False equivalencies and the mediocrity of nonlocal consciousness research criticism.

c t m s N p f T he first time I encountered denierism was in 1981, at the annual meeting of the Parapsychological Association. I was sitting at a table with several people, talking about the magician Randi’s attacks on Hal Puthoff, Russell Targ, and Ed May, the three physicists running the government-funded Stanford Research Institute’s remote-viewing program. As we sat there talking, who should come over but Randi himself. He could not be mistaken. He sported massive white gray fluffy muttonchop burnsides, not seen since the 19th century, and a matching beard. His shirt was Robin’s egg blue, his suit almost white. It was all very studied. Although different in style, looking back on it, the effect was something like David Suchet as Hercule Poirot. Without preamble, Randi began by asking about my submarine experiment, Deep Quest, an experiment I had done a few years earlier, one that used remote viewing to locate an unknown wreck deep in the ocean on the seafloor and to establish that the nonlocal perception used in remote viewing is not electromagnetic. I began very earnestly to answer his question but realized he wasn’t really interested, so I stopped. After a beat, he turned and asked the table what we thought of Hal and Russell. Several people made noncommittal remarks. He pivoted to me saying, “What do you think, Stephan?”