Talk:Pyramid power/Archive 1

Archive 1

Martin Gardiner's Pyramid Power Hoax

Besides his spoof in Scientific American, sometime in about the same timeframe in the '70's Gardiner authored a hoax essay in Esquire touting the claims of Pyramid power and espousing it's most outlandish claims in a matter-of-fact style and tone. Many readers (I for one) took the article seriously, and Esquire got a flood of mail in response. When I learned it was a hoax (which, I learned, wasn't the first of Gardiner's hoaxes) I became a devoted reader of Martin Gardiner in Scientific American, his books, and Skeptical Inquirer. The great Esquire Pyramid Power Hoax was a delightful, and powerful, lesson in human gullibility and increased my powers of penetration and skepticisim. I was not fooled for one second by Bush's and the Media's hype used to stampede the country into, and to justify, the invasion of Iraq. In the mid-to-late-seventies in Seattle there was a store in the University district specializing in pyramid power paraphernalia, as well as selling some other occult folderal. A Boeing employee (an engineer, I believe) built a home in the vicinity of Seattle to the dimensions of the great pyramid for the sake of pyramid power, as he explaned on the local news one evening in the late seventies. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 4.178.33.36 (talk) 20:08, 1 April 2007 (UTC).

I was under the impression that Gardiner's pyramid hoaxes predated the book on the subject ... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.1.29.229 (talk) 03:32, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Rebuild

This is definitely a start-class article. I've flagged it for serious problems (needs citations and considerable clean-up), then gone ahead and built a new History section (and revised the intro). The article still needs proper sections dealing with the fad / business of pyramid power, as well as a completely rebuilt "Claims" section to deal with the evidence for and against. I'm hoping some other editor might like to make a stab at building / rebuilding those?

The History section I've provided here does cite my own published work from Junior Skeptic magazine, but that's actually pretty hard to avoid: very few critical sources have ever dug into the history of pyramid power (a niche within a niche, that).

However, I've been able to refer directly to previously unavailable primary sources (like Bovis's original 1930s writing) that we've now published at Skeptic.com for use by other researchers. Loxton (talk) 02:10, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Alexander Siemens

I took out the large blockquote added by 90.214.203.219, for several reasons: it isn't formatted correctly (not cited; not in blockquote; contains spelling errors); it isn't worked into the article well (it splits apart two related paragraphs, and it is not set into the History narrative in chronological order); it is not a standard part of the pyramid power legend; and, Noorbergen is not a very good source for this story.

This story did apparently happen much as Noorbergen describes. However, the protagonist was not, it seems, Alexander Siemens, but an older relative named Werner von Siemens. The story can be read in the first person here, an account that makes it clear that ordinary static electricity is the culprit: "This established in an unequivocal manner the electrical properties of the desert wind which had been already before observed by travelers." (Page 187)

Given all that, I would argue that the Werner von Siemens anecdote deserves either little or no mention. If we do cite it here, we should refer to the original, not Noorbergen's version. And, if included, it should be integrated carefully into the article.Loxton (talk) 23:15, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Home Research

The following lines from a person nicknamed HolgerTheDane do indicate some effects a pyramidal shape might have - but they are not indicating special powers, its rather dumb old house hold physics:

• Does a pyramid preserve a dead animal?
  NO it doesn’t. But what it does is that it keeps the flies out and the maggots and bacteria have a harder time getting rid of the corpse. A control test in a cubic cardboard box confirmed this.
• Does a pyramid preserve or even sharpen a razor blade?
  NO it doesn’t. But what it does do is keep the razor blade from the humid air in the bathroom and thus delay the rusting of the blade, making it seem as if the pyramid shape did the trick. A cubic box did the same.[...]
• Does a pyramid placed under your bed make for a more relaxed sleep? Even invigorating?
  NO it doesn’t. To be honest I found that it made my sleep less deep and less relaxing. Maybe it was because I wanted to feel a difference and kept waking up to analyze my feelings and emotions.

Source: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread447561/pg1 --Alexander.stohr (talk) 08:25, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

College Perspective

Hello, I’m Giggles133 and as part of homework for a discussion seminar at my college I am supposed to add detail to a paranormal Wikipedia article and I was assigned to this one. Due to time constrains I will not be able to add directly to the article so I want to post my findings and opinions on this discussion page in hope that you guys might find some use of it. The major focus of the discussion seminar was to look at paranormal topics from a skeptical point of view by combining philosophy and psychology. In my research it seemed to me that you guys have covered most of the big things and notable events surrounding pyramid power but as touched on in the claims section, I believe the psychological drive to believe is a very important factor that is worth touching on. First of all, there is a major break between environmental stimuli and what the mind perceives to happen. In regards to pyramid power, there could be a number of things that cause these effects but we perceive it to be due to the pyramid because that is what our minds want the answer to be. Next is a concept known as Operant Generalization. If you get a desired response from actions or stimulus you will automatically start applying that desired response to similar actions and stimulus. So for example (I’m saying this is right or wrong, just speculating) if you take your razors out of the humid bathroom and then put them under the pyramid Operant Generalization would connect better razor life with the pyramid when all it was in truth was taking the razors out of the humid bathroom. Since taking the razor out of the humid bathroom and placement of the pyramid happened to close together, your brain identifies them as similar or even synonymous in regards to the results of the razor. An important note is also Superstitious behaviors. When an athlete doesn’t change his socks all season because he thinks it is good luck to do so, that is a superstitious behavior. In terms of psychology there is no scientific explanation for this. These actions are simply reinforced coincidentally due to a random series of unrelated events that you “perceive” as being related. People naturally want explanations for the unknown so if you walk into a room and it appears the dead animals in the corner have not been rotting then your brain will naturally want to assign an explanation to that no matter how far-fetched that explanation is. Sometimes our initial explanation turns out to be correct but in no way is our initial explanation always the best. It also becomes harder to disprove it as more people agree. The reality of social conformity is that a good major of around 65% will drop their own opinions they are alone in their beliefs. This could also affect the rise and belief of pyramid power. If there is a topic that you know nothing about such a pyramid power and Czech scientists claim to know about it then due to informational social influence, you will naturally think they know more than you and therefore you are wrong. In no way am I trying to disprove pyramid power, I just felt it was important to look at the belief of this as well that the science behind it. There are many cases where people believe when the science falls short and what I have just discussed are some reasons why that is. I don’t know If any of this is helpful but best of luck with the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Giggles133 (talk • contribs) 20:35, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

'Claims' section

This is almost entirely unsourced, and has been tagged as such for over three years: On this basis, I have deleted the unsourced material. I suggest that anyone wishing to restore it finds citable sources before doing so. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:00, 7 April 2012 (UTC)