malf
Member
Hi Judith,When I lived in Flagstaff I worked in the Philosophy Dept. At one point, one of the graduate students had a dream about a woman who had just been killed. The dream was pre-cognitive or something. He made the mistake of sharing the info he got with law enforcement and was actually arrested for the murder. He was in jail for quite a while...if I remember correctly he even went to trial. He was eventually released.
I absolutely agree. Rare opportunities should be sought out and investigated carefully! It's not often you get truly exception people willing to submit themselves to tests, for example:I can imagine why he might not want to encourage a lot of people to approach him with claims that they have psychic powers. Could that just be a diplomatic way of putting it?
Alex's question at the end of the interview:
Alex thinks that police departments are less likely now to use psychic resources on account of successful sceptical pressure. What do you think about that?
When I lived in Flagstaff I worked in the Philosophy Dept. At one point, one of the graduate students had a dream about a woman who had just been killed. The dream was pre-cognitive or something. He made the mistake of sharing the info he got with law enforcement and was actually arrested for the murder. He was in jail for quite a while...if I remember correctly he even went to trial. He was eventually released.
In an old post on his blog, Joe McMoneagle basically warned people with psychically-obtained information not to contact and try to share it with law enforcement agencies.
Dean (1:57:20):
"She's completely correct in terms of ego getting in the way. That's definitely -- we see that in the lab a lot. That's one of the reasons, by the way, that we don't test people who come to us who claim to have special abilities. Because the moment that they learn that maybe they may have some kind of ability, their ego always becomes inflated, and we don't want to be responsible for that."
I think in reality he is not getting talented psychics coming to him making claims. If someone showed up who could juggle bowling balls using PK he would test them and not worry about inflating the psychic's ego.
That's cool, and I understand. Perhaps can you tell me exactly what year? I'm interested in looking further into this and I'm sure there must be some record if a graduate student was arrested for murder. Thanks!This was more than 25 years ago (ugh...I'm old) and I have lost touch with most folks who worked in the department at that time.
Thanks!The year was around 85 or 86...don't remember exactly.
Previous Skeptiko guest Steven Novella has weighed in on this: