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CASE 1
Philosophy professors Barry Singer and Victor Benassi performed experiments on community college students in the late 1970s and early 1980s at Long Beach City College. The two told their own critical thinking and logic students that a magician was hired to perform psychic feats for them in class. Professors Singer and Benassi hired a man listed in the newspaper as a professional conjurer and told the classes he was hired to perform for them. He repeated a single performance in front of 10 different philosophy classes. He wore a purple robe and gold medallions. He introduced himself as “Craig” and he chanted before each supernatural feat he performed. 70% of all students who witnessed his act said afterward that Craig the “magician” was real: he could break the laws of nature. They watched him with their own eyes make paper money appear and disappear, both before and after holding it up for all to inspect. He smoked a cigarette, then asked a student to open her hand, and she was shocked to find ash there when there was no ash there when the performance began; a metal bar was passed around in class and no one could bend—every single student tried—and then Craig, after a chant of words not in English or any other known language, Craig bent the bar easily, without effort. He asked a random student to choose a number between 1 and 100 and then he guessed that number correctly the first time, to the student’s utter amazement.
70% of the college students who witnessed Craig’s feats said he was the real deal: A practitioner of the paranormal capable of suspending the laws of nature. They said he (Craig) was actually tricking the philosophy professors Singer and Benassi into thinking he was just a regular human, a mere paid “magician” when in fact in reality he is a supernatural warlock. The college students claimed they did not know how powerful Craig was, but that he revealed enough for them to know he had real powers. (Several college students wrote exorcisms on their paper to ward off the Devil, and others prayed to God for their personal safety.)
PROMPTS:
(a) Is it logical to believe what the majority of college students believed? Is it rational? Or is it logical and/or rational to believe Craig is a regular human being who is a professional performer, unable to break any laws of nature and perform any supernatural feats? Explain.
(b) How could Craig be tested outside the classroom, by experts? Explain. Suppose Craig refused to perform under test conditions: For instance, when given a metal bar chosen by scientists, he will not bend it; when asked by scientists he refuses to tell them what number they are secretly thinking of between 1 and 100; and Craig will not make ash appear in any of the scientists’ hands, or make a dollar bill appear or disappear. Could Craig still be supernatural, given his refusal? What would logic and science say? Explain.
(c) What if a public internet search turned up the following: Craig had purchased the following books in the past five years after leaving his job at Big O Tires: 101 Magic Tricks by Bryan Miles, Modern Magic Effects and How to Perform Them, by Geo DeLawrence, and Jim Stott’s Ultimate Street Magic Kit. Would this prove logically that he is just a human conjurer? Or would it only give you strong evidence he was merely a human conjurer? What if Craig said in response he has real supernatural abilities but he wanted to appear to be a regular human magician, in order not to be persecuted by those who found out his true powers? Is it logical and is or it rational to believe this is why Craig made the purchases of those books (to masquerade as a human and not be discovered to be a real wizard)? Analyze this defense in detail.
(c) Suppose Craig were paid a tremendous sum of money and shows us privately how he performed each act he carried out in front of the college students. That is, suppose he shows us his secret how to touch the bar that makes it pliable, etc. Now suppose someone still claims he is supernatural—even after showing us how his classroom feats were in fact accomplished by stage magic. What could be said to this person, clinging to the supernatural belief even after the revelation? Explain.
