– Date – October 30, 2012
– Send your cool ‘SCIENCE!’ shout-outs to
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– Theme song by Steve Seamans of the Daisy Dillman Band. Get the song HERE.
– Thank you to everyone who has been purchasing books, Skepticality stuff, or using our Amazon link to help us!

Unnatural Virtue

– Automatic writing (aka trance writing) emerged with 19th century spiritism (aka spiritualism), For more on spiritism, see Amy Tanner's Studies in Spiritism
– The latter part of the 19th century was a golden age for those in America and Europe who were trying to contact the dead.
– Automatic writing and other trance activities became a subject of scientific research for the Society of Psychical Research and the American Society of Psychical Research.
– One of the stars of the automatic writing scene, Hélène Smith wasn't part of spiritism, but rather was a forerunner of a gaggle of psychics who claim to channel various entities.
– Smith's entity allegedly was on Mars. Her Martian, however, was more likely coming from within rather than without resemble glossolalia from a French speaking person than an unearthly language.
– Others who have followed in Smith's slipstream include Cyril Hoskin (1910-1981) whose entity, Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, used to be a Tibetan monk
– Pearl Lenore Curran (1883–1937) whose entity, Patience Worth, channeled several ghosts of the past
– JZ Knight whose entity, Ramtha, came from Atlantis some 25,000 years ago.
– Dorothy Martin formed a small cult around messages she claimed to get from extraterrestrials through automatic writing or telepathy.
– You can read all about it in Leon Festinger's When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study.
– Automatic writing is also used by some psychotherapists, to get through to the subconscious mind where many profundities apparently abide.
– The Skeptics Dictionary and Skeptic's Dictionary for Kids.
– A paperback edition of Unnatural Acts: Critical Thinking, Skepticism, and Science Exposed! is now available from Lulu.com. For more info, click here. The eBook is still available.

The Odds Must Be Crazy

– The Odds Must Be Crazy.
– This week's featured story is, "The Subsequent Steve"
– Story was submitted by reader Steve C.
– Please visit the story link for a more detailed analysis and to add your comments
– Additional thoughts and considerations provided by Barbara Drescher.
– Our producer and audio engineer is Brian Hart.
– Our theme music comes to us courtesy of Brian Keith Dalton, AKA Mr. Deity.
– Please visit The Independent Investigations Group Los Angeles.
– The Odds Must Be Crazy can be found on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
– Wendy Hughes is on Twitter.
– Jarrett Kaufman is on Twitter.
– Barbara Drescher is on Twitter.
– Brian Hart is on Twitter.
– Brian Keith Dalton is on Twitter.

A Good Death- Interview – Caitlin Doughty

– Caitlin Doughty
– A mortician living in L.A., originally from Oahu, Hawaii
– Even Swoopy has a 'creepy collection'
– Each state in the United States has its own laws and rules for becoming a mortician.
– The classes to become a mortician are not a 'breeze'.
– The Order of the Good Death is a way to bring a rational public discussion about death.
– Members of the order have several different skills and talents.
– She has started to make YouTube videos for people to learn more about death and ask questions.
– One of her more recent videos was highlighted on the Huffington Post.
– it was in the spirit of the Dan Savage 'It Gets Better' videos.
– Can you get AIDS from a dead body?
– She was also on NPR, and others as a expert on the topic.
– In the past death was all around, and everyone was personally familiar with it.
– Families used to care for the dead bodies of relatives themselves.
– These days embalmers try to make dead bodies not look 'dead'
– "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, and other lessons from the crematory" book
– Caitlin experiments to see if you can bake a cake using the ashes from a dead body in one of her videos
– Feel free to come up with creative ways to deal with their deceased loved ones.
– You can create diamonds out of the ashes of the dead.
– It is a fear that pace makers can explode in cremation chambers
– Unfortunately you can't just keep a dead body anywhere, or dispose of a dead body 'just anywhere'.
– Things like 'natural burial' and other alternative body disposal methods are getting more attention.
– There are many benefits to using natural burial to the environment.
– One of the methods, liquefaction, was covered in one of her videos.
– You can't just wander out into the wilderness to die, it could cause an immense waste of money and resources.
– You could donate your body to the 'Body Farm'.
– Natural decomposition is one of Caitlin's favorite topics to research
– Thinking about death might actually enhance your life.
– Vampires Sparkly or Traditional?
– New outro music played by John Nowakowski, Prelude Santiago De Murcia