To My Fellow Skeptics

by TD 20 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  TD

  Okay...I'm a hardcore skeptic and I admit it. I have no use for the supernatural at all.

  Having said that though, once in a great, great while I'm truly, honestly stumped. One instance was a book I read in the early 1970's entitled, Arigo: Surgeon Of The Rusty Knife. This book is out of print now and a used copy could easily cost you 50 dollars or more. However, in the age of the internet, the book can be accessed here:

  http://www.scribd.com/doc/16005722/Arigo-Surgeon-of-the-Rusty-Knife

  For any who are interested, I'll briefly summarize:

  Arigo was a "psychic surgeon" in Brazil. Psychic surgery is a paranormal medical practice where the patient is operated upon without anaesthetics or antiseptics. It has mainly confined to the backstreets of South American countries in years gone by. The patient feels no pain during the procedure and the alleged wound closes without sutures and with little or no bleeding.

  "Psychic surgery" has proved to usually be a simple trick performed by any low grade charleton. The "Surgeon" either pinches the skin or makes a very superficial cut and then produces a piece of animal tissue that he has carefully palmed as the excised tumor or growth.

  Obviously, there would be several easy ways to falsify such a trick. One way would be to film the procedure in good light with a high speed camera and then analyzing it frame by frame. This should reveal the exact point when the fake tissue was produced. Another even more obvious method would be to examine the tissue that was supposedly "removed" from the patient. If it was non-human in origin or definitely doesn't belong to the patient, then the hoax is exposed.

  However, there's a "Catch 22" to being a skeptic. If you can't penetrate the hoax and are honest about it, you're liable to be accused of being either guillible, stupid, or perhaps even in league with the con-artist themself. With that in mind, I'll qualify this by pointing out that all I can say is what I've read. José Pedro de Freitas (Arigo) does not seem to have been a garden-variety con-artist.

  Allegedly:

  He performed his operations in broad daylight.

  He allowed anyone to watch

  He didn't charge money.

  He worked all day long, treating hundreds of people a day. In the end, he had performed many thousands of "Cures."

  He allowed his procedures to be filmed and photographed.

  He "operated" on several high-profile individuals including the daughter of then Brazilian President Juscelino Kubitschek.

  His patients often did not appear to feel any pain.

  I'm curious. Has anyone else ever heard of Arigo? Has anyone else ever come across a credible skeptic who debunked Arigo's "Cures?"
• 

  moshe

  Penn and and Teller do a Las Vegas magic show. Watch the video clip and see, if you can see what happens. They replace small balls with one large one and even with a clear cup, you can't see how they make the switch. The human eye is not a reliable witness and can be distracted from seeing a change or switch.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI8PC3hUIEc
• 

  sabastious

  My catch 22 is this:

  If it's either a trick of the eye; that proves that Satan is behind the trick to distract us from what we are supposed to be doing.

  If it's real then it's Satan using his bugga bugga stuff to distract us from what we are supposed to be doing.

  Either way the supernatrual explanation can fit like a glove.

  -Sab
• 

  Joey Jo-Jo

  I had heard of this, its a con, google it, it was on 60 minutes a while back, not sure if this was brazil or a part of asia but they used cow and chicken flesh to give the illusion that they are operating with their bare hands.
• 

  tec

  Well, I've seen how hoaxes of psychic surgery get done, as you described, but I don't know anything about this Arigo. Proof seems fairly easy to attain though - x-rays showing something that is present before the psychic surgery, and x-rays showing that it is gone afterward. The rest of the stuff might provide evidence, but before and after x-rays should be able to provide proof, right?

  Of course, that's today - and I'm guessing this man is already dead?

  Tammy
• 

  villabolo

  You're probably familiar with James Randi who wrote a book titled Flim Flam and also The Faith Healers on that subject. They are one of the best books on the matter.

  Villabolo
• 

  TD

  Thanks everybody.

  I've followed this off and on for over thirty years and I've read Randi. James Randi does not come to grips with the nature of the claims or the extent of the documentation. Sleight of hand does not even begin to explain operating through an eye socket or a vagina with an ordinary kitchen knife.

  Even Martin Gardner, who I love to pieces, wrote a very incomplete review of Fuller's book that completely misrepresents it.

  Of course the most obvious answer and the "Catch-22" of the skeptic that I've mentioned above is that those who documented Arigo were themselves either in league with him somehow or otherwise had some vested interest in "Proving" the supernatural.
• 

  SixofNine

  Of course the most obvious answer and the "Catch-22" of the skeptic that I've mentioned above is that those who documented Arigo were themselves either in league with him somehow or otherwise had some vested interest in "Proving" the supernatural.

  Well what's your take on that? Do the people who did the documenting seem ruthlessly skeptical, or no?
• 

  TD

  Well what's your take on that? Do the people who did the documenting seem ruthlessly skeptical, or no?

  Definitely no. Like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the fairy pictues, both men seemed to have a prior willingness to believe. John Fuller was not an Art Bell by any stretch, but he did enjoy researching the inexplicable and presenting it under the guise of keeping an "Open mind." His associate, Andrija Puharich was even less credible, having supported Uri Geller.

  However both men seemed to realize this and confined themselves to only what they felt they could prove and told the reader to draw their own conclusions about everything else, which seems to eliminate any middle ground.
• 

  sabastious

  Sleight of hand does not even begin to explain operating through an eye socket or a vagina with an ordinary kitchen knife.

  How can you be so sure such a daring vaginal surgery was actually performed?

  -Sab