12 September 2013

Psychic Fraud News - Episode 3 - Psychic Crime? - 12th September 2013

This episode was delayed due to some technical problems, it must have been the ghosties, and I know I said I would do 5 minute episodes, but with so much going on I chose to make this one longer. should do shorter mid-week episodes in the future, saving the longer shows for the Saturday/Sunday main upload. 

http://www.youtube.com/user/robertwlester?feature=watch
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The first story is why I am so against cult leaders and the like, whether they call themselves psychic, or not, it is largely the same, the difference is the term used and the faith held.

http://houston.culturemap.com/news/ci...
http://www.khou.com/news/Tipster-in-m...


The second story about ghost hunting psychics, it is common for quackery to be used, and if they get exposure, and as a result more money, they think it is fine to use simple trickery on the believers. I personally find it to be a scam, not unlike the Victorian spiritualist tricks that we of the same ilk, such as the Fox sisters and their bumps and bangs in the 1840s.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newst...

The final story, another scam, a con on the weak for cash, very common, selling nonsense for extreme prices, far beyond the average and fairly low prices of most alternative therapies and new age practices, but the desperate will spend their cash out of their desperation. 

http://www.postcrescent.com/article/2...


10 September 2013

James Randi - Secrets of the Psychics Documentary (Full)

James "The Amazing" Randi is the perfect mix of Science and Magic, a true conjurer of visual machinations that can fool our senses while, at the same time, explaining to us how our senses are fooled.

In my opinion this is the best example of a "human mind debugger", he gets right into the machinations of analog tricks and sees how our brains mistakenly manifests them as a possible reality. Randi also teaches us that illusion and trickery may be comforting to the human mind, but truth is far much more wonderful as it shows us the machinations from the chaos, the sense as well as the awe in both the tricks and the real world.

For several decades, Randi has gone on to expose hundreds of psychics and teach millions across the globe about how they could be fooled into believing in a system which could potentially make them vulnerable to trickery and perhaps psychical harm.

Randi is not afraid to go against popular opinion, as shown in his battle against so-called psychic Uri Geller in the late 1970's and early 1980's.
Randi has also gone against the bizarre practise of faith "healing" and contacting the deceased, and has exposed the cruel, callous and cynical nature of the people who claim to be performing "God's will", such as Peter Popoff.
Randi has also warned us time and time again about the fraudulent practise that is homoeopathic medicine and how it is essentially water solution, dished out as hocus-pocus medicine.

James Randi is the founder of The James Randi Educational Foundation, an organisation that attempts to bring reason to world by luring potential psychics into a trap, baited by a million dollar prize to prove their psychic "powers". "powers" here is a kind of vague term,as Randi knows, so the tests are usually on the so-called psychic's terms. No self-acclaimed psychic has ever won the prize.

Whether or not some form of psychic power exists is still an open question, however many psychics often do not properly gauge their so-called skills and instead brag about them, hence scepticism about such claims should not be so strange to their ears.

Unfortunately the vast amount of psychic powers they have seem to remove all self-esteem as many psychics are often uneasy about Randi's reasonable request and attractive million dollar reward.