The Gold Leaf Lady and Other Parapsychological Investigations

Journal of Parapsychology, The, Spring-Fall, 2008 by Graham Watkins

THE GOLD LEAF LADY AND OTHER PARAPSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS by Stephen E. Braude. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Pp xxii 205. $22.50 (cloth). ISBN-10: 0-226-07152-9. ISBN-13: 978-2-226-07152-7.

Too often in recent years, books on parapsychology are, in the end, a disappointment. Either they are simply reviews of data that have been reviewed before and do not lend themselves very well into any sort of cohesive whole, or the authors draw conclusions and build theories on data altogether too sketchy to make such exercises meaningful. Stephen E. Braude's The Gold Leaf Lady and Other Parapsychological Investigations is a welcome exception, as it does not fall into either of these categories.

Braude opens, in the preface, with a discussion of the reception his interest in parapsychology has had in the halls of academia, which had often been considerably less than genial. This phenomenon itself, the dismissive rejection of the phenomena generally categorized as "paranormal," is certainly worth discussion. Braud's descriptions of the almost-hostile (or in some cases, overtly hostile) reception his interests receive from some of his academic colleagues will be familiar to many readers of this book and of the Journal of Parapsychology itself, and is itself of considerable interest. It is often said that this rejection occurs because accepting the reality of ESP would require an unwanted shift in overall worldview, but this cannot explain the intensity of the reactions. Such ideas as relativity and quantum dynamics also required shifts in worldview, and certainly these were controversial at the outset, but Einstein and the physicists who developed the theories of quantum mechanics did not have to deal with the complete dismissal of ideas and data, often by scientists who readily admit no familiarity at all with this data. As Braude notes, the reactions of these scientists--who should by their profession if nothing else be open to new ideas, and who certainly should respect rigorously collected data--is not infrequently, to use Braud's term, disgraceful. The use of logical fallacies such as focusing on the weakest cases, resorting to ad hominem attacks, and deliberately distorting the data or the conclusions drawn from it are sadly commonplace. It would be good for the field and for science in general--if at some point this attitude could be thoroughly understood. It now appears to be mere peer pressure, a fear of being so ridiculed by one's colleagues that only a relative few, such as Braude himself, are not intimidated and continue to follow wherever the evidence leads.

The first chapter in the book deals with Katy, the "Gold Leaf Lady" of the book's title. Most "paranormal" phenomena can be placed in one of the well-known classes: ESP, PK, and so on. Katy is one of those cases that defy easy categorization. The phenomenon that Braud is primarily studying with Katy has to do with the appearance of "gold foil" on her skin at apparently random times. The protocols of the observations made are presented in excellent detail, and an analysis of the foil itself is included, showing that it is not in fact gold at all but ordinary brass foil. Braud follows this information with a discussion of why these odd events might be happening, but, as is so often the case with these sorts of things, no real answers are forthcoming; we have learned what is happening, and we can speculate on why, but as to mechanisms--such as, where does the brass itself come from--we are left without a clue.

But perhaps of as much interest as the observations of Katy herself is Braude's discussion of her planned appearance on the TV show Unsolved Mysteries, during which philosopher-skeptic Paul Kurtz became involved. In a section entitled "Sleazy Skepticism," Braude accurately refers to Kurtz's skepticism as a "religious crusade." As is the case with so many of the self-styled "skeptics" today, his interest is very clearly not in understanding the facts but in finding ways to debunk--or at least appear to debunk--any "paranormal" explanation for the phenomena observed. To this end, Kurtz presents students with foil attached to their bodies with hair spray and insists that this must be the way Katy was doing it, thus ignoring the observations and the analyses, which essentially rules this sort of explanation out. This discussion--and others of the same sort that follow later in the book is important since it is such a common feature of "skepticism" today: the premise that, if an ability can be simulated using the techniques of stage magic, anyone showing that ability must therefore be using stage magic. The logical fallacy here is hardly worth commenting upon and would be immediately pointed out by these same people if applied to almost any other situation, yet it persists.

The discussions of Katy, of a cooperative and apparently capable subject named Dennis Lee, a difficult subject named Joe Nuzum, and a law-enforcement officer Braude refers to simply as "K.R.," all make for interesting and entertaining reading. K.R. is a common type, someone who is convinced he is able to do something unusual in his case, the ability to "transfer images" from photographs to his body or to another surface such as, for example, a bedspread. As it turns out, K.R.--who we would hope that in his capacity as a law-enforcement officer would be observant--is a victim of pareidolia, the common human tendency to see meaningful images in random patterns. Most readers who have done any sort of field investigations in parapsychology will find this very familiar--as does the author of this review, who once sat and watched more than 300 virtually identical slides of a sheepskin draped over a chair, upon which the owner of the sheepskin swore he could see changing pictures of mystical significance.