Setting the record straight

[Carol]

I AM GLAD that magician James Randi replied to my column of Oct. 24, 2006. (See PDI, Dec. 12, 2006) so we can set records straight and determine who is lying.

I shall answer his statements point by point.

1. Randi: ?I have never used the name (?The Great Randi?), even when I was residing in the Philippines and performing on the nightclub circuit.?

I admit my mistake here. The name he uses in his public performances is ?The Amazing Randi.? He probably realized he was not that great.

2. Randi: ?We offer a million-dollar prize to anyone who could provide any evidence of a paranormal event or ability, not just telekinesis, and have done so for 10 years now. Note though that [Jaime] Licauco claims he has paranormal abilities, but he has not applied for the prize, which he should be able to win easily.?

That?s a lie. I have never claimed to have any paranormal or psychic ability. I don?t know where Randi got that idea.

In fact, every time somebody asks me if I am a psychic, my standard answer is: ?No, I?m a psycho.? To the question ?Are you a mystic?? my answer is: ?No, I?m a mistake.?

Scientifically proven

But seriously, I don?t have to prove to Randi that ESP (extra sensory perception) ability (such as telepathy, clairvoyance and telekinesis) exists. This has been proven scientifically long ago.

Randi conveniently failed to comment on scientific experiments by Dr. Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne at Princeton University that proved that certain people did have telekinetic powers.

I mentioned these studies in my Oct. 24 article, but Randi conveniently chose to ignore them.

Before the Princeton University experiments, Dr. J.B. Rhine of Duke University in North Carolina proved the existence of telepathy in repeated controlled experiments beginning in the 1930s.

?One of the many students tested with the new Zener cards, a sophomore named A.J. Linzmayer,? as reported by Richard Broughton, Ph.D, in his book ?Parapsychology, The Controversial Science? (1991, Ballantine Books), ?displayed a consistent ability to guess cards better than chance?404 correct out of 1,500 where 300 would be expected by chance. The following year Linzmayer provided another 2,000 trials and continued to guess above chance.?

From 1970-1990, physicists Dr. Russell Targ and Dr. Harold Puthoff of the Stanford Research Institute (now called SRI International) in Menlo Park, California, conducted one of the longest experiments on remote viewing [known as traveling clairvoyance] under controlled conditions.

They proved beyond doubt that most people could project their sense of awareness to distant places they had never been to and describe them accurately.

I modified the scientific protocol developed at SRI but came up with similar results.

At the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, the late professor Tenhaeff investigated and documented the extraordinary clairvoyant and psychometric abilities of the peasant Gerard Croiset and was convinced he was a genuine psychic.

All Randi needs to do is go over the numerous scientific papers written about these phenomena in several countries including the United States, Canada, Germany and Russia to know there is such a thing as psychic ability and paranormal phenomena.

But I doubt if he will ever do that. It is much more sensational to debunk psychics in the media than do solid research.

On rule changes

3. Randi quoted my statement: ?When somebody comes up to prove telekinesis, Randi changes the rules. He always finds loopholes so that, in the end, he concludes nothing is proven.?

Randi: ?Again he [Licauco] is absolutely wrong. No change in rules has ever taken place, and all applicants who have been tested have attested in writing, that the conditions and parameters of the test were correct and acceptable.?

Here again the Amazing Randi is talking through his magician?s hat. In the 1980s, when the reward he offered was $10,000, he admitted to Dennis Rawlins, a colleague in the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP): ?I always have an out.?

Here is the passage from which the above quotation was taken, in the words of Rawlins himself, in the detailed 38-page expos? ?Star Baby? published in the September 1983 issue of Fate Magazine.

Rawlins wrote: ?Next Randi (and soon afterward Bob Sheaffer) tried to get me involved in new projects, i.e. diversions. As part of his effort Randi asked my advice on the Helmut Schmidt parapsychology experiment which some CSICOP?s had been investigating. I simply urged that it be approached with all the caution KZA had thrown to the winds in 1975 and 1976.

?He assured me how cautious he was in the testing for his well-publicized $10,000 prize for proof of psychic abilities (for which he acts as policeman, judge and jury)?and thus never has supported my idea of neutral judgment of CSICOP tests. ?I always have an out,? he said.?

Randi: ?Furthermore, as Licauco well knows?but failed to tell his readers?no conclusion is arrived at by me; that decision is entirely in the hands of independent observers.?

That is not true at all in the light of Rawlins? statement that Randi acts as ?policeman, judge and jury.?

Who then is lying?

http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/lif ... e_id=43574

[Carol]

Setting the record straight - Part 2


By Jaime Licauco
Inquirer
Last updated 09:55pm (Mla time) 01/15/2007


THIS is the continuation of my point-by-point reply to magician James Randi?s reaction (see PDI, Dec. 12, 2006) to my column of Oct. 24, 2006.

4. Randi: ?I have never said that Uri Geller was a ?fake psychic.? Geller never filed any harassment suit against me. In the one case he did file, he lost and had to pay $150,000 in sanctions.?

He may not have called Geller a fake psychic, but he certainly hounded him for years, saying what Geller was doing was plain trickery that he could duplicate anytime.

Let me quote Dr. Broughton again (from the above mentioned book ?Parapsychology?): ?The research on Geller?s alleged PK abilities has received severe criticism, primarily from James Randi and others with conjuring and sleight-of-hand experience. In fact, Randi has made something of a career as Geller?s debunker, having risen from relative obscurity to national prominence through books and television appearances in which he claims to expose Geller?s tricks. Randi and other critics claim that all scientists who observed Geller?s demonstrations were simply duped by conjuring tricks.?

As to the lawsuit Geller filed against Randi, my source was no less than Geller himself who personally told me that story in D?sseldorf, Germany, in 1994 during an international conference I attended where he was one of the speakers.
Either Geller was lying or I misheard what he said. But between Geller and Randi, whom should we believe?

5. I said in my article that ?Randi heads a noisy group called the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) and publishes the Skeptical Inquirer, the main purpose of which is to show that those who believe in such things are nuts.?

Randi: ?Another lie. I have not been connected with CSICOP for more than a decade.?

Maybe so, but he cannot deny that in the late ?70s and throughout the ?80s, he was the most visible and vocal spokesman of CSICOP?writing articles, appearing on television shows and many public forums representing CSICOP and denouncing believers in psychic phenomena as ?irrationalists.?

To quote Dr. Broughton again: ?Probably one of CSICOP?s best-known advocates is the magician James Randi. Born in Canada as Randell James Swinge, Randi achieved national exposure through his effort to debunk Israeli psychic Uri Geller.?

Randi participated in the cover-up of a botched scientific investigation of Michel Gauquelin?s conclusion that there was a significant statistical correlation between birth dates of athletes and the position of Mars in the heavens.

Randi?s group denounced Gauquelin?s finding only to eat their words later. To save face, they went so far as to manipulate scientific data to conform to their preconceived notion that astrology was pure hogwash.

Fate Magazine said in its September 1983 issue, ?They call themselves the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. In fact, they are a group of would-be de-bunkers who bungled their major investigation, falsified the results, covered up their errors and gave the boot to a colleague (Dennis Rawlins) who threatened to tell the truth.?

So much for the Amazing Randi and his Amazing Lies!

http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/lif ... e_id=43574

[Carol]

Setting the record straight - Part 2


By Jaime Licauco
Inquirer
Last updated 09:55pm (Mla time) 01/15/2007


THIS is the continuation of my point-by-point reply to magician James Randi?s reaction (see PDI, Dec. 12, 2006) to my column of Oct. 24, 2006.

4. Randi: ?I have never said that Uri Geller was a ?fake psychic.? Geller never filed any harassment suit against me. In the one case he did file, he lost and had to pay $150,000 in sanctions.?

He may not have called Geller a fake psychic, but he certainly hounded him for years, saying what Geller was doing was plain trickery that he could duplicate anytime.

Let me quote Dr. Broughton again (from the above mentioned book ?Parapsychology?): ?The research on Geller?s alleged PK abilities has received severe criticism, primarily from James Randi and others with conjuring and sleight-of-hand experience. In fact, Randi has made something of a career as Geller?s debunker, having risen from relative obscurity to national prominence through books and television appearances in which he claims to expose Geller?s tricks. Randi and other critics claim that all scientists who observed Geller?s demonstrations were simply duped by conjuring tricks.?

As to the lawsuit Geller filed against Randi, my source was no less than Geller himself who personally told me that story in D?sseldorf, Germany, in 1994 during an international conference I attended where he was one of the speakers.
Either Geller was lying or I misheard what he said. But between Geller and Randi, whom should we believe?

5. I said in my article that ?Randi heads a noisy group called the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) and publishes the Skeptical Inquirer, the main purpose of which is to show that those who believe in such things are nuts.?

Randi: ?Another lie. I have not been connected with CSICOP for more than a decade.?

Maybe so, but he cannot deny that in the late ?70s and throughout the ?80s, he was the most visible and vocal spokesman of CSICOP?writing articles, appearing on television shows and many public forums representing CSICOP and denouncing believers in psychic phenomena as ?irrationalists.?

To quote Dr. Broughton again: ?Probably one of CSICOP?s best-known advocates is the magician James Randi. Born in Canada as Randell James Swinge, Randi achieved national exposure through his effort to debunk Israeli psychic Uri Geller.?

Randi participated in the cover-up of a botched scientific investigation of Michel Gauquelin?s conclusion that there was a significant statistical correlation between birth dates of athletes and the position of Mars in the heavens.

Randi?s group denounced Gauquelin?s finding only to eat their words later. To save face, they went so far as to manipulate scientific data to conform to their preconceived notion that astrology was pure hogwash.

Fate Magazine said in its September 1983 issue, ?They call themselves the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. In fact, they are a group of would-be de-bunkers who bungled their major investigation, falsified the results, covered up their errors and gave the boot to a colleague (Dennis Rawlins) who threatened to tell the truth.?

So much for the Amazing Randi and his Amazing Lies!

http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/lif ... e_id=43574