Taming the Poltergeist, Magic and card tricks
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]TAMING THE POLTERGEIST
Clinical Observations on Steve Shaw's Telekinesis
Berthold E. Schwarz, M.D.**
Supplement to
The Journal of the American Psychosomatic Dentistry and Medicine
No. 6,1982
TAMING THE POLTERGEIST*
Clinical Observations on Steve Shaw’s
Telekinesis
Berthold E. Schwarz, M.D.**
*Dedicated to the memory of Samuel W. Hamilton, M.D.
and
Magnus
C. Petersen, M.D., who were superb psychiatrists: open minded,
level headed and possessed of sterling character, always worthy
of emulation.
**Psychiatric Consultant, National Institute
for
Rehabilitation
Engi
neering, Butler, NJ 07405
Introduction
Steven R. Shaw's* psychic metal bending and presumed thoughto-graphic feats have
been reported by Peter R. Phillips
1,2
and Mark Shafer of the McDonnell Laboratory for
Psychical Research, Washington University, St. Louis. I first learned about Steve from
correspondence with John Thomas Richards,
P
h
,
D
.3
who, with W. E. Cox and the
members of SORRAT (the Society for Research in Rapport and Telekinesis), has
conducted pioneering, controlled investigations on telekinesis.
4,5
Steve Shaw, who is
twenty years old. first became aware of his psychic metal bending abilities after
watching a TV performance of Uri Geller
(6,7)
in the mid 1970s. Steve duplicated many
of Geller's purported feats and, beyond that, struck out on his own to more fully define
his talents.
The purpose of this study is to attempt replicating some of the work on Steve, and to
try coupling this with psychodynamic observations. Physician Andrija Puharich
deserves credit for first calling attention to psychic metal bending abilities and
associated presumed psychic talents. Although the psycho-biological-medical
implications beg for study, chiefly physicists and parapsychologists
8-12
have bothered
to conduct experiments and report data on this incredible phenomenon, let alone sketch
and probe any possible psychodynamics. A computerized bibliographic search of the
medical literature for telekinesis and psychokinesis, 1966-1982, aside from my study
13
listed only one reference.
14
This report is concerned with experiments and observations
of spontaneous events with and on Steve in my office, apartment, in the field, and also
scrutinized phenomena which took place and were observed and videotaped at the
National Institute for Rehabilitation Engineering (NIRE), Butler, New Jersey. The
data, circumstances and associated spontaneous material, are reported mostly in
chronological order, A brief psychiatric-paranormal survey and discussion are
included.
1.
Warm-up
Evening of November 3, 1981, Tuesday
After Steve deplaned preliminary psychiatric interviews were conducted in my office.
Later in the evening, at my apartment, Steve requested some guests. When neighbors
in the adjacent apartment, who had never witnessed any alleged psychical phenomena
came over,
*Steven R. Shaw in this study will hereafter be referred to as Steve
Page 2
Steve gave a demonstration. F, a successful semi-retired business executive, and G, his
wife, each held stainless steel spoons while Steve
made passes with his half-flexed fingers and hands over their hands.
Steve did not touch the spoons that they were holding. After several unsuccessful
attempts Steve then held the spoons himself and one of them suddenly buckled to an
approximate 30° angle. Later while a spoon was held in F's hand and Steve was seated
opposite him but had no contact with the spoon, the bowl separated from the handle.
After more unsuccessful trials Steve then instructed G to hold some brass keys which
were first scratched for identification, in her clenched fists. Several seconds lapsed during
which time Steve held his hands over the woman's, but at no time touching her. She said
she felt tingling and movement. When she opened her hands there was a marked key bent
approximately 30° in her left palm. The women is left handed.
Steve was warming up, and additional guests T and B, a husband and wife, arrived.
Steven instructed F to take off her battery-powered Pulsar wrist watch and place it in
G's open hand, while I (BES) did the same with my spring-wound Omega watch. Both
watches had the hands at 9:45. I was told to think of a number between I and 60. I said
27 and then Steve, after looking intently at G's clenched fists which secreted the
watches, instructed her to open her hands. My watch was 27 minutes ahead of F's
Pulsar. The evening was concluded with Steve performing contact telepathy with B,
the woman guest, in the living room, while T, her husband went downstairs with
Steve. B hid a key under the living room radiator and then Steve and T returned. Steve
held T's hands while B (and the others) were concentrating on where the key was
hidden. After several trials Steve pin-pointed the place where the key was but when he
felt under the radiator he was unable to find it. The audience chuckled and told him to
put his hands down again, which he did, and he came up with the missing key. Steve
was tired and felt he could no longer perform any feats, although, in the meantime two
additional guests, P and E, had arrived.
When parting P and E agreed to attend the planned evening session with Steve at
NIRE. However, the couple did not make it, and months afterward I learned that the
day after our evening with Steve, E's father, who was living with them and in no
acute stress, had died. No special significance is attached to this, but it is mentioned
in passing as a possible part of the psychic nexus.
II First night harvest
Before retiring Steve had noticed in the apartment living room on
Page 3
the second floor many sealed plastic and glass bottles, jars, and boxes, containing a
variety of items that might have piqued his purported telekinetic ability. Attention was
also given to a Duco~emented and wax-sealed plastic bottle with a tightly turned tamper-
proof cap. The bottle contained my son's business calling card and a smidgeon of blue
crayon. Earlier in the evening, in passing, I showed Steve a photo of a similar test which
he had previously done in the presence of Dr. John Thomas Richards.
15,4
Steve brought
the plastic bottle downstairs with him when he went to bed and early the next morning,
when he awakened, he told me about: ".., real weird dreams.
About bending things—moving objects
and talking with Tom Richards about his
ghosts – everything. And about the Mini Lab."
I noted that the calling card, still in the sealed bottle,
had the initials PSA vertically scribbled on the
back, and the crayon was missing. (Figure 1.) PSA
might have been an anagram of my wife's initials
APS, which she is in the habit of doodling to my
discomfiture when I need the pads she uses for
telephone messages. Steve did not know my wife's
name, nor her initials, nor had he ever met her.
Also, PS were the initials of Steve's mother. One
would wish for more associative material about
this.
One of the adhesive labeled and waxed, sealed,
clear transparent plastic boxes, which had it's lid
wrapped with duct tape, had also been affected. The
mousetrap was set off and one of the photoflash
bulbs on the Sylvania flash bar was ignited. It is
admitted that the mousetrap could have been set
Figure 1
Page 4
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