- Page 17, verse 1: The author is interpreting the meaning of prophesied traitors to be Sheikh Mujeeb and Indra Gandhi.
- Page 26, verse 2: The author thinks (and narrates it in the translation) that the person who will accept Islam will be 'Gandhi'. (I found it funny)
Mythicide
Some myths are meant to be killed.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Naimat Ullah Shah Wali's Prophecies in Urdu
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Cold reading - demonstrated
Derren hands out individual personal analysis of various people from different cultural origins based on their hand print and birth dates. Everyone is amazed at the accuracy of this analysis and the last part of the video explains how it was done. This will fix your concepts about horoscopes et al.
Enjoy!
If you like this one, go to this page at youtube where you will find hundreds of video clips by Derren. Every single one of them is an eye opener. Read more about Derren at the Wikipedia article.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Psychics
Enjoy!
Trains of thought
Subliminal Advertising
Monday, April 23, 2007
Paranormal phenomena - mind reading, fortune telling
All the famous methods of mind reading or fortune telling (e.g. Palmistry, Astrology, Numerology) are based upon a psychological phenomenon called "Cold reading".
Cold reading is a technique used to convince another person that the reader knows much more about a subject than they actually do. Even without prior knowledge of a person, a practiced cold reader can still quickly obtain a great deal of information about the subject by carefully analyzing the person's body language, clothing or fashion, hairstyle, gender, sexual orientation, religion, race or ethnicity, level of education, manner of speech, place of origin, etc.
The most commonly seen Cold reading technique is called "Forer effect". The Forer effect refers to the tendency of people to rate sets of statements as highly accurate for them personally even though the statements could apply to many people. As an example, take a look at the following statements
"You have a very sensitive personality, although you tend to hide it most of the times"
"I sense that you are sometimes insecure, especially with people you don't know very well."
"Most of the time you are positive and cheerful, but there has been a time in the past where you were very upset."
The following article is an eye opener. Read it in detail and evaluate.
http://www.skepdic.com/forer.html
Cold reading has some standard and famous techniques that people have used and mastered over time and we see them practicing those as magicians, psychics, palmists, astrologists, mind readers and what not. The link below will tell you about Darren Brown who is a famous psychic and has done several TV shows exhibiting many of the psychic phenomena. The only difference is that he has an open and honest approach to what he does. He cheerfully reveals that he can't read people's minds or commune with the afterlife - his skill is to make it look like he can.
Here is an interesting and worth reading interview of Derren Brown.
Wikipedia article about Darren
Here you can find some famous techniques of Cold reading
Million dollar paranormal challenge
James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) is an organization dedicated to falsify claims of paranormals. They have done some good research in the area which is available on their website http://www.randi.org.
At JREF, we offer a one-million-dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event. The JREF does not involve itself in the testing procedure, other than helping to design the protocol and approving the conditions under which a test will take place. All tests are designed with the participation and approval of the applicant. In most cases, the applicant will be asked to perform a relatively simple preliminary test of the claim, which if successful, will be followed by the formal test. Preliminary tests are usually conducted by associates of the JREF at the site where the applicant lives. Upon success in the preliminary testing process, the "applicant" becomes a "claimant." To date no one has passed the preliminary test.
The list of applicants and the application forms and other details can be downloaded from this link
We humans have a tendency to believe in the super natural. I cannot point out any specific reason for this tendency but it does exist in us. Look around, you will notice more than 80% of the people completely or partially believing in such stuff. Be it in the form of mind reading, horoscope, Palmistry or professionals like Aamil Babas tricking the innocent minds of our people.
Being part of an educated and rational community, it is our responsibility to deny all such claims and confront them with reason.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Deadly cellphones in Pakistan
Yesterday, I tried calling my car mechanic on his cell phone and he did not pick up the call. I went to the workshop and inquired the reason. He told me that he didn't want to die at this (young) age. He told me a story that his neighbor made this mistake of receiving a phone call on the cell phone and the next moment he had a broken leg. Wow! I was amazed at such a daring exhibit of absurdness.
It forced me to dig further on the subject so I had a chat with a number of people that were completely or partially advocating the idea. People have come up with various scientific explanations of the situation. Here are the most popular ones
Computer virus
Some people think, this is a computer virus (a software program) that is transmitted to your cell phone during a voice call. After being downloaded, it forces your phone to generate a strange sound that damages your braincells, resulting in a bleeding ear or a (this is funny) broken leg and an eventual death.
GSM is a very nice and practical protocol for the cellular phone community. It has two basic services Voice and Data transmission. Read the referenced Wikipedia article and you will notice that Voice service (the active service when you are making or receiving a phone call) cannot be used to transfer and download digital data to your cell phone. You need to use the Data transmission service (SMS, GPRS, etc.) to be able to transfer data (or a software program on a cell phone). Whereas, in our case, people are said to be dying after picking up a Voice call. Doesn't it explain anything?
Biological virus
Some say this is actually a biological virus that is transmitted over the cellular phone signals (GSM signal).
To my utmost disappointment, I have seen a few telecom engineers giving this explanation, what could be worse than that?
A biological virus is a chemical (DNA or RNA) structure, that means a set of molecules!! Are we trying to say that matter is being transmitted via electromagnetic waves and then entering your ear? I am sure Einstein and many other scientists are really upset in their graves as we speak of this idiocy.
How it started
I have a very strong feeling that somebody read Stephen King's bestseller "Cell" and then played a prank with someone who hadn't read the novel. I think it turned out that most of the people in our country hadn't read the piece of fiction and it was so easy to be fool them. Just like that, things started falling into place and we have this situation at hand.
My wife works in a Government hospital of Lahore. She and a few fellow doctors came across an interesting case in the Emergency ward. An unconscious patient was brought in with his attendants telling the Doctors that he received a strange phone call on his cell phone and fell unconscious immediately after that. It must have been the deadly virus that killed our dear friend. The doctors checked his vital signs and blood pressure. Everything appeared to be normal. None of the signs suggested any abnormality in his physical conditions. It was almost certain that he was only pretending to be unconscious. So they decided to 'electrocute' him. A little spark near the left ribs and he woke up like a light bulb, walking back home the next minute. Obviously, it matters how our mind is treating a certain rumor. Human psychology is an amazing thing, it has the potential of letting you believe and (even) feel something that is not happening in the reality.
Below are a few interesting reads on the subject.
The present rumor in Pakistan has caught almost everyone's attention in the world. Here is an interesting news article on this subject. (The world is laughing at us):
You probably already know that you can pick up bad germs from sitting on a toilet seat in a public restroom - but did you also know that deadly viruses can be transmitted into your body through your cell phone? http://www.tmcnet.com/news/2007/04/13/2507422.htm
History
The first ever mobile phone virus rumor was something like this: Mobile Phone virus (aka ACE-? and UNAVAILABLE)
http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/mobile.htm
Here are a few equally funny hoaxes from the past
and another one
![](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_jcCH2WWAFng/RiyoVrN6pKI/AAAAAAAAAhw/QYezO8qcKZ4/s320/hoax2.jpg)
It is obvious that some culprits have always been trying to exploit the ignorance of a common man. No doubt, it would be great fun to start a prank that eventually hits all the TV channels and newspapers of the World but is it really worth that much of a damage?