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Smee
Joined: 24 Dec 2004
Location: Jeollanam-do
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 Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 4:28 pm Post subject: When James Randi visited Korea . . . |
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Didn't see this elsewhere . . . HT to The Party Pooper.
James Randi, who's often on TV challenging "psychics," came to Korea for the first time in 1995. From his official site:
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Nothing, but nothing, took place as planned. People would call, arrange to meet me, and never show up. There was little, if any, understanding of what I was there to do, though I'd gone into exquisite detail on the faxes. It took us two days to discover that the Big Producer, Mr. Kim*, had been misinformed; he thought I was a genuine psychic!
Well, that posed a major problem. I'd outlined 16 tricks-of-the-psychics I
would do, along with explanations. And I did them all at the production
meetings, to establish that they'd work. Everyone oooohed and ahhhhed, but Kim was quite troubled. He finally announced that I would wear a silver
robe and hat, and declare it all to be the real thing. I counter-announced
that I'd do no such thing, and he could only get that costume onto my
corpse. Kim suggested that I say that some of what I did was fake, but most of it was real. I said no. He told me I could say that most of what I did was fake, but some was real. Nyet, nein, no, non. We were not at all happy with each other, and Kim kept saying that the Korean people like to believe that psychic stuff is real, and they would expect me to say that it is. |
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was supposed to have been paid immediately following the taping, but someone had forgotten to go to the bank. As I'd suspected for two days, they were going to try to stiff me for the money. Well, this old trouper didn't get into the business yesterday, and that wasn't going to work.
The next day, as usual, those who were supposed to show up at the hotel
didn't make an appearance. I wasn't at all surprised. We were taken to the
airport to await the money. Let me take you back to the night before, when I managed to discover (I have ways) that the Guinness chap had bank checks in the exact, correct and full amount, on his person. That same young man now sat with us awaiting a person who we all knew would never appear. He finally announced, 45 minutes before the flight, that he had some money for me, but that only half of it was there. Gee, what a pity. I told him that I would postpone my flight until the following day, and wait at the hotel for the rest of the payment. That didn't seem to be too acceptable to him, but he just didn't seem to know where he'd get the rest of the money. I suggested he look carefully in his memo case (where I already knew the rest of it was), and lo! he found it. I accepted the rest of my money, and we headed for the aircraft.
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More: http://www.randi.org/hotline/1995/0022.html
http://partypooper.blogs.com/partypooper/2007/01/randi_in_korea_.html |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 4:45 pm Post subject: |
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| If I remember, Randi was amused the Korean producer was highly skeptical of psychics... as long as they were foreign psychics. He did, however, believe Korea had the real deal and Randi would be very surprised. Psychic nationalism. |
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ED209
Joined: 17 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 5:44 pm Post subject: |
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I'm a huge Randi fan. Do a search on youtube for some of his lectures and his recent appearance on Anderson 360 and Larry King where he puts the boot into Slyvia Browne.
I love that producer Mr Kim, classic.
What was the SBS show he did later in 2003? Does anyone know where I can find it? |
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RACETRAITOR
Joined: 24 Oct 2005
Location: Seoul, South Korea
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| Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 7:26 pm Post subject: |
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Here's an interesting video I found on Jame's Randi's site a while ago. It's a Chinese psychic martial artist who can punch so hard that objects out of his reach will fall down. See if you can figure out how he does it. Let's just say it's way dumber than anything Uri Geller ever did. Randi's explanation is spot on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JYGqVA9xc4 |
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Smee
Joined: 24 Dec 2004
Location: Jeollanam-do
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| Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 8:37 pm Post subject: |
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There's a little bit about his second visit here: http://www.randi.org/jr/022103.html
Don't have any other videos or reports, though. |
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RACETRAITOR
Joined: 24 Oct 2005
Location: Seoul, South Korea
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| Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 9:18 pm Post subject: |
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| I would love to see the show he made for SBS. |
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JeJuJitsu
Joined: 11 Sep 2005
Location: McDonald's
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| Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 11:14 pm Post subject: |
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| RACETRAITOR wrote: |
Here's an interesting video I found on Jame's Randi's site a while ago. It's a Chinese psychic martial artist who can punch so hard that objects out of his reach will fall down. See if you can figure out how he does it. Let's just say it's way dumber than anything Uri Geller ever did. Randi's explanation is spot on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JYGqVA9xc4 |
I give up. Watched the vid, went to his site, nada. How did the Chinaman do it? |
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RACETRAITOR
Joined: 24 Oct 2005
Location: Seoul, South Korea
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| Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 11:39 pm Post subject: |
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| JeJuJitsu wrote: |
| RACETRAITOR wrote: |
Here's an interesting video I found on Jame's Randi's site a while ago. It's a Chinese psychic martial artist who can punch so hard that objects out of his reach will fall down. See if you can figure out how he does it. Let's just say it's way dumber than anything Uri Geller ever did. Randi's explanation is spot on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JYGqVA9xc4 |
I give up. Watched the vid, went to his site, nada. How did the Chinaman do it? |
Who's under the table? |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 1:35 am Post subject: |
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| RACETRAITOR wrote: |
| JeJuJitsu wrote: |
| RACETRAITOR wrote: |
Here's an interesting video I found on Jame's Randi's site a while ago. It's a Chinese psychic martial artist who can punch so hard that objects out of his reach will fall down. See if you can figure out how he does it. Let's just say it's way dumber than anything Uri Geller ever did. Randi's explanation is spot on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JYGqVA9xc4 |
I give up. Watched the vid, went to his site, nada. How did the Chinaman do it? |
Who's under the table? |
Exactly. Why that table cloth? Why put the brick right at the end of the table where a finger can reach up and poke it down? And the bowl can easily have a magnet glued to the bottom and then another magnet being slid moves the bowl...
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TWFdreamer (10 hours ago)
Don't call psychic and energy master stupid, they have worked hard for years to acheive what they have. Some are born with it, and others are fortunate to come across this path, like I have. Check out Monroe Institute, they have course to teach you this stuff. The choice is upto you. stay ignorant or expand your mind. |
Man. These are the kinds of people that fall for Nigerian Bank Scams. |
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Hollywoodaction
Joined: 02 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 9:03 am Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
| If I remember, Randi was amused the Korean producer was highly skeptical of psychics... as long as they were foreign psychics. He did, however, believe Korea had the real deal and Randi would be very surprised. Psychic nationalism. |
Yeah, I was disappointed that most of the psychics he debunked were foreigners.
On the flip side, many of my students did mention in class that they felt naive for not having known that Yuri Geller is a fraud before seeing Randi explain how to bend spoons. |
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RACETRAITOR
Joined: 24 Oct 2005
Location: Seoul, South Korea
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| Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 7:41 pm Post subject: |
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My wife remembers when Uri Geller appeared in Korea when she was young, he told everyone to go and get some electronic device that was broken. Her family got a watch or something, and then he did something and the watch started going crazy. Keep in mind this is through the TV, and presumably malfunctioning gadgets were going berserk around the country.
So how did he do it?
(Here's a hint: nobody else in her family remembers this happening) |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 9:13 pm Post subject: |
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| RACETRAITOR wrote: |
My wife remembers when Uri Geller appeared in Korea when she was young, he told everyone to go and get some electronic device that was broken. Her family got a watch or something, and then he did something and the watch started going crazy. Keep in mind this is through the TV, and presumably malfunctioning gadgets were going berserk around the country.
So how did he do it?
(Here's a hint: nobody else in her family remembers this happening) |
That trick is a numbers game. A certain percentage of people have an old watch that they get out, tap, and it ticks a bit. They call up the show. No one calls (or is let through) complaining it didn't work.
Here's a trick.
You get an email from me saying I've got a stock prediction program that can tell if a stock will go up or down the day before. To demonstrate I give you the name of a stock and tell you it will go up tomorrow. You check the next day and I'm right.
Next day you also get an email. I tell you this time the stock will go down. Sure enough, you check the next day and I'm right again.
Two more days go by and each time you get an email and I'm dead right.
I now offer to sell you this software program. You buy it. You enter the numbers, and it never works reliably.
How'd I get it right so many days in a row? |
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The Cosmic Hum
Joined: 09 May 2003
Location: Sonic Space
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| Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 10:45 am Post subject: hmm |
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Yeah...that's a good one...I was a financial consultant for 7 years...that story got passed around a few times...it goes something like this.
You get a mailing list(email list) of 20,000 names
Tell half of them that stock A will go up
Tell the other half that stock A will go down.
Now, you have 10,000 people who think you are onto something.
Tell half of them stock B will go up
the other half that stock B will go down
Now, you have the attention of 5000 people.
Tell half that stock C will go up
the other half that C will go down
And so on...
After 4 days...you have over 1000 people who think you are onto a sure thing.  |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 4:49 pm Post subject: Re: hmm |
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| The Cosmic Hum wrote: |
Yeah...that's a good one...I was a financial consultant for 7 years...that story got passed around a few times...it goes something like this.
You get a mailing list(email list) of 20,000 names
Tell half of them that stock A will go up
Tell the other half that stock A will go down.
Now, you have 10,000 people who think you are onto something.
Tell half of them stock B will go up
the other half that stock B will go down
Now, you have the attention of 5000 people.
Tell half that stock C will go up
the other half that C will go down
And so on...
After 4 days...you have over 1000 people who think you are onto a sure thing. |
Bingo. |
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Merlyn
Joined: 08 Dec 2004
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 7:08 pm Post subject: |
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Quote:
TWFdreamer (10 hours ago)
Don't call psychic and energy master stupid, they have worked hard for years to acheive what they have. Some are born with it, and others are fortunate to come across this path, like I have. Check out Monroe Institute, they have course to teach you this stuff. The choice is upto you. stay ignorant or expand your mind.
Man. These are the kinds of people that fall for Nigerian Bank Scams.
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There are enough of these people on these forums. Just refer back to the supernatural thread of a week and a half ago. Sad stuff. |
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