无神论者调查 | 乔治·切利的黑暗故事（中英双语）
本文出自著名科普组织 “无神论者调查委员会”（Committee for Skeptical Inquiry，CSI ) 的官方刊物。CSI 的使命是促进科学探究、批判性调查，以及运用理性检验具有争议的非凡见解，创始人包括众多科学家、学者和科普作家，如卡尔·萨根、艾萨克·阿西莫夫、保罗·库尔茨、雷·海曼、詹姆斯·兰迪、马丁·加德纳、西德尼·胡克等。
翻译：牛牛
作者本杰明·莱德福德是《无神论者调查概要》的编辑，同时担任《无神论者调查期刊》的副主编。他参与了十本书籍的写作，其中包括《坏小丑》。
在他的书作《黑暗小径：一个自然主义者的冒险》中，德高望重的美国博物学家兼探险家乔治·K·切利讲述了他在世界各地的冒险。该书1930年由普特南家族出版社出版。切利参与过多次探险活动，最出名的就属他1913至1914年陪伴西奥多.罗斯福去巴西丛林的一次。那次探险几乎使他丧命。他们在巴西发现了“困惑河”，后来这条河被更名为“罗斯福河”。这本书能带领读者惊喜地发现这位伟大探险家对人种学、植物学和动物学所作的研究，研究地点主要在南美洲。
切利的这本回忆录能让你发现他是一位坚定的无神论者和一位强硬的科学理性派。例如，有一次他在南美的部落里见证了信仰疗法，他的叙述和50年后詹姆斯.兰迪的说法如出一辙：“这种骗人的手法很粗劣。但这种巫术能成功，说明了心理暗示的巨大作用；另一方面，人们对自己会受诅咒也深信不疑。”（第48-49页）
然而，不知是为了讲个好故事还是一不小心轻信了传说，切利偶尔也会相信超自然力量的存在。在书作《死亡之后》一章中，切利向他的读者讲述了一个他相信的鬼故事。切利这样写道：
“我注意过，当一群人有机会在一起待几天或几周，甚至只是待几小时的时候，鬼这个话题迟早会被拿来讨论。通常先是一片寂静。然后有个人会描述和自己有关的不可证却无比神奇的超自然力量，讲述的故事一般大同小异。
费城著名的神经学家塞拉斯·威尔·米切尔博士和我一样是无神论者，坚信鬼怪不存在。他一生从事神经学工作，钻研思维的内在运作机制。这些经历使他对任何超自然现象都持怀疑态度，这点毫无疑问。但这位了不起的医生讲过一个奇怪的故事，据说他承认这个故事发生在自己身上。他讲这个故事时云淡风轻，听的人会觉得这个故事对他而言无足轻重。这个故事是他从医生涯中一段有趣的插曲。
某天，米切尔劳累了一天出诊。晚上，他换上睡衣，准备看书休息。看了几分钟后，他打起了瞌睡。然后前门门铃大作，把他吵醒了。女仆没有去开门，米切尔起身，自己去开门。他发现按门铃的是个小女孩，穿着单薄，面露难色。不等米歇尔发问，小女孩就对他说：'是我妈妈，她病了。你会去看看她的，对吗？’
那个夜晚，雪花漫舞，寒风凛冽。米切尔精疲力竭。他并不想出诊，于是建议小女孩去找当地医院的其他医生。不想出诊的原因还有：小女孩对博士而言是个陌生人，不是熟人。但报信的小女孩可不会就这样被打发走。她说了些什么，博士松口了。他先让女孩等在温暖的前厅，然后穿上衣服披上御寒的大衣，跟着小女孩出门了。
米切尔发现女孩的母亲患上了严重的肺炎。如果我的记忆没出错，这位母亲曾经是博士家的仆人。博士抓紧时间打电话寻求医疗协助。后来，博士坐在床边的时候向这位生病的妈妈表扬起了小女孩，夸奖她的女儿聪明又坚韧。'但我女儿一个月前就死了！’妈妈虚弱地喊道。'她的鞋子和披肩都在那个小橱柜里。’
米切尔震惊又疑惑。他打开了橱柜的门，看见的正是小女孩穿过的衣服，这让他一下子相信了鬼的存在。衣服很暖和，带着房间里的温度，不可能在那个寒冷的下雪的冬夜里被人穿过。米切尔的叙述是这样结尾的：'不是我想替鬼怪辩护，但它就在那里等着遇见你！’”
看来，乔治·切利上当了。这种“鬼出来找帮助”的都市传说有很多版本，人们很容易就会信。乔伊·尼科尔2011年就指出：“比利·葛莱汉姆写的书里有一个极为相似的故事，但他暗示故事里的女孩不是鬼而是天使。他还引用了《读者文摘》里的一个故事。你可以想到的，没有什么确凿的证据，连《读者文摘》的引用都含糊其辞。要知道，《读者文摘》可不是什么正规的做学术的信息源。
事实上，我很快就发现这个故事是个老故事，有很多流传的版本，各种细节互相矛盾。”民俗学家詹·布鲁温2012年在他的书作《都市传奇百科全书》中的第264页指出：“有证据显示米切尔博士自己有时也会传播这个故事，可能只是出于恶作剧的目的。”这显然已经不是第一次了：一个亲切友好有幽默感的人偶然开了个无伤大雅的玩笑说了个俏皮搞笑的故事，引出了一个传说，然后局面失控，玩笑和故事成了不可辩驳的真理。
挺讽刺的，真相就是这位具有开拓精神的博物学家虽然自称是坚定的无神论者，但却表示这种烂大街的鬼故事有可信之处。在《黑暗小径》一书里，切利还讲述了旅行中别人说给他听的超自然力量的故事，但他似乎只信米切尔博士的这个故事，毕竟米切尔是位受人尊敬的医生。（尽管切利在旅行中表现出了对其他文化和他遇到的原始部落的尊重，但有些歧视在所难免。比如，对切利而言，同样的鬼故事，美国的白人医生说出来就是比巴西种花生的农民描述得更可信。）
值得称赞的是切利默认了米切尔这个“奇怪的故事”是他道听途说的，“据说米切尔自己说的发生在他身上”。虽然如此，但切利没有过多探究这个奇闻的真实性，就把它作为了超自然力量存在的证据，连同典型的假无神论者经常说的那句：“不是我想替鬼怪辩护，但它就在那里等着遇见你！”
这对质疑超自然现象存在的无神论者来说是一个很好的教训。说荒诞故事的不仅有和你持不同意见的或世界观不同的我们看不惯的人，也有我们认为是朋友的人。一丝丝信息的不查证，经过没有恶意但偏听偏信的这些人的加工传播，就会变成赤裸裸的鬼怪传说。
原文
GeorgeCherrie’s Dark Tales
In his book Dark Trails: Adventures of a Naturalist (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1930), celebrated American naturalist and explorer George K. Cherrie wrote about his adventures around the world. Cherrie engaged in many expeditions, perhaps mostfamously accompanying Theodore Roosevelt on his nearly disastrous 1913-1914 jungle descent of Brazil’s Rio da Duvida (“River of Doubt,” later renamed the Roosevelt River). The book provides a fascinating look at a prominentexplorer’s ethnographic, botanical, and zoological studies, primarily in SouthAmerica.
Cherrie’s memoir reflects a generallyhard-nosed skepticism one would expect to find in a man of science. For example, in a section where he recounts being a witness to faith healing amonga South American tribe, Cherrie could be channeling James Randi half a century later: “Of course it was a piece of crude prestidigitation. But the wide spread success of such charlatanry testifies to the high value of mental suggestion; on the other hand, suggestion of evil [e.g., a curse]works with equal efficacy” (p.48-49).
However Cherrie – whether out of desire to tell a great story or a lapse into gullibility – occasionally succumbs tomagical thinking where the supernature is involved. One such episode appears in a chapter titled “Death and After Death,” in which Cherrie recounts for hisreaders a ghost story he endorses. Cherrie begins by noting:
Forsome years I have noted that when a group of people are thrown together for afew days or weeks, or sometimes for just a few hours, sooner or later thesubject of ghosts will be broached. At such times there usually follows aperiod of silence. Then some one, with more or less difference, will relate anexperience with what might be termed invisible or supernature forces.
Dr. S. Welt Mitchell, the famous Philadelphianeurologist, held no brief for ghosts any more than I do. His life work withthe inner mechanism of the mind and nerves should have tended, and doubtlessdid tend, to make him cynical regarding supernatural phenomena. But there is astrange story told of the great man, a story that he is said to have relatedmany times himself. He told it in a way that left his listeners with a feelingthat there was a question in the narrator’s mind as to its significance. Thestory was a curious incident of his medical career.
One evening after an exhausting daywith patients, Mitchell had got into his dressing gown and retired with a bookto rest. After reading for a few minutes, he dozed. He was awakened by theviolent ringing of his front doorbell. When the maid did not answer it, hearose and went to the door himself. There he found a little girl, thinly cladand plainly in distress. Without waiting to be accosted, she said: “It’s mymother – she’s very sick, sir. Won’t you come, please?”
The night was cold with snow whirlingand drifting before a bitter wind. Dr. Mitchell was very tired. He expostulatedwith the child and suggested that there were other doctors at the localhospital. Besides, she was a stranger to him. But the little messenger wouldnot be put off; there was something in the way she spoke that caused the doctorto relent. Bidding her wait in the warm front hall, he got into his clothingand great-coat and followed her.
He found the mother ill with a violentform of pneumonia. If my recollection is correct, she turned out to be an oldservant of the doctor’s. At any rate, Dr. Mitchell quickly telephoned for theproper medical help. Later, while sitting by the bedside, he complimented thesick woman on the intelligence and persistence of her little daughter. “But mydaughter died a month ago!” cried the woman weakly. “Her shoes and shawl are inthat little cupboard.”
Dr. Mitchell, amazed and perplexed,opened the cupboard door and saw the exact garments worn by the little girl whohad brought him tither. The clothing was warm with the room’s warmth and couldnot possibly have been out in the cold and snow of that wintry night. “Not thatI hold any brief for ghosts,” he concluded in recounting the incident, “butthere you are!”
It seems that George Cherrie gotsuckered. This is, of course, a version of the venerable “Ghost in Search of Help” urban legend. As Joe Nickell has noted, “a book byBilly Graham contains a remarkably similar story, wherein the implication isthat the little girl in the tales is not a ghost but rather an angel” andreferences a Reader’s Digest story. Predictably, however, “Graham providesno documentation beyond the vague reference to Reader’s Digest, which in anyevent is hardly a scholarly source. In fact, I soon discovered that the tale isan old one, circulated in various forms with conflicting details” (Nickell2011). Indeed, in his Encyclopedia of Urban Legends, folklore expert Jan Brunvand (2012) notes that “Evidencesuggests that Dr. Mitchell himself sometimes spread the story, possibly as adeliberate hoax” (264). It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that a genialbut mischievous prankster accidentally launched a mystery when a little fib goout of hand and was later retold as avowed truth.
There is irony in the fact that thispioneering naturalist and self-professed skeptic would relate a well-worn urbanlegend as ostensible fact. Elsewhere inDark Trails, Cherrie recounts seemingly supernatural stories recounted tohim by others during his travels, though Cherrie seems to lend this story muchcredence – after all, Mitchell was a respected doctor. (Though Cherrie exhibitsrespect for other cultures and seemingly primitive tribes he encountered on hisjourneys, there is a perhaps inescapable sense that an improbable ghost storywould be more believable to Cherrie when related by a Caucasian British doctorthan, say, a Brazilian peasant farmer.)
Cherrie, to his credit, tacitly acknowledges that he has no firsthand knowledge of the veracity of Mitchell’s “strange story,” one “that he is said to have related many times himself.” Nevertheless, he clearly takes Mitchell’s anecdote at face value in offering itas evidence of an encounter with the supernatural – complete with the classicpseudo-skeptical rejoinder: “Not that I hold any brief for ghosts, but there you are!”
It’s a good lesson for skeptics to question all extraordinary claims – not only from those with whom we may disagree or who may hold a different worldview, but also those whom we consider friends. An ounce of undue credibility can easily become a pound of mystery when compounded and spread by well-meaning but unskeptical folks.
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