# Psychics, paranormal, skeptics stuff etc. at Caltech, all welcome
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychics-paranormal-skeptics-stuff-etc-at-caltech-all-welcome/178745
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [May 31, 2003, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychics-paranormal-skeptics-stuff-etc-at-caltech-all-welcome/178745 "2003-05-31T07:37:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2003, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychics-paranormal-skeptics-stuff-etc-at-caltech-all-welcome/178745/1 "2003-05-31T07:37:00Z")
[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](mailto: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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### Author:  [@Chaco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chaco)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2003, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychics-paranormal-skeptics-stuff-etc-at-caltech-all-welcome/178745/2 "2003-05-31T07:41:46Z")
I am very interested. Where are you going to be lecturing in San Francisco?
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### Author:  [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2003, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychics-paranormal-skeptics-stuff-etc-at-caltech-all-welcome/178745/3 "2003-05-31T13:12:00Z")
**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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### Author:  [@Rapunzel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rapunzel)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2003, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychics-paranormal-skeptics-stuff-etc-at-caltech-all-welcome/178745/4 "2003-06-02T09:48:26Z")
Have you got a book about spoon bending?
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### Author:  [@SkipMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkipMagic)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2003, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychics-paranormal-skeptics-stuff-etc-at-caltech-all-welcome/178745/5 "2003-06-02T11:19:49Z")
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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### Author:  [@Tansu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tansu)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2003, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychics-paranormal-skeptics-stuff-etc-at-caltech-all-welcome/178745/6 "2003-06-02T13:26:52Z")
Y’all should meet **ianzin**. The experience will smash your monkey and rip your sheet clean through.
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### Author:  [@garius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garius)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2003, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychics-paranormal-skeptics-stuff-etc-at-caltech-all-welcome/178745/7 "2003-06-02T13:48:57Z")
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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### Author:  [@Copper\_moon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Copper_moon)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2003, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychics-paranormal-skeptics-stuff-etc-at-caltech-all-welcome/178745/8 "2003-06-02T14:17:53Z")
Any chance of the lecture being taped and those tapes being distributed for a donation? I would like one.
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### Author:  [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2003, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychics-paranormal-skeptics-stuff-etc-at-caltech-all-welcome/178745/9 "2003-06-02T18:17:45Z")
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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### Author:  [@Tir\_Tinuviel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tir_Tinuviel)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2003, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychics-paranormal-skeptics-stuff-etc-at-caltech-all-welcome/178745/10 "2003-06-03T20:00:05Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Tansu \*
> \*\*Y’all should meet **ianzin**. The experience will smash your monkey and rip your sheet clean through. \*\*
Tee hee! 😃
**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! 😉
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### Author:  [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2003, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychics-paranormal-skeptics-stuff-etc-at-caltech-all-welcome/178745/11 "2003-06-03T20:41:29Z")
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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### Author:  [@Tir\_Tinuviel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tir_Tinuviel)
#### Post date: [June 4, 2003, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychics-paranormal-skeptics-stuff-etc-at-caltech-all-welcome/178745/12 "2003-06-04T09:27:15Z")
Cool… let me know 🙂
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… 😉
[sub]of course, I just wanna know how it’s done…[/sub]
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### Author:  [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)
#### Post date: [June 4, 2003, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychics-paranormal-skeptics-stuff-etc-at-caltech-all-welcome/178745/13 "2003-06-04T16:51:00Z")
> [@](#):
>
> US Wet Coast
That would be us over here in the mid-Atlantic/northeast, right?
Friggin five straight weeks of rain…
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### Author:  [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)
#### Post date: [June 4, 2003, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychics-paranormal-skeptics-stuff-etc-at-caltech-all-welcome/178745/14 "2003-06-04T19:33:11Z")
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.