‘Telepathy’ literally means to feel at a distance, just as ‘telephone’ is to hear at a distance and ‘television’ is to see at a distance. The word suggests the communication not of thoughts but of feelings, emotions. Around a quarter of all Americans believe they’ve experienced something like telepathy. People who know each other very well, who live together, who are practised in one another’s feeling tones, associations and thinking styles can often anticipate what the partner will say. This is merely the usual five senses plus human empathy, sensitivity and intelligence in operation. It may feel extrasensory, but it’s not at all what’s intended by the word ‘telepathy’. If something like this were ever conclusively demonstrated, it would, I think, have discernible physical causes -perhaps electrical currents in the brain. Pseudoscience, rightly or wrongly labelled, is by no means the same thing as the supernatural, which is by definition something somehow outside of Nature.
It is barely possible that a few of these paranormal claims might one day be verified by solid scientific data. But it would be foolish to accept any of them without adequate evidence. In the spirit of garage dragons, it is much better, for those claims not already disproved or adequately explained, to contain our impatience, to nurture a tolerance for ambiguity, and to await – or, much better, to seek – supporting or disconfirming evidence.
In a far-off land in the South Seas, the word went out about a wise man, a healer, an embodied spirit. He could speak across time. He was an Ascended Master. He was coming, they said. He was coming . . .
In 1988, Australian newspapers, magazines and television stations began to receive the good news via press kits and videotape. One broadside read:
CARLOS
TO APPEAR IN AUSTRALIA
Those who have seen it will never forget. The brilliant young artist who has been talking to them suddenly seems to falter, his pulse slows dangerously and virtually stops at the point of death. The qualified medical attendant, who has been assigned to keep constant watch, is about to sound the alarm. But then, with a heart-stirring burst, the pulse is felt again -faster and stronger than ever before. The life force clearly has returned to the body – but the entity inside that body is no longer Jose Luis Alvarez, the 19-year-old whose unique painted ceramics are featured in some of the wealthiest homes in America. Instead, the body has been taken over by Carlos, an ancient soul, whose teachings will come as both a shock and an inspiration. One being going through a form of death to make way for another: that is the phenomenon that has made Carlos, as channelled through Jose Luis Alvarez, the dominant new figure in New Age consciousness. As even one sceptical New York critic puts it: ‘The first and only case of a channeller offering tangible, physical proof of some mysterious change within his human physiology.’
Now Jose, who has gone through more than 170 of these little deaths and transformations, has been told by Carlos to visit Australia – in the words of the Master, ‘the old new land’ which is to be the source of a special revelation. Carlos already has foretold that in 1988 catastrophes will sweep the earth, two major world leaders will die and, later in the year, Australians will be among the first to see the rising of a great star which will deeply influence future life on earth.
SUNDAY 21ST
—3PM—
OPERA HOUSE
DRAMA THEATRE
Following a 1986 motorcycle accident, the press kit explained, Jose Alvarez, then 17 years old, suffered a mild concussion. After he recovered, those who knew him could tell that he had changed. A very different voice sometimes emanated from him. Bewildered, Alvarez sought help from a psychotherapist, a specialist in multiple personality disorders. The psychiatrist ‘discovered that Jose was channelling a distinct entity who was known as Carlos. This entity takes over the body of Alvarez when the body’s life force is relaxed to the right degree.’ Carlos, it turns out, is a two-thousand-year-old spirit disincarnate, a ghost without bodily form, who last invaded a human body in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1900. Unfortunately, that body died at age 12 in a fall from a horse. This may be why, the therapist explained, Carlos could enter Alvarez’s body following the motorcycle accident. When Alvarez goes into his trance, the spirit of Carlos, focused by a large and rare crystal, enters him and utters the wisdom of the ages.
Included in the press kit was a list of major appearances in American cities, a videotape of the tumultuous reception that Alvarez/Carlos received at a Broadway theatre, his interview on New York radio station WOOP, and other indications that here was a formidable American New Age phenomenon. Two small substantiating details: an article from a South Florida newspaper read, ‘THEATER NOTE: The three-day stay of channeler CAR-LOS has been extended at the War Memorial Auditorium … in response to the requests for further appearances’, and an excerpt from a television programme guide listed a special on THE ENTITY CARLOS: This in-depth study reveals the facts behind one of today’s most popular and controversial personalities’.
Alvarez and his manager arrived in Sydney first class on Qantas. They travelled everywhere in an enormous white stretch limousine. They occupied the Presidential Suite of one of the city’s most prestigious hotels. Alvarez was attired in an elegant white gown with a golden medallion. In his first press conference, Carlos quickly emerged. The entity was forceful, literate, commanding. Australian television programmes quickly lined up for appearances by Alvarez, his manager, and his nurse (to check his pulse and announce the presence of Carlos).
On Australia’s Today Show, they were interviewed by the host, George Negus. When Negus posed a few reasonable and sceptical questions, the New Agers exhibited very thin skins. Carlos laid a curse on the anchorman. His manager doused Negus with a glass of water. Both stalked off the set. It was a sensation in the tabloid press, its significance rehashed on Australian television. ‘TV Outburst: Water Thrown at Negus’, was the front-page headline in the 16 February 1988 Daily Mirror. Television stations were flooded with calls. One Sydney citizen advised taking the curse on Negus very seriously: the army of Satan had already assumed control of the United Nations, he said, and Australia might be next.
Carlos’s next appearance was on the Australian version of A Current Affair. A sceptic was brought in who described a magician’s trick by which the pulse in one hand is made briefly to stop: you put a rubber ball in your armpit and squeeze. When Carlos’s authenticity was questioned, he was outraged: ‘This interview is terminated!’ he thundered.
On the appointed day, the Drama Theatre of the Sydney Opera House was nearly filled. An excited crowd, young and old, milled about expectantly. Entrance was free, which reassured those who vaguely wondered if it might be some sort of scam. Alvarez seated himself on a low couch. His pulse was monitored. Suddenly it stopped. Seemingly, he was near death. Low, guttural noises emanated from deep within him. The audience gasped in wonder and awe. Suddenly, Alvarez’s body took on power. His posture radiated confidence. A broad, humane, spiritual perspective flowed out of Alvarez’s mouth. Carlos was here! Interviewed afterwards, many members of the audience described how they had been moved and delighted.
The following Sunday, Australia’s most popular TV programme – named Sixty Minutes after its American counterpart – revealed that the Carlos affair was a hoax, front to back. The producers thought it would be instructive to explore how easily a faith-healer or guru could be created to bamboozle the public and the media. So naturally, they contacted one of the world’s leading experts on deceiving the public (at least among those not holding or advising political office) – the magician James Randi.
‘[T]here being so many disorders which cure themselves and such a disposition in mankind to deceive themselves and one another’, wrote Benjamin Franklin in 1784 —
…and living long having given me frequent opportunities of seeing certain remedies cried up as curing everything, and yet soon after totally laid aside as useless, I cannot but fear that the expectation of great advantage from the new method of treating diseases will prove a delusion. That delusion may however in some cases be of use while it lasts.
He was referring to mesmerism. But ‘every age has its peculiar folly’. Unlike Franklin, most scientists feel it’s not their job to expose pseudoscientific bamboozles, much less, passionately held self-deceptions. They tend not to be very good at it either. Scientists are used to struggling with Nature, who may surrender her secrets reluctantly but who fights fair. Often they are unprepared for those unscrupulous practitioners of the ‘paranormal’ who play by different rules. Magicians, on the other hand, are in the deception business. They practise one of the many occupations – such as acting, advertising, bureaucratic religion and politics – where what a naive observer might misunderstand as lying is socially condoned as in the service of a higher good. Many magicians pretend they don’t cheat, and hint at powers conferred by mystic sources or, lately, by alien largesse. Some use their knowledge to expose charlatans in and out of their ranks. A thief is set to catch a thief.