Rise To Fame
By the early 1980s in Salt Lake City, Utah, Hydrick developed a cult-like following. He claimed he was able to use psychokinesis to turn the pages of books and make pencils spin around while placed on the edge of a desk, among other feats. Hydrick had also set up martial arts classes and claimed he could pass on the gift of psychokinesis to youngsters through special training techniques.
Hydrick rose to international attention through his demonstration of these skills on the American television show, That's Incredible!. The episode originally aired in December 1980 and was later repeated in 1981. He performed the pencil-spinning trick with the skeptical host's hand on his mouth to block possible air blowing (after the host suggested that he could hear Hydrick blowing). However, Hydrick deliberately readjusted the pencil beforehand so that it was as precarious as possible and so would move with the slight disturbance caused by his hands. He also caused a page from a telephone book to turn over, again, allegedly by telekinesis. James Randi awarded the program a 1980 Uri Award, later renamed the Pigasus Award, "for declaring a simple magic trick to be genuine."
Read more about this topic: James Hydrick
Famous quotes containing the words rise to, rise and/or fame:
“How will it be with kingdoms and with kings—
With those who shaped him to the thing he is—
When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world,
After the silence of the centuries?”
—Edwin Markham (1852–1940)
“A fallen tree does not rise again.”
—Hawaiian saying no. 2412, ‘lelo No’Eau, collected, translated, and annotated by Mary Kawena Pukui, Bishop Museum Press, Hawaii (1983)
“Celebrity-worship and hero-worship should not be confused. Yet we confuse them every day, and by doing so we come dangerously close to depriving ourselves of all real models. We lose sight of the men and women who do not simply seem great because they are famous but are famous because they are great. We come closer and closer to degrading all fame into notoriety.”
—Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)