Psychics, paranormal, skeptics stuff etc. at Caltech, all welcome

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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[This post appears with the prior permission of Moderator C K Dexter Haven]

Over in GQ and GD we get quite a few threads about psychic claims, paranormal stuff and so on.

If you’re interested in this sort of thing, and live around LA, you might like to know I’m giving a public lecture at Caltech on Sunday June 22nd, organised by the Skeptics Society.

I’ll be demonstrating all sorts of fun stuff like spoon bending and ESP and cold reading and maybe even psychic surgery - all from the skeptical point of view, you understand. We’re trying to fight ignorance, not promote it! Here’s the blurb:

Mind Power: Fact, Fiction and Fakery

Subtitle: Your mind can work miracles… but can it bend a spoon?

“From positive thinking to spoon-bending - where do you draw the line between real mind power and the tricks and traps of contemporary psychic delusions? Mindreader and mind motivator Ian Rowland presents his dynamic and eye-opening lecture about powers of the mind both real and not-so-real, including live demonstrations of ‘psychic’ miracles and ‘paranormal’ ability. Drawing on his own personal research, and his unique media
demonstrations of ‘psychic’ powers, Ian offers a dazzling tour of the shadowlands between mind power fact and fiction.”

Anyone can come. Technically, there’s no actual charge on the door, but I think you’re ‘invited to make a donation’ of 5-8 dollars. (And by the way, I don’t make any money directly out of this, although I do hope to sell a few books).

Information definitely not from me but from the Skeptic Society: 626-794-3119 or or SKEPTICMAG@aol.com .

I’d love to meet any Dopers there. While I’m on the subject, I’ll be in Vegas June 10-19, LA June 20-29, and San Fran June 30-July 9th. If any Dopers want to say Hi or get together for a drink, or just see what a genuine British Doper is like, by all means get in touch!

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I am very interested. Where are you going to be lecturing in San Francisco?

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Chaco I won’t be giving any public lectures this time round except the one at Caltech.

I am giving other lectures, in San Fran and elsewhere, but they are very different, and of interest to magicians only. You wouldn’t want to come to these, and you wouldn’t be allowed to even if you did!

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Have you got a book about spoon bending?

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Yay for fighting ignorance!

I wish we had more stuff like that in the Kansas City area. Or, really, stuff like that at all…

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Y’all should meet ianzin. The experience will smash your monkey and rip your sheet clean through.

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i have no doubt that it will be a damn good lecture. Anyone who can should definitely go.

Tansu is right, Ianzin is great i wish he were my dad…

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Any chance of the lecture being taped and those tapes being distributed for a donation? I would like one.

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Hi Rapunzel - no, I don’t publish any books about spoon bending. In the lecture I will be demonstrating the only live, stage version of the effect in the world in which members of the audience check the cutlery first, before I then try to make it slowly and visibly bend just by stroking, no pressure. All moves again checked by a member of the audience standing right next to me.

However, I do not explain the method. Y’all don’t need to know - you just need to know enough to know that such demos do not constitute evidence for psychic ability. Which is the whole point of the lecture.

Copper_moon There is a chance that a video of the lecture will be available after the event.

Tansu and Garius - thank you, my friends, for your encouraging words. I know some cool tricks but I’ll never be as stylishly cool, nor as impressive, as the delicious Tansu. As for Garius, sure, I can make cards fly or turn invisible or dematerialise, but he can whip me good at poker - which is probably the more useful skill in the long run!

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Tee hee! :smiley:
Ianzin, do you have any plans to do one of these events in London any time soon?
I’d be interested in coming along, might stop me bugging you about your secrets down the pub! :wink:

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Hi Tir. I’ve got a tour of US Wet Coast to do, then the same thing in Australia, then the same thing next Spring on the East Coast (Pittsburgh, New York etc.) and then some Europe gigs. After that, phew, maybe I’ll do it all again in London somewhere. There’s a big skeptics convention happening somewhere in the UK actually, in Nov I think, but at the moment I don’t have any involvement with it.

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Cool… let me know :slight_smile:

So, if you don’t show people how it’s done, how can you disprove it?
For all we know you might be a psychic yourself, and you’re just a bit odd… :wink:

[sub]of course, I just wanna know how it’s done…[/sub]

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That would be us over here in the mid-Atlantic/northeast, right?

Friggin five straight weeks of rain…

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Hi Tir. Me? A bit odd? The very idea…

Attrayant. Me duh. So I type too fast.

I sympathise with the dampness. I originally come from the north-West of England, a county called Lancashire, and that’s pretty rainy too. Even the ducks have umbrellas.