Secret Messages
Amusingly enough, this morning I received a book on codes and secret signals which I ordered weeks ago. Apart from my general fascination with communication, it covers some things like magical codes (pseudo-telepathy, etc). Knowledge of such things does make one wary of claims that such hidden human skills exist and that people have ‘proven’ they exist in laboratories. Sadly, if you want to believe, of course, then the fact that people can cheat does not convince you that your particular hero does cheat. In fact, you can counter-claim that the presence of a sceptic prevents such things occurring! This delightful notion may have some basis in truth, but it does mean that I may never witness them. Nowadays it gets labelled experimenter-effect or some such (just as God has turned into Intelligent Design).
I won’t go there, for now. My interest started because of my focus on magic as a child, which drew me into many fascinating human skills, and the devious use of intelligence.
I’d like to expand on this a little. Overt and Covert communication can both contain secrets. If I wear a mask the witness knows they can’t see my face, but know I have hidden something. Likewise, if I can overhear a code that appears like gibberish to me it may become a challenge to crack it (it contains some secret). Rather more subtly, (as if I wore a prosthetic mask, or even the makeup that women seem convinced remains ‘invisible’) then no clue exists that anything hidden lies beneath. Similarly, a code ‘hidden in plain sight’ seems innocent, and appears not to need investigation.
Of course, conspiracy theorists (and I don’t use that as a term of abuse, rather one of zeal) take the innocent surface as a challenge. This seems very conscientious, but it can also lead to problems as humans have a fatal fascination for finding patterns and can find them in random material so the signal/noise problem arises.
To not find any secret message or content can just make such people renew their efforts, rather than accept that either nothing hidden exists, or that (even if it exists)it can never get proved.
To revert to the ‘true believer’ problem - I like to use the example of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who became a convinced Spiritualist, and got very annoyed with his friend Houdini for continually exposing the tricks of the trade, and accusing mediums of fraud. Actually, it appears Houdini never closed his mind to the possibility of communication with the dead, but got depressed, exasperated and angry at the cheap tricks getting used on vulnerable people, and so campaigned vigorously to expose the tricks of 'fake mediums'. In retaliation, Doyle claimed that Houdini did his own tricks by psychic means, but unconsciously!
He said he felt disappointed that Houdini (a natural medium) should spend his life in denial!
Such Freudian double-think seemed pretty fresh and clever in the 1920s, no doubt. If he had kept it to mental phenomena he might just have convinced some people,
perhaps even Houdini, but Doyle even tried to explain physical matters that he didn't understand, like how Houdini escaped from boxes, handcuffs and suchlike – leaving them locked! Or how he walked through a wall freshly built on stage. To tell Houdini that 'actually' he dematerialised and re-materialised elsewhere when Harry knew exactly how he did it must have really annoyed Houdini, but although he claimed ‘natural means’ for everything he did in his shows, he could not prove that without giving away his own secrets. More on Houdini and Doyle. One does have to bear in mind that Doyle did not display the wonderful scepticism and ingenuity and insight of Sherlock Holmes, his most famous creation! For a good laugh, check out his belief in the photos of fairies, for instance...On a more sinister note, the latest biography of Houdini not only implies that he did a bit of unoffical spying during his travels (and a magician's tools and skills match those of a spy quite closely), but that angry spiritualists might have helped cause his death (they certainly sent him death threats).
That whole ‘Unconscious’ thing still bugs me slightly, even though it has useful applications. I think we need some systems language to describe the situation better. Talk of ‘the Unconscious’ implies a thing, a place, etc. If we talk of ‘out-of-awareness events’ then perhaps it becomes clearer that consciousness can focus in different places, and that ‘everything else’ lies in the ‘peripheral vision’ of our minds, not currently in focus, but certainly available to us. All the current interest in body language, for instance, shifts the focus from ‘unconscious signals’ or ‘tells’ to attempts to consciously read or control them (not a new process to the acting profession, for instance, or spies, smugglers, politicians, etc).
Magicians' skills have helped in wartime, from the use of camouflage (Maskelyne the War Magician) to the ingenuity of the Twenty Committee (XX or double-cross) and even sleight-of-hand for poisoning the opposition (many magicians still feel rather upset with John Mulholland for such unethical use of their skills). Information, misinformation and disinformation have a long history in wartime, and in population management by priests, kings and politicians - and remains fascinating to me, to this day.
All this, from a new book in the post!
I won’t go there, for now. My interest started because of my focus on magic as a child, which drew me into many fascinating human skills, and the devious use of intelligence.
I’d like to expand on this a little. Overt and Covert communication can both contain secrets. If I wear a mask the witness knows they can’t see my face, but know I have hidden something. Likewise, if I can overhear a code that appears like gibberish to me it may become a challenge to crack it (it contains some secret). Rather more subtly, (as if I wore a prosthetic mask, or even the makeup that women seem convinced remains ‘invisible’) then no clue exists that anything hidden lies beneath. Similarly, a code ‘hidden in plain sight’ seems innocent, and appears not to need investigation.
Of course, conspiracy theorists (and I don’t use that as a term of abuse, rather one of zeal) take the innocent surface as a challenge. This seems very conscientious, but it can also lead to problems as humans have a fatal fascination for finding patterns and can find them in random material so the signal/noise problem arises.
To not find any secret message or content can just make such people renew their efforts, rather than accept that either nothing hidden exists, or that (even if it exists)it can never get proved.
To revert to the ‘true believer’ problem - I like to use the example of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who became a convinced Spiritualist, and got very annoyed with his friend Houdini for continually exposing the tricks of the trade, and accusing mediums of fraud. Actually, it appears Houdini never closed his mind to the possibility of communication with the dead, but got depressed, exasperated and angry at the cheap tricks getting used on vulnerable people, and so campaigned vigorously to expose the tricks of 'fake mediums'. In retaliation, Doyle claimed that Houdini did his own tricks by psychic means, but unconsciously!He said he felt disappointed that Houdini (a natural medium) should spend his life in denial!
Such Freudian double-think seemed pretty fresh and clever in the 1920s, no doubt. If he had kept it to mental phenomena he might just have convinced some people,
perhaps even Houdini, but Doyle even tried to explain physical matters that he didn't understand, like how Houdini escaped from boxes, handcuffs and suchlike – leaving them locked! Or how he walked through a wall freshly built on stage. To tell Houdini that 'actually' he dematerialised and re-materialised elsewhere when Harry knew exactly how he did it must have really annoyed Houdini, but although he claimed ‘natural means’ for everything he did in his shows, he could not prove that without giving away his own secrets. More on Houdini and Doyle. One does have to bear in mind that Doyle did not display the wonderful scepticism and ingenuity and insight of Sherlock Holmes, his most famous creation! For a good laugh, check out his belief in the photos of fairies, for instance...On a more sinister note, the latest biography of Houdini not only implies that he did a bit of unoffical spying during his travels (and a magician's tools and skills match those of a spy quite closely), but that angry spiritualists might have helped cause his death (they certainly sent him death threats).That whole ‘Unconscious’ thing still bugs me slightly, even though it has useful applications. I think we need some systems language to describe the situation better. Talk of ‘the Unconscious’ implies a thing, a place, etc. If we talk of ‘out-of-awareness events’ then perhaps it becomes clearer that consciousness can focus in different places, and that ‘everything else’ lies in the ‘peripheral vision’ of our minds, not currently in focus, but certainly available to us. All the current interest in body language, for instance, shifts the focus from ‘unconscious signals’ or ‘tells’ to attempts to consciously read or control them (not a new process to the acting profession, for instance, or spies, smugglers, politicians, etc).
Magicians' skills have helped in wartime, from the use of camouflage (Maskelyne the War Magician) to the ingenuity of the Twenty Committee (XX or double-cross) and even sleight-of-hand for poisoning the opposition (many magicians still feel rather upset with John Mulholland for such unethical use of their skills). Information, misinformation and disinformation have a long history in wartime, and in population management by priests, kings and politicians - and remains fascinating to me, to this day.
All this, from a new book in the post!
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