Guest Column

Matt Cherry

Matt Cherry is Executive Director of the Council for Democratic and Secular Humenism based in Buffalo, USA

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FRIDAY the 13th of October was a lucky day for the Center for Inquiry - the new headquarters of the Committee for Democratic and Secular Humanism (CODESH) and the Council for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) in Amherst, New York. The Center saw a procession of TV camera crews through the day, filming staff-members and news reporters as they broke mirrors, walked under ladders, stepped on cracks and opened umbrellas indoors. The excuse for this bizarre behaviour was a 'Supersition Bash' held to launch new local groups, 'Friends of the Center for Inquiry.'

The Friday 13th bash was billed as a 'Bad Luck Bonanza' in which participants defied a selection of strange superstitions about 'unlucky' behaviour. Amongst the more obscure ways in which we invited bad luck were: stirring the drinks with a knife ('stir with a knife, stir up strife'), rocking an empty rocking chair, crossing the knives and forks at place settings, and the men wearing hats indoors - until we put them on a bed. We made up for the lack of cooperative black cats by placing dozens of black plastic cut-out cats amidst the Halloweenesque decorations.

The highlight of the evening was a local TV celebrity smashing a full-length mirror with a sledge hammer (luckily the audience was protected from any flying shards of glass by their opened umbrellas). In addition to all the hands-on superstition bashing, there was an introduction to the Center for Inquiry and talks about superstition by a skeptical magician and a folklorist.

Over 100 people attended the Friday 13th bash - and every one of them walked in under a giant ladder. The press release I sent to the local media in up-state New York somehow resulted in over 30 media interviews and hundreds of stories throughout the U.S. and the world including national radio interviews in the UK and a story in the Times of India. And since I'm giving the statistics, I must record that we accrued 56 years of bad luck from the breaking of mirrors.

Paul Kurtz, Chair of both CODESH and CSICOP, lamented the media's lack of seriousness: our important initiatives struggle to get any news coverage, but when we spend an evening spilling salt and assaulting mirrors there's a media feeding frenzy. Personally, I just marvelled at how fantastically silly we had to be in order to promote 'rationalism.'

Nevertheless, I commend our superstition-bashing shenanigans to other humanist groups. By taking advantage of the media’s desire for a ‘Friday the 13th story’ - whether to make a light-hearted item for the end of the evening news or to provide a good front-page photo for the newspaper – a remarkable amount of publicity was gained. But most importantly, a damn good time was had by one and all.

THE Friday the 13th Superstition Bash is an excellent example of the overlap and cooperation between humanists and skeptics. Working side-by-side with CSICOP is certainly an interesting experience for me. Often CSICOP are asked questions on topics that humanist groups also deal with - life after death, creationism versus evolution, New Age mysticism, and even milk-drinking Hindu statues and their lachrymose Catholic kin. But many more calls are on subjects further removed from humanist concerns -ranging from alien autopsies to Abominable Snowmen and praeternatural combustion (no, I don't mean the Snowmen combust -- although come to think of it, that could explain why no abominable bodies have been found).

CSICOP was founded, by Paul Kurtz, in 1976. It has made remarkable progress since then. Many once mysterious phenomena have been scientifically explained, and many self-proclaimed psychics have been shown to be fraudulent or deluded. CSICOP has encouraged the formation of skeptic groups in over forty countries, and its magazine, Skeptical Inquirer, now has a circulation of over 50,000. But even as more and more alleged paranormal phenomena have been given mundane explanations, the absurdity of paranormal claims and the mass media's willingness to promote them seem only to have increased.

To mark its twentieth anniversary, CSICOP is hosting the 1996 World Skeptics Congress in Amherst on June 20-23. The theme is 'Science in the Age of (Mis)Information'. Speakers include the renowned biologist Stephen Jay Gould, Nobel Prize winner Leon Lederman and Chris Carter, the creator of one of the most successful TV series 'The X-Files' (which I love for its impeccably serious treatment of ineffably silly plots).

The World Congress reflects the skeptics’ increasing emphasis on the psychology of belief and the sociology of pseudo-science and mystery-mongering. As well as examining specific paranormal subjects - such as UFOlogy, Therapeutic Touch, and Astrology -- the conference will have sessions on 'The Role of the Mass Media in (Mis)Informing the Public,' 'The Growth of Anti-Science,' 'Critical Thinking in Education' and 'Mechanisms of Self-Deception'. (More information is available from: Barry Karr, PO Box 703, Buffalo, New York 14226-0702, USA).

I BELIEVE greater use of the social and cognitive sciences could benefit humanists as much as skeptics. The disproof of religious claims by the sciences-especially physics, biology and history - has been far more comprehensive than the rejection of religious beliefs by the public. All too often humanists win the argument against religion, only to lose the audience. I suggest that if we want to start winning over a larger audience we must develop our understanding of the psychology of belief and the sociology of religion.

Free Inquiry,

the CODESH magazine, has recently increased its coverage of the cognitive sciences and it is now looking to include far more input from the social sciences. But the insights from these fields must also shape the development of practical humanist initiatives. CODESH is making a start on this by building a programme of grass-roofs activities that aim to meet the social and psychological needs of nonreligious people-needs which relate to their life-stance, such as secular celebrations for rites of passage, and moral education for children.

The positive social agenda will supplement, rather than replace, the intellectual agenda of critiquing pernicious superstitions and religious practices. Indeed the two elements can often be combined, as with our newest secular celebration: the Friday the 13th Superstition Bash.