November 8–15, 2001

mix picks

Remote Control

Nearly a decade ago, a guy named Sean David Morton predicted a horrible, fiery disaster would occur in New York City — in 1999. Well, he was wrong, but in good company, since Nostradamus purportedly said pretty much the same thing 500 years earlier. A regular on Art Bell’s overnight radio show/conspiracy theorist coffee klatch (heard locally on 1210-AM), Morton is a sort of renaissance man for the new New Age, claiming to be an expert in UFOs, spiritual healing, soul transference, post-life progression and remote viewing. In case you didn’t know, remote viewing is the idea that people can use their brains to gather information that is usually too far away in time or space to get to. (It’s like if I concentrate in the right way, I’ll know what it was like to be on the Titanic. Oh no. We hit an iceberg.) The government sank a lot of money into remote-viewing programs before giving up and declassifying the information in 1995. Now Morton tours the country, giving rv classes — unlike psychic abilities, he says, all people have remote-viewing power in them. Well, he’s the expert, right? On his website (of course he has a website, delphiassociates.org) he claims to have lived an interestingly busy life for a 40-something man: work on Star Trek projects, book ghost-writing credits, TV directing, a bunch of impressive sounding degrees. The investigators at ufowatchdog.com, however, brutally and thoroughly tear Morton a new a-hole, cutting apart his biography line by line and declaring him a fraud, a liar and an idiot. Many skeptics agree with that assessment. But still, he continues claiming successes at every turn. For instance, one of his remote viewing classes recently predicted a big tragedy at Yankee Stadium on Halloween night. And look what happened! How else would you describe Byung-Hyun Kim giving up two late-game homers?

—Patrick Rapa

Spiritual Remote Viewing Class taught by Sean David Morton, Sat., Nov. 10, $199, call 1-888-452-7999 to register; lecture by Sean David Morton, Fri., Nov. 9, 7-9 p.m., $5, Center for Spiritual Living, 19 S. Valley Rd., Paoli, PA, call 1-888-452-7999 to register.