Stephen Braude Interview

[Trancestate]

Last Sunday Stephen Braude was interviewed by Joe Quinn of SOTT Talk Radio. Also present were ouija board channeler Laura Knight-Jadczyk and her physicist husband, Arkadiusz Jadczyk.

Into the supernatural: Interview with parapsychologist Stephen Braude

The interview lasted nearly two hours, during which time Braude was able to opine in some detail on the usual subjects: synchronicity, survival, living agent psi (his term for super-psi), PK, mediumship (with some interesting thoughts about the behavior of ectoplasm) and much more. He briefly mentioned his forthcoming book, Crimes of Reason.

Almost midway into the interview, a caller asked Braude to discuss his thoughts about Kai Muegge, the physical medium from the Felix Circle in Germany. Here Braude broke some disheartening news, saying (at 55:37):

I'm stumbling here for just a second because there've been some late-breaking developments in that case where we have very good reason, I'd say indisputable reason, for saying that on some occasions, at least in the past, Kai the medium has deployed a magic trick. But the evidence for that doesn't seem to have tainted the work that he did under my supervision. So the summer issue of the Journal of Scientific Exploration will have two papers on the Felix Circle phenomena: one by me and one by one of my co-investigators, Michael Nahm. And we're currently reassessing the case on the basis of the shadow of suspicion that unfortunately now is cast over the case as a whole. But I would say that there are some phenomena which are still very difficult to explain away. So let me describe some of what they are:....

Doug

 

[K9!]

It's unfortunate that the fellow who called in - I think his name was Harrison - didn't conduct the whole interview. He asked good questions about the things I wanted to hear. I would have loved to hear Braude discuss his own work for an hour rather than listen to that woman hosting the show talk about herself for as much of the show as she could. She needs to have a show where she interviews herself and gets that out of her system before she brings more guests on.

 

[Trancestate]

It's unfortunate that the fellow who called in - I think his name was Harrison - didn't conduct the whole interview. He asked good questions about the things I wanted to hear. I would have loved to hear Braude discuss his own work for an hour rather than listen to that woman hosting the show talk about herself for as much of the show as she could. She needs to have a show where she interviews herself and gets that out of her system before she brings more guests on.

I agree with you, K, but I still enjoyed the interview. I still think Braude went a little farther into some subjects than he's been able to do in shorter interviews. And the show was worth my time if only to hear Braude speak about Kai's past use of magic tricks in some of his seances. That can't bode well for future research of the Felix Experimental Group.

Regarding Laura Knight-Jadczyk, I knew she was out of her depth as soon as she mispronounced Daniel Dunglas Home's last name. It turns out she's the creator and moving force behind SOTT.net, which seems to be a kind of New Age/conspiracy site. By extension, I believe she must also play a major role in SOTT Talk Radio, the venue that hosted Braude's interview.

Doug

 

[K9!]

I agree with you, K, but I still enjoyed the interview. I still think Braude went a little farther into some subjects than he's been able to do in shorter interviews. And the show was worth my time if only to hear Braude speak about Kai's past use of magic tricks in some of his seances. That can't bode well for future research of the Felix Experimental Group.

Regarding Laura Knight-Jadczyk, I knew she was out of her depth as soon as she mispronounced Daniel Dunglas Home's last name. It turns out she's the creator and moving force behind SOTT.net, which seems to be a kind of New Age/conspiracy site. By extension, I believe she must also play a major role in SOTT Talk Radio, the venue that hosted Braude's interview.

Doug

I enjoyed hearing Braude talk enough to keep listening. I started laughing when she mispronounced Home. I had a look at the other interviews on the site, and you are correct, it is mostly conspiracy stuff. When she told that story about her son, it seemed as if she was mainly looking for the opportunity to complain that the case never made it on TV. I think Braude had trouble not laughing.

I was a bit disappointed to hear that about the Felix Group. But Braude seemed to be taking it in stride.

 

[Trancestate]

I enjoyed hearing Braude talk enough to keep listening. I started laughing when she mispronounced Home. I had a look at the other interviews on the site, and you are correct, it is mostly conspiracy stuff. When she told that story about her son, it seemed as if she was mainly looking for the opportunity to complain that the case never made it on TV. I think Braude had trouble not laughing.

Yes, but he also told her he thought it was a strong case. Intrigued, I did some research on the story and came up with Laura's written account:

A Case Suggestive of Reincarnation

Although I found a few elements that really strained my credulity (like the alien transport/abduction scenario at the end), I felt there could still be some truth to the core elements. Then I discovered lots of Web pages and sites in which former cult members and other seemingly knowledgeable people accuse her of fraud. Here are three of them:

Laura Knight Jadczyk - Grand Master Channel of the Cassiopaean Apocalypse

Laura & the Cassiopaeans

The Laura Knight Jadczyk Fraud

At this point I believe there's probably something fishy with Laura, and am no longer interested in her reincarnation account.

Doug

 

[K9!]

Yes, but he also told her he thought it was a strong case.

He kind of qualified that by saying it "sounded" good. I came away from that thinking he was trying to be polite and advertise his new book without calling her a total kook in the process. Honestly, I didn't find anything she said very compelling and when backed into a corner about her pet theory, she stepped aside and asked her husband to answer for her, which really made me think she was a flake.

If she were as well read about parapsychology as she claimed to be, why didn't she contact Ian Stevenson when her son was a child? Why was her first thought to get the kid on TV? Who badmouths a deceased person's family the way she did? I didn't think she had much credibility from the start.

It was interesting that you were able to find out so much about her.

 

[Kamarling]

It was interesting that you were able to find out so much about her.

I came across her years ago, when the internet seemed to be full of weird but interesting stuff: ancient civilizations, paranormal, channeling, UFO's, etc., etc. After looking at enough of these web sites, one developed a feel for the sincere and the frauds. Everything about her site shouted fraud, not least the fact that she was clearly intent on making a lot of money. Unfortunately, the direct response to this plethora of extreme weirdness was the rise of the skeptical thought police. Sites like Crank Dot Net and The Skeptics Dictionary set themselves up as arbiters of reason and sanity: an effort, it seemed, to protect us from people like her. Of course, Robert Todd Carroll and his like are extremists of another persuasion.