by Pierre

Ideomotor movement is not only CLEARLY behind what happens with tarot but it is also the reason for the abrasive and useless controversy about something entitled "facilitated communication".

The latter is in some ways the more interesting of the two and has to do with "facilitators" using a typing instrument to help autistic individuals (usually children) communicate. The "facilitator" holds the hand of the autistic person and "helps them" write out messages they could not otherwise possibly generate.

But a simple experiment did in this entire idea. After YEARS of fruitless argument, a bright psychologist simply showed the subjects simple CLEAR (no judging required) objects like a car or a chair, alternately hid the object from EITHER the autistic person OR the facilitator and demonstrated that in ALL CASES it is what the FACILITATOR sees which determines what the object is called in the typed out result. In other words the FACILITATOR and not the autistic person is guiding the hand. The MOST interesting part is that even now, some facilitators do not "believe" the results of this test and before it was done, NONE thought THEY could be guiding the hand.

To test this gather some trustworthy friends. Get a Ouija board, design makes NO difference. Get four people to "operate" the board... get some results. Then have the accomplices blindfold the participants, and rotate the board some random amount every five minutes. NOW see what results you get.

By the way, this has been done... many times. The results are always random garbage.

Pierre AKA Mr. Peabody

Last modified 19 January 2001 by Russell