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The Rosenheim Case

So if I didn't believe in it a priori, and eventually came to find confirmation to such a degree that it would be unreasonable to withhold my provisional consent...then it would meet the criteria for an established alternate explanation?
 
Limbo said:
So if I didn't believe in it a priori, and eventually came to find confirmation to such a degree that it would be unreasonable to withhold my provisional consent...then it would meet the criteria for an established alternate explanation?
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One usually intends for alternate explanations to be of interest to others, don't they? You may find a particular alternate explanation plausible, but didn't this all start because the rest of us said, "say what?"

Linda
 
fls said:
One usually intends for alternate explanations to be of interest to others, don't they? You may find a particular alternate explanation plausible, but didn't this all start because the rest of us said, "say what?"

Linda
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Ya but when someone says "he has nothing to support it," then it all depends on how you define nothing. If this isn't clearly defined beforehand I could waste a bunch of time supporting an alternate explanation only to be stopped cold by a line of reasoning that goes something like this:

"...that's nothing"
 
Limbo said:
Ya but when someone says "he has nothing to support it," then it all depends on how you define nothing.
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A bit of a word game, this, but 'nothing' means nothing convincing.
You might spend a considerable amount of time (a bunch of time is something I have difficulty visualising!) 'supporting' an alternative explanation but unless it is convincing it is, in short, nothing.
 
Limbo said:
Ya but when someone says "he has nothing to support it," then it all depends on how you define nothing. If this isn't clearly defined beforehand I could waste a bunch of time supporting an alternate explanation only to be stopped cold by a line of reasoning that goes something like this:

"...that's nothing"
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Perhaps that's a clue that what you are proposing has not yet been established?

Linda
 
kerikiwi said:
A bit of a word game, this, but 'nothing' means nothing convincing.
You might spend a considerable amount of time (a bunch of time is something I have difficulty visualising!) 'supporting' an alternative explanation but unless it is convincing it is, in short, nothing.
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Yeah, so I have to be careful about who I try to convince. There are some people who won't be convinced of anything, no matter what. It's like Louis said,

"There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em." -Louis Armstrong
 
fls said:
Perhaps that's a clue that what you are proposing has not yet been established?

Linda
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Maybe. "Yet" being the key word there. It's the "yet" that separates the 'perinormal' from the 'paranormal'.

Historically there are many instances of things we take for granted being 'perinormal' first.

Showing that something is more likely to be 'perinormal' than paranormal is an important step.
 
Gr8wight said:
The link you provided took me to a page on a "parapsychology" website where it was speculated that such a thing might exist. No actual supporting evidence was provided. So, instead of, "sure," your answer is, in fact, "no."
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Evidence for micro-PK (which there is plenty of) is supporting evidence for RSPK.
 
Limbo said:
Maybe. "Yet" being the key word there. It's the "yet" that separates the 'perinormal' from the 'paranormal'.

Historically there are many instances of things we take for granted being 'perinormal' first.

Showing that something is more likely to be 'perinormal' than paranormal is an important step.
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Huh? How do you show that something is perinormal?

Linda
 
Kuko 4000 said:
"What we saw in the Rosenheim case could be 100 per cent shown not to be explainable by known physics."
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Anyone who's familiar with critical thinking will translate the above sentence to "it could be 100% shown not to be explainable by us according to physical laws." Once you make that simple change, there's not much to the story. I bet Randi could have figured it out.
 
sophia8 said:
Rather than waste bandwidth with a totally useless post, maybe you could contribute to the discussion in hand? For instance, what's your guess at how she achieved the following effects?
I do remember seeing the film many years ago, and couldn't see how anybody could make the heavy overhead corridor lights swing so vigorously. Though I don't believe it was achieved by paranormal means, I'd like somebody to offer an explanation.
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We have nothing beyond a claim of witnessing, which can make thinks sound more than they really were. For example were picture REALLY rotating the whole 360 or only swivelling to a great angle then released rotating the other way around ? Without visual evidence we are left conjecturing on how it was done. But big angle picture rotating and lamp swivelling could certainly be done with thin enough cable. Then it all hinge on how much investigation was done. Because funnily when I try to look in german wiki at rosenheim page, you find only the city. I will try to look later on google for more, but if there are only written witness report it is USELESS.
 
Limbo, please, if you're serious about your explanation just give it your best shot and explain it to us. Who cares if some people here don't take it seriously or understand it. I know I would like to hear it.

From what I know, there were two physicists from the Max Planck institute F. Karger and G. Zicha. I have scans of 10 pages of their investigations in my e-mail. I don't understand German that well, but if anyone wants to check them, PM me and I'll send the pics, I'd appreciate it.

The summary was in English though:

SUMMARY

Physical Investigation of the Rosenheim Psychokinetic Phenomena. - Inexplicable phenomena in the office of a Rosenheim lawyer were first attributed to faults in the power supply. This hypothesis seemed to be confirmed by recorders which registered strong deflections. The officials of the power station, however, did not succeed in determining the cause. The authors made a control investigation. By means of a storage oscilloscope they examined systematically all possible physical causes inclusive fraudulous manipulation. The following conclusions were reached: 1) Although recorded with the facilities available to experimental physics, the events defies explanation with the known means available to theoretical physics; 2) the phenomena seemed to be the result of nonperiodic, shorttime forces; 3) they did not seem to involve electro-dynamic effects but were <mechanically> induced; 4) not only were explosive events involved, but also complicated motions; 5) these movements seemed to be performed by intelligently controlled forces with a tendency to evade investigation.
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There was also a skeptical magician present at one time, this is what my email-friend has written about him, my translation:


A skeptical magician called Allan also visited the scene, he noticed a piece of nylon string from a used plastic pendulum hanging from the ceiling. So, in the book Allan, Schiff und Kramer: "Falsche Geister - echte Schwindler" the whole case was declared as a hoax. Quite a bold claim considering the big picture of the case. It would have been a miracle if the central character and other members of the staff were not under strict surveillance during the observations and the investigations, even by the police.

The owner of the office sued the books publisher to court because he himself and his staff were accused of a deception. In the end, the court found the staff not guilty and forbid the continuation of the books distribution. The trial reinforced the information gathered from the investigations when it concluded that no one was caught in the act of faking the phenomena.
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Below are his sources, he says these were enough to convince him about the genuineness of the psi-phenomenon in Rosenheim:

Hans Bender (1968): Der Rosenheimer Spuk – En Fall spontaner Psykokinese. (Ein vorläufiger Bericht). Zeitschrift für Parapsychologie und Grenzgebiete der Psychologie Vol. 11 s.104-112.
F. Karger und G. Zicha (1968): Physikalische Untersuchung des Spukfalles in Rosenheim. Zeitschrift für Parapsychologie und Grenzgebiete der Psychologie Vol. 11 s.113-131.
Hans Bender (1971): Unser sechster Sinn. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart.
Hans Bender (1973): Verborgene Wirklichkeit. Walter-Verlag, Olten und Freiburg im Breisgau.
Alan Gauld and A.D.Cornell (1979): Poltergeists. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, Boston and Henley.
Elmar R. Gruber (1981): On the Track of the Poltergeist. ASPR Newsletter Vol. VII, Number 1, January 1981.

Hans Bender was the parapsychologist in the scene:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Bender_(Psychologe)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Bender

Here are the videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTtjN6E2BtA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1LjrnsH144

The vids are in German, and at least to me boring, they are also worthless when talking about evidence, but these are the clips the "convinced" always link to, so it's good to know what's in them.

Couple of thoughts:

- Was Annemarie, the central character, ever tested in any proper way? If not, WHY?

- The phenomenon lasted for a few months, where these the only guys to investigate the phenomenon? If so, WHY?

- In what kind of journals were the physicists investigations published? Were they peer reviewed, and by whom?

- Why is there so little information about Annemarie? What happened to her, any interviews, is she still alive?

Etc. etc.

EDIT: More on Rosenheim and Annemarie: http://www.trivia-library.com/b/biography-of-electric-psychokinetic-anne-marie-sch-part-1.htm
 
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Being a phycisist like Dr. Karger is obviously not mutually exclusive with being a complete wacko. I googled his name yesterday and found some "interesting" bits on his and his wife´s homepage:

The intellectual masculine ability is complimented and guided by feminine abilities of intuition and clairvoyance. This is reflected in our counseling and authoring activities, as well as in our lectures and TV appearances.
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Examples of his "lectures":


Vancouver

Robson Conference Center

Angels, Heaven and Life after Death
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Further topics include:

*

The Significance of Intuition in Sciences
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At the Frontier of Sciences
*

New Knowledge beyond Traditional Science and Religion
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Intuition: the Royal Path to Decision
*

Responsible Dealing with the Abilities of the Soul
*

Introduction to the Laws of Creation
*

Why is the Woman Spiritually Stronger than the Man?
*

Spirit and Healing
*

Beyond Physics – Physics of the Beyond
*

Hygiene of the Soul
*

Spiritual Aspects of Grief Accompaniment
*

At the Track of the Spirit
*

Everything that Shines is not Spirit
*

Dangers of Occultism [intended for teens and schools]

… among many others.
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and I saw him quoted on the homepage of the "Grail Foundation Press":


"Many people," says Karger, "try to achieve immortality in the genes of their descendants, in the memory of their relatives and friends, or in history books without taking into account that all this is also bound to perish." Dr. Karger believes that none of these efforts can really lead to immortality and says there are other natural, lawful processes inherent in Creation which allow the human spirit to develop. He maintains that the process of reincarnation is the "only doctrine which can give explanation for the evolution of the human spirit.

Dr. Karger further explains: "When man is born into this world, he has come from a world of different substance to which he will return when he dies," and he believes this occurs numerous times. "In fact," says Dr. Karger, "the doctrine of reincarnation which is backed by research made in our century, was already considered as a matter of course during the period of early Christianity for about 500 years."

Can immortality then be taken for granted? "Not at all," states Dr. Karger. "Though the journey of man continues through many reincarnations, there are other natural laws in Creation which take effect according to the behavior of man. His own behavior is the determining factor as to whether he becomes immortal as a self-conscious personality or not."
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If that was not enough, I discovered some older stuff (no links, the sources were German and therefore not useful for the majority of posters here), where he stated that our beloved Uri Geller is for real, and something newer about a short appearance on the German version of the "the next Uri Geller" show.

Nuff said.
 
Thanks for the digging Georg!

What I find striking is that very important figures in the Finnish Parapsychology scene think that Uri Geller is the real deal, and these guys take pride in their scientific approach. Just yesterday I was in one of their meetings and Uri Geller was talked about in a very respecting manner. A person from the audience commented that a respected Russian magazine called Arguments & Facts had made a story about Uri Geller and they had revealed that the army (I guess it was the Russian army) uses the special abilities of Uri Geller to fight the war against terrorists.
 
Kuko 4000 said:
I'm currently having a messenger and e-mail discussion with one paranormal fellow from Finland, he's been following this stuff for over 30 years now, written some articles, and he is a firm believer in PSI-phenomena. I asked him to tell me about the most scientifically convincing paranormal case that he knows, and he chose the strange events that happened in a law firm in Rosenheim, Germany.

Wikipedia:




Anyone have any further details on this, or thoughts? And about the supposedly peer reviewed full paper that Karger and Zicha published?
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Kuko, is that your cite of a Wikipedia article, or did your debating partner provide it. If you have found it on Wiki, could you post a link please? I cannot locate one, although I did locate a short article on the city of Rosenheim, as someone mentioned above. My Google Fu is not so strong, though, so I'm not saying that it doesn't exist, but a link would be helpful.

However, I do particularly note that the exact wording of many lines in your cited article is lifted from Uri-Geller.Com, Chapter 10 of "Magician or Mystic? So Karger's absolute astonishment and the change to the way he viewed the world are actually not his words at all, nor the words of a journalist, but of whomever wrote the fan tome to Geller ( a very reputable source, naturally... just ask James Randi ).

The offending passage from the Geller bio....

http://www.uri-geller.com/books/magician-or-mystic/chapter10.htm

A 19 year old secretary in a law firm in Rosenheim, a small town in southern Germany, was causing unparalleled havoc without seeming to do anything deliberately, disrupting electrical supply and telephone lines, sending hanging lights swinging as she walked down a corridor and so on. Fraud was never proven despite intensive sleuthing by scientists, journalists and the police, the effects moved with the young woman when she changed jobs until they finally faded out, and Friedbert Karger's whole perspective on physics changed.

'These experiments were really a challenge to physics,' Karger says today. 'What we saw in the Rosenheim case could be 100 per cent shown not to be explainable by known physics.' Because he had been brave enough to say so, it was natural that Bild Zeitung looked to Karger to do a preliminary an assessment of Uri Geller. He came prepared with a ring, which he handled cautiously, never taking his eyes off it or letting it leave his hand. Uri touched it gently in Karger's palm and concentrated on it. The ring rapidly bent out of shape and cracked in two places. His colleague from the Institute, Manfred Lipa, also examined the ring for tool marks and found none.
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I kept in the underlined portion because regulars here will recognize Uri's old tricks.

I think the credibility factor of this Rosenheim discussion is roughly inching its way up to, oh, about zero.

My spidey sense is tingling.... the mention of the conjuror who came in and spotted a nylong thread, and then wrote a book and got everyone in trouble and then got sued and enjoined not to publish? Just pure garnish. It's the sort of cherries and sprinkles that woo-woo like to put on their "factual articles".




@Georg.... Nice work. I wasn't much surprised to find a lot of woo-ish mentions of his name, either. Anyone who validates Geller is either a hoaxster or a great example of that group from the scientific community that Randi always mentions as easily fooled.
 
Purely coincidental that you were posting a mention of Geller as I was. But interesting, nonetheless. The stories all center around a small group of believers. Stands to reason that your debater/debatee got his "most interesting case" directly from the Geller book. That might explain why no one else can locate anything on the subject.
 
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