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Natasha Demkina can sue the 'ambush experimenters' for some $2 to $5 million in damages. Why?

"Every person has a fundamental legal right to have her/his reputation protected." International Covenants on Human Rights and Civil Law.

(N.B. HEREINAFTER are just some of the legal and equitable issues to be raised against the 'experimenters' - it is by no means a full and exhaustive list of illegalities. It is drafted for the layperson).

17 year old Natasha, a gifted 'medical intuitive', was invited to New York by CSICOP to participate in an experiment to test whether or not she is truly psychic.

Critical issue: Objective empirical observation shows that debunkers (experimenters) produced a documentary and subsequent media comments which tried to humiliate, annihilate and ruin the brilliant international reputation of Natasha Demkina, a gifted Russian teenage psychic. There would be at least some 50 negative imputations made against closed minded debunkers Prof Richard Wiseman, Prof Ray Hyman and A Skunkick and CSICOP.

PREFACE

Close content analysis of the Discovery Channel program shows that throughout the documentary continuous 'illegalities' and negativity were being heaped onto Natasha. There was continuous direct and indirect bombardment with imputations that Natasha is likely to be:

a fraud, a hoax, incompetent and unskilled, not what she claims to be, deceptive, one who cheats and lies, takes money under false pretences, superstitious, not to be trusted, a person not to be associate with, devious, deceitful, dishonest and conniving; person who should not be respected by the international community;

and that the planners of the documentary had a duty to expose her. Conduct shows the debunkers tried to bring Natasha:

• into international disrepute so the public will never trust her again and
• that her good name, excellent reputation and character will be permanently destroyed.

The Evidence

1.0 Gross omissions

The designers of the experiment falsely represented to the viewers that they were the world's 'top' objective, impartially unencumbered 'scientists' and that Natasha would be subjected to legitimate "scientific scrutiny". Throughout the documentary this claim was repeated to the extent that the average viewer would accept that Natasha was tested by professional scientists of top caliber who had nothing to gain, nothing to lose.

Instead :

The experiment was NOT designed by an objective scientist but, we are informed, primarily by A Skunkick, a debunking journalist who is a close associate of the slippery, perennially negative hard core debunking closed minded extreme skeptic James Randi.

Skolnick shows his lack of scientific objectivity on his webpage and that he is negatively prejudical where he states he is "Proud to be one of the pledgers of the more than $1.1 million prize that can be claimed by anyone able to prove the existence of any paranormal phenomenon."

According to the CV on his webpage he is not qualified to design or to administer any scientific testing. Omission to wilfully milsead- the viewers were not told the truth about the man who planned the experiment.

He was assisted, he says, by two fellow (debunkers) who are psychologists.

Natasha and the American viewers (and wherever the show was viewed) - were willfully and knowingly 'misled', misdirected, by a hard core debunking skeptical journalist who misrepresented himself as a qualified scientist.

2.0 Legal failure to show 'due diligence'

When the issues are so critical and fundamental for Natasha who was traveling from Russia to the US (the program itself acknowledged that failure could ruin her life) the organizers had a duty to show the mandatory 'due diligence" and make FULL disclosures about who they really are, the numerous bitter fights they had with psychics over the decades and the 'negative' reputations of themselves and those who were responsible for organizing the experiment, including:

• they never ever in their professional lives found in favor of the paranormal,
• that because of their record they would not find in favor of psi,
• that if Natasha succeeded (in fact she did by international statisticians' standards) she would have been a prime candidate for the James Randi ALLEGED '$1 million prize' sponsored in part by Skunkick,
• that a psychic under similar experimental situation has complained that he was misled and lied to by Wiseman,
• that these experimenters actively promote and crusade for closed-minded skepticism,
• that under certain circumstances, the negative experimenter Wiseman's psi reputation could be destroyed by a positive result in the experiment and that he would lose funding (if shown improprietery in scientific method).
• that it is questionable whether Wiseman is properly qualified to conduct psi tests. As a debunker he does not have experimental impartiality to perceive psychic phenomena with empirical equanimity - and therefore cannot produce impartial results when it comes to psi experiments.
• that there is such a thing as the 'Experimenter Effect' - which would grossly and inevitably increase the chances that results by Wiseman would find negative psi,
• that debunker Wiseman has a reputation of changing protocol without notice (see the Chris Robinson psychic detective tests),
• that the subjects could be friends of and have close connections with the debunkers,
• that there was no independent control to ensure that the subjects did indeed have the conditions they claimed and were being truthful.

3.0 Presumption of dominance hitherto unrebutted

Conduct of the matter shows there was no equality in the bargaining power of Natasha with CSICOP in the contract. Clearly she did not have access to informed independent legal advice. No sane informed lawyer would have advised Natasha to go through with the experiment with the closed minded American skeptics or if she did, there would have to be severe modifications to the planned experiment.

Especially when Wiseman claims that she told him, "design your own test" something that Natasha would NOT have stated had she been briefed by an independent professional. Natasha is clearly seen on the video protesting about the test.

Debunkers Skolnick, Wiseman & Hyman and CSICOOP exploited her and most unconscionably took advantage of her immaturity and her definitively weak bargaining position. This alone would be sufficient to make nugatory all results.

There are several other relevant incidents that show devious manipulation to elicit negative results. For example, it would have been prudent for the experimenters to engage an independent informed party to access all medical records for confirmation of the patients' alleged problems. Whilst this was one of the conditions in the contract, there was no evidence given of an independent adjudicator appointed to examine the health records.

4.0 Malicious intent

Relevant to malicious intent was when debunker Wiseman falsely imputed that parapsychologists who do find in favor of psi are "soft options" and less professional than the designers of the experiment.

"Natasha hasn't gone for the soft option of going to believers, she has come along to the scientists …"

That is most inequitable, willfully malicious misrepresentation, insulting and most ridiculous for any allegedly professional to state. By giving himself higher status than open-minded investigators who perceive psi with empirical equanimity, Wiseman tries to indirectly and maliciously belittle, to reduce and negate their professionalism - imputing incompetence.

5.0 Inequitable subjective benchmark

Further, to increase indirect malice and intentional misrepresentation, the experimenters have deliberately chosen a benchmark for success which is way above that used in other areas of science.

By asking that Natasha score more that 4/7 they are presenting to an unsophisticated audience the impression that she could score 3 or 4 out of 7 by chance alone.

Yet the odds of scoring 4 out of 7 by chance on the experiement they designed are 1 in 50. Whereas the experimenters state Natasha 'failed' the test, other statisticians state that Natasha's results were significant. Recent experiments on telepathy conducted by a British scientist with a team from 20/20 Productions were hailed as a success when the odds against chance as an explanation were 1 in 19. It also has to be remembered that Natasha scored an amazing 5 out of 6 in the first test.

Updated 13th November 04 : NATASHA SCORES 5 OUT OF 7. Further, when Natasha is properly advised she would not concede that she attained only 4/7. Since at least one additional hit is in dispute there has to be a presumption that Natasha was right regarding the issue of the appendix scar. This is because she did identify a woman with a scar on the tummy and the experimenter willfully failed to show Natasha the medical record of the subject to compare it with what she stated about the scar on the subject. Accordingly Natasha can legitimately claim she scored FIVE out of SEVEN.

6.0 Willful malicious omission to denigrate

There was further unfair and intentional omission to effect negative perception of Natasha; there was blatant, wilful misreprentation to fool the viewers and Natasha that there is not such thing as 'medical intuition.' At no time in the video was it mentioned that a great many other people have successfully demonstrated "medical intuition" - exhibiting skills similar to Natasha - including a former NASA scientist, and that a number of respected scientists and doctors have found evidence that illness can be detected in the human energy field up to two years before it appears in the body - same as Natasha found.

Instead there was an intentional and malicious attempt to associate Natasha's ability with primitive superstition and religious rituals with film of her immersing herself in cold water during a time when it was stated she became religious.

7.0 More malicious fundamental omission

At no time in the video was it mentioned that Natasha had been tested by highly qualified doctors in other countries and found to have a genuine gift.

8.0 Unfair, unjust, inequitable and unreasonable: willful malicious pressure and stress to reduce performance

Hyman, on behalf of the experimenters deliberately and knowingly says it is their intention to "put her under pressure" being well aware that long experience of investigation of psychics shows that they do best in relaxed and homely surroundings which have a lighthearted and positive atmosphere.

Relaxation for Natasha is most critical and most fundamental. Inexorably, there would be diminution of psychic power if Natasha is put under stress. The experimenters knew that- they had the knowledge of cause and effect - and they willfully, knowingly and maliciously unfairly increased significant stress immediately before the experiment.

Many of the things they chose to do would have significantly interfered with her psychic functioning during the experiment including (not exhaustive):