Exploring Psychic Powers Television Show
Exploring Psychic Powers Live! was a television show aired live on June 7, 1989, wherein Randi examined several people claiming psychic powers. The show offered $100,000 (Randi's then $10,000 prize plus $90,000 put up by the show's syndicator, Lexington Broadcasting) to anyone who could demonstrate genuine psychic powers.
- An astrologer claimed that he was able to ascertain a person's astrological sign after talking with them for a few minutes. He was presented with twelve people, one at a time, each with a different astrological sign. The people could not tell the astrologer their astrological sign or birth date, nor could they wear anything that would indicate it. After the astrologer talked to the people, he had them sit in front of a sign that the astrologer thought was theirs. By agreement, the astrologer needed to get ten of them correct to win. He got none correct.
- The next psychic claimed to be able to read auras around people. The psychic claimed that auras were visible at least five inches from the people. The psychic chose ten people who had a clearly visible aura. The people were to stand behind screens and the psychic agreed that the aura would be visible above the screens. The screens were numbered 1 through 10, and people were selected whether or not to stand behind their screen at random. The psychic was to tell whether or not a person was standing behind each screen, by seeing the aura above. Since random guessing would be expected to get about five correct, the psychic needed to get eight of the ten right. The psychic stated that she saw an aura over all ten screens, but people were behind only four of the screens.
- A dowser claimed that he could locate water, even in a bottle inside a sealed cardboard box. He was shown twenty boxes and the dowser was to indicate which boxes contained a water bottle. He indicated that eight of the boxes contained water, but only five did.
- A psychometric psychic claimed to be able to receive personal information about the owner of an object from the object. In order to avoid ambiguous statements, the psychic agreed to be presented with a watch and a key from twelve different people. The psychic was to match keys and watches belonging to the same person. According to the prior agreement, the psychic had to match nine out of the twelve sets, but she succeeded in only two of the cases.
- During the program, another psychic was doing a run of 250 Zener cards, guessing which of the five symbols was on each one. Random guessing should result in about fifty correct predictions, so it was agreed in advance that the psychic had to be right on at least eighty-two cards in order to demonstrate an ability greater than chance. However, she was able to get only fifty predictions correct, which is no better than random guessing (Polidoro 2003:19–24).
Read more about this topic: James Randi Educational Foundation
Famous quotes containing the words television show, exploring, psychic, powers, television and/or show:
“History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember. All other history defeats itself.
In Beverly Hills ... they don’t throw their garbage away. They make it into television shows.
Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.”
—Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876)
“In my writing I am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas ... a cosmonaut of inner space, and I see no point in exploring areas that have already been thoroughly surveyed.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the twentieth century, and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press.”
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918)
“... when I exclaim against novels, I mean when contrasted with those works which exercise the understanding and regulate the imagination.—For any kind of reading I think better than leaving a blank still a blank, because the mind must receive a degree of enlargement and obtain a little strength by a slight exertion of its thinking powers ...”
—Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)
“We cannot spare our children the influence of harmful values by turning off the television any more than we can keep them home forever or revamp the world before they get there. Merely keeping them in the dark is no protection and, in fact, can make them vulnerable and immature.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)
“Their looks show that they’re for it:
Ash hair, toad hands, prune face dried into lines
How can they ignore it?”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)