Flim-Flam!

"Yes, James started his working life as a magician. Then he became an escapologist, following in Houdini’s footsteps. And like Houdini, he was very sceptical about the paranormal. Since the 1970s he’s done a lot of very high-profile debunking. Flim-Flam! had a huge impact on me when I first came across it, because it was the first time I’d seen a whole volume which wasn’t taking any nonsense, which wasn’t saying “maybe this stuff is true”. It’s a hardline approach that looks at a whole range of issues. Things like the Cottingley fairies, the Conan Doyle case, spoon benders, psychic surgeons – he says that’s all essentially tricky. What impressed me was that he got out into the field, he did the research, and it wasn’t a “maybe some of this stuff is true” approach. He was simply saying, “None of it is true and here’s what’s really going on.” He has a long-standing financial reward if anyone can prove under test conditions that they’re psychic. There are various people who act as testers for him in various countries – I’m one of them in the UK. I’ve tested a few people. And it probably says something about the psychic world that in the 10 years that the prize has been up for grabs, no-one has come even close to claiming it. I tested a woman called Patricia Putt who was convinced she could give psychic readings for people, and that they would recognise their past and present in those readings. So we had lots of people come in, she would write down her readings, then we showed them to people and said you had to choose yours out of all of them. And suddenly they were at a loss. That’s because when you go for a psychic reading you know it’s meant for you. You’re sitting there, there are all these ambiguous comments, you can read into them and suddenly be impressed. Once you take away that mechanism everything collapses. James had a long-standing feud with Uri Geller which occasionally ended up in the courts. The bottom line is James is saying spoon-bending is sleight of hand and Uri is disputing that, but again if Uri were up for proper testing then we could settle the issue once and for all. A million dollars – quite a large sum of money – is sitting there waiting for the first psychic who can prove they have these abilities. Good question. If there’s some evidential side to it. If someone is just saying “I believe in God and can’t offer evidence for that”, it is faith and that’s fine. There’s nothing science or psychology can do with that. But as soon as they say “I’ve produced this twinket from the Gods” or “I can part the seas” or “I can cure illness” – as soon as there’s some sort of physical manifestation of that belief – then scientists and psychologists can do some business. Again the results will be the same as the other kind of psychic testing – that people don’t have these abilities. Certainly I think they were intended to convince people that there is something weird going on. And lots of people do believe in God because of the miracles. So I want to say, “Hold on. Before you make that leap of faith, at least hear what the scientists have to say. You may not be convinced by it, but at least hear the arguments.”"