From the Editor

Bob Ladendorf

Many of you may recognize one of the co-authors of our lead article, a book excerpt on an insider’s view of Tarot card reading. Bruce Walstad, Chicago detective and magician, has spoken to our group twice and written for this newsletter. He’s an excellent speaker who has the right mix of humor with his serious explanations on how street scams work. Although written in the late 80s, this look at a con game should convince anyone who thinks the practice has merit that it indeed is a sham.

Don’t miss the talk on serial murder by Steve Egger, a REALL board member and University of Illinois at Springfield professor, who is one of the top experts in the nation on serial murder. He has written for this newsletter on police use of psychics, too.

Along that line, a recent NBC Dateline show (Jan. 11) highlighted "psychic sleuth" Dorothy Allison and her claimed efforts in helping police solve crimes, with CSICOP’s Joe Nickell countering her claims. We might show the brief segment at a future REALL meeting, and I’m sure Chairman David will have more to say about Allison in a future issue!

Nickell has an excellent feature on psychic sleuths in the Jan. 15 online issue of Skeptical Inquirer (SI) Digest. If you want to subscribe to the electronic digest, go to SI’s Web siteexit.gif (910 bytes), or write to me for more information.

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