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Mandrake wrote:Didn't Banacheck in his early days go through tests (The Alpha Project) over a period of time - and still hoax his way through?

He did indeed. This was back in the days when parapsychology was a joke. The tests were sponsored by an the head of an aeroplane manufacturer to find evidence of PK (note: not to investigate, but to find!). Banachek and Michael Edwards found that they could manipulate the situation just enough to gain an advantage. One example was suddenly needing an extra pair of hands, and selecting a cameraman to help. This was done because the cameraman was trained to keep his camera on their hands, but the replacement cameraman wasn't. Results began to leak and reporters tracked down old school friends of the pair. Despite their friends confirming that they were in fact magicians, the project not only proceeded but the researchers actually dismissed the reports. It was, as I say, a joke.

It wasn't until the late 1990s and the rise of psychologists who are also magicians that parapsychology has become respectable because the protocols are properly designed to remove experimenter bias and cheating.

Lady of Mystery wrote:For me, the whole idea that the results were based on a score out of five that the sitter gave just seems silly. A score like that is bound to be biased, who were the sitters in these tests and where did they come from? I wonder if the results would have been different if the sitters had been plucked from a local spiritualist church?

These sorts of tests a always nonsense and 9 times out of 10 are geared up to fail.

The impression I got from the wording in the article was that the psychic and sitter sat on the opposite sides of a wall and the psychic wrote a description of the sitter using psychic knowledge alone. This was done 5 times, and the sitter then had to figure out which of the 5 readings was theirs and only one picked the right reading, which when you give a person a random choice of 5 incomprehensible personality tests, matches to a 20% hit rate.

It's not a matter of how accurate the sitter thought the reading was, rather it was how many sitters could pick out their reading from the others. Anyone who has seen the Derren Brown personality test bit from his early shows knows that this is a lot harder.

-Stacy

Jordan C wrote:nobody has ever managed to pass the Randi test either! I wonder why

Oh, quite a few people have passed the Randi test. He has still managed to avoid paying them. If I was in his position I would do exactly the same. Once someone passes the test he moves the goal posts so he doesn't have to pay out. That is why no intelligent psychic wastes his time with such nonsensical and and farcical challenges.

It would surely be advantageous for all if a truely fair study into the sixth sense was to be carried out. Unfortunatly, these studies like that in the article are far from that and are often flawed. The sample size is often far too small, the results very subjective and the methodology is often geared towards disproving the existance of an ability rather than being an honest study.

As far as the rouge that is Randi goes, he will manipulate things as far as he can to avoid having to put his hand into his purse and pay out the million.

The truth of the matter is that none of us can say with certainty that these abilities don't exist. Quite amazing feats of intuition have been observed in the animal kingdom many times so the question should be is it possible that us, as humans with our highly developed brains could also possess some form of this intuition which could be perceived as a psychic ability.

We all have intuitive powers, some call it ' a gut feeling' , some call it by other names but most of will have had occasions when something doesn't feel right but are unable to say why. At other times we can know that something is right - it might be a change of job, a travel destination, a relationship but something which can't be explained tells us it's right. Tarot readers will mostly go with their instincts about the sitter, probably based on previous experiences, the 'body language', the responses, the vocal levels and phrases and base their readings of each card on those perceptions. The same cards for a different sitter will give different, but equally valid, results.

The tests referred to seem to be searching for evidence of telepathy which is a totally different thing.

I am delighted to see that Mandrake is saying the same things I did in my International Magic lecture. I hope I had something to do with that. We psychic gurus like to spread our wisdom and knowledge.

Mark, you have mentioned on a few threads of this type that there have been those who have passed Randis million dollar challenge. I am aware of one recent dispute but apart fron that I know nothing of anyone passing even the preliminary tests.

Could you please provide names of those whom have passed so that I can look up the relevant information.

This is not to start an arguement, I am genuinely interested.


Jim

I am terribly old and senile and can't remember all their names except one. His name was Earl Curley. He has now passed into the spirit world himself. He always used to complain to me that Randi failed to pay out after he won the test. In my capacity as a psychic reverend I should really contact him in the spirit world and see what he has to say about it.

mark lewis wrote:I am delighted to see that Mandrake is saying the same things I did in my International Magic lecture. I hope I had something to do with that. We psychic gurus like to spread our wisdom and knowledge.

To my simple way of thinking, this is the most plausible 'explanation' of what are sometimes referred to as 'psychic' happenings. Keen observation, whether concious or subconscious, will give us far more information than any words spoken. Readers of fiction were, and still are, amazed at the miraculous pronouncements made by Sherlock Holmes but they are all explained immediately as being the product of experience and observation. Police detectives in books, films and TV put events and evidence together piece by piece to figure out whodunnit; the Poirots and Miss Marples do exactly the same thing - not magic and nothing supernatural except in the sense that they are more than just ordinary 'natural'!

Mention of Earl Curley brings back a memory or two. Earl used to partake of the devil's buttermilk in very large quantities and I remember the time he got kicked out of a psychic fair for being drunk. He had quite a resemblance to Kreskin when the TV seer was a younger man. And the story I heard (I cannot verify if it is true or false) is that he had worked for Kreskin as a double in the great man's shows.

I have just done a search and there is a ton of references to Earl's battles with the Randi foundation. I do remember he was quite pleasant to me personally. Of course we psychic people need to stick together. He spent as much time chasing Randi as the sceptics spent chasing him. If he had asked me I would have told him not to waste his energy.

Oddly enough I have had top sceptics sell svengali decks for me. Some irony in that.

Mandrake wrote:We all have intuitive powers, some call it ' a gut feeling' , some call it by other names but most of will have had occasions when something doesn't feel right but are unable to say why. At other times we can know that something is right - it might be a change of job, a travel destination, a relationship but something which can't be explained tells us it's right...
The tests referred to seem to be searching for evidence of telepathy which is a totally different thing.

Indeed my good fellow and I am in complete agreement. My view however is that these so called experiments are nothing but a sham in the first place. Nobody is going to take seriously the findings of an experiment using such a small sample and such a subjective methodology. The paramaters are stipulated by those who are inherently sceptical and have little understanding of the ability that they're attempting to disprove. It would be similar to employing an umpire who's read a book but never watched the sport before.

to put the record staight however, I would like to stipulate that I, myself am a sceptic but I am eager to see a well constructed experiment carried out.

Having been at a couple of Paul Voodini's evenings where the participants range from very skeptical to total believers (I'm over there with the 'yet to be convinced' brigade!) something has always taken place which has not only been difficult to explain, it's always had a profound effect on many who were there. Whether these happenings come from within or elsewhere is open to debate but that's always our choice.

Mandrake wrote:Having been at a couple of Paul Voodini's evenings where the participants range from very skeptical to total believers (I'm over there with the 'yet to be convinced' brigade!) something has always taken place which has not only been difficult to explain, it's always had a profound effect on many who were there. Whether these happenings come from within or elsewhere is open to debate but that's always our choice.

Indeed, there is something profoundly human in the experience of being a participant even if one is a total sceptic. Whether the source is internal bio/psycho/socio/physiological working or something external it is still amazing.

I get very cross with grief being taken advantage of for profit (in any form, this includes trying to medicalise normal grieving processes) and I know that people on the other side of the belief scale from me agree with this. The problem in those cases isn't what is believed but people being crooks plain and simple, whether their methods are faking a psychic connection or using more prosaic scams doesn't matter.

I suppose what I am saying is: I'm standing in the "yet to be convinced" camp but I can also see how when practitioners are following an ethical code of "do no harm" there can be good work.

soveda wrote:I suppose what I am saying is: I'm standing in the "yet to be convinced" camp but I can also see how when practitioners are following an ethical code of "do no harm" there can be good work.

^This^

This made me smile: http://newsthump.com/2012/11/02/psychic ... c-ability/