeps seeing a garden and flowers (that means nothing to me) and when his illness dragged on, he was uncomfortable in his chest (my father had Parkinson's disease, and eventually died of pneumonia). Before he got ill he was always relaxed and jovial (true, but so are lots of people).

There's no stopping Stella now. My dad was numerical and intellectual (no, not especially); he dressed very smartly (not particularly, and no more so than others of his generation); he would always give people second chances (true but a fairly common trait); he was a man who liked "proper food" (as did most of his generation) and he was a good communicator (true, in the sense that he was a great raconteur).

Joanna's sister Clare with both grandmothers, in 1972, a few months before her death.

Sometimes, disconcertingly, Stella seems to actually be talking as my dad. "I feel ready to go," she says. "We didn't get a chance to say goodbye, and I'm sorry for that."

It's true that I wasn't with my father when he died, but I have never felt we had anything we didn't say to one another. Then comes a rather weird wideball. "I keep seeing snow," says Stella. "Would you understand that?" And the funny thing is, I do: my parents lived in a hilltop Yorkshire village where virtually every year they were snowed up, sometimes for weeks on end. My dad thought that was a huge adventure.

So how does it feel to communicate with the dead? "It's a mind-to-mind business," says Stella. "I feel their emotions and I might feel symptoms of their illnesses." But, she says, it's also a bit like assembling a jigsaw; sometimes you get a piece of information and you're not sure how it fits in. This explains why every other sentence Stella utters, when she's in full flight with one of her spirit visitors, is: "Do you understand that?" It's all to do, she says, with the interpretation of what she's feeling and hearing - that's why she has to keep asking the living end of the conversation whether what she's saying makes sense.

Does a medium ever see a dead person? Sometimes, yes, says Stella. But not my dad; she didn't actually see him. Now that the line seems to have gone down between her and him, I let her in on a secret: if my dad was to make contact, the person he would surely mention is my sister Clare, who died when we were children. Ah, says Stella. And lo and behold, here Clare is, quick as a flash. "I'm aware of a grave," she says, which seems a pretty safe bet. "I don't have a feeling for how she passed but I think it was quick. I don't feel any illness; it feels she was here one minute and gone the next."

Clare was run over, so she certainly did die quickly. But Stella is aware that's not quite enough in the way of evidence; so there's more. "She's showing me a small toy, or it might be a blanket, that your mother always kept." I'm not aware of anything, I tell her. Ask your mother, says Stella. Later, I do: she has nothing like that of Clare's, although it might have been a reasonable guess to assume she would.

Stella is a trained and accredited medium through the SNU, but you can't just learn to be a medium, she believes, you have to have a gift for it. As a child she was aware of a lot of visitors to her grandmother's house. "They seemed very rude because they never talked to me and one day I mentioned them to my grandmother who said, describe these friends. So I did, and she said: they've all passed." (Spiritualists don't talk about death; they always talk about "passing".)

Stella has been practising as a commercial medium for the last 27 years and, as well as relaying messages to people who have lost someone, she occasionally gets involved in solving a mystery. Like the time when the mother of a missing youth came to her. "I had to be honest with her. I said, I think he's in the spirit world. But he helped me draw a map and I gave it to her; she gave it to the police and it led them to a place where there was a body."

An engraving of the Fox Sisters' 1848 spiritualist hoax.

In fact, says Stella, the body wasn't that of the missing boy, but a few months later, his remains were found. "I felt bad when I told her he was probably dead," she says. "But you have to go with what you're feeling, even if it's painful."

On the other hand, she admits she sometimes suppresses some of the most distressing information if a spirit communicates with her about the details of a difficult passing. "But the thing is that the spirit doesn't want their relative upset anyway."

The spiritualist industry does seem deeply syrupy: all the messages seem to be positive, as though everyone who has "passed" has gone through some kind of Disneyesque transformation and moved on to a happy-ever-after in which all the trials and tribulations of their earlier lives can be wiped clean.

In the evening, the on-site church is packed for the service: it's all big windows and bright stained glass, with the ambience of a crematorium where someone has forgotten to deliver the body.

The messages, relayed by Stella and her fellow medium, Eileen Davies, come through thick and fast, and every one is laced with an almost desperate, dogged reassurance that all is well. "Your father wasn't a man who said things easily, but he wants you to know how proud he is of you"; "She wants you to know she didn't suffer at the end"; "He wants you to know that, though his passing was so difficult for you, he is happy now".

One of the saddest moments is when Stella says she's tuning in to a young man who died in a car accident. Three hands go up in an instant to claim him: suddenly, I'm aware of how much pain and suffering is represented in this room. For some, perhaps a spiritualist church represents the one safe place where, in a society that has lost touch with death and prefers to keep it hidden, it can be talked about openly. Because the dead are not banished here, they are welcomed. Or at least, a sanitised, presentable manifestation of them is welcomed.

Then, towards the end of the service, there's a shock. Stella tunes in to someone she describes as "a very thin woman ... she's someone's mother-in-law ... someone over there," she says.

Yikes: she's pointing straight at my section of the congregation and my mother-in-law was a bird-like figure who weighed seven stone on a good day. "She says you didn't have a good relationship; she says she knows now that was unreasonable, that she thought no one could ever be good enough for her son."

I'm sinking lower and lower into my chair when, mercifully, a hand goes up on the other side of the room, and the scratchy mother-in-law is claimed. "Funny, I was sure she was guiding me to that side of the room," says Stella, giving my area a pointed glare. "Anyway, she says she wants you to know she's sorry. She says she was never proud of you before but she has had more time to think about it since she's been in the spirit world, and now she is proud of you."

Then comes a line that sends a shiver up my spine: "She says she's happy to be back in touch. She says to tell you she'll be back another time."

That's it: I'm done with raising the dead. Let me rest in peace. My mother-in-law, I'm afraid, will have to find someone else to talk to.

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Can this spiritualist medium speak to my dead father?

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'Say hi to Grandad from me," shouts Miranda, 16, as I head off out. My father died six years ago. He hasn't been in touch since. Then again I've not expected him to be. But should I be doing more to encourage a posthumous relationship with someone who was such an important figure in my life, whom I loved and I still miss?

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Definition: The reason for belief relating to patternicity is connected to the idea of associating through patterns. Patternicity is the idea of creating patterns through meaningful and non-meaningful things. This leaves room for patterns to actually be discovered, as well as for a pattern to be discovered, even though it may just be pure coincidence, and was not intended on being discovered as a pattern.

Connection: This video connects to Patternicity because the individuals being filmed try to discern auditory messages through radio static. The Buzzfeed Unsolved hosts Ryan and Shane travel to Salem to investigate any ghosts that may be present after the infamous witch trials. In order to pick up on the ghost’s existence, the two try to use a radio that can supposedly pick up on a ghost speaking. Over the course of their time there, they hear short bursts of distorted sound emanating from the radio, and try to make sense of the noises by associating the sounds with words.

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Post #9 Reason for Belief: Perception and Observation

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Post #9 Reason for Belief: Perception and Observation

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Definition: Perception and observation relates to the reasons for belief through individuals memories being considered as reconstructive over time. This means that multiple individuals’ memories and perceptions are able to be altered through beliefs they may have, that in turn affect their decision making.

Connection: The link provided relates to the Perception and Observation belief because participants within the experiment were asked a set of specific questions, and the psychologists running the experiment were to see if the participants’ observations would change based on a set of specific terms used during questioning. The psychologists then noted that multiple participants' answers were altered when specific language was used in the testing of the experiment.

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Just how valid are eye-witness testimonies? In 1974, it was tested by Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer. The two psychologists set out to test if language can alter testimonies. There were two different experiments, both testing the same hypothesis.

Experiment One:

Forty-five students were asked to participate in a laboratory study in which they would be entered in one of five conditions. Each participant was to watch a film of a traffic accident provided to them, ranging in duration from 5 to 30 seconds. After watching the film, the participants were to describe what they witnessed. They were each asked a series of specific questions, with careful wording. The main focus question was "About how fast were the cars going when they ______ each other?" The blank represents where one of the five conditions would be placed. Each participant was asked that question but the missing verb could be any of the following: smashed, collided, bumped, hit, or contacted.

This was done to see if the change in the verb has an effect on the speed that the participants answered. Findings proved that the participants that were asked the question with the verb "smashed" reported that the cars were going faster than the participants who were asked with the verb "hit."

Experiment Two:

145 students were shown a video of a car driving down a countryside and then in the last four seconds, the video showed a multiple car accident. After the video the students were asked questions about the film. 50 students were asked "how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?", another 50 were asked the same questioned but the verb was replaced with "smashed", similar to experiment one. The other 50 students weren't asked any questions to serve as a control group.

One week after this setting, the students were asked to return and were asked if they saw broken glass in the accident scene. Results showed that the students who were originally asked the question with the verb "smashed" reported the broken glass twice as much as the students who were asked with the verb "hit." The control group, which was not asked any questions, reported broken glass just as much as the group who were asked with the verb "hit." Here are the results:

These studies cannot be exemplified as results of an actual eye-witness testimony due to the lack of a real traffic accident. Also, the participants are not considered general population because they were all students. However, these studies did prove that memory can be altered just by a change in a word, and that is pretty crazy if you ask me.

Sites Used:

http://www.simplypsychology.org/loftus-palmer.html

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Just how valid are eye-witness testimonies? In 1974, it was tested by Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer. The two psychologists set out to test if language can alter testimonies. There were two different experiments, both testing the same hypothesis.

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Post #10 Critical Thinking Process: Twitch Streamer Antphrodite 

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Post #10 Critical Thinking Process: Twitch Streamer Antphrodite 

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Define the Problem: The problem, or extraordinary claim is that the twitch streamer Antphrodite, claims to be able to communicate with the dead and use tarot cards to divine information about his audience’s lives.

Gather Information: In the particular video provided, Antphrodite is an Internet personality on several different types of platforms including YouTube. In this video, he uses tarot cards to figure out why people are no longer in contact with others in their lives. From a series of ‘hit or miss’ questions, he is able to better identify information about his audience who he claims to read. Despite the fact of the several comments on his page that Antphrodite’s reading are accurate, one could argue that the use of generic questions makes the likelihood of relatability higher. With lack of firm evidence, we feel that Antphrodite’s claim of being able to communicate with the supernatural is inaccurate.

Evaluate Evidence: The platform that Antphrodite chooses to use for his content, is for entertainment rather than academic and credible purposes. Due to the nature of his psychic readings, there is no substantial evidence to support his readings aside from clients and audience members who have claimed to have accurate readings. Because he relies on his audience’s personal information, the only way the readings can be verified as accurate, is through the audience's personal opinions. This can be a difficult way to verify accuracy due to the possibility of the reason for belief such as emotional connection, as well as personal bias. Results cannot be reproduced due to the line of questioning and the number of participants varying, which results in a different percentile of accurate readings. The conspiracy of the readings being accurate has not been followed by the scientific method. Due to the nature of tarot readings, rather than following any research process, many of the results are left to personal opinion and random. The scientific method has not been followed. While Antphrodite has observed that a question many individuals have is why someone has left them, there is no hypothesis or prediction given. The test involves picking cards at random and analyzing the chosen cards by personal interpretation.

Recognize Assumptions: When it comes to claims that one is able to communicate with the supernatural, it can be easy to let personal assumptions, emotions, and biases affect one’s judgement. If an individual has recently gone through an emotionally traumatic event, they may seek some form of healing or closure. A medium claiming to have the answer could be considered an easy way to get there without the emotional labour. Personal assumptions may also play a factor as the individual who listens to mediums must hold some faith that there is some form of mystical energy the medium can connect to.

Synthesize Evidence, Identify Alternatives: With such a broad topic of someone leaving an individual’s life, it is difficult to pinpoint specific alternative solutions. That being said, the overarching goal seems to be experiencing emotional closure. Aside from actually speaking to the person in question, there are a number of things someone can do to move forward. Recognizing that emotional closure comes from within oneself is an important part of the process. Allowing themselves to experience their emotions without judgement helps to usher forward progress as well. Activities such as writing a letter to that person and destroying it might be a source of emotional freedom. Talking to close ones about the topic could also be beneficial. Planning a fun activity could help to not dwell too long. Breaking away from unhealthy habits such as engaging in activities that remind oneself of the person who left might also help psychologically.

Select the Best Alternative: Everyone experiences emotion differently, therefore the best alternative solution might vary from person to person. Some individuals might even need to do multiple solutions before any progress can be made. However, it should be noted that the most important step of emotional closure is recognizing that it is something only the person is able to accomplish. No divination magic, speaking with the dead, or therapeutic activity will be able to make someone feel better who is not willing to put in the effort to do so.