Comité Para

The Comité Para, in full Comité belge pour l'Analyse Critique des parasciences ("Belgian Committee for the Critical Analysis of Parasciences"), is a Francophone Belgian skeptical non-profit organisation. Founded in 1949, the Comité Para regards itself as the originator of the modern skeptical movement. The group's motto (by Robert Rendu) is Ne rien nier a priori, ne rien affirmer sans preuve ("Do not deny anything a priori, do not assert anything without evidence"). "Comité Para" originally stood for Comité Belge pour l'Investigation Scientifique des Phénomènes Réputés Paranormaux ("Belgian Committee for Scientific Investigation of Purported Paranormal Phenomena") until it adopted its present name on 19 June 2014. Challenging paranormal phenomena began long before the foundation of the Comité Para. For example, in the 19th century the debate raged about spiritism and the existence of spirits. The illusionist Harry Houdini (1874–1926) is seen by skeptics as a debunker of mediums, and therefore regarded as one of the founding fathers of the modern skeptical movement. Discussion to form a committee that would regularly perform experiments with scientific controls to assess extraordinary claims originated in January 1947, after a group of academics was challenged to prove the validity of radiesthesia (the results were negative). The organisation was eventually founded by seventeen members including astronomer Sylvain Arend on 15 January 1949, and officially registered as an association without lucrative purpose on 4 June 1949. It emerged in part as a response to a pressing consumer protection problem in the aftermath of the Second World War: a predatory industry of bogus psychics was selling false hope to the grieving relatives of people who had gone missing during the war. The Comité Para tried to combat clairvoyants, astrologers, dowsers etc. American philosopher Paul Kurtz was inspired by the Comité Para to found the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal in the United States in 1976 after the debate around the Mars effect (that allegedly proved astrological influences).