Most people probably haven't heard of Robert A. Baker, which is unfortunate. Baker had been one of the world's preeminent skeptical investigators of ghosts, alien abductions, apparitions, and other paranormal phenomena. He died in August, 2005.

The November/December 2005 Skeptical Inquirer has a story on the life and death of Robert A. Baker, preeminent skeptical investigator of paranormal claims:

[H]is interest in humanistic and anomalistic psychology would never waver. He launched a ten-year research program that examined hypnosis and its impact on memory, eyewitness testimony, and the accuracy of recall, as well as investigating such applications as so-called past-life regression. He concluded that hypnosis was merely relaxation, suggestion, and the impetus to imagine, even to fantasize.

Many people continue to believe that hypnosis, often used in such pseudoscientific practices like past-life regression and memory recovery, represents a doorway to an altered state of consciousness where we have access to portions of our minds normally locked away. The truth is more likely that we gain access to aspects of our minds and personality normally locked away because of social and mental control — thus, we are given “permission” to fantasize and imagine in ways not normally allowed. Because hypnosis is misunderstood, the products of hypnosis are also misunderstood.

 

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