Wednesday, August 8, 2018

Book Report: Flim Flam!

I did my report on the book “Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns and other Delusions” by James Randi.
James Randi is a professional magician who goes around and tries to debunk myths such as people who
claim telekinesis or psychic abilities. He even put his money where his mouth is and promised a sizable
cash prize to anyone who cannot disprove. In this book Randi picks various widely believed theories
and myths and debunks them for the reader.
My favorite part of the book was Randi debunks the supposed cosmic travels of Ingo Swann and Harold
Sherman. They claimed to use the power of remote viewing to see into the solar system to learn what is
supposedly unlearnable unless they have the proper technology. I honestly found it quite funny that people
actually believed these claims. They are very clearly blind guesses. Majority of them are blatantly false
and the claims that stick are easily accessible to anyone who can read. Though there are a few that are
not obvious it is clear they are blind guesses that they got lucky on. We even saw a video on the practice
of remote viewing in Lecture 6. It was interesting, but I personally believe he was making blind grabs
and was making very broad connections.
It is relatable to the so called psychics and cold readers we learned about. All of the descriptions are
vague or general or just plain obvious. These people prey on impressionable and naive people in order
to seem more intelligent or have special abilities.
I don’t mean to offend anyone who truly believes in clairvoyance or remote viewing, but I just do not
see it as realistic or possible. I watched a YouTube video that I have attached below that it supposed to
be an introduction to how one can pick up this skill themselves. The woman in this video just does not
seem of right mind, in my personal opinion. She says that remote viewing is the practice of seeing with
the Mind’s third eye and says that we are living in the matrix.

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