[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by joki

I think that G.S. studies are not bad, but still do not completely rule out cold reading. I was really surprised after I have watched the videos from professional mentalists. They could fake a lot of PSI phenomena. Even a name could be enough to suggest some information by remote viewing.

joki, professional mentalists cheat They aren't doing anything like what they claim to do. If you ask them to cold read (as mediums are supposedly doing) given the chance they will cold read, hot read or do whatever they can to be impressive. They are showmen.

Incidentally Gary Schwartz did challenge various magicians a few years ago like Randi, Hyman and other to cold read. I think Ray Hyman replied it might take a few years practise.

I have discussed this with George Hansen by some emails.

Joki, wasn't Alex looking for interviews? How about you or Alex interview magician George Hanson?

I recommend to study the work of Derren Brown or Criss Angel, who dismiss PSI phenomena. I think most important is to invite good medium and some sceptical magicians (must be sceptical; ?Derren Brown?) and bring them together in order to test the abilities. But this design could also fail.

Derren Brown isn't necessarily doing what you might think he is doing, even if is calling it 'cold reading' .... he presents it like he can pick up tiny clues or mentally influence people ...he presents it like he is using NLP or hypnotism or whatever ....but he is mostly using techniques a magicians/mentalist would use.

For example on the UK TV program 'Seance', Derren Brown used a video editing/camera trick to replicate an old style psychic claim He implied he could mentally influence a student in cabinet to throw a tamborine over a curtain without her recalling the event (presented like hypnotism) this was to demonstrate how mediums created fraudulent Victorian seance phenomena. But, as confirmed on magic websites (and at JREF – topic by 'pajboy') he used a video editing camera technique that can be effectively proven using a stopwatch (yes, a video editing technique was obviously very common technique in Victorian days ) Derren Brown in interview, not just on actual TV program implied it was a mental technique. That is magicians for you, if they are too honest the mystique is lost.

Incidentally, I read somewhere that Derren Brown contacted Richard Wiseman before making this TV program 'Seance'. Possibly because magician Richard Wiseman had done experiments for TV to show how easy it is to fool students in a darkened seance rooms. These type of experiments were done before Wiseman, around 1880s when another debunker Dr Richard Hodgson, also showed how easy it is to fool people in the dark ....

..... with one interesting twist in the story....around 10 years later skeptic Dr Richard Hodgson changed his mind and declared mental psychic phenomena was indeed a fact. This same medium also convinced Wiliam James, Myres and Hyslop

So who knows, perhaps Richard Wiseman will do a U-turn too? Don't hold your breath, doggy Jaytee tried