Talk:Leonora Piper

Recent Edits
Removal of the 2 words "somewhat" and "ambiguous" is a blatant distortion of the author's original quote. 208.194.97.5 (talk) 21:50, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I think, in fact, that removing that stuff actually makes things worse, and if it is a direct quote we can't edit it. Dbrodbeck (talk) 22:34, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

What do you mean "removing that stuff actually makes things worse"? Removal of those 2 words distorts this well-respected James's scholar assessment of Leonora Piper. Not to mention James's assessment himself. I realize this entire article is not in competition for "fair and balanced" but you don't need to turn a James scholar into a Wikipedia guerrilla skeptic. 74.108.121.70 (talk) 03:10, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Here is the exact quote from Francesca Bordogna: "James, who was interested in "independent evidence" for the spirit-control hypothesis could find little of it. In fact, most of the evidence was spotty, somewhat incoherent, ambiguous, irrelevant, and, in some cases, demonstrably false -- at best only circumstantial."

It looks like the present text is trying to summarize Bordogna rather than cite her as a direct quote. Might be better off using a direct quote with attribution. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:20, 29 March 2016 (UTC) OK, I tried a version that less closely paraphrases Bordgogna. Of course the other option is a direct quote with quotation marks and in-text attribution, which some might feel spoils the narrative flow of the paragraph. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:55, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Looks good. Dbrodbeck (talk) 16:09, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks to you both. In case the IP user (or others) want to revisit this, I cite-ified the footnote on that paragraph and incorporated the quote and the Google Books URL into the cite so the evidence is right there. -- Krelnik (talk) 16:19, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

This is an excellent resolution. Thank you.74.108.121.70 (talk) 16:54, 29 March 2016 (UTC)


 * (cc etc after a little digging I did you may be interested in this:


 * (check this IPS talk-page he was blocked by an admin (cc, as he was a sock puppet of trying to evade a perm ban, this user was blocked for abuse and making legal threats against Wikipedia.


 * As for 74.108.121.70, this IP traces to the same geographical location as 208.194.97.5, it is highly unlikely two random IPs would be commenting on this talk-page at such a similar time, requesting the exactly same thing about William James using the same writing style. It is clear that this IP is just another sock of Jamenta (the paranoia about skeptics and obsession with James is a well known theme of his . This user has a history of promoting fringe content related to paranormal on Wikipedia, he is doing the same now over at Watseka Wonder. HealthyGirl (talk) 16:27, 20 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I am removing the Andrew Lang quotation because it has been incorrectly cited. From the full quotation Lang was a believer in Piper's alleged abilities. HealthyGirl (talk) 18:08, 20 April 2016 (UTC)


 * The James Randi Encyclopedia link appears to be dead (in the external links), I tried Wayback Machine but that doesn't appear to be working. Any help would be appreciated. HealthyGirl (talk) 18:26, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Questions
Some things appear incoherent or are difficult to understand:


 * "After the birth of her first child, Alta Laurette on May 16, 1884 in Boston, she sought relief from recurring pain caused by a childhood accident."


 * This sounds like it is an occurrence of some importance for her career or whatever, like this experience made her the medium or the person she came to be. But how is this important? I cannot find any reference to this in all of the rest of the article.


 * "Later when Piper's "spirit contact" was claimed to be recently deceased Society for Psychical Research member Richard Hodgson, James wrote, "I remain uncertain and await more facts, facts which may not point clearly to a conclusion for fifty or a hundred years.""


 * I can't figure this sentence out. Her spirit contact was claimed to be recently deceased? The recently deceased Society for Psychical Research? The recently deceased Society for Psychical Research member Richard Hodgson, James? Well, what is his name now - Richard or James?
 * Maybe someone who has an idea what is meant can take care of a clearer wording.

--84.190.89.190 (talk) 12:05, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The whole article, the description of her career just as much as the description of the skeptical reception, is full of reports from people proving she was a fraud, that her "controls" were saying nonsensical things etc. etc.. Now while I personally do not believe in mediums of this sort at all and I think an encyclopedia should certainly not promote this kind of stuff, this, in my opinion, is just a bit too much repetition of the skeptical voices. There must have been people who believed in her and who were willing to pay for whatever nonsense she said. That is part of her career, and that is basically not described at all. If we are going to have an article featuring only the skeptical voices, we should be fair enough to put all the skeptical voices into that part of the article, not into the part about her career.

There is a book giving a positive perspective on her work. "Resurrecting Leonora Piper", Michael Tymn. I will try to include some quotes from it in the article. I do mention I was the first person on wikipedia to create an entry on "consciousness" a number of years ago, and parts of my comments still remain in the wikipedia article "consciousness studies". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thaeatetus (talk • contribs) 19:50, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

In repose to some of the above question about the history of her injury and its outcome, and to balance the perspective, I added several quoters from the Tymn book. After taking about 2 hours to edit the article, my quotes and comments were unceremoniously deleted by something called a "bot". I give up. If you want to hear the other side of the story, read the Michael Tymn book. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thaeatetus (talk • contribs) 21:20, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Update: I received a message from "Diannaa", whoever that is, saying my additions to the Leonora Piper wikipedia page were copied from another website. That is NOT true. They are quotes from the book I cited, by Michael Tymn. I also have no interest in re-typing it, if I could, as I type slow, and it took a while to put it into the article. So, buy the book, don't buy the book, it is of no consequence to me : ) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thaeatetus (talk • contribs) 21:45, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Update2: I do note that it is likely no coincidence that the article on Leonora Piper is skewed to the skeptical perspective. It is due to the subjective and spontaneous nature of consciousness, and clairvoyance. That is, they can't be measured. Not good for the scientific/academic agenda wikipedia and their editors are pursuing. "The rational approach works quite well in certain kinds of situations, such as the mass production of goods, or in certain kinds of scientific measurements -but all in all the rational method, as it is understood and used, does not work as an overall approach to life, or in the solving of problems that involve subjective rather than objective measurements and calculations." ( 'The Magical Approach', Jane Roberts/Seth)

Paraphrasing "What Do We Know", NYTimes Sunday Review, The Stone, 1/1/2017, A a boy I was aware that knowledge was the coolest form of power around; What I couldn't see was that was that it is in matters of highest importance -love, terror, is there a God?, is there clairvoyance?, will Donald trump win the election?, that were outside the domain of rational knowledge. That the more information we gathered about Donald Trump's chances of winning the election, or of clairvoyance, the less we seem to know objectively. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thaeatetus (talk • contribs) 15:08, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Argument from evidence
The body of evidence built up over years by psychologists and neurologists about the functioning of the brain/mind cannot simply be bypassed or dismissed. The monist (singleness) position was at one time a rather radical one that came gradually to be accepted because of the weight of evidence, and not because researchers wanted to avoid dualism. Miistermagico (talk) 01:53, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

NPOV not respected
Is that the state of Wikipedia these days? This article is shamelessly biased towards sources who had negative conclusions concerning the subject's alleged powers. It is not hard to find examples of reliable sources impressed with instances of those alleged powers, among them William James and other personalities who experienced her first hand. All notable views need to be included, no matter if you personally are a believer or a disbeliever.

As it stands, the article is no more than a testament to the blind arrogance of Wikipedia editors, who seemingly consider themselves authorities on what is and isn't possible, and attempt to erase by non-inclusion all evidence and opinion that are not in agreement with their foregone conclusions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ududy (talk • contribs)


 * It's a common misconception that Wikipedia NPOV means we must present fringe and mainstream views as equally credible. WP:NOTNEUTRAL helps explain it in more detail. In this case, claims of supernatural powers fall under WP:FRINGE, so we give weight to the mainstream view as expressed by reliable independent sources. I think the article does a good job reporting the views of Piper adherents and psychical enthusiasts, and actually goes into great detail regarding the various dead people she claimed to be in contact with, etc. Unfortunately, Wikipedia can only present these as claims and cannot endorse them as credible. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:18, 21 January 2020 (UTC)