Proof of Life After Death!!

[Robin1]

Love the Dr Suess refrain

: )

 

[Robin1]

No. You do not. This is an absolute fact, indisputable, irrefutable, and undeniable. You do not know all the tricks. There may be a hundred people on the planet who know all the tricks, and you and I are not among them, and even those hundred people do not know all the variations of all the tricks. This ridiculous claim on your part is the clearest proof there is that you are blind to your own limitations.

Tell me how I did the word guesses and you still won't know all the tricks. Tell me how Osterlind wrote President Ford's story on the card and you still won't know all the tricks. Tell me how Kellar told that actor in Hong Kong all those details and you still won't know all the tricks.

You can't even tell me those things and yet you claim to know all the tricks. I know hubris, Robin, and you exude it.

Define "exactly as you said." I left out nothing of import, but then again I left out everything of import. Do you need to know exactly how long I knew each person? The exact topic of conversation before the trick? Exactly who made the challenge to me and in what form? Exactly how I worded my instructions to think of a word? There is always something left out, just as you have left things out of the John Edward incident even if you haven't done so intentionally.

But let me set your mind at ease. I left nothing out of my description which, if added back in, would help you figure out how I did it.

Still, I will philosophize a bit, with a couple of details added for your benefit.

The first time I did it (the word was "Radio") was for my daughter in my home. Family is the hardest to fool and to do this kind of thing for because they know you and they know you're not really magical so they do everything they can to trip you up. Plus, since you've tried a million things on them in the past they know what to look for. One son of mine is not a magician at all (though he has done some simple mentalist feat himself based on what he learned watching me; and even with the simple tricks he has people swearing he's legit). This son is now a sharp-eyed skeptic who can spot cold readings and cons a mile off, far better than you, I wager, and he would never claim to know every trick.

After that first time, the people I did it with were people I had just met, though not just met that very instant. Rather, I had met them that evening in a social setting. I felt confident in my method for two reasons: (1) Doing the effect for my daughter had worked, and (2) I won't tell you this reason except as it is included in the next paragraph:

When you talk to professional magicians, and even more so to professional mentalists, a phrase that will occasionally come up is "The Real Work." By this they mean the secret to actual success both for a specific effect and for the show and field in general. Master card magicians, even when they are already at the top of their field, will spend hours a day practicing with cards. When they watch television they will have a deck of cards in their hands idly running through a hundred different sleights or a dozen false shuffles or two dozen card controls. Have you seen Penn & Teller do their Plastic Cups & Balls? It is a thing of beauty. I guarantee that Teller ran through the technical aspects of that trick for a thousand hours before he dared present it the first time to an audience. Mentalists who use props will spend the same thousand hours working with their equipment before daring to put it in front of some one.

Yet none of those thousands of hours of necessary practice represent the real work. The Real Work is in the set-up and the control. Not something physical, not something quantifiable, but simply the performer's ability to manage the situation and the spectator, to build the audience's desire for him to succeed and not to fail, to know that this person and not that person is more suited for this type of effect, to know that saying "and" instead of "but" in an apparently off-hand sentence will double the odds that the volunteer will pick this card and not that card.

You didn't go to John Edward's performance wanting him to fail; you went wanting him to succeed. You did half his work for him. You may have retained some doubt at first, but as soon as he threw a line in the form of "an ST sound" into your group, you were hooked and made sure you were first to grab the rope. By that time it didn't matter if you had answered no to his question about the refrigerator because you wrapped that rope around both wrists and were begging him to reel you in. If you had said "no" he would have tried something else (actually, about one different something per second if I recall correctly) until you latched on to it or someone else in your group latched on to it. The fact that you answered "yes" is meaningless in regard to the method; he was prepared for "no," as well.

Talk to a hundred professional magicians (or even amateurs like me) and 95 of them will tell you about the miracles they have performed, unplanned. I've got the same one that at least three others I know have: I was doing a card trick that was planned as basically a simple pick-a-card-and-I'll-find-it effect, but after the person shuffled I dealt off the first four cards from the top of the deck: all four Aces. Ta Da! A Miracle! An Impossible Miracle! Of course I played it as if that were the effect all along although in reality I was more surprised than he was.

You got taken, Robin, not because you're not as smart as we are, but because you wanted to be taken and because John Edward is good enough to do it. The fact you think you are unfoolable makes it all the more easy for him.


ETA: As an example of what I mean by "variations on all the tricks," I will point out the principle behind Bryn Reynolds' method of discerning which hand holds a small object is exactly the same principle as I use in predicting which state quarter someone will choose. In practice, they do not look remotely alike, and even I did not realize they are the same principle until a long time after reading Bryn's method, but they are.

There are actually very few new methods that ever arise, but there are thousands of variations on the same old ones.

What I should have said...and I stand by this, is I know every trick a fake MEDIUM could use. If you don't agree, then give me an example of a trick you think I am not accounting for with regard to a medium. And if you do come up with something I didn't account for, I WILL reevaluate my JE experience with regard to that.
And, I still am dying to know if you indeed simply guessed the word correctly all 3X?
And if you don't tell me, I want you to know that you are affecting my children and you should feel guilty about that. They actually missed the bus this morning. Why? Because their crazy Mommy wanted to play the "guess what word I wrote down" game. Pick a word any word! And no, I could not guess any of their words and I threw out a gazillion guesses. My eldest son wrote down his name. Middle son wrote down "pie" and youngest wrote down "duckling."
Yet I can imagine there would be tricks to accomplish this just as there are tricks a medium could use. I am simply curious, really curious, if you truthfully just guessed all 3 words. And remember, if you don't answer, my children will absolutely miss the bus again. Of that, I am 100% confident.

 

[xterra]

Robin,

Don't blame Garrette for your decision to play that game.

Blame John Edward; he is the one that got you into this "fine mess," to quote an old Laurel & Hardy film title.

 

[Stray Cat]

Thanks, Garrette, for another interesting post.

As I read it, it strikes me that JE and others who have made it as far as he has HAVE been practicing countless hours, just like Penn & Teller.

I think if JE had been practicing it for countless hours, he'd be a lot better at it than he is. I always thought the same about Geller... A bit more practice and he too could have been good (EDIT: actually "good" isn't the right word).
Fact is when you're preaching to the choir, you don't have to be good at performing as long as the message is the one the choir want to eagerly suck up. Doing "magic" for believers is much easier than doing tricks for sceptics.

 

[Stray Cat]

This:

What I should have said...and I stand by this, is I know every trick a fake MEDIUM could use.

Is directly contradictory to this:

... And, I still am dying to know if you indeed simply guessed the word correctly all 3X?
...
Yet I can imagine there would be tricks to accomplish this just as there are tricks a medium could use.

As Garrette is not a medium and yet he can use a trick that you don't know, to make it look like he's a medium.

 

[Robin1]

Since you are, surprisingly, still here, perhaps you would deign to explain what, if anything, you would accept as "discrediting" JE.

This is all Carlitos's fault.

 

[Robin1]

This:

Is directly contradictory to this:


As Garrette is not a medium and yet he can use a trick that you don't know, to make it look like he's a medium.

No, Garrette's trick makes him look merely like a psychic. Not a medium. The difference is key.

 

[Pixel42]

Since you are, surprisingly, still here, perhaps you would deign to explain what, if anything, you would accept as "discrediting" JE.

This is, of course, the big difference between sceptics and true believers: any sceptic can specify exactly how JE could convince them he is genuine - indeed the fact that he flatly refuses to do something which would be trivially easy if he was genuine is itself pretty compelling evidence that he's a fraud - yet believers can never say what would convince them of the opposite.

In fact, of course, failing a fair test should convince them he's a fraud just as passing one would convince a sceptic he's genuine. But even if he could be forced to take one (obviously he'd never take one of his own free will) the true believers will still find some way of explaining away his failure, just as all the applicants for the MDC do.

 

[Garrette]

No, Garrette's trick makes him look merely like a psychic. Not a medium. The difference is key.

No. The difference is one of trappings and not of substance. Your inability to see that is one of the reasons you fell for it.

But let's accept that you are correct. What Kellar did was absolutely as a medium. The information he gave was the kind of information any real medium with anything valuable to say would say (yet which JE is incapable of providing). You don't know how Kellar did it, ergo you do not know all medium tricks.

What I should have said...and I stand by this, is I know every trick a fake MEDIUM could use. If you don't agree, then give me an example of a trick you think I am not accounting for with regard to a medium. And if you do come up with something I didn't account for, I WILL reevaluate my JE experience with regard to that.
And, I still am dying to know if you indeed simply guessed the word correctly all 3X?
And if you don't tell me, I want you to know that you are affecting my children and you should feel guilty about that. They actually missed the bus this morning. Why? Because their crazy Mommy wanted to play the "guess what word I wrote down" game. Pick a word any word! And no, I could not guess any of their words and I threw out a gazillion guesses. My eldest son wrote down his name. Middle son wrote down "pie" and youngest wrote down "duckling."
Yet I can imagine there would be tricks to accomplish this just as there are tricks a medium could use. I am simply curious, really curious, if you truthfully just guessed all 3 words. And remember, if you don't answer, my children will absolutely miss the bus again. Of that, I am 100% confident.

This is the last I will say about anything regarding my method:

I was not 100% certain I was correct until the subject validated, yet I was certain enough to try, and (and this may confuse you), they were not guesses.

 

[Pixel42]

No, Garrette's trick makes him look merely like a psychic. Not a medium. The difference is key.

If he said it was the spirits of the dead who were providing him with the correct answers that would make him as much a medium as Edward, would it not?

The only difference between a medium, a psychic and a mentalist is how they claim to be obtaining the information. The mentalist is just the only one who tells the truth.

 

[Robin1]

If he said it was the spirits of the dead who were providing him with the correct answers that would make him as much a medium as Edward, would it not?

The only difference between a medium, a psychic and a mentalist is how they claim to be obtaining the information. The mentalist is just the only one who tells the truth.

No, that is not the only difference. All mediums are psychics, BUT not all psychics are mediums. And no, a psychic claiming to be a medium who could only tell me words I wrote down on a piece of paper (even if he said my Dad told him the words) would in no way prove to me he was a medium. But, I would get a good laugh out of it.

 

[Pixel42]

All mediums are psychics, BUT not all psychics are mediums.

Irrelevant.

Please answer my first question. If Garrette pretended he was getting his answers from your dead father just as Edward pretended he was getting the information about your new refridgerator from your dead father would that not make him a medium?

 

[Resume]

No that is not the only difference. All mediums are psychics, BUT not all psychics are mediums.

Here's something funny. Neither exist. Yet, they're both cons.

 

[Robin1]

Here's something funny. Neither exist. Yet, they're both cons.

Even if they both don't exist, a person still needs to understand the correct meaning of both and the difference when trying to accurately debate the subject.
And I haven't forgotten about your question about my agenda, Resume, I actually have been looking for an old post where I answered a similar question in detail. Will repost when I find it.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Robin, watch the trick done with Jodie Kidd from 2:02 on this video, it's only a couple of minutes long:



Now imagine that, rather than presenting it in the manner of "you're telling me it's..." he'd been saying "he's telling me it's", referring to a deceased family member of the subject. Are you seriously telling me that you can see a huge difference between that and claiming to be a medium? If you can, then please can you clarify exactly what that difference is?

 

[Resume]

Even if they both don't exist, a person still needs to understand the correct meaning of both and the difference when trying to accurately debate the subject.

Semantically you're correct, but only in the sense in how they take your money.

 

[Pixel42]

Even if they both don't exist, a person still needs to understand the correct meaning of both and the difference when trying to accurately debate the subject.

Please read what I said again:

The only difference between a medium, a psychic and a mentalist is how they claim to be obtaining the information

Can you see that I did not, in fact, say that psychics and mediums were the same thing? I said that they get their information in different ways, so I've clearly stated that they are not the same thing.

Some people might think you were trying to divert attention from an important question by pretending a mistake was made when it wasn't.

 

[Robin1]

Irrelevant.

Please answer my first question. If Garrette pretended he was getting his answers from your dead father just as Edward pretended he was getting the information about your new refridgerator from your dead father would that not make him a medium?

See the rest of my post right above yours...1631.

 

[meg]

Robin, if we are here to learn, doesn't that mean it is important and good to learn everything we can? Particularly about science, mathematics and logic, - those fields which have forwarded the biggest advances in our human knowledge?

I mean, I actually rather agree with you, though for different reasons. I think we are here to learn, too. Though I tend to think about it more like this. We evolved to have these great big brains, it's a shame not to use them to their fullest capacity.

The sciences let us do that. In science, every new discovery builds on past knowledge. And every new discovery causes even more discoveries. We can say, "well, if X is true, then we ought to be able to do [thing that builds on X] If it works, great, now we know even more about X. If it doesn't work, then we know that our idea of what X is might not be accurate.

For instance:

• 1546 Fracastoro figured out that diseases could be contageous
  
• 1623 Caspar Bauhin devised method for classifying plants
  
• 1674 Leeuwenhoek described bacteria and protozoa
  
• 1717 Thomas Fairchild produced a hybrid by crossing dianthus and carnation
  
• 1796 Edward Jenner: first smallpox vaccination
  
• 1819 Shirreff begins series of experiments on hybridization of wheat
  
• 1881 The first hybrid tomato
  
• 1892 Iwanowsk discovered viruses
  
• 1928 Alexander Flemming discovered penicillin

And now, because of all these folks (and many, many steps and people in between) not only are many human diseases no longer life threatening, but now I can even plant in my garden a tomato plant hybrid that is resistant to tobacco mosaic virus, bacterial speck, and fusarium wilt (a virus, a bacterial infection, and a fungus). This is so cool! This is huge!

Because the Mesopotamians invented 0, binary code got figured out in the 1600s, which led to computers getting invented in the 20th century, which led to you and me having this conversation on this forum right now. How friggin cool is that?


What does belief in mediums get us, Robin? If this is knowledge, then what are the if/thens?

Since the Fox sisters first started cracking their toes and pretending there were ghosts back in the 1840s, thousands and thousands of people have sworn that they have the ability to talk to the dead.

In all these thousands of mediums in 200 years, why has no medium ever been able to say.. solve a murder case? Or find a missing person's dead body? Or channel Albert Einstein and explain some complex physics problem? Or talk in a language the medium did not know (but the dead person did)? Or talk to any of our founding fathers and ask them to explain how they felt about certain articles in the constitution? Or say Houdini's secret phrase? Or even just get Gramma's super secret yellow cake recipe?

NO ONE. NOT ONE SINGLE MEDIUM. IN 200 YEARS.

Whenever experiments have been set up that remove the ability for trickery, remove the ability of the medium to "fish" with questions, and remove the confirmation bias and selective attention of the receiver, the amazing medium power simply disintegrates. Vanishes.

That's the difference between knowledge and belief. Knowledge is constantly growing and developing. Knowledge is testable. Knowledge can be built upon. Belief is stagnant. Knowledge leads to more learning. Belief requires you to stop learning. And in this particular case, your belief requires you to intentionally ignore a vast amount of very real and very testable knowledge.

Which is not to say that mediums have no knowledge. They do. The skilled ones have a great amount of very real, very testable knowledge. And anyone can learn this knowledge they have. It requires, though, that you disregard the books they write at the height of their game. Instead, you need to read the same books that they did to get started. These are not in the paranormal section where you like to shop. They are over in the Hobbies and Crafts/ How to Perform Magic Tricks section. And there are more over in the Psychology section. These have titles like "How to Persuade People Who Don't Want to Be Persuaded" and "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" and "The Science of Influence"

Believing in mediums will lead you nowhere. Learning about mediums will gain you actual knowledge. You believing you know how to spot a fake every time really shows just how very little you know.

No one who actually knows a lot about this stuff thinks they can't be fooled.

 

[Robin1]

Please read what I said again:



Can you see that I did not, in fact, say that psychics and mediums were the same thing? I said that they get their information in different ways, so I've clearly stated that they are not the same thing.

Some people might think you were trying to divert attention from an important question by pretending a mistake was made when it wasn't.

Pixel please, you said it was the ONLY difference. It should have been clear to you that it is most certainly NOT the ONLY difference. It's Ok if you realize now that you worded it incorrectly. We all make mistakes.