(no subject)

[technoir]

Okay Phenomena has earned my viewership. I love a good magic act. I am a sucker for them. I love watching them closely and trying to figure out the trick and I am especially pleased when I have no idea how they do their trick. What I don't have tolerance for is supposed psychics who use the skills of a professional magician and use ti to convince people they are endowed with supernatural powers. These sort of charlatans gain my ire every time. There has never been a supposed psychic who could withstand a real scientific investigation of their claims. I wish it was otherwise. I wish there were special powers and real magic. i want there to be. We all do, but there aren't.

So i am watching Phenomena tonight cause well the show I normally watch is not on. They have this supposed medium doing his bit. He is very good at his schtick. Does the whole channeling thing, with the shakes. he reveals what is in the sealed box. I am pretty sure i have seen magicians do the same trick without the artifice of possession involved. Still he has a good look and seems very forthright.

he stands before the judges. Uri Geller gives him high marks. This is not surprising as Geller has claimed since the 70's he had special powers as well. Chis Angel on the other hand begins laughing. Angels hero it seems is Hoodini. Hoodini was one of the most vehement skeptics of the 20th century. Chris Angel apparently shares my distaste for the would be psychics of the world.

So Chris's turn to give his opinion turned into a new challenge. He pulled two envelopes out of his pocket and offered a million dollars of his own money if the guy on stage or Uri Geller could guess the contents of the envelopes. The would be Medium lost it. He charges Chris Angel cursing up a storm. They cut to commercial. This could have been staged as well but I hope not. It makes me happy to think someone will call these guys if they step out and claim things that just are not true.

The next act did a mentalist bit but he never claimed to be a real psychic. When Chris Angel made a point of it in the review the guy responded "nope I am no psychic." See i dont mind my sences being tricked when everyone involved acknowledges it is a trick. The would be spiritualists of the world are annoying at least and downright dangerous at worst. They take advantage of folks apt to believe in spirits and talking to the dead and often take them for money.

so i will be watching the show when i can.

Comments

[chinook-wind.livejournal.com]

I pretty much watched that by accident, and I had the same reaction -- hey, this is kind of cool. The "channeler" just struck me as way, WAY too much. The flailing and the writhing almost made me laugh, so I agreed with Criss Angel: comical. I also got the "staged" feeling from it. Like a Springer sort of show. Sheesh. I liked the Belgian guy, Jan, though. And the girl needs to get her patter better, because it was kind of obvious that she'd memorized her little speeches. Still, the knife trick was good. I wanted to know how they did it!

[monkeyd.livejournal.com]

My current hypothesis is that most of what people consider mediumship and "psychic" powers are, at the least, open psychological constructs, combined sometimes with physical training and control, piled up on top of illusion-craft. This is not to say that looking at them as real magick diminishes their psychological or physical utility, or impact, though. The human creature is capable of remarkable things within the finite constraints of the real world, but ultimately, there are finite restraints. One of the thing that most concerned me about the concept and bumps I saw for the show, is that I know Geller falls more towards the spiritualist end of things, and while I know, from his work on MindFreak, that Criss Angel is more interested in being known as a craftsman of the art, I did not know he would call folks on it. I may actually be willing to watch it now.

[slack-poster.livejournal.com]

I knew you were going to post this.

Oooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[technoir.livejournal.com]

whats in my back pocket then?

heh.

[technoir.livejournal.com]

it is interesting to note the best skeptics of the last century or so were all stage magicians. No one has yet collected James Randi's money.

[technoir.livejournal.com]

I liked the last guy. I know there is a trick to what he did but I have no idea how he did it.

[hapersmion.livejournal.com]

The One Ring?

I would have had to try to guess what was in the envelopes, personally. :) Hey, a million dollars, you might get lucky. Maybe I'd claim that my magic envelope x-raying powers would only work if I could take the envelope away by myself for a minute to attune my chi.

[technoir.livejournal.com]

if you guess on national tv and get it wrong, then you prove your claims of supernatural power are fake. I am willing this man has been paid to do his act in the past. Would you pay to go see someone you had seen proven a fake on national tv?

[monkeyd.livejournal.com]

Very true, but I think skepticism of the Randi variety dissmisses as unimportant some things that, while not directly measurable, are subjectively useful. As an example, although faith based healing does not substantially beat placebo, the psychological advantages provided by a mutually supportive community should not be ignored. Things which are useful to us socially and psychologically still have merit. Even if they are purely psychological constructs and social benefits, there is a net gain, and therefore something real in their use.

My concern with Randi style skepticism is that it is actively hostile to this type of benefit from these things, with the default assumption that since some people use these "illusions" to scam people, inherently, everyone who is using these "illusions" in a similar way is also scamming people. For most people, these practices, even though they are grounded in illusion craft, provide a social and psychological boon to those who practice *and* most importantly, a social and psychological benefit to those who witness or are otherwise a party to them. I suppose my key point here, and key exception to Randi style skeptics, is that the venom is leveled against anyone who uses practices which are grounded in illusion craft, without regard for the context in which it is used.

For those who are awfully fond of Occam's Razor, they often fail to apply it when it cuts against them. There is too much advantage to Jungian archetypes and psychology to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and religious, mystic martial art, and "psychic" practice have real, positive benefits that may not fit within the boxes readily available for scientific measurement. Although it has been adequately studied whether or not there is a science to such things, I think there is limited information on the sociology and psychology of such things, and I think this is where real advances in the understanding of the human animal can be made.

At this point, although I am a skeptic at heart, I evaluate any practices not just on whether they can be proven to be real, but rather for how useful it is to those who practice them.

I should probably take the time to actual pursue formal studies down this line of thought, though.

[technoir.livejournal.com]

Okay. This particular only bears a little weight. The social and psychological benefit may be extent or it may not be. The truth is it is subjective. They may feel lightened in mood in the short term to hear some would be medium tell them some dead relative says hi, but the reason for need of that comfort is still there. Your unresolved about the passing of loved ones and you seek external comfort to deal with it. The Medium on the other fells very well though because he has improved his bank account. I have heard of these flim flam artists charging as much as 5000 dollars to spend a weekend with them and talking to the dead folk.

Faith healers are far more dangerous. They tell you they can cure your ailment like say cancer. They play on you emotions and use some stage craft to cause you to feel elation and there by lessen your pain. Social and psychological benefit is over shadowed because the faith healer is taking money for healing you when your not healed. You may be in a better mood but that does not change the fact you have cancer. Many people afterwards discontinue their treatments because their faith is so strong. What a comfort it may be as you die that some faith healer has told you that your cured. If I find a faith healer doing this to someone I care for I may beat them to a pulp and tell them to heal themselves. Simply put no faith healer has ever substantiated his claim of healing when reviewed scientifically. Can they help with depression and the like? Sure. So can a friend who is willing to talk to you.

As to the positive benefit of martial arts I don’t doubt them in the least. Your doing something calm and physical. It is going to help you for purely non mystical reasons. They are good practices. The positive benefit of psychics though have never really been conclusively been proven beyond the sort of improvement of mood you get by being told something you wanted hear.

Randi does not go after the idle person who claims to have intuition to their friends. He goes after the guys who are making money off the schtick. The folks charging thousands of dollars to pretend to speak their dead family and friends. Folks getting money to offer up fake cures. Randi has left that prize up to anyone who thinks they can prove their claims. No one can because there is nothing happen beyond psychology.

[monkeyd.livejournal.com]

Of course I don't dispute that someone who is using stagecraft for their own personal weal exclusively deserves to get hit, and get hit hard. However, if a medium and their subjects are a party to a tradition of practice where cold and warm reading are considered a relgious or spiritual good, I fail to see the harm. Sure, you and I know such things are "a scam", but they enforce community, and help people reconnect to their lineage. I disagree fundementally that using the skill they have honed in cold and warm reading is any less actionable or objectionable than paying someone for a tarot card reading, and perhaps better, in some ways, as a good cold and warm reader understands and is very familiar with psychology. I'd pay to go see a counsellor, and if I get a stage show to boot, well that's just gravy, and *may* help the counselling process.

But to be fair, in re faith healing, if someone is in a psychological, social, economic or political situation where they elect access to the psychological help provided by a faith healer, then that is a net positive. You are intentionally confabulating where people stand, from a psychological, social, economic and political basis, when they pursue such treatment. Those who pursue such care are those who, for one of the above reasons, are under the impression that scientific medicine has nothing to provide to them. They are possibly wrong, of course, but that is immaterial, as they have already estabilished a boundry to care that they have not the ability to cross.

I think there are specific trainings available within faith healing, and mediumship, both trance and psychic, that scientific psychology can take benefits from. Jungian psychology itself depends on some information that has already been pulled into the mainstream from things that used to be the province of charlatans. The antagonism hurts, because these techniques could be folded into something that could help far more people.

[technoir.livejournal.com]

I am not going to say someone should not take comfort from their faith, but that is not what we are speaking of. But faith really wont make you less sick.

even if their is a cultural reason you would listen some faith healer(which in the 21st century modern world there is little enough examples of this)if you are committing suicide if you turn away from the scientifically proven means of treatment. if a faith healer convices you dont need it when they know they are not actually doing anything then they are damn near close to murder.

As to the thing that could be learned from these conmen and charlatans, well the community of reputable stage magicians will be glad to share the same techniques and with out the lie.

I think my problem with these people is the inheirent lie involved. I can tolerate a thief better than a liar.

[monkeyd.livejournal.com]

The best psychic mediums intergrate therapy methodologies into cold and warm reading in ways that most modern psychotherapists cannot do, in part because the disciplines have the boundaries set up by the skeptical community. The technique (warm and cold reading) is quite available, but without the integration, it is not as useful. Perhaps even the staging and framing of mediumship as something different from therapy (which it may or may not be) is useful in and of itself, but I digress.

Back to the big dragon, faith healing. I challenge you to find anyone who has pursued faith healing who has not been failed in some way by scientific medicine. The challenge with faith healing is not to get the faith healers to stop trying to provide some measure of hope to people. People can be very evil, and there will always be someone willing to capitalize on people who are desparate, and that is the wrong way to fight the battle. The challenge with squishing faith healing, or pushing it into the complementary treatment arena where it can be useful, is to find a mid-ground where whole person therapies integrate with symptom-focused medicine.

Of course, there is a special realm of torment reserved for those who encourage people to turn away from medicine towards something funky, like psychic surgeries. But in cases where medicine has a low success rate, like certain cancers, pursuing psychological assistance, even if it is something like faith healing, is constructive. When the condition for pursuing said help is abandoning standard medicine, then there is a problem, and that I cannot disagree with you about.

[technoir.livejournal.com]

there is a mile of difference between faith healing and prayer. I believe there is nothing wrong, dishonest or innapropriate in having your pastor(or fill in you religious leader here) sit and pray for your soul or aid from god(goddess....what have ya). yes that helps your moral and gives you hope. A faith healer will walk in the same room and pray loudly to god or speak in toungs or what have you then tell you god will fix you. Those are the ones i want to hit. first they give false hope. They hav ehad no influence on the outcome. They are just playing on your belief and desperation. i dont see it as constructive to give someone a lie to hold as their shield. give them the strength to face the tough fight. Dont feed them the lie and tell them they wont have to fight it.