Excellent skeptical page on Ted Serios "Thoughtographer"

[analog]

Ted Serios was mentioned briefly in Randi's commentary this week. Strangely there are few skeptical Web pages on the topic of Serios, and there is very little info about Serios being debunked by Randi or anyone else apart from a brief entry in the Skeptics Dictionary.

I did some searching and located this excellent presentation on Serios by a photographer who observed first hand how Serios did his sleight of hand 'thoughtography' way back in the 60's. It also covers the non-skeptical attitudes of the scientists who supported Serios.

http://www.niler.com/estitle.html

According to another page I found online, Jule Eisenbud, the psychiatrist who wrote the book about Ted Serios died in 1999. His work with Serios is mentioned in his obituary.

http://www.slipcue.com/obits/01/obits10.html

 

[arcticpenguin]

According to another page I found online, Jule Eisenbud, the psychiatrist who wrote the book about Ted Serios died in 1999. His work with Serios is mentioned in his obituary.

http://www.slipcue.com/obits/01/obits10.html

Eysenck also wrote that trickery probably produced the photographs, although no one, to this day, has been able to show just how such a trick was performed.

Since Serios never 'fessed up, that is technically true. But several people have shown how the trick could have been performed. That puts the burden of proof on Serios and Eisenbud to run their experiment in a properly controlled manner, something that was never successfully done.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who still cites Serios' "thoughtography" as part of their evidence is damaging their own credibility.

 

[analog]

Re: Re: Excellent skeptical page on Ted Serios "Thoughtographer"

Since Serios never 'fessed up, that is technically true. But several people have shown how the trick could have been performed. That puts the burden of proof on Serios and Eisenbud to run their experiment in a properly controlled manner, something that was never successfully done.

Interestingly Eisenbud's obituary at Columbia makes a similar claim:

If the images were the result of trickery, however, no one has been able to demonstrate how the trick was accomplished...

http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/nov99/nov99_obituaries.html

 

[Blondin]

Whatever happened to Serios himself?

 

[analog]

Good question. Judging from the photo's taken in the mid 60's, Serios must be 70+ by now if still alive.

I wonder if Serios is up to a deathbed confession? It could be his last shot at fame!

According to that first link, there was an article published in the early 90's about Serios.

In July, 1991, WESTWORD,a Denver news and arts weekly publication, had an article called PICTURE THIS: A down and out drunk from Denver takes New York by storm with his psychic photographs.

The publication in question is http://www.westword.com but a search on Serios turns up nothing.

 

[Ralfy]

For those in the UK there is a TV programme on Five this Friday at 8.30pm which looks at Thoughtography and mentions Ted Serios.

 

[kookbreaker]

Good question. Judging from the photo's taken in the mid 60's, Serios must be 70+ by now if still alive.

I wonder if Serios is up to a deathbed confession? It could be his last shot at fame!

Serios died not long after Eisenbud's work with him. He was a heavy drinker and not healthy. If not for his fooling Eisenbud, he would be a candidate for 'guy without a shirt' on COPS. The pictures in Eisenbud's book and the Life Magazine article bear this out.

I read the "updated" Eisenbud book and the rationalizations are pathetic. Serios' "powers" dissapear right about the time that Eisenbud should have gotten a clue about how he was doing it. But he was convinced he could not be fooled. The Life article is really, really, sad. The back-and-forth between Eisenbud and Serios while he was performing was just plain...odd.