Manuel A. Paz y Miño,

Director, Peruvian Centre for Investigation of the Paranormal, Pseudoscience and Irrationality (CIPSI-PERU)

and Chairman, Applied Philosophy Publications

Giant trident in Nazca

Peru is visited from time to time not only by famous singers and international musical groups, but also by:
a) experts, mentalists or hypnotists like the Spaniard Tony Kamo whose propaganda, a former time that he came here, announced that he possessed "supernatural" powers;
b) psychic surgeons like Brazilian Joao Texeira or John of God;
c) telepaths like the Venezuelan sisters, Norhelia and Nelly Pompa, well-known as "Twin Minds" who worked in Peru like psychic consultants;
d) proponents of reincarnation such as American physician Brian Weiss, who uses hypnotic regression;
e) aura readers; and
f) astrologers and psychics such as Walter Mercado and his psychic telephone line. At the same time there is great journalistic interest in such diverse public performances.
Also, as in many parts of the world, Peru has extraordinary events like:
g) cures by faith in religious icons of Jesus--like the painting of the Lord of the Miracles-- or saints, cures by laying on of hands or mere prayer;
h) religious icons that exude alledgely tears and blood;
i) apparitions of saints and fantastic beings(goblins, demons, ghosts, etc.); and extraterrestrial ships and entities, and of course, abductions by aliens.

Magicians or Simple Hypnotists?
In antiquity and still today in the so-called primitive tribes priests and medicine-men made use of suggestion in order to manipulate people as well as alleviate many of their ailments. Suggestion is the basis and foundation of hypnosis, a technique practiced by Austrian Franz A. Mesmer (1734-1815). He had a therapeutic system based in the idea of transmission of animal magnetic fluid (magnetism) and the technique was used to study hysteria by French neurologist Jean Charcot (1825-1893), who influenced physician Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), who in turn introduced it in his psychoanalysis.
As it is very known by hypnotic suggestion a subject is predisposed to obey the commands or suggestions of a hypnotist. Success depends, above all, on the subject's willingness to be hypnotized. As a result, if he or she were hypnotized, he or she would be able to eat an onion as if it were a delicious apple, or stiffen the muscles of his or her body so hard that the body could be placed as a board on the backs of two seats. Therefore there is nothing supernatural or unexplainable about hypnotic trance except to those who do not know its psychological foundations and who are frequent victims of professional hypnotists. Remember that "in the country of the blind, a one-eyed man is king".

The Magic Power of Authority
Cures by faith, i.e., those that are carried out through prayers, without taking any drugs or without any medical supervision are not something new in our society. Religious groups have long existed in Peru, as is the case of Evangelic Pentecostals, Charismatic Catholics, Orientalist groups like Mahikari, Worldwide Messianism, Seicho-noi-ei, Reiki, and even some religious Ufologists. Such groups practice the healing of soul and body by means of laying hands on believers heads (a very old practice also recorded, for example, in biblical writings). They call these kinds of cures -from the healing of headaches to the disappearance of tumors- miracles.
Those religious groups are not all institutionalized. Aside from conventional, Western medicine, there are also the so-called shamans, medicine-men, witches, and psychic surgeons. Many shamans achieve success in their treatments due to their traditional knowledge of healing powers of aboriginal plants and the placebo effect. The achievements claimed by shamans are due to the fact that both shamans and patients belong to the same cultural context, and that many patients cannot afford expensive Western treatments. In fact, many shamans are highly persuasive individuals who take advantage of the good faith, ignorance, and desperation of people who have been diagnosed as incurable by physicians. These incurable people are desperate to reach out to whatever solution anyone offers them.
In PeruÑas in many parts of the worldÑthere are also many laymen and doctors interested not only in traditional medical drugs but also in so-called para-medicine that is based on the mystical and the paranormal sphere including Reiki, bio-energy, modern cosmobiology or old astrology. Of course, many of these people interested in learning have good intentions but have not heard critical evidence or arguments against such pseudosciences.
In fact, faith or belief in something or somebody is ingrained in daily human behavior. Traveling by plane or car, we normally have faith that we will arrive at our destination (although this does not always happen). We simply cross a road thinking that we will arrive at the other side without any problem. When we ask for something from a fellow man we usually hope to be given our request. The more trust we have in ourselves, the more security there will be in our daily work and life. The more we believe in something (a medication or something that operates like that, a talisman, a fetish, an improvement method, etc.) or somebody (a priest, a guru, a Divinity or some of its messengers or prophets, a psychologist or doctor, our parents or friends, or any authority, etc.) who has power over the ailments we suffer, the greater the predisposition to believe that the hoped result will happen, a healing, cure, or "miracle."
The patient who undergoes any surgery or treatment also has faith in a determined doctor because he is a professional and has had success with other patients who had similar ailments. So there is a very good psychological predisposition to get good results. However, the case mentioned above is different because it is one thing to affirm that a cure has a supernatural or divine source and another to say that a cure is due simply to the power of science.
There is no doubt that suggestion by authority powerfully influences the healing process. But there are limits. Cancer cannot be healed simply because a famous doctor, shaman, or priest wills it. Healing authority could give people some encouragement and hope, conditioning it in a psychological manner.

The Healing Power of the Mind
But are such cures real ones? Won´t there be apparent cures induced by mere suggestions? We know that our emotional and mental states influence our physical health and vice versa.
In that sense, the so-called "miracle healings" by faith (or suggestion) are rather natural events, regressions of psychosomatic illness; they have an emotional source.
Of course, the cure doesn´t appear as effective in healing somatic disturbances (broken bones, malignant tumors, cancer, etc.). Even so, when we speak about the electro-biochemical nature of thought that would allow the natural and inner processes of healing, we are speaking about our own corporal mechanisms. For example, we know about endorphins generated by our own human body to alleviate pains and their production by the body when we exercise and practice sports.
A mere bad cold can produce depression and apathy along with physical pains, corporal fatigue, headache, etc. But how about more severe illness such as paralysis? Just as there are different circumstances that could make a bad cold worse (exposure to abrupt changes of temperature, a decrease of immunity defenses due to poor eating habits, etc.), there is also more than only one kind of paralysis. We have, on one hand, a paralysis due to merely psychological causes (hysteria) and on the other hand, a disease such as poliomyelitis that irreversibly harms the neurological system. The first case could be alleviated at the same level -the psychological one- by means of suggestion: An individual who undergoes a pseudo-paralysis could truly believe that someone else could help to recover mobility by only touching his or her affected member or by prayers. And so healing will actually happen, not due to external forces, but by the simple power of the individual´s faith.

"Miraculous" Apparitions
Belief in divine appearances is ingrained in our country, as in many other Catholic countries, in both low and high socio-economic classes.
Of course for those who have a skeptical or naturalist vision of reality, the supernatural or miraculous doesn´t exist. We could admit that there are certain temporarily "unexplainable" phenomena or events that we could not explain at the present time, but once we get more information they would be perfectly comprehensible.
For those who don´t believe in supernatural beings, there aren´t any god(s), and no apparitions. These apparitions could be hallucinations, imagery, even a mental disorder or mere fraud. So it is comprehensible that such apparitions visit only "illuminated," privileged "mystics" -or in some cases also their followers (through collective suggestion)- but not reporters with their photographic and video cameras.
From ancient times, people spoke of such visits -apparitions and manifestations that in reality were simply visions of meteorological phenomena (storms, rainbows, etc.), geological ones (earthquakes, tsunamis, etc.), astronomical ones (comets, supernovas, etc.); and even biological phenomena (epidemias and plagues without known cause nor cure).
On the other hand, although it is true that reality exists objectively and not because of our desires and beliefs, these desires and beliefs greatly influence how we interpret data. For example, a very religious person could look at the bark of a tree or cloud shapes and see faces of divine figures, interpreting such a vision as coming from a supernatural source. Another person might instead see in such objects other characters, objects, and even animals.

"Miraculous" Icons, Blood and Tears
Also in Peru, as in many parts of world, many people believe in divine manifestations through certain objects like religious icons that "cry" and even "bleed" in a miraculous way. But we know only living beings possess a circulatory system, lacrimal apparatus, and emotions. Inanimate objects don´t possess those systems. For certain people -with a skeptical and scientific mind- ssuch "miracles" would not exist; they would be simple misinterpretations of current and common events, or in any case exaggerated ones that would have rational explanations.
Then what would "tears" and "blood" emanated from statuettes be? We would have to analyze those flows in a laboratory in order to know their chemical composition. Also we would have to consider the environment in which the icons are found. Of course, the easiest and the most common explanation is fraud. In fact, the Catholic Church hierarchy is the first one to be dubious about such events -although they have their own valid list of such "facts." Even some priests have shown that it is possible to simulate "crying" and "bleeding" on a portrait-huaco or pre-Inca craft by applying certain chemical substances to it (for example pentoxide of phosphore).

Telepathy or Simple Trickery?
So-called paranormal phenomena like telepathy and precognition, if they really exist, would be an object of study for the controversial "science" of parapsychology.
A great majority of scientists are of the opinion that so-called paranormal phenomena do not exist. In this case, parapsychology would be a false science. On the other side there are those who believe that the paranormal sphere -when it is legitimate and evidence warrants- should be investigated; parapsychology would then be a protoscience, an emergent science. (This was the position, for example, of the late German-British psychologist H.J. Eysenck.)
It is clear that we should beware illusionist tricks -due to suggestion, sleight of hand, etcc. This was known to the legendary Houdini, who devoted years to uncovering many spiritualist frauds.

Former Lives or Supermemory?
Toward the end of the 1960s, parapsychologist Dethlefsen experimented with hypnosis in order to know what life carried in the past "immortal souls" of patients. Even today, anyone with a theoretical basis and practice could implant memories and make a subject "remember" past lives. For example, a hypnotized man could say that he was an English nobleman of the fifteenth century or a beautiful peasant in the Incan Empire, and even relate these stories with words that would sound to us like British English or Andean Quechua.
How can we explain that? Well, English language is everywhere; its influence has been growing since the end of World War II. It is the Latin of our time and thanks to the cinema and television any culture with a minimum of technology is influenced by it: most people in one way or another listen to it, or see it written in newspapers and magazines.
On the other side, Quechua -in its diverse variations- is spoken for a great majority of our countrymen in Peru. So whether we like it or not, study it or not, remember it consciously or not, all of us here in Peru know some of their words or recognize some of their sounds. And it is clear that through books and movies, we could have known something of life of those times. Of course, a hypnotized individual could also make mistakes in describing events that do not correspond to the appointed time, or speak incoherently in a nonexistent language.

A Spiritual World?
Reincarnation, an Eastern religious belief, is also linked to controversial parapsychology. Concerning reincarnation, parapsychologists expound diverse explanatory hypotheses, such as that it is product of a neurological inheritance that would permit us to access ancestral memories (the unconscious collective according to Swiss psychologist C. G. Jung). Others would tell us that reincarnation is the product of a certain form of telepathy: the supposed "reincarnated" man would receive alien thoughts and this could be understood as other souls or spirits possessing him or her, or that human minds are immortals and that they only move from one body to another.

What do Fortune, Destiny or Providence Afford us for Tomorrow?
If we open most newspapers or popular magazines we will find advertisements for cures and fortune for the public´s ails and pains. One of them might read: "Professor Lostro, parapsychologist, back in the country after a successful tour of the United States and Europe, will help you in luck, money, love, and he will cure you of any ailment of body or soul" (sometimes including cancer and AIDS). Another could say the following: "Madame Zoraida will help you find lost items or communicate with your beloved deceased," and even suggest others who pretend that we can remember our past lives through hypnotic regressions. We can also find in almost any newspaper or magazine an astrology column -whose author is introduced as a parapsychologist, "cosmobiologist" or a simple astrologer- with the presages of the day about questions of health, money, and romance.
We could easily deduce that in such examples they abuse the good faith of the gullible public who in their desperation look to them because of their anguished search for a solution to their problems.
In general, astrologers, and the readers of Tarot cards, palmistry, I-Ching, stones, eggs, bowels of animals or leaves of plants tell their clients what they want to hear.
In this way all these prophets have a great audience, and most newspapers, magazines and "respectable" TV shows have their astrological sections. The highly rated Peruvian TV show Util'sima has among its principal
hosts a reader of Tarot cards, and with those she creates horoscopes and suggests a series of rituals and uses of objects for good luck. There is even a local program, Good of Health, directed by a physician that mixes naturism with mysticism. No local programs exist that promote reason or science and criticize pseudosciences. There are also some phone lines that give astrological and psychic advice, and even one promotes Brazilian santería.

"And Now Who Will Help Us?" (Martians Have Just Arrived!)
UFOlogy is in many ways a contemporary religion, a neo-religion that in general terms claims that humanity originated through extraterrestrial intelligent intervention, that it created the big non-European monuments of past cultures. Some even claim that ancient images of gods -with thunder and lightning- in reality were spaceships and that aliens watch over Earth, abducting some people in order to study them or carry them off to their planets.
In Peru we have several groups, such as The Alpha and Omega movement that proclaim Jesus Christ will return to Earth with his angels in flying saucers and whose founder, Chilean Luis Antonio Soto Romero, affirmed that hundreds of drawings containing UFOlogical and Biblical messages had been revealed to him telepathically for God. There is also the Rama group, with their variations and dissentions led by Sixto Paz Wells (b. 1955) who claims also to have telepathic contacts from the age of nineteen. And of course none of these groups could show any evidence of their "hundreds of encounters" with aliens, nor even a photo with them embracing for such a happy meeting. (Sixto Paz gained international fame when Spanish writer J.J. Benítez divulged his stories of contacts and journeys to Ganymede, one of Jupiter´s moons, but the only physical "evidence" that he has shown was a retouched photo of the alleged extraterrestrial Oxalc.)

Conclusions
A strong desire exists to go beyond the mundane, sometimes painful, daily reality, in a search for certainty and hope. The nature of human existence pushes many people towards magic, superstition, and the supernatural. Human weakness, negligence and ignorance, are exploited by those looking for easy money, not only in their own country but beyond their borders.
Pseudosciences (frank or fraudulent) are excellent escapes in desperate times. The public should be educated in the basic and important distinction of what science is and is not. We must always be watchful, and denounce open or hidden frauds, and explain the supposed "supernatural" phenomena with the aid of reason, skepticism, and scientific knowledge.

(Published originally in English como in Skeptical Briefs, v. 9, n. 4, dec., 1999, Amherst, NY: CSICOP, pp. 1-4. A Spanish version -final and more complete- was published as«Explicando lo "inexplicable": entendiendo lo "paranormal" en el Perú» en Neo-Skepsis # 3, Lima: CIPSI-PERU, pp. 5-21).