Facilitated Communication Is a Cult That Won’t Die

[P.T.Widdle]

A heartfelt thank you to magicians Martin Gardner and James Randi for helping to expose this troubling practice.

“These are the most vulnerable people in our society, and the last thing they need is a pseudoscientific treatment foisted on them by people who can’t demonstrate its efficacy.”

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_an ... ities.html

http://www.csicop.org/uploads/files/mar ... cation.pdf

[Richard Stokes]

Could this subtle form of self-deception be the basis to major religions such as Christianity, Islam, Mormonism?

The word of god is perhaps a form of facilitated communication.

The sacred texts are faithfully transcribed by devout followers who are inspired by a non-existent being or dead prophet.

[Jonathan Townsend]

The experiment where the page flips between the patient and the facilitator (the facilitator does not see the page flip) is a good application of magic to belief testing.

To keep things safe on this topic - start with the story of Clever Hans. Introduce the notion of narrative validated by others accepting it as true. Folks have not read the story 'stone soup'?

[Jonathan Townsend]

... provkative text ...

or more simply, does language make private fantasy vulnerable to social forces?

is that really you?
http://educationaltechnology.ca/couros/2482