Michael Schmicker

Michael Schmicker is an American parapsychologist, pseudoscience promoter, and spiritualist.

Schmicker claims to be a nationally-known writer on "anomalies" and the paranormal. He is a member of the crank Journal of Scientific Exploration and discussed his woo beliefs on Coast to Coast AM. In an interview with Alex Tsakiris, Schmicker has said that psi has been scientifically proven.

In his book Best Evidence he has written that there is scientific evidence for all kinds of debunked woo topics such as ectoplasm, poltergeists, psychokinesis, and reincarnation. He ignores most of the skeptical literature on the paranormal and takes anecdotal evidence at face value. Schmicker has admitted after his research that he believes 98% of alleged paranormal phenomena turn out to have a naturalistic explanation but the remaining 2% has real scientific evidence for the paranormal.

As a devout spiritualist, Schmicker has supported the crank views of Michael E. Tymn and has written that Leonora Piper and other fraudulent mediums were in contact with spirits.

Publications

 * Best Evidence: An Investigative Reporter's Three-Year Quest to Uncover the Best Scientific Evidence for ESP, Psychokinesis, Mental Healing, Ghosts and Poltergeists, Dowsing, Mediums, Near Death Experiences, Reincarnation, and Other Impossible Phenomena That Refuse to Disappear (2002)
 * The Gift: ESP, the Extraordinary Experiences of Ordinary People (2002)
 * The Universe Wants to Play: The Anomalist 12: A Nonfiction Anthology (2006)
 * The Listener (2010)