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Randi is psychic

Why does he make a claim about Randi that Randi himself does not support?

:boggled:
 
I remember years ago reading an article by the British writer Colin Wilson.The details are a bit vague after all this time,but Randi showed him Dai Vernon's card trick,Out Of This World.It's a clever,impressive trick.Colin Wilson was amazed and said that it was up to Randi to prove that he was not psychic.Now that I come to think of it,it may have been an article in Omni.Perhaps Randi recalls it.
 
Vortigern99 said:
Let your bigfoot believe what he wants to believe. He's probably having you on, anyway, and if he isn't then if you'll pardon my outsider's critique, he sounds rather dimwitted.
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He does seem to be a sandwich short of a picnic.
 
dafydd said:
He does seem to be a sandwich short of a picnic.
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Nah, he may be a sandwich short, but he has cold fried chicken! AND chocolate cake!

Yeah, BF certainly isn't the first person from whom I've heard the "Randi is psychic" rant, only the most adamant.

As I said, it's not worth writing him off over it, but I sure wish I knew how to gently persuade him otherwise about Randi.
 
dafydd said:
I remember years ago reading an article by the British writer Colin Wilson.The details are a bit vague after all this time,but Randi showed him Dai Vernon's card trick,Out Of This World.It's a clever,impressive trick.Colin Wilson was amazed and said that it was up to Randi to prove that he was not psychic.Now that I come to think of it,it may have been an article in Omni.Perhaps Randi recalls it.
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[magical pedantry]

Out of this World is a Paul Curry effect, not Dai Vernon. It is wonderful, though, and ranks among the best card effects one can perform. There are many versions out there; Derren Brown does one in a spooky fashion.

[/magical pedantry]
 
You can't convince him

so, start agreeing with him. Either he will drop it or be very proud that he converted you.
 
So, Penn and Teller can do the same tricks, but he doesn't suspect they are psychics?

Ah, this isn't about the paranormal.
It'a about his personal reaction to the the manners and attitude of James Randi.

This is a rant, not a statement of belief.

Don't argue about the statement, just let him rant till he's done with Randi.
 
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Apathia said:
Ah, this isn't about the paranormal.
It'a about his personal reaction to the the manners and attitude of James Randi.

This is a rant, not a statement of belief.

Don't argue about the statement, just let him rant till he's done with Randi.
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It's funny. Immediately (like for 12 hours) after the performance, he was all gung ho about Randi, wanting to attend TAM, watching the youtube stuff, etc.

And then, I figured out the trick, showed him how to do it, and performed it on the kids. By the end of the following day, he was completely disgusted with Randi, and I'm not exactly sure why.:confused:

I don't even perform the trick around him anymore.:(
 
siddhigyrl said:
It's funny. Immediately (like for 12 hours) after the performance, he was all gung ho about Randi, wanting to attend TAM, watching the youtube stuff, etc.

And then, I figured out the trick, showed him how to do it, and performed it on the kids. By the end of the following day, he was completely disgusted with Randi, and I'm not exactly sure why.:confused:

I don't even perform the trick around him anymore.:(
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He does seem to have a personal fixation on Randi then

The one thing I fail to understand is how can there be people who do not see the obviousness of what Randi is exposing... but additionally, seem to have a personal thing against this gentle, good humored, well mannered old man. That just escapes me
 
Ron_Tomkins said:
The one thing I fail to understand is how can there be people who do not see the obviousness of what Randi is exposing... but additionally, seem to have a personal thing against this gentle, good humored, well mannered old man. That just escapes me
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I think when you become psychologically invested in an idea, you have a tendency to be angry at anyone who contradicts the idea, but you get really angry if the person doing the contradicting is telling you something you already suspect. It's basically blaming the messenger.
 
siddhigyrl said:
or so says my BF.

Despite my performance (now five times) of the trick Randi did at CFI World Congress, showing BF step by step each time how I do the trick.

BF thinks the onus is on Randi to show exactly how he does each trick, each cold reading, each thing he does to "debunk" psychics, etc.

Until then, he firmly believes Randi is the charlatan, pretending to be not psychic.:eek:
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Not an unprecedented situation when clever skeptics mystify believers by duplicating phenomena which the believers think require special powers. Aurther Conan Doyle believed (among other things) that Houdini accomplished some of his escapes by dematerializing his body. He persisted in this belief despite Houdini's many explanations that he was only a performer, and not a psychic. In fact, Doyle took Houdini's denials as evidence that Houdini had strong psychic powers, and needed to conceal them for purposes of maintaining his livelihood.

True believers believe what they want to, evidence to the contrary not withstanding. If your BF really believes that Randi is psychic, even Randi himself is unlikely to be able to convince him otherwise.
 
Besides, it is the kind of statement one cannot disprove. If you strongly believe that I liked the movie Austin Powers, and that all of my expressions of disgust and dark commentaries are nothing but "faking it because deep down I'm ashamed of admitting I liked the movie", then there is nothing I can do to prove you that it isn't so. In such cases, you let the person believe whatever they want. Wasting your time trying to explain them the truth of things, is, well.... a waste of time
 
Garrette said:
[magical pedantry]

Out of this World is a Paul Curry effect, not Dai Vernon. It is wonderful, though, and ranks among the best card effects one can perform. There are many versions out there; Derren Brown does one in a spooky fashion.

[/magical pedantry]
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I stand corrected,my memory failed me.
 
Dr H said:
Not an unprecedented situation when clever skeptics mystify believers by duplicating phenomena which the believers think require special powers. Aurther Conan Doyle believed (among other things) that Houdini accomplished some of his escapes by dematerializing his body. He persisted in this belief despite Houdini's many explanations that he was only a performer, and not a psychic. In fact, Doyle took Houdini's denials as evidence that Houdini had strong psychic powers, and needed to conceal them for purposes of maintaining his livelihood.

True believers believe what they want to, evidence to the contrary not withstanding. If your BF really believes that Randi is psychic, even Randi himself is unlikely to be able to convince him otherwise.
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Was it Richard Dawkins that called true believers rubber ducks? You push them to the bottom in the bathtub,but they always come shooting back to the surface.
 
What specific actions/tricks of Randi's is he demanding a non-psychic explanation for? If he were introduced to non-psychic means by which they could be accomplished, would that do the trick? Or is anything short of Randi saying "This is how I did it" not going to sway him?
 
siddhigyrl said:
It's funny. Immediately (like for 12 hours) after the performance, he was all gung ho about Randi, wanting to attend TAM, watching the youtube stuff, etc.

And then, I figured out the trick, showed him how to do it, and performed it on the kids. By the end of the following day, he was completely disgusted with Randi, and I'm not exactly sure why.:confused:

I don't even perform the trick around him anymore.:(
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I'm afraid then the rant isn't about Randi.
A somewhat superficail conjecture is that he got a bit ticed at being showed up when you figured it out when he hadn't.
One of those balance of power things, where the guy wants to keep the scale tipped in his direction.
But that's a superficial guess.
But I'm fairly confident now that it was a rant and that it wasn't about the paranormal, and probably not about James Randi.
 
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