In this weeks show we chat to everyones favourite magician and seeker of paranormal-proof, ‘The Amazing’ James Randi. James is well known throughout the United States for shedding light on con-men and women that claim to posses paranormal gifts. One of his most famous cases, of which he has written a book, is Uri Geller who, as you’ll hear in the show, still manages to maintain a successful career even after numerous ‘outings’ by the likes of James.
In this interview we discuss James’s million-dollar reward for proof of the paranormal, Oprah Winfrey’s belief in ‘The Secret’ (or Magick for housewives, as it should be titled), rouge faith-healers, Johny Carson, the Large Hadron Collider and why people need to believe in quackery!
Also in this episode, Out There Radio and DisInfoCast host Raymond Wiley stops by to make an announcement, including some exciting news for some of the Sitting Now crew.
We finally get Claire on the show with her ‘Weird Weekly News’, and we discuss all the latest features and articles on the site.
Music this week comes courtesy of Kylesa and their amazing tune Hallow Severer from the album Time Will Fuse Its Worth, thanks to those guys for giving us permission to play the track and buy the album, it’s great!
Enjoy!
Official James Randi Biography:
James Randi has an international reputation as a magician and escape artist, but today he is best known as the world’s most tireless investigator and demystifier of paranormal and pseudoscientific claims.
Randi has pursued “psychic” spoonbenders, exposed the dirty tricks of faith healers, investigated homeopathic water “with a memory,” and generally been a thorn in the sides of those who try to pull the wool over the public’s eyes in the name of the supernatural.
He has received numerous awards and recognitions, including a Fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in 1986.
On October 19, 1993, the PBS-TV “NOVA” program broadcast a one-hour special dealing with Randi’s life work, particularly with his investigations of Uri Geller and various occult and healing claims being made by scientists in Russia.
He is the author of numerous books, including The Truth About Uri Geller, The Faith Healers, Flim-Flam!, and An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural. His lectures and television appearances have delighted – and vexed – audiences around the world.
“We may disagree with Randi on certain points, but we ignore him at our peril.”
-Carl Sagan
In 1996, the James Randi Education Foundation was established to further Randi’s work. Randi’s long-standing challenge to psychics now stands as a $1,000,000 prize administered by the Foundation. It remains unclaimed.
A pseudoskeptic debunking pseudoscience…how ironic.
Of course his “prize” remains unclaimed. If you read the requirements to win it, it’s damn near impossible. Respected and experienced scientists don’t even meet that criteria with their research.
I didn’t think the testing protocols were anything that difficult. Typical double blind testing and close scrutiny and observation. If it was that difficult the dozens who tried and died wouldn’t have given it the effort.
I will give my house and car to the first person who performs a miracle or psychic event I can’t debunk in my presence. “Miracles” are for the gullible and I salute Randi’s work.
I am the one that debunked the faith-based unicorn breeding program funded by the Bush administration.
i’m quite interested still in how ‘Magick’ would be tested for the challenge…
Of course, you realize that CSICON (the Committee for Surrealist Investigations of Claims of the Normal) has offered a similar prize to anyone who can prove the existence of the “average man” or an “ordinary day.” Their prize, also, remains unclaimed.
lol, yeah Wilson used to mention that a lot
Robert Anton Wilson, in his excellent “The New Inquisition” written 30+ years ago, exposed Randi and his CSICOP pals , as the nasty bunch of “fundamentalist materialists” they are.
They aren’t open minded skeptics interested in evidence. They are closed minded idealogues who “know” paranormal phenomena doesn’t exist ’cause their rigid view of reality says it can’t !
They are nasty, because they have a history of stepping way beyond the bounds of civil debate into the realm of pograms and persecution of those brave scientists who dare to investigate paranormal phenomena such as ESP, with an open mind, instead of a debunking one. CSICOP has sponsored persecutory campaigns to have such scientists removed from positions at Universities, demoted, fired, denied tenure, etc.
It’s interesting CSICOP, the Committee for the Scientific INVESTIGATION of Claims of the Paranormal, seems to be so dead set against actual scientific investigation of such phenomena! Investigate, and you risk being be persecuted by Randi’s gang! Especially if your data suggests such phenomena may be real. They’ll scream “faulty methodology! Fraud! Incompetence! Pseudo-Science”!
Their definition of “investigation” is to debunk, denounce, denigrate, and persecute actual investigators! What a sad bunch of zealots.
Randi’s rigged $1Mill. reward for evidence of the paranormal where he’s the judge, the decider, acts as a smokescreen that diverts attention from ample proofs already on the record. There have been dozens of scientific studies by qualified scientists conducted under University auspices over decades that have successfully shown statistical validity of phenomena such as ESP. That is, results have frequently been successful way beyond what blind chance would allow for statistically. Compelling proofs are already established. The fact Randi insists on ignoring or denouncing such proofs from such studies reveals he’s a debunking zealot, not interested in investigation or proof.
Re. Geller, I believe Uri successfully sued Randi years ago for something like defamation, with Uri being awarded substantial damages, after Randi’s relentless campaign against Uri calling him a liar and fraud, and even (my favourite!) “a social disease”!
Amusingly, even Randi has admitted he himself has been mystified by Uri at times! Randi’s said Uri’s “VERY good”, and that even Randi doesn’t know all Uri’s methods. A trained magician-illusionist like Randi can’t figure out how the magic “trick” was done?? Just maybe that’s because Uri possesses some genuine abilities, and isn’t doing “tricks”.
Uri in latter years reportedly was making a good living map dousing for mining exploration cos., successfully finding metal ore deposits for them. If he wasn’t finding ore bodies, such a career would not have lasted the years it reportedly has done, surely. Word of failure would spread quickly = no more career.
He could only succeed, and continue getting new contracts, if he was actually delivering the goods, don’t you think?
I imagine the less-than-amazing-Randi was an admirer of fellow debunker, the late Carl Sagan. Sagan, a dedicated debunker, let the cat out of the bag once about what’s really going on with the debunker crowd when he said “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs”. Huh? In other words, no proofs of ESP, for instance, will ever be “extraordinary” enough to satisfy them, no matter how good those proofs might be! That’s because they “know” ESP is impossible, so all apparent proofs are automatically distrusted and denounced.
Far from being “extraordinary” claims, I’d argue telepathy is a very ORDINARY claim. That is, in virtually every culture/society everywhere in the world, throughout all of history and pre-history, things like ESP, precognition,
oracles, magic etc. , have been accepted as fact, often based on first hand experience, not blind belief. For most of history, such phenomena were virtually universally accepted in societies globally. It’s only in very modern times, a mere blip in time historically, that a historically anomalous subculture of denial and debunking has emerged that I like to call “fundamentalist materialism” (I first encountered the term in Robert Anton Wilson’s writings).
Contrary to Sagan’s assertion, it is fundamentalist materialism that is the “extraordinary” claim, a recent belief system, historically aberrant, adhered to by a minority of deniers and debunkers today.
Today, a majority believe in the things paranormal. A recent (’05) Gallup poll found 73% of Americans believe in at least one of a list of ten paranormal phenomena asked about in a survey. Only 27% disbelieved in all 10 paranormal phenomena on Gallup’s list.
[Wiki]: “Another survey conducted in 2006 by researchers from Australia’s Monash University sought to determine what types of phenomena people claim to have experienced and the effects these experiences have had on their lives. The study was conducted as an online survey with over 2,000 respondents from around the world participating. The results revealed that around 70% of the respondents believe to have had an unexplained paranormal event that changed their life, mostly in a positive way. About 70% also claimed to have seen, heard, or been touched by an animal or person that they knew was not there; 80% have reported having a premonition, and almost 50% stated they recalled a previous life.”
It’s apparent that paranormal phenomena are not just commonly believed in. They are also commonly EXPERIENCED.
Claims of the paranormal then are only “extraordinary” in the minds of fundamentalist materialist idealogues who have decided from the get go such phenomena are impossible and can’t and don’t exist — despite the evidence of billions of human experiencers today and throughout history, and despite dozens of successful scientific studies by qualified scientists conducted under University auspices over decades that show with statistical validity, telepathy demonstrably DOES occur!
The only extraordinary claim here then is the debunkers’ claim/insistence that all paranormal phenomena are bunk!
Small correction to prior post:
R.A. Wilson’s book “The New Inquisition- Irrational Rationalism and the Citadel of Science” was published 22 years ago in 1986, not “30+ years ago”.
An excellent account of paranormal debunkers like Randi.
Quite a wild little rant by Hermesacat. With all the energy he put into it, you’d think he’d leave a link here or there to verify his accusations. The only source given is to a poll of people who believe a paranormal event has happened to them. Great evidence of the paranormal Hermesacat. Shows your own standards of ‘evidence’.
To be fair to Hermescat, he does offer some interesting points. I can offer one in his favour actually. In the interview I ask Randi about Orgone energy and Wilhelm Reich. He dismisses the man and his work without actually really alluding to any evidence himself. Yet, there was some serious scientific research done on Reich’s work at the time, including Einstein, that seemed to point in Reich’s favour. Also, I believe there have been a fair few Ph.D’s conducted on the subject that the skeptical community has yet to really comment on.
However, I do agree to a point with the skeptical opinion on these matters. As a rule, most claims by people like Geller are testable, and nearly always ‘disproved’ when put in the correct conditions, so, from experience, you can see why constantly re-testing claims would seem a little bit of drag (and would thus create the often jaded response from them). I personally agree with Randi on this matter, I don’t generally tend to subscribe to ‘psychics’ and ‘mediums’ (as you’ll probably see from the lack of them interviewed on this show).
What I am truly interested in, is how science would test ceremonial-Magick, that tends to have a more unique, internalised effect on its practioners. If the skeptical community was to just dismiss this without either testing or justifying their outlook, that would annoy me.
Anyone out there know of any work done in this field?
Evidence:
Good books on Reich:
Corrington, S (2003) ‘Wilhelm Reich’, Farrar Straus Giroux, New York
Sharaf, M (1994) ‘Fury on Earth: A Biography of Wilhelm Reich’, Da Capo Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts
I would also suggest looking on ‘Athens’ if you have access to it for the Ph.D’s. I did have them bookmarked on my old PC, but have since reformatted that….good huntin’
Not to do with ceremonial magick but if you search online there’s Rupert Sheldrake’s google techtalk in which he claims empirical evidence of telepathy and the ‘extended mind’ as a natural phenomenon of the mammalian mind. Would be interested to see what folks think as he’s not claiming any ‘special’ powers for himself or his test subjects a la Geller. He talks about Randi and Dawkins in the Q&A at the end.
Hey man, don’t know whats happened with your username.. i’ll have a look into it for you 🙂
Cheers!
Hey, Ken & Co,
I’m catching up on back-issues of the podcast at the time, so I might pop in now and again to comment on various “archival” episodes. I noticed that there hasn’t been much activity on the forums lately, but I might poke around there as well.
Ken, as a fellow die-hard RAW fan, I applaud you for bringing James Randi on the show. I just finished RAW’s “RWYASN,” in which appears one of his early (earliest?) critiques of Randi and cohorts, and I found it refreshing to see a RAW fan who didn’t take his word as dogma. I feel that it does much more respect to the man and his legacy to put into practice his credo (“Think for yourself, shmuck!”) than to hold his individual opinions up as orthodox, without honestly examining their opposites.
Austin put it very succinctly, I think — Randi’s work debunking charlatans and con-men is admirable, but he’s trapped himself in a world where anyone who disagrees with him is automatically a “charlatan,” and his own beliefs are unassailable.