 Can you tell me a little bit about your research into the paranormal? Well, I started my working life many years ago as a magician and so lots of my research looks at how people kid themselves that they are looking at something paranormal when actually it has a normal explanation because that's what magicians do all the time. They convince you they're performing miracles and actually there's a very ugly normal explanation for what it is they're up to. So I guess I use that background to springboard into looking into paranormal claims. Okay, so what kind of research do you do into the paranormal specifically? I guess our research falls into three main categories. We look at people claiming extreme and extraordinary abilities such as mediums and psychics. We look at lab-based experiments into telepathy and the existence of precognition being able to predict the future and we look at belief, how the beliefs you hold between your ears impact on how you view the world, process information and so on. Do you think belief in the paranormal is prevalent today? I'm not certain that belief in the paranormal has changed very much actually over the last 100 years or so. I mean, exactly what people believe in, this belief in, has changed but the levels tend to stick around a third to a half. So whatever survey you look at in the western world for the most part it's about a third or a half believing ghost, believe in ESP, believe in precognition. Now that does wax and wane a bit, so if there's a very successful TV show about UFOs then suddenly belief in UFOs goes up and we will drop away. Or if vampires are all over the news, vampires go up and suddenly people don't like psychics so much. So the exact content varies but you're looking about a third or a half of the population. So what are we talking here when we say belief in the paranormal? Psychics talking to the dead, what are some specific examples that you've dealt with? Yeah, so I've looked at mediums who claim to talk to the dead. Psychics who will tell you something about yourself that they allegedly picked up through their amazing abilities and sometimes predict the future and that can take many forms. It might be a tarot reader, it might be a palmist, it might be somebody looking at the tea leaves or a crystal ball. Very rarely you will get people who claim psychokinesis, mind over matter. They will focus on a spoon for example and it will start to bend or something like that. All those things would come under the remit of extraordinary abilities. I've seen some pretty convincing examples of psychic ability so a psychic might claim that something will happen in the future and it seems very detailed and specific and then the person who's being read it turns out to be true for them. What's your response to that? I think when you go to a psychic or a medium there are several psychological mechanisms at play. One is what's called Barnum statements, these very general statements that are true of everyone but we think they're just true of us. The notion that you look at someone's palm and say you've got a lot of untapped creative potential. We all like to go, oh yes, my goodness, they're terribly insightful. They're just true of everyone. Some of them are double headers so you're the sort of person that enjoys going to parties but also you enjoy being alone with a book and of course that covers both extraverse and introverts. Other times there's a lot of predictions being thrown out and then what happens is that if the prediction comes true the person remembers the reading and forgets all of the other predictions which didn't come true, which is a kind of spread betting if you like. Sometimes there's self-fulfilling prophecy. You say to somebody, oh my goodness, you're applying for some sort of new job and they go, yes, oh it's going to go really well. Well now they're extra confident and they go into the interview and so the prediction creates the future. So all of these different mechanisms are at play. To me what's interesting is it doesn't look like that. It looks like you go in, this person tells you all about yourself, predicts something about the future, comes true, isn't that incredible? Actually it's quite complicated. There isn't one psychology there. There are several psychological mechanisms. Do you think it's as simple as people forgetting about the misses, about the things that didn't come true or maybe do they regard those misses as sort of near hits? I think some of it is the sharpening up of quite a general prediction. So you say, I get the impression there's going to be a big change in your life sometime soon. It's going to involve two or three other people. Well what does that mean? Is that a job offer? Is it something that happens when you go out one night? Is it something in your personal life? And then when something does happen that seems to vaguely match that, well there's a sharpening up of the prediction. Oh the psyche told me this was going to happen. They said I was going to get a new job. Well that's not what they actually said. And the easiest way of countering that is simply to record the reading. Go along with the tape recorder, make a recording of it and then when you look back you might be surprised A how many predictions there are in there and B that some of them are a lot vaguer than you remember. It seems a common explanation for these kind of beliefs especially if you're a non-believer in the paranormal is people are just stupid, they'll believe anything. But you mentioned that there are a lot of psychological mechanisms behind there. Do you think it's true that psychological mechanisms are a more powerful way to explain this stuff than say motivations and personality? I think the notion that people who believe in this stuff are stupid simply isn't true. There's been some research looking at IQ which is if you like a measure of intelligence and a belief in the paranormal there's not much of a relationship there. There might be a small one but it's not particularly striking. I think what's happening is that a lot of people want to believe in this stuff. Why else would you go to a psychic? You are probably looking for some sort of guidance and so I always say it's a little bit like going to a doctor if you didn't feel very well and the doctor says well what are the symptoms? You say well you're the expert, you tell me. It would be a ridiculous thing to say the two of you are there to work on the problem together and I think that's the attitude of most people going to a psychic. I have a problem, we are here to work on it together and so all of those biases flow in as you try and make sense of the situation. And there is some research suggesting that if people are having a tough time in their lives if they're facing uncertainty or as a child they face a lot of uncertainty and upset then that tends to bias them towards believing in the paranormal thinking there is a magical solution to their problems. So the people that are going along to a psychic or a medium can be quite psychologically vulnerable and of course one of the issues here is whether going along to the psychic or medium helps get better off in a more mainstream counselling scenario. Can we work through a specific example, say a psychic? Do you have any examples of how they might be engaging in some of the psychological mechanisms you mentioned before? I think most psychics are sincere in their beliefs, they have these abilities and actually aren't doing that much harm to be honest. I think they are pretty much like good counsellors in some ways. You have got a minority there that are very exploitative and so that's often flagged up if they'll talk about curses that if someone's life is not going at all well in several different areas and they go along to a psychic and they say, well, you're cursed. That's a very simple explanation. It's the reason why things are going wrong in your personal life and your professional life and everywhere else as well. You have a curse and what you mustn't do is go and tell your family about that because they're probably the people that put the curse on. Now, doing that, you've instantly taken out social support for that person and then the next thing is to get rid of the curse to take it away, that's going to require some money. As they pay the money and then they learn, behold, the curse is more powerful than the psychic thought, it's going to require even more money. Now, there you've clearly got into a very exploitative negative situation and I think that's a psychic understanding the psychology and the power here and using it entirely for their own benefit. What would you say to somebody who has a strong belief in the paranormal? What do you think might convince them to sort of change their opinion or their mind? What is a psychologist? I don't think it's up to me to try and change anyone's mind about something like the paranormal. I would say to both skeptics and believers, try and base your thoughts and your beliefs on the evidence. I mean, that's what you do in many different areas of your life. You wouldn't go along to buy a used or a second hand car and you go, I know, I'll trust my intuition. If you didn't understand about cars, you'd take somebody with you that did because this is an area where you need evidence. And I would say, if you're going along to a psychic or a medium, understand the tricks of the trade, be an informed client and if you see them being used, get out of there. So it's not up to me to change anyone's belief. I just think I would push people on both ends of the spectrum. I would say to skeptics, you know, know the evidence for the paranormal before you start saying this stuff isn't true because you might be surprised at some of the data that's sitting in there to both ends of the spectrum, just be a little bit more evidence-based. This course is about the science of everyday thinking. What advice would you give to people who want to think better and do better in their everyday lives? I think psychology can go some of the way to helping people realise that if they change the way they look at the world, then they might be a little bit more, you know, happier or more productive. So I would say that it might help you in that way, but to be honest, I think actually what helps you more is common sense and the problem is that common sense isn't very common to use the old phrase and so lots of the time people cling to their hopes and their wishes and their dreams and they think that without putting much effort in, these things will somehow come true. That's often underlying a lot of actually belief in the paranormal and a lot of the self-help literature as well. And if psychology tells us anything, it's for the most part success is associated with hard work. And so in terms of everyday thinking, I would say, you know, you've got to put the time in. There's no shortcuts here. Another person we've spoken to is Susan Blackmore and she said she had an out-of-body experience that changed her life. What do you think about that? Well, I've read quite a lot about Susan's experience and spoken to her a little bit about it. I'm sure she had the experience and of course here we should differentiate between the experience and the interpretation of it that there is no doubt that she thought she was floating out of her body. The interpretation issue is, well, was that paranormal, did her soul, whatever that is, actually leave her body or was it essentially an illusion? And I think soon now, and I certainly would argue, that what you're looking at with out-of-body experiences is a kind of illusion, that your brain is creating this idea that somehow you are somewhere that your body isn't. And we now know from work with virtual reality that that's actually relatively straightforward to create minor versions of that illusion. So with OBEs with out-of-body experiences, I would argue we understand quite a lot about the psychology of it in part because we can produce the phenomenon on a fairly regular basis. Going back to some of the claims of clairvoyance and mediums and people that, suppose they can speak to the dead, can you tell me about some of the harms that might occur in those cases? I guess the two obvious issues with psychics and mediums, we take mediums first, is bereavement, that when people are bereaved, they lose a close friend, loved one, clearly they're going to go through the grieving process, often feel very isolated from others. Now, good psychology is about moving them from that place into somewhere where they feel better and a little bit more integrated. And the question is, does going to a medium help with that process? And the answer is, I don't think we know for certain. Sometimes, if you've lost someone very suddenly, the idea of you can just pass on one last message to them, something you didn't say when they're alive, well, maybe that does make you feel better. If you become reliant on the medium and essentially living your life as if that person is still around in your life, that's probably not so good. So there's probably fine-grainness to whether going to a medium is helpful or not. In some ways, it's the same with psychic, that when people struggle in lives, as everyone does at some point, you want to be given the tools to solve the problems you have and the problems that will come up in the future. That's what good counseling is about. Psychics aren't about that. They're about, no, no, no, trust me, you need to do this. It's not about tools, it's just about advice. And so the worry is you become reliant on them. You've got another problem, you have to go back to them again. And that doesn't underpin good counseling at all. So I think those are the two main concerns. Do you think our belief in paranormal phenomena is that the basic psychological processes are operating in other areas of our lives? Yeah, I think believing in the paranormal is that the price you pay for being so successful the rest of the time. So most of the time when someone's talking to us and they talk about what they're going to do that evening or whatever, it's pretty vague. And we sharpen up those comments to make sense of them. And that's what's happening when you go to a psychic. The difference is they can't actually predict the future. So the fact that we are so good at communicating with one another that we can infer what somebody means even though the words aren't there means that we're wonderful interpersonally and it's also the price you pay then to go along to a psychic and trip yourself up thinking they can actually predict the future. Have you found in your area of research that you've become open-minded or closed-minded? For many years, I love the idea first of all of being a skeptic because everyone's a skeptic. You meet believers and they say, I used to be a skeptic and then this happened to me. And I've yet to meet a believer who says, I've always been a credulous fool but here I go with my story. So a lot of what's happening here is discourse. In terms of how I describe myself I've always been skeptical. Magicians tend to be skeptical. It's not DNA as it were, not literally. That would be odd. So we tend to be a skeptical bunch. I think I'd started off as an open-minded skeptic in the sense of let's look at the evidence and see what's out there. I think after 15 years of doing this I'm now a closed-minded skeptic and I think, you know what, there's probably nothing out there. It's probably not true because I've never found evidence of it. But that's not a position I'm proud of or that I would urge other people to adopt. I think you should be open-minded. That's the essence of good science. But if after a while there really isn't any evidence there then maybe you should close your mind up a little bit. Can you tell me about the nature of superstitious belief? Why do you suppose it is that we all believe some pretty strange things? Well, superstition is fascinating in part because it's so widespread. So although only a third half of people believe in a psychic or a medium, almost 90-95% of people would touch wood, cross their fingers, whatever it is. So in that sense we're all irrational. Let us not believe that we're rational creatures. Why do we go for it? Well, I suspect because we're told from a very young age that there might be something to it. Otherwise you might get bad luck and that's a real problem and it only takes a few seconds just to touch wood or whatever. If it was a very elaborate ritual I suspect it wouldn't catch on quite so quickly because you have to do three forward rolls and a star jump every single time you say something like, I hope that goes well, then people wouldn't be quite as superstitious. So part of it is it costs very little and if it is true, the benefits are enormous. The other thing is that we're often are one-trial learners. So if we do something like we wear our lucky shirt and we go along to a job interview and it goes wonderfully, then we think, wow, this somehow, is somehow linked to me doing well and I'll wear it again next time in exactly the same way that sports people will lace up their shoes in a certain way because when they did that once, suddenly it was a great performance. So we are naturally good at linking things like that which leads us to be superstitious particularly under conditions of uncertainty and of course the most superstitious groups are sports people who have to perform in a certain window of time, which is exactly the same. So it's uncertainty that drives that belief. It sounds like that phenomenon of superstitious belief might be related to another thing that you talk about in the course which is seeing patterns in noise some people call it pareidolia. Can you tell me a little bit about that? I'm a big fan of pareidolia which is in terms of faces whenever you present people with anything it looks like a face even vaguely two eyes and a nose and a little mouth and even know how the non-existent face feels. This one looks a bit worried and this garage door looks terribly happy or whatever it is and it's because we are good at finding those patterns and again the paranormal seeing the face that isn't there is the price we pay for being so good at seeing it every time it is there. So if you look at a group of 100 people it's amazing what your brain is doing. You have no problem with picking out 100 faces and probably knowing how most of them feel is effortless and what's happened is that we've evolved to see a few faces that aren't there rather than miss one of those 100 because it really matters to us with social creatures essentially so in that sense we should celebrate the illusion. What do you mean by the faces aren't there? I mean there's no real ground truth out there isn't there? How can you say to someone that sees or has the experience of seeing a face that the face isn't there? Well if it's, I don't know, a snow covered tree and someone says there's a face there you say well you go and have a chat with it and see how that goes or do you want to ask out on a date because that's going to be an interesting evening of your life in that sense there is no face there and I guess that's what I'm referring to as a ground truth because they might say well it looks like a face and you go well yes fine but that's not the argument here there's not a face in the tree but being so silly that's my advice. Are there other paranormal beliefs that we might pick up or see signal where there is actually only noise? I think one of the most pernicious paranormal phenomena actually is people claiming to be god men and this happens in India in particular where people will claim to be essentially a god or at least a conduit for god now because that's quite an extreme belief they have trouble convincing people that that's the case and so often they will fake some kind of paranormal phenomena so the most prevalent one is the production of what's called Vibhuti which is a fine ash that's used in Hindu worship where they make a kind of sweeping motion and then produce this from the fingertips and I spent a couple of years actually investigating some of these people and all I could see with individuals that I investigated was just evidence of cheating that there's ways of concealing a pellet of that powder on the hand and then when you make the sweeping motion you simply break up the pellet now the reason why that's a particularly dangerous magic trick essentially is that isn't just about convincing people that you're god on earth that comes with a whole spiritual belief system and suddenly you have power over large numbers of people so you have to remember that there is a very large social dimension to this the individuals are not just faking psychic ability for fun they're doing it for a reason and often it's to benefit themselves are there any tricks that we can use when we're trying to evaluate claims so whether it be claims to the paranormal or health claims or anything are the tricks that we can use based on what we know from evidence from cognitive science to help us make the right decisions I don't know there's any easy way I mean one is that if it appears to be amazing if it appears to be extraordinary and not only paranormal but if the offer that a sales person is putting forward appears to be incredible it's probably not true is one issue the other issue is that often we are not the experts we think we are we like to think that we could spot a con person or whatever but the reason why those con people are still out there working is that we can't do that it's in the same way as we think we're really good at lie detection and actually we're terrible at telling what another person is lying so I would say you know in each of these domains consult the experts consult individuals who do know about it particularly if the person that you're talking to wants your money if they want your money go and talk to somebody else before you hand over your money I think that's probably the most straightforward piece of advice my name is Richard I think about the paranormal