The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing reliable information about paranormal claims, and helping members of the public protect themselves against 'psychic' and pseudo-scientific scams. JREF's founder James Randi is the world-famous conjuror and escape artist who exposed a number of so-called 'psychics' and faith-healers who were using simple magic tricks to convince others they had supernatural abilities, bilking their followers out of money and otherwise inspiring harmful belief.
Most magicians make an honest living from their performances, because their audiences know that what they're watching is an illusion. The James Randi Educational Foundation decries when dishonest people use the same tricks to lie to people, pretending they can talk to people's deceased loved-ones, or promising to heal people with the power of a god. That's why James Randi retired from magic and is devoting the rest of his career to preventing these charlatans from swindling people and endangering their health.
At the JREF, we've never seen a self-described 'psychic' who could demonstrate an observable 'psychic' power without cheating. And we've seen a lot of people who claim to be psychics -- for more than a decade, we've offered a $1 million challenge to anyone who can demonstrate real psychic powers under fair, mutually-agreed-upon conditions. Those who have taken our tests have performed no better than would be expected from random guessing.
For the most part, the people who've accepted our challenge have genuinely believed they have psychic abilities, and most have been shocked that the abilities they thought they had didn't help them. On the other hand, there are prominent 'psychics' who make big money from their performances, yet seem to be very afraid to demonstrate their abilities under fair conditions that prevent cheating. We challenged celebrity medium James Van Praagh in August, putting our million dollars on the line and asking him if he'll to agree to a fair test. So far, he's refused to answer.
Today, we sent Mr. Van Praagh the letter below.
Mr. James Van Praagh:
I'm sure you received my letter of Sept. 9 encouraging you to accept the James Randi Educational Foundation's Million Dollar Challenge by agreeing to demonstrate your claimed psychic powers in a fair, mutually-agreed-upon test, under conditions that would prevent cheating. The certified letter was confirmed to have been picked up from your local post office.
We also sent the letter to you via email. During the week prior to that, our challenge to you was covered by ABC News and Time.com. AOL News reached out to you for an answer, but you didn't reply to them either. All this time, you have refused to give an honest answer to the question of whether or not you'll accept our challenge.
It seems odd that you won't return our messages. After all, if you can really do what you claim, we're offering you one million dollars and a chance to prove wrong everyone who doubts you, including those of us at the James Randi Educational Foundation. If your 'psychic powers' are real, hiding from our offer makes as much sense as throwing away a winning lottery ticket.
So, we can only guess at why you haven't answered.
Perhaps it's because what you do is not "psychic" at all, but a stale and repetitive performance of cold-reading techniques, in which you throw out vague guesses and then repeat back to your audience things they've already told you or things that are simply obvious, all while claiming their dead relatives are speaking to you.
Perhaps it's because your well-worn tricks actually fall flat quite often, such as when you had a spectacular failure on the Australian Channel Ten program The Circle.
Perhaps it's because you were just exposed on ABC's Primetime Nightline for stuffing your reading of an ABC correspondent with personal facts that were publicly available with a simple internet search, but which you claimed were revealed to you by spirits.
Perhaps it's because you have given so many people bad information that you were even called out by Barbara Walters on The View for falsely warning her that she had a serious health problem.
Or perhaps you have nothing to fear, and you have just been too busy to collect our million dollars.
Will you accept our challenge? We hope you will make the time to give us, and the media, your answer.
D.J. Grothe
President
James Randi Educational Foundation
Follow D.J. Grothe on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jref
James Van Praagh On Barbara Walters: 'She Owes Me An Apology ...
Barbara Walters exposes James Van Praagh - FRAUDSTER ...
Does James Van Praagh talk to the Dead? Nope! Fraud! - Part 5
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-ullman/disinformation-homeopathy_b_969627.html
He notes the same scam I pointed out with the fake JREF “Million Dollar Challenge”:
“As for Randi's $1 million "prize," one can and should look at the rules for this award that specifically give the James Randi Educational Fund (JREF) a clever way to avoid paying anything. Rule No. 4 asserts, "At any time prior to the Formal Test, the JREF reserves the right to re-negotiate the protocol if issues are discovered that would prevent a fair and unbiased test".
He also points out how James Randi (who is also a climate change denier), undermined a previous challenge attempt. Again, James Randi is a second rate magician, who latched onto this bogus challenge to give himself a career. Sorry to burst your bubble.
The rule does NOT say that they can dictate new terms at their whim. It says that IF they should discover new information that renders the testing protocol invalid (either unfair, or allowing the possibility of cheating), then they reserve the right to RENEGOTIATE the protocol to plug that particular hole. That's not just reasonable, it would be downright irresponsible NOT to have that clause. Surely, you can see that?
The "unfair" part, by the way, goes both ways -- the applicant, if he truly wants to prove that his powers are genuine, should be equally insistent that the protocol be as tight as possible. It would be a hollow victory to come away saying, "Sure, I won, but anyone else could have too, if they exploited this loophole."
Do you really think unknown psychics are more legit than the celebs?
Those who speak about it do not know it."
Daodejing 56
Quite simply, because extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. What we have is very extraordinary claims with very shonky evidence indeed.
"twisted, cynical"? Skeptics, including me and, I'm sure, Randi, would just love it if there were real paranormal powers that could be demonstrated under reasonable conditions. It would be great if we could talk to the dead, see into the future and so on. Once they were demonstrated, we could refine them, find out how to make them reliable, amplify and concentrate them and understand them. That would make sorting the real ones from the frauds much easier, which you have to admit lover89, would be of immense benefit to everyone, and detrimental only to frauds.
http://blog.coldreadingtechniques.com/
As for "income"--The money has been set aside. JREF would do just fine if somebody came along and actually managed to prove they had paranormal powers. That would be pretty cool, actually.
Betcha a million bucks that won't happen, though.
On the other hand, you've got to ask, what would it do to van Praagh's income if he accepted the challenge and failed?
Nice try there, Grasse7. But not convincing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi_Educational_Foundation
Next time, try learning something about the subject before you comment.
That's actually not too bad. It does rely on the 10 people picking their reading subjectively, so that introduces a certain amount of bias (a skeptic planted amongst them, for example, could deliberately pick the wrong reading). In Van Praagh's case, he is allegedly talking with deceased relatives and friends of each individual and it could be anyone of a number of people that he communicates with. Probably something more objective, regarding people's names. If each person he did a reading for listed the names of their primary relatives or loved ones and he is able to get a matching name in most of the cases, for example. In the end, though, DJ Grothe and company will never propose such a test up front. That messes up their whole game of pretend million dollar challenge. That is my point.
At any rate, there is a simple way to fix your problem. The participants in the experiment don't know all of the details of the experiment, or they are intentionally mislead in a way that does not tamper with the results.
You're specifying a number of unique conditions (providing names of participants, only talking to dead relatives, etc). This is why a common ground needs to be communicated between purported psychic and those designing the experiments. As someone has mentioned, the psychic needs to define their ability and what they believe they are capable of. The psychic also needs to be very specific about the nature of "psychic communication" and any limitations that may come with it. It's necessary to gather this information so that an experiment *can* be determined.
You're severely misunderstanding the JREF. An experiment, conditions, etc need to be specified and agreed upon by both parties. It's not up to the JREF to interpret and guess at what ability each individual claims they have that takes on the prize. It's not just for legal protection, but it's important to understand the parameters defined by the participant to actually design an effective experiment.
It has been 2 days since I left my comment challenging you to actually name the specific challenge that you would accept as proof of Mr. Van Praagh's psychic abilities. You have yet to respond. Is that because your so-called 1 million dollar challenge is a fraud? Is that because you have no interest in the truth, as evidenced by the Gauquelin Affair? http://www.orgonelab.org/csicop.htm
Your well-worn tricks have grown tiresome, Mr. Grothe. Put up or shut up. Name your challenge publicly or admit the whole thing is another JREF and CSICOP ruse to drum up some badly needed publicity and cash? What exactly are you paid to be "President" of this "non-profit" organization? How much money does your organization take in each year from your gullible followers who send in donations believing you are a legitimate organization?
Again, if you took the time to familiarize yourself with the details of the challenge, you would know that the exact parameters of the test protocol cannot be developed without the participation of the applicant. Any test devised without that input would obviously be horribly flawed and incapable of properly testing their claim (which, I gather, is what you are waiting to pounce upon with your demand, so you should actually be quite happy that this is the case).
It is Van Praagh making the claim here, not Groethe, and so it is Van Praagh who needs to "put up or shut up". Well, actually he has been doing nothing but shutting up about this, quite conspicuously. Honestly, if he truly has this ability he claims to have, I can't see what the downside is of accepting the challenge, performing his talent, and walking away with their million dollars, plus the biggest and best publicity boost anyone in the psychic industry has ever seen.
JREF is making the claim that he is a fake. That is the claim. They then pretend to offer a challenge, but won't say what it is. I am challenging JREF to state what their challenge is. What is the downside for JREF? You are defending JREF, because you don't believe Van Praagh, but that doesn't make their challenge legitimate. All I am saying is put up an actual challenge. Why are supporters of JREF so quick to say that they shouldn't actually state what their challenge is? You defend them like they are a religious organization. Ironic... Don't you have faith in JREF devising an adequate and fair test to expose Van Praagh? I'm calling out JREF. You should be contacting them and asking them to come up with a specific test for Van Praagh to take for their so-called one million dollar challenge instead of defending them while they hide behind a fake challenge.
That's not the way it works. Van Praagh has to specify what he can do ... whether it's read cards, talk to dead people, telekinesis, or dowse for lost items. Then, knowing what his ability is, they decide on the test protocol. In Van Praagh's case, have him get info from the relatives and friends of random people for the study, with no opportunity for the subjects to meet him or his staff, and without knowing the names of the subjects. The subjects will answer yes or no, not give informative answers. The entire performance would be videotaped.
That would preclude the common cheats of chatting up the audience before hand, and fishing for info. He does a great act of "cold reading", but it's just an act.
I would be more interested in hearing what your specific challenge is, rather than your ad hominem and arrogant attacks on the individual in question. If you have a test that you think is a valid way to prove or disprove Mr. Van Praagh's alleged psychic powers, then I suggest you say what that test acutally is in the piece that you write. Instead, you choose to mock and humiliate an individual who, whether or not he has psychic powers, may be quite sincere in what he is doing. For all we know, the test you propose does not actually test his psychic powers and is designed so that you can't lose your 1 million dollars. Now I'll be like you: Mr. Grothe, are you afraid to reveal what test you are trying to get this person to take? Is this just another cheap James Randi publicity stunt? Are you afraid the test will be exposed as fixed, much like your organization's dishonest attempt to debunk Mr. Gauqlin's astrology study?
The test can not be fixed, if both parties agree to the method of testing. But the real problem is NONE of you psychics out there have any powers or abilities that you claim, and that is why you all fail to win the $1M prize. Brown, Van Prat and Edwards, all know this, and that is why they never take up the challenge. And lets not mention the outright lying these folks do, on public TV about being willing to take up the challenge, (Claws, how long as it been since you promised to take it, on Larry King Live?)
"Hey Van Praagh, you big fake, why won't you take our challenge so we can prove you are a fake. We won't tell you what the challenge is until you accept it, then if you back out after realizing that we stacked the deck against you, we can still mock you and call you a big fake for backing out." Why anyone would fall for such a ploy is beyond me. JREF will make sure to never give up their so-called million dollars. After the "Gauquelin affair" (sorry for the misspelling in my previous post), it should be obvious that the intent of this organization is not to get to the truth, but to mock and malign anyone who makes claims of psychic powers. I wouldn't have a problem with that, as some of these individuals might even deserve it, but then they try to pass themselves off as truthseekers at the same time.
Houdini had a good try, borth pre and post-mortem. His first attempt failed laughably: He addressed the spirit of his mother through a medium in German and "she" replied, "Speak English dear, we speak English now."
"Before Houdini died, he and his wife, Bess, agreed that if Houdini's spirit came back to earth, he would utter "Rosabelle believe" as a secret codeword to prove that it was actually him. This was a phrase from a play that Bess performed in when the couple first met. Bess held yearly séances on Halloween for ten years after Houdini's death, but Houdini's spirit never appeared. " - Wikipedia