The Million Dollar Challenge

[danieljuk]

someone I know who is an alternative health practitioner wanted to take up that challenge. She applied and went through it all. It's really a big excuse for sceptics to use as an example that things can't really be true. They wouldn't give in to her requests in the experiment (she agreed to all their requests) and kept putting off the actual date to do it. She thinks it's almost impossible for it to happen, only if there is big media interest and everything is on their terms! It's all set for the person tested to fail, if the experiment happens.

A few other people like psychics and others have written online about it's almost impossible for the challenge to occur, everything from the foundation is against you! Worth a search sometime for people's stories on google. So these days I am sceptical about the sceptical challenge! it's unfair on our side of the challenge

 

[minotaur]

These skeptics are a joke. Let's look a bit deeper.

James Randi is of course not his real name, nor is he a scientist. His name is James Zwinge and he is a high school drop-out from Canada.

If you dig a bit you can find old newspaper articles from when he was trying to be a fake psychic on stage. He failed at that. He did discover his niche when he failed at being a stage psychic...exposing phonies like himself. He is nothing if not practical.

His first attempt at something scientific went about as well as could be expected from a high-school dropout know-it-all.

http://cura.free.fr/xv/14starbb.html

His other "scientific" attempts have also been equally pathetic.

His personal integrity is extremely questionable. He met his life partner while his partner was a student. After knowing him for a year suddenly his partner had a new name and identity, complete with no pesky immigration problems.

About ten years later it was discovered his partner was using a stolen ID. Randi, who knew this guy for a year under one name suddenly was fine with a whole new ID and we are to believe he knew nothing about this felony.

Randi has retired and the mantle has been taken up by a real scientist...whoops. Turns out the new fellow is another stage magician/fake psychic who uses this for promotional purposes. This is a fellow whose degree is in theater.

Skeptics are meaningless in the real world. They are mostly "magicians" who are convinced they are smarter than everyone else. They think because they are fakes and phonies everyone is. They can be safely ignored, unless you are looking for someone pretentious to provide you entertainment or bore you to tears with a card trick.

They are persistent and follow their faith and gurus much like any cult. I wouldn't be surprised if one popped up on this thread. Again, if you want head-scratching entertainment engage them. They are true believers in every sense of the word.

No one has made it by the preliminary test? Not a big surprise. No one has ever found the winning card in the three card game on the street and they even bend the corner for you.

When someone applies (you gotta fill out the form or they don't consider it a challenge) it becomes a topic on their boards. The crux of most of these discussions is the test and how it wouldn't prove anything even if they won.

But before you can do that you got to get to the test. Good luck. Read the application...it has more escape clauses than a politician would ever need. Bluntly put, they take the challenges they can win and blow off the rest.

Many years ago I wrote to Mr. Randi with a specific proposal. As one of their beliefs is the Barnum effect, that people fill in their own meanings in a reading, I proposed to test that.

I suggested they use a stock reading, one magic-y people use to convince themselves they are great psychics. It is a standard speil, essentially giving the same reading to everyone.

I suggested we test that. He has someone give a standard reading to some people and I give those same people an individualized tarot reading. We then do questionnaires to determine if there was a real perceived difference between the two.

He declined, saying it would be too hard to measure.

Soon after that I saw him on live tv crying if there were real psychics why don't they test?

I am sure that got more donations to his non-profit foundation, from which he drew a salary of $200,000 a year.

Not bad for a failed stage psychic.

 

[gregory]

The day someone can scientifically prove the existence of god, I will consider taking these "tests" seriously.

 

[ivanna]

Wow, great info thanks, all this is not on the wikipedia. I'm learning a lot here

 

[yogiman]

In answer to the lengthy post, I doubt whether those arguments about the validity of Mr. Randi are relevant. Ofcourse divination has been scrutinized by the scientific field of parapsychology, and apparently without significant results.

 

[momentarylight]

I think there have been many times in history where paranormal and miraculous activity has occurred and has been adequately demonstrated to have occurred. Particular examples are easily discoverable through such simple things as a google search.

It does not matter that everyone does not believe. Since faith is a very personal thing it only matters that individuals are able to believe what is acceptable to them.

Nobody has the right to convince others that they must believe anything. You cannot force faith.

But in relation to tarot - I don't believe there is anything exceptional or paranormal about tarot.

Tarot began as a simple card game, possibly in the 15th century. Over time the card game was co-opted by various occult societies and imbued with extra meaning. But it remains, for me simply a vehicle for symbolic language.

There is nothing magical about it. You can find systems of symbolic language throughout history and in various cultures. Symbolic language enables us to think differently and to see the world differently. That might seem magical to some but it isn't really .

I can make predictions and analyses on the basis of knowledge and the balance of probabilities that might seem amazing to someone coming from a different level of knowledge. In reality, there is nothing special about it. Or sometimes I might use my psychic gifts to do that but the practice of these gifts can be quite inconsistent and I would not insist that anyone believe.

I also happen to have a faith that exists independent of organised religions and other systems of belief and sometimes use tarot as a spiritual tool in the same way as I might use music, art and poetry. Or I might use other practices that are part of my philosophy but, again, these are personal and I don't feel the need to have them verified by unwilling sceptics.

No-one can really submit tarot to examination by sceptics or anyone else. Tarot is merely a system/structure of cards and symbols dating back a few centuries, overlayed through time with all sorts of ideas and meaning that are often quite personal.

People might submit their claims to psychic gifts or prediction through the use of tarot cards but both claims are quite separate from tarot itself.

Tarot is NOT a system of belief, by the way. Tarot is merely a pack of cards.

 

[ravenest]

If in all these years no one has made it past the preliminary test ... what does this tell you?

That it is like many things that offer you a seemingly great outcome. Wish I could remember now ... once this guy got them fair and square and of course they then fudged it and moved the goal posts (hmmmm sounds like my court case against the government ... Iam sure THEY will end up with the million dollars and not me ... all I will be left with is the '$80 doctor bill' (which will actually be more like $ 300,000 in legal fees).

Moving the goals posts here is another example (hold on to your hats folks ravenest is about to open up some nasty smelly fish right on the kitchen table ... but its in my house so don't panic )

Australia has a long history of racism, we used to have the 'White Australian Policy' (and its related board game - serious ! ). Didn't let you in if you were black ... or even a bit dark. Northern light Italians got in easy but darker southern Italian didn't. If someone (official) wanted to block an applicant (too 'ethnic' ... they had a much worse word back then) they had to pass a language test .

There was a case of two dark Italian gentlemen that they didn't want to let in ... except they spoke English quiet well ... the official came up with a novel solution .... he gave them the language test in Dutch and , of course they failed.

"Oh no ... it wasn't because they were too un-white ... it was because they couldn't speak Dutch ... in Australia

<hiding under paperwork and forms and forms in triplicate> " No no - no racists in here ... just us Aussies."

 

[ravenest]

I mentioned already in another thread that tarot (or divination in general) is "moon-related", and science is "sun-related".

The moon curves, but the sun's rays are straight. And science is about straight linear thinking. Straight means definable, which with a stretch refers to the personal.
On the other hand, the moon is impersonal. The supernatural intelligence is of an impersonal kind, and is not interested in proving itself, or setting you at ease, or driving James Randi into a corner.

Most important is that the moon is about relationship, but the sun is about independence. Independence means objectivity and cold facts. Talking about relationship pertaining to tarot, there is a triangle consisting of reader, cards and querent. Now if you go to James Randi, there is you the reader, and your cards, but the relationship with the third one is lacking. There is no triangle, there is no circle of energy.

But every coin has two sides, though some more, and some less. Criminals find an easy target in the hazy world of new age with it's many mentals and desperados. So it is important also to use your brains, with both feet on the ground, in order to sift the wheat from the chaff. Uri Geller was able to fool several scientists, but he stumbled over James Randi.

Good post Yogiman

 

[Zephyros]

Problem is, I can understand where these people are coming from. I think it was Neil Degrasse Tyson (sp?) who said that science is true whether you believe it or not. Think of it, a man says the wine you're drinking was once water, shows you tablets written by his imaginary friend, tells you something like "yeah... so I've been dead these past few days... I'm also God" and the poof! We have Inquisitions, and dogma, horrible acts done in the name of imaginary friends... I don't really respect religion, the price is too big, and it would be a better world without it.

Spirituality need not entail the supernatural, and I am wholly in favor of even more exposure. Someone can find dirt about this or that shady organization, but bottom line, makes no difference. If more false claoms are exposed, maybe then people will stop looking for a supernatural savior and start dealing with the important world problems.

 

[ravenest]

The thing is there aren't just two solutions or answers ... it isn't just science or religion ... or material world and imagination or fact or fiction or natural or supernatural ...all dualistic solutions IMO

There is a third realm /world ; the daimonic ... it has its own reality ... it 'intrudes' into physical reality ... it cant be proved OR FALISFIED by science ... yet it intrudes into science and the material world and for some, into their normally rational and material lives (we laugh at them, don't believe them doubt them, say its their imagination, 'Venus' or swamp gas and or they are crazy ... but many aren't ... they are rational normal people until the day of the 'intrusion' and they are convinced and sometimes their witnesses that it really did happen!) Actually the further science goes the less it becomes like science and the more like the principles that regulate the daimonic world (read some string theory ... crazy outrageous pseudo Cabbalistic symbolic stuff ! ( Multiple universes 7 levels hidden 3 revealed (like the daimaonic world it works on permutations of formula, in versions and reversals) particles with 'personalities' and abstract 'mood' etc. ... and this is science ... it makes me