A Magician Cannot Dispute FC…Or Can He?

In 2012, I received an email from James Randi, magician, skeptic, and author. He was working on a book called A Magician in the Laboratory, which he, unfortunately, never finished. Randi told me he planned on including a chapter about Facilitated Communication based on an experience he had with it twenty years earlier. He’d heard about my experiences with FC, first as a believer, then as a critic, and told me “we’re very familiar with your commendable decision to change your ‘take’ on FC as soon as you recognized what it really is. Proud to know you!” High praise from someone who I understand was “curmudgeonly.” 

James Randi (Image from the James Randi Educational Foundation)

After a few brief exchanges, I found a 1992 Sun Sentinel article in which Randi discussed seeing FC in action. From my communications with him, I knew he’d been hired by the University of Wisconsin at Madison to investigate the psychic mind-reading abilities of students who were being subjected to FC in a program run by Ann Donnellan, a proponent and early adopter of the technique. He wrote about this experience in a Skeptical Inquirer article called “A Magician in the Lab: The Farce Known as ‘FC.’”

During his investigation of FC, Randi witnessed individuals “typing” while not looking at the keyboard or while rolling around on the floor. He ran a simple test where the individuals with disabilities were shown words and the facilitators were not. He followed this with a second test where the individuals with disabilities and their facilitators were shown the same words. Only when the facilitators saw the target words were the facilitated, typed, responses accurate. He also noted the unexpected literacy skills of a six year old child who frequently banged his head on the floor. During a facilitated session, the young boy typed with a facilitator that his head hurt “Because you need to operate on my hypothalamus.” Big words for a six year old typed with none of the invented spellings typical of children that age learning written language and literacy skills. In another session at the office of a Coral Springs speech/language pathologist, Randi noted that typed responses to the same question(s) differed depending on the facilitator (e.g., “What did you have for lunch?” Response with facilitator #1: a salami sandwich; Response with facilitator #2: peanut butter). Both facilitators thought the responses were correct. Who, then, are people supposed to believe?

Randi reported in the Skeptical Inquirer article that he was discouraged from investigating FC. Donnellan and others wanted him on the project because of his extensive experience investigating psychics. So, when he raised doubts about authorship due to facilitator influence, he was “dismissed” from the project. 

A week after the 1992 Sun Sentinel article was distributed, a letter to the editor was published titled “Magician Cannot Dispute Facilitated Communication.” In it, the author wrote: “James Randi, a self-proclaimed magician who apparently specializes in disproving ‘psychic spoonbenders,’ is in no position to dispute the validity of facilitated communication without either data or training in autism to substantiate his claims.” 

I find the article interesting because, on the one hand, it calls for Randi to provide data that FC is facilitator controlled (which he had done with simple tests where the facilitators were blinded to the test information) while the author (an FC proponent) defended the use of FC based on anecdotal reports from other users. Even in 1992, the rationalization that “FC works because people using FC say it works” was firmly taking hold. Proponents, then as now, reject blinded testing that reliably and repeatedly demonstrates facilitator authorship and control of FC messages using the weak excuse that individuals who are not experts in autism can’t detect facilitator control when observing the technique in use.

But, let’s put aside the proponent’s circular reasoning for a second and address the issue of whether or not a magician can dispute facilitated communication.

The simple answer is yes and here’s why.

FC “works,” in part, because of the ideomotor effect. It is a well-documented phenomenon involving non-conscious muscle movements. These movements can be so slight that an individual may not be consciously aware of them. There are lots of examples of the ideomotor response in daily life but here are just a couple: making small adjustments to a steering wheel while driving, and bobbing your head or tensing your muscles to “will” a ball to stay in bounds after hitting a golf ball. Poker players have “tells,” which may be related to the body’s response to stress or excitement; facial tics, eye movements, vocalizations (e.g., throat clearing), or body posturing. The ideomotor effect has also been linked to non-conscious actions in dowsing, using a planchette, automatic writing, and using a pendulum, which is where James Randi and other magicians come in.

The ideomotor effect isn’t a new discovery. The medical community started using it as a term in the mid-1800s. Magicians and illusionists were using it in their acts long before anyone knew what to officially call it. With apologies to magicians, how do you think they find a hidden object in the room while blindfolded? Why do you think they have to hold on to the person who hid the object? It isn’t for balance. It’s to “read” the muscle movements (e.g., feel the changes in pressure) as the pair moves closer or farther away from the hidden object’s location. Moving away from the object will cause the person to (non-consciously) tense up slightly. Moving toward the object will cause the person to (non-consciously) relax. They can’t help it. A skilled magician will be able to pick up on these slight changes in tension and “magically” find the hidden object. 

Pendulums work in much the same way. It’s possible to influence the direction of the pendulum (e.g., front to back for yes, side to side for no) simply by thinking about the desired answer. Small, often undetectable, muscle movements influence which way the pendulum swings. Dowsing, using a planchette on a Ouija board, as well as typing out letters on a letter board or holding the board in the air during facilitated communication to assist an individual in selecting letters, all work because of the the slight, often non-conscious muscle movements users can’t help but make.

Here are two videos of James Randi discussing dowsing and the ideomotor response. In the first video, the individual moves his elbows to make the dowsing rods move. In the second video,  the dowsing “worked” when the individual knew where the piece of zinc ore was located. When the individual was blinded to the source, the accuracy of the dowsing rod dropped to no more than a guess. Note, also, in the test that Randi was blinded to which box contained the piece of zinc ore. This was a deliberate choice to prevent him from inadvertently (non-consciously) cuing the dowser when the person got near or strayed away from the pedestal containing the hidden object. Even if you’re well-versed in the ideomotor effect, like James Randi was, you cannot prevent yourself from these types of non-conscious movements. 

With FC, there are at least two ways the facilitator’s non-conscious muscle movements can influence the typed messages:

1)   If the facilitator pair is typing on a keyboard with “traditional FC” (e.g., support at the wrist, elbow, shoulder or shirt sleeve), the facilitator (non-consciously) relaxes as a desired letter is approached on a keyboard. Once the outstretched finger reaches the desired letter, the facilitator tenses, indicating the need to press that letter. Once the letter is selected, the facilitator relaxes and the selection process begins anew. 

2)   If the facilitator is holding a board in the air (as in Rapid Prompting Method or Spelling to Communicate), the board swings side to side, up or down, backward or forward to help optimize where the individual with disabilities points to the board. If you don’t believe me, place a marble on a plate, hold the plate in the air and try to keep the marble from rolling across the surface. This is the ideomotor effect in action.

For the most part, facilitators are not trying to be deceptive. If they know the answer to a question – or think they know – they cannot help but provide cues. They’re highly motivated to accept the “hits” or correct answers and forget all the “misses” (e.g., incorrect or unintelligible answers). Facilitators don’t realize how distracted they are by asking and answering questions, holding the keyboard, making sure the individual is looking at the board, moving the FC session along, etc. They simply cannot maintain 100% attention on their own actions 100% of the time. And, even if they could, they’d still probably underestimate how much they’re influencing the letter selections. The actions feel real. The illusion is strong. 

There are, of course, a multitude of cues provided by the facilitator (e.g., head movements, body position, vocalizations), but this should give you a beginning understanding of how the ideomotor phenomenon is built in to FC. James Randi, Banachek, Todd Landman, and Mark Edward, among other magicians, illusionists, and mentalists, recognize the ideomotor effect at work in FC, and have voiced their concerns. Magicians may or may not also be experts in autism, depending on the person (it is possible to be both), but they are, most definitely, experts in the use of the ideomotor effect and are well aware of how powerful a tool it is in tricking people into thinking the illusions they have mastered are real. Knowing about the ideomotor effect doesn’t ruin a trick when the magician executes it well. The illusion, in magic, is part of the fun. The illusion, in FC, crosses the line into exploitation. 

The author of the letter to the editor mentioned above summarily dismissed Randi’s observations as an illusionist and expert in the ideomotor response. And, maybe it’s prudent not to take just one person’s observations into account. But, disturbingly, proponents also reject documentation from individuals who are experts in autism, psychology, speech/language pathology, linguistics, reading and written language development, science reporting, former facilitators, and others who criticize FC for the exact same reasons Randi did: unexpected literacy skills, inattention to the letter board, unreliable responses depending on the facilitators, and failed blinded test procedures where the only correct answers are ones for which the facilitators already know the answers. For some reason, proponents put their own, often personal, experiences and observations ahead of professional organizations like the American Speech-Language Hearing Association, American Association for Individuals with Developmental Disabilities, International Association on Augmentative and Alternative Communication, to name just a few, who’ve researched FC in all its forms and adopted opposition statements regarding the use of FC and/or RPM, because these techniques lack scientific evidence, are highly susceptible to facilitator control, encourage and rely on prompt dependency, and have caused demonstrable harms to individuals with disabilities and their families through false allegations of abuse and facilitator crimes. 

In 1992, Randi called FC a “crock” and predicted that “It’s only going to lead to catastrophe all around.” 

Randi wasn’t a psychic, but, based on the renewed interest in the FC/RPM/S2C illusion in 2021, I tend to think he was right. 

References and Recommended Reading:

Beckerman, Andrea. (1992, October 13). Magician Cannot Dispute Facilitated Communication. Sun Sentinel (Sports Final Edition). Fort Lauderdale. p. 6A.

Gerbic, S., Boynton, J., and Edward, M. (2020, August 5). In Conversation with Mark Edward. About Time Project.

Greenbaum, Kurt. (1992, September 27). Autistic Method Disputed Researcher Says Child Not Helped. Sun Sentinel (Palm Beach edition). Fort Lauderdale. p. 8B.

Greene, G. (1994). “Facilitated Communication - Mental Miracle or Sleight of Hand?” Skeptic Magazine.

Hall, G.A. (1993). Facilitator control as automatic behavior: A verbal behavior analysis. Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 11, 89-97.

Randi, James. (2017, July-August). A Magician in the Lab: The Farce Known as ‘FC’. Skeptical Inquirer. Volume 41 (4).

Simmons, W..P., Boynton, J., and Landman, T. (2021, February). Facilitated Communication, Neurodiversity, and Human Rights. Human Rights Quarterly. Volume 43 (1), 138-167. DOI: 10.1353/hrq.2021.0005

Spitz, H. (1997). Nonconscious Movements: From Mystical Messages to Facilitated Communication. Routledge. ISBN 978-0805825633

Wegner, D.M., Fuller, V.A., and Sparrow, B. (2003, July). Clever hands: uncontrolled intelligence in facilitated communication, Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 85 (1), 5-19. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.85.1.5