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James Randi was a Canadian-American stage magician, author and scientific skeptic who extensively challenged paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. He was the co-founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), and founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Randi began his career as a magician under the stage name The Amazing Randi and later chose to devote most of his time to investigating paranormal, occult, and supernatural claims. Randi retired from practicing magic at age 60, and from his foundation at 87.
Uri Geller is an Israeli-British illusionist, magician, television personality, and self-proclaimed psychic. He is known for his trademark television performances of spoon bending and other illusions. Geller uses conjuring tricks to simulate the effects of psychokinesis and telepathy. Geller's career as an entertainer has spanned more than four decades, with television shows and appearances in many countries. Magicians have called Geller a fraud because of his claims of possessing psychic powers.
A séance or seance is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word séance comes from the French word for "session", from the Old French seoir, "to sit". In French, the word's meaning is quite general: one may, for example, speak of "une séance de cinéma". In English, however, the word came to be used specifically for a meeting of people who are gathered to receive messages from ghosts or to listen to a spirit medium discourse with or relay messages from spirits. In modern English usage, participants need not be seated while engaged in a séance.
William A. Nolen was a surgeon and author who resided in Litchfield, Minnesota. He wrote a syndicated medical advice column that appeared in McCall's magazine for many years, and was the author of several books. He died on December 20, 1986, at the University of Minnesota Medical Center from heart disease.
James Alan Hydrick is an American former stage performer and self-described psychic.
Zé Arigó was a faith healer and proponent of psychic surgery. He claimed to have performed psychic surgery with his hands or with simple kitchen utensils while in a mediumistic trance, therefore he was also known as the Surgeon of the Rusty Knife. During his operations he supposedly embodied the spirit of Dr. Adolf Fritz.
Psychic surgery is a pseudoscientific medical fraud in which practitioners create the illusion of performing surgery with their bare hands and use sleight of hand, fake blood, and animal parts to convince the patient that diseased lesions have been removed and that the incision has spontaneously healed.
Spoon bending is the deformation of objects, especially metal cutlery, purportedly by paranormal means. It is a common theme for magic tricks, which use a variety of methods to produce the effect. Performers commonly use misdirection to draw their audience's attention away while the spoon is manually bent. Another method uses a metal spoon that has been prepared by repeatedly bending the spoon back and forth, weakening the material. Applying light pressure will then cause it to bend or break.
Mentalism is a performing art in which its practitioners, known as mentalists, appear to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities. Performances may appear to include hypnosis, telepathy, clairvoyance, divination, precognition, psychokinesis, mediumship, mind control, memory feats, deduction, and rapid mathematics. Mentalists perform a theatrical act that includes special effects that may appear to employ psychic or supernatural forces but that are actually achieved by "ordinary conjuring means", natural human abilities, and an in-depth understanding of key principles from human psychology or other behavioral sciences.
Nina Kulagina, Ninel Sergeyevna Kulagina was a Russian woman who claimed to have psychic powers, particularly in psychokinesis. Academic research of her phenomenon was conducted in the USSR for the last 20 years of her life.
Milbourne Christopher was a prominent American illusionist, magic historian, and author.
The Faith Healers is a 1987 book by conjurer and skeptic James Randi. In this book, Randi documents his exploration of the world of faith healing, exposing the tricks that religious con artists use in their healing shows to fool the audience. Randi's expertise in performing stage magic and mentalism allowed him to easily identify the same techniques when used by con artists. Randi analyzes the methods used by A. A. Allen, Ernest Angley, Willard Fuller, WV Grant, Peter Popoff, Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, Ralph DiOrio and others, exposing their tricks. Popoff was dramatically exposed as a fraud by Randi on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Randi expended considerable effort contacting people who were supposedly cured by these faith-healers. He found there was a lot of disappointment and not a single verifiable case of healing. Randi describes the "calling out trick," the "wheelchair trick," the "leg-stretching trick," the "how many fingers trick," the "shotgun technique," as well as methods used to gain personal information about potential victims in the audience. He also describes methods used, often by mail, to convince people to make large donations.
Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions is a 1980 book by magician and skeptic James Randi about paranormal, occult, and pseudoscience claims. The foreword is by science fiction author Isaac Asimov. Randi explores topics which he says that scientists and the media are too willing to promote without skepticism and proper expertise.
An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural is a 1995 book by the conjuror and paranormal investigator James Randi, with a foreword by Arthur C. Clarke. It serves as a reference for a variety of topics within pseudoscience, the paranormal, and hoaxes. The Encyclopedia received generally positive reviews. In 2006, Randi made the work available free online.
"Secrets of the Psychics" is a 1993 episode of the PBS series NOVA, presented by retired illusionist and paranormal investigator James Randi. Also appearing in stock footage are Peter Popoff, Uri Geller, and many others. It contains historical footage of Randi's 25 years of testing claims of supernatural powers, as well as more current footage of his trip to Russia to investigate the people making paranormal claims there. Belief in the paranormal has thrived in Russia since the dissolution of the USSR.
Banachek is an English mentalist, magician, and "thought reader".
Telekinesis is a hypothetical psychic ability allowing an individual to influence a physical system without physical interaction. Experiments to prove the existence of telekinesis have historically been criticized for lack of proper controls and repeatability. There is no reliable evidence that telekinesis is a real phenomenon, and the topic is generally regarded as pseudoscience.
Joseph Francis Rinn (1868–1952) was an American magician and skeptic of paranormal phenomena.
Masuaki Kiyota is a Japanese psychic known for his alleged ability of thoughtography.
Willard Fuller was an American faith healer and proponent of psychic dentistry.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 Randi, James (1995). An encyclopedia of claims, frauds, and hoaxes of the occult and supernatural: decidedly sceptical definitions of alternative realities . New York, NY: St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 978-0-312-15119-5.
- ↑ Moore, Brooke Noel; Parker, Richard. (1979). Critical Thinking: Evaluating Claims and Arguments in Everyday Life. Mayfield Publishing. p. 179. ISBN 978-0874848410
- ↑ Carroll, Robert Todd. (2003). The Skeptic's Dictionary: A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions . Wiley. p. 314. ISBN 0-471-27242-6
- ↑ Neher, Andrew. (2011). Paranormal and Transcendental Experience: A Psychological Examination. Dover Publications. p. 171. ISBN 0-486-26167-0 "Tony Agpaoa, the most popular of the psychic surgeons, has several times been detected in trickery."
- ↑ Nickell, Joe. (1993). Looking for a Miracle: Weeping Icons, Relics, Stigmata, Visions & Healing Cures. Prometheus Books. p. 160. ISBN 1-57392-680-9 "Antonio "Dr. Tony" Agpaoa who, in late 1968, was arrested in San Francisco. A month later, on December 19, he was indicted by a Detroit grand jury on a charge of fraud in foreign commerce. The indictment stemmed from a Michigan steelworker's 1966 visit to Manila, where Agpaoa pretended to mend fractured bones in the man's neck. Later X-rays, however, revealed the bones were as before although the man (briefly relieved of pain by suggestion) had believed himself healed."
- ↑ Nolen, William A. (1974). Healing a Doctor in Search of a Miracle. Random House. p. 24. ISBN 0-394-49095-9
- ↑ Randi, James. (1982). The Truth About Uri Geller . Prometheus Books. p. 182. ISBN 0-87975-199-1 "Tony Agpaoa, one of the wealthiest men in the Philippines as a result of his quackery, had his own appendix removed — in San Francisco, in a real hospital."
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