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Some people cannot believe that a magician can fool them | 0:00:04 | 0:00:08 | |
in such a way that they can't figure it out. | 0:00:08 | 0:00:10 | |
But magicians can and magicians do. | 0:00:13 | 0:00:16 | |
Swindlers do, conmen do all the time. | 0:00:18 | 0:00:21 | |
They're not magicians, they're fakes. | 0:00:22 | 0:00:26 | |
They are lying to us, they're deceiving us. | 0:00:26 | 0:00:29 | |
It's OK to fool people, as long as you're doing that | 0:00:31 | 0:00:35 | |
to teach them a lesson which will better their knowledge | 0:00:35 | 0:00:38 | |
of how the real world works. | 0:00:38 | 0:00:40 | |
No matter how smart or well-educated you are, | 0:00:42 | 0:00:45 | |
you can be deceived. | 0:00:45 | 0:00:47 | |
Hello, how are you doing today? | 0:01:04 | 0:01:05 | |
Very well, thank you. | 0:01:05 | 0:01:07 | |
Can I bring you something to...? Coffee! | 0:01:07 | 0:01:09 | |
Oh, yes, please. For me, coffee. | 0:01:09 | 0:01:12 | |
I'll get you coffee in a minute, OK? OK. | 0:01:12 | 0:01:14 | |
Oh, my heart just started again, that's good. Always a good sign. | 0:01:18 | 0:01:22 | |
See, I've always had my battle with the psychics, the so-called - | 0:01:23 | 0:01:27 | |
and I use that word in quotations all the time, remember that! | 0:01:27 | 0:01:31 | |
People who are stealing money from the public, | 0:01:33 | 0:01:35 | |
cheating them and misinforming them. | 0:01:35 | 0:01:39 | |
That's the kind of thing that I've been fighting all my life. | 0:01:39 | 0:01:42 | |
Magicians are the most honest people in the world, | 0:01:42 | 0:01:44 | |
they tell you they are going to fool you, and then they do it. | 0:01:44 | 0:01:47 | |
Wait a minute, I have to worship here. | 0:01:47 | 0:01:51 | |
OK. | 0:01:51 | 0:01:52 | |
APPLAUSE James Randi is the author of The Faith Healers | 0:01:52 | 0:01:55 | |
and he's best known as an investigator of psychic | 0:01:55 | 0:01:57 | |
and miraculous claims. | 0:01:57 | 0:01:59 | |
Would you welcome, please, The Amazing Randi. | 0:01:59 | 0:02:02 | |
Here he is! The Amazing Randi! HE SNORES | 0:02:02 | 0:02:05 | |
What did you...would you tell us who you are? The Amazing Randi. Ta-da! | 0:02:05 | 0:02:09 | |
I was born at an early age in a log cabin I helped my father build. | 0:02:09 | 0:02:11 | |
By the time I was seven I was eleven. I grew up very fast. | 0:02:11 | 0:02:14 | |
I am a magician, I always have been a magician... | 0:02:14 | 0:02:16 | |
A conjurer, prestidigitator, legerdemainist...liar, cheat, | 0:02:16 | 0:02:19 | |
charlatan and fake. LAUGHTER | 0:02:19 | 0:02:21 | |
You're a master magician. | 0:02:21 | 0:02:23 | |
Some people have said that you're about the greatest escape artist since Houdini. | 0:02:23 | 0:02:27 | |
Randi has a real deep natural affection | 0:02:27 | 0:02:31 | |
for magic and this love of deception. | 0:02:31 | 0:02:35 | |
A good magician needs to be a little bit of a conman, I think. | 0:02:35 | 0:02:38 | |
He needs to be sort of a criminal type, | 0:02:38 | 0:02:40 | |
but not have enough guts to actually rob banks. | 0:02:40 | 0:02:43 | |
He loves magic. He spent his whole life as a performer, as a magician. | 0:02:43 | 0:02:47 | |
So he really resents anyone applying the techniques of magic | 0:02:47 | 0:02:52 | |
for any purpose other than entertainment. | 0:02:52 | 0:02:55 | |
Especially to convince people that | 0:02:55 | 0:02:57 | |
there is something psychic going on here, he thinks that an abomination. | 0:02:57 | 0:03:02 | |
Tonight on this stage you are going to meet a man | 0:03:02 | 0:03:04 | |
who claims he can move physical objects using the powers of his mind. | 0:03:04 | 0:03:08 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:03:09 | 0:03:11 | |
Now, you have been touring our country, | 0:03:15 | 0:03:17 | |
debunking psychics, haven't you? I have indeed. | 0:03:17 | 0:03:19 | |
And I think that the solution is rather simple. | 0:03:19 | 0:03:22 | |
Now, what I have here is particles of a white plastic | 0:03:22 | 0:03:25 | |
which will rather conclusively show that Mr Hydrick | 0:03:25 | 0:03:28 | |
is merely blowing on both the page and on the pencil. | 0:03:28 | 0:03:31 | |
James? Ready. | 0:03:31 | 0:03:33 | |
Randi says the public is being fleeced via trickery. | 0:03:37 | 0:03:41 | |
"I am going to tell you what's happening and more to the point, | 0:03:41 | 0:03:44 | |
"this is going to be a crusade to try and change the world." | 0:03:44 | 0:03:46 | |
If there is something to the paranormal, | 0:03:46 | 0:03:49 | |
let's find out what it is, if anything. | 0:03:49 | 0:03:51 | |
And on the other hand let's not be taken in by the claptrap | 0:03:51 | 0:03:54 | |
that is being offered us, and at our expense. | 0:03:54 | 0:03:57 | |
I just ingested six-and-a-half-days' worth of homeopathic sleeping pills. | 0:03:57 | 0:04:03 | |
Why don't they affect me? LAUGHTER | 0:04:03 | 0:04:05 | |
People say, what's the harm? Why do you care about this? | 0:04:05 | 0:04:07 | |
Then I saw Randi's answer, which was, | 0:04:07 | 0:04:09 | |
bad ideas can cause you serious damage or death. | 0:04:09 | 0:04:12 | |
The psychic surgeons, they operate with their bare hands | 0:04:12 | 0:04:15 | |
and profess to remove tumours, | 0:04:15 | 0:04:17 | |
malignant tissue, without any marks at all. | 0:04:17 | 0:04:19 | |
And believe me, the gimmick is so simple | 0:04:19 | 0:04:21 | |
you can buy it for 75 cents in a magic shop. | 0:04:21 | 0:04:23 | |
Now, what you're about to see is a bare-handed operation... | 0:04:23 | 0:04:26 | |
His point isn't to tell you that something isn't true. | 0:04:26 | 0:04:29 | |
His point is to widen your scope of vision so that you will question | 0:04:29 | 0:04:34 | |
the things that happen in front of you. | 0:04:34 | 0:04:36 | |
Oh, no, that doesn't come out. LAUGHTER | 0:04:36 | 0:04:38 | |
Some people think that he's very dogmatic. | 0:04:40 | 0:04:43 | |
It's always some tired person in a shack someplace in Idaho or Iowa | 0:04:43 | 0:04:46 | |
or some place like that | 0:04:46 | 0:04:48 | |
who gets picked up by extraterrestrials | 0:04:48 | 0:04:50 | |
and they have their genitals examined in great detail | 0:04:50 | 0:04:53 | |
and they can't wait to get on Oprah to describe it. | 0:04:53 | 0:04:55 | |
I'll bet you don't believe in the tooth fairy or Santa Claus either. I'm looking into Santa Claus. | 0:04:55 | 0:04:59 | |
He's a great storyteller and like all good storytellers, well, | 0:04:59 | 0:05:03 | |
there's probably some information and detail in there | 0:05:03 | 0:05:05 | |
that may not be appearing in his version of events. | 0:05:05 | 0:05:08 | |
It is, I will say, interesting that a man | 0:05:08 | 0:05:10 | |
who has devoted his whole life to using the tools of deception | 0:05:10 | 0:05:13 | |
to uncover real deception has, | 0:05:13 | 0:05:15 | |
at the centre of his life, a deception. | 0:05:15 | 0:05:20 | |
APPLAUSE And welcome to To Tell The Truth. | 0:05:20 | 0:05:22 | |
Let's meet our next team of challengers. | 0:05:22 | 0:05:25 | |
One of these three men pretended to be possessed by an ancient spirit. | 0:05:27 | 0:05:31 | |
Number one, what is your name, please? | 0:05:31 | 0:05:34 | |
My name is Jose Alvarez. | 0:05:34 | 0:05:37 | |
Number two. My name is Jose Alvarez. | 0:05:37 | 0:05:40 | |
Number three. My name is Jose Alvarez. | 0:05:40 | 0:05:43 | |
Only one of these people is the real Jose Alvarez, | 0:05:43 | 0:05:46 | |
and is the only one sworn To Tell The Truth. | 0:05:46 | 0:05:51 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:05:51 | 0:05:53 | |
'I first met Jose Alvarez in the Fort Lauderdale public library.' | 0:06:01 | 0:06:07 | |
I offered to explain something | 0:06:07 | 0:06:09 | |
about one of the photographs he was looking at. | 0:06:09 | 0:06:12 | |
This is the actual flower here for the cactus. | 0:06:12 | 0:06:15 | |
Yes. The little ones. And look at this, if this... | 0:06:15 | 0:06:18 | |
Yeah, this is fantastic, look at that. | 0:06:18 | 0:06:20 | |
Yeah, we need to spread that around. See, this is the one I cut for the... | 0:06:20 | 0:06:23 | |
'We end up spending the whole afternoon' | 0:06:23 | 0:06:26 | |
talking about our mutual interest about space exploration. | 0:06:26 | 0:06:31 | |
I remember we looked at books on telescopes and I told him I had | 0:06:31 | 0:06:34 | |
such a telescope at home, the Questar. | 0:06:34 | 0:06:37 | |
I went back to my friends and I said, | 0:06:37 | 0:06:39 | |
"I just met this extraordinary man, and I would like to meet him again." | 0:06:39 | 0:06:43 | |
We were able to go out at night with a tripod | 0:06:43 | 0:06:46 | |
and see the moons of Jupiter and all kinds of good things like that, | 0:06:46 | 0:06:49 | |
which is always very exciting to show somebody, | 0:06:49 | 0:06:52 | |
certainly if it's for the first time. | 0:06:52 | 0:06:54 | |
'I just got very excited and I said, I need to...' | 0:06:54 | 0:06:58 | |
I need to be with him more! HE LAUGHS | 0:06:58 | 0:07:00 | |
'When I first met Randi, I wasn't aware of who he was.' | 0:07:02 | 0:07:05 | |
OK, tomorrow, don't tell me about tomorrow... | 0:07:05 | 0:07:08 | |
And I was there when he won the MacArthur Award. | 0:07:08 | 0:07:10 | |
The gentleman announced, we are calling from the MacArthur Committee | 0:07:10 | 0:07:12 | |
and told me that I had won the prize, | 0:07:12 | 0:07:14 | |
and I answered in my most intelligible way... HE BABBLES INCOHERENTLY | 0:07:14 | 0:07:18 | |
'Then I got a real feel | 0:07:18 | 0:07:20 | |
'of the kind of impact he was having culturally. | 0:07:20 | 0:07:24 | |
'And little by little, I started getting more and more involved | 0:07:24 | 0:07:27 | |
'in the investigation of paranormal activities that Randi was doing. | 0:07:27 | 0:07:32 | |
'And then he asked me to play the character of a fake channeller | 0:07:32 | 0:07:35 | |
'in a project that we end up working together.' | 0:07:35 | 0:07:38 | |
This woman is JZ Knight. | 0:07:44 | 0:07:46 | |
She's also the one they call Ramtha, a mystical male spirit, | 0:07:46 | 0:07:50 | |
35,000 years old, who claims to be divine. | 0:07:50 | 0:07:53 | |
Now, you must understand that the so-called channellers | 0:07:53 | 0:07:55 | |
were claiming that they could contact long-dead spirits. | 0:07:55 | 0:07:58 | |
Now, not a few hundred years back, no, no. | 0:07:58 | 0:08:01 | |
They were more ambitious than that. Tens of thousands of years ago. | 0:08:01 | 0:08:04 | |
Indeed! | 0:08:04 | 0:08:05 | |
And they would speak in funny voices like this! | 0:08:05 | 0:08:07 | |
God bless you, Doctor! | 0:08:07 | 0:08:10 | |
All right, I'll say, how are you this day of your time as you create time to exist. | 0:08:10 | 0:08:14 | |
They were very popular. They gave talks, | 0:08:14 | 0:08:16 | |
HUGE prices for the seats. | 0:08:16 | 0:08:17 | |
There are often so many people, the Ramtha Organisation can earn | 0:08:17 | 0:08:21 | |
up to $200,000 for a single appearance. | 0:08:21 | 0:08:24 | |
And you're my first 35,000-year-old guest. | 0:08:24 | 0:08:27 | |
It was such nonsense. | 0:08:27 | 0:08:29 | |
I can't think of that technical term... Oh, yes - bullshit. | 0:08:30 | 0:08:34 | |
What she definitely is is part of what is being called the New Age movement. | 0:08:34 | 0:08:38 | |
Lots of people believe this is something genuine | 0:08:38 | 0:08:41 | |
because they see something on television and think, | 0:08:41 | 0:08:43 | |
"My goodness, surely this journalist would have checked this stuff out." | 0:08:43 | 0:08:46 | |
Trauma from a past life | 0:08:46 | 0:08:48 | |
sometimes seems to spill over into the present. | 0:08:48 | 0:08:51 | |
We are conditioned to believe that things that look like | 0:08:51 | 0:08:54 | |
documentaries, but are not factual, must essentially be true | 0:08:54 | 0:08:57 | |
or it wouldn't be presented as if it were factual. | 0:08:57 | 0:08:59 | |
Hello? | 0:08:59 | 0:09:01 | |
The Carlos Hoax started | 0:09:01 | 0:09:02 | |
when 60 Minutes Australia | 0:09:02 | 0:09:05 | |
called Randi because they wanted to prove that channellers were a hoax. | 0:09:05 | 0:09:10 | |
On that phone call, Randi told them | 0:09:10 | 0:09:12 | |
that you couldn't prove that someone who said that they are inhabited | 0:09:12 | 0:09:16 | |
by a spirit 40,000 years old is a false claim. | 0:09:16 | 0:09:20 | |
What he said to them was, "What we need to do is to create one." | 0:09:20 | 0:09:24 | |
His name is Carlos and you've probably seen him on television | 0:09:24 | 0:09:27 | |
or mentioned in the press. | 0:09:27 | 0:09:28 | |
Carlos is involved in the mystical field of channelling. | 0:09:28 | 0:09:32 | |
Carlos, if you believe him, | 0:09:32 | 0:09:33 | |
is a spiritual messenger who occupies the body of this | 0:09:33 | 0:09:37 | |
19-year-old Puerto Rican artist, Jose Alvarez. | 0:09:37 | 0:09:40 | |
The Carlos Hoax was to show that the media would fall for | 0:09:40 | 0:09:44 | |
most of these stunts if they sounded attractive enough, | 0:09:44 | 0:09:47 | |
and they wouldn't really investigate too carefully. | 0:09:47 | 0:09:50 | |
So, one of the very first things we did to introduce Carlos to the | 0:09:50 | 0:09:53 | |
public, we made up the press package | 0:09:53 | 0:09:56 | |
that we presented to the Australian press. | 0:09:56 | 0:09:59 | |
'What trash this is!' | 0:09:59 | 0:10:00 | |
We even invented newspapers and magazines | 0:10:00 | 0:10:03 | |
that never existed. Theatrical magazines particularly, | 0:10:03 | 0:10:05 | |
announcing the appearance of the Great Carlos | 0:10:05 | 0:10:08 | |
at such-and-such a theatre that didn't exist. | 0:10:08 | 0:10:10 | |
But no-one in the media bothered to check up on one of these details. | 0:10:10 | 0:10:16 | |
They could have picked up the phone and just checked | 0:10:16 | 0:10:19 | |
and they would have found out that they were being deceived. | 0:10:19 | 0:10:22 | |
'Hello?' It didn't happen. | 0:10:22 | 0:10:25 | |
One man who's been making a name for himself here in the United States | 0:10:25 | 0:10:28 | |
is now doing the same in Australia. | 0:10:28 | 0:10:30 | |
Jose Luis Alvarez is a 19-year-old channeller. | 0:10:30 | 0:10:33 | |
By 60 hours after we had arrived, | 0:10:33 | 0:10:36 | |
we had eight major TV appearances, headlines in newspapers. | 0:10:36 | 0:10:41 | |
Everyone in Australia pretty well knew that Carlos was there. | 0:10:41 | 0:10:46 | |
HE SHRIEKS | 0:10:46 | 0:10:47 | |
It will be astronomical...in nature! | 0:10:47 | 0:10:51 | |
Frankly, I was just doing it without thinking. | 0:10:51 | 0:10:54 | |
Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to do it. | 0:10:54 | 0:10:57 | |
Last Sunday, the Opera House Drama Theatre | 0:10:57 | 0:10:59 | |
was packed with a near-capacity crowd of 500, | 0:10:59 | 0:11:01 | |
there to listen to Carlos and to have their questions passed | 0:11:01 | 0:11:05 | |
on to him by his disciples. | 0:11:05 | 0:11:07 | |
Crystals are fossils...of long ago! | 0:11:07 | 0:11:10 | |
I know he's definitely psychic. | 0:11:10 | 0:11:13 | |
It's something that I can feel coming from him. | 0:11:13 | 0:11:16 | |
I thought it was great. Very sincere, I thought. | 0:11:16 | 0:11:19 | |
Do you believe him? Yeah, I do, actually. | 0:11:19 | 0:11:21 | |
The following Sunday, 60 Minutes Australia revealed the whole hoax. | 0:11:21 | 0:11:25 | |
He billed himself as a man of the supernatural, | 0:11:25 | 0:11:28 | |
a man who could do amazing things. And thousands believed him, | 0:11:28 | 0:11:31 | |
making him a celebrity. | 0:11:31 | 0:11:33 | |
But it was all an elaborate hoax. | 0:11:33 | 0:11:35 | |
The most basic fact about Carlos was that he simply doesn't exist. | 0:11:35 | 0:11:40 | |
That's the real teaching of Carlos. | 0:11:40 | 0:11:42 | |
But this doesn't even scratch the surface | 0:11:44 | 0:11:47 | |
of just what a phoney Carlos is. | 0:11:47 | 0:11:49 | |
I am Carlos! | 0:11:49 | 0:11:50 | |
Though I had, just a year or so before this Australian event, | 0:11:50 | 0:11:55 | |
actually met Jose Alvarez, | 0:11:55 | 0:11:58 | |
I was very pleased at what it did for our relationship | 0:11:58 | 0:12:01 | |
because it really cemented it pretty well. | 0:12:01 | 0:12:03 | |
We decided after that that we sort of belong together. | 0:12:03 | 0:12:06 | |
I recognised, I guess, at a very early age | 0:12:15 | 0:12:17 | |
that my feelings were different from those around me. | 0:12:17 | 0:12:20 | |
And it was pretty evident to me that that was heavily frowned upon. | 0:12:20 | 0:12:25 | |
I perhaps felt like a bit of an outsider. | 0:12:26 | 0:12:30 | |
My father only really spoke to me twice in my whole life. | 0:12:30 | 0:12:34 | |
Calling me aside, sitting me down | 0:12:34 | 0:12:36 | |
and having a discussion. | 0:12:36 | 0:12:38 | |
We did that twice during my life, I was surprised both times. | 0:12:38 | 0:12:43 | |
I was pretty well educated on my own. The local education system | 0:12:43 | 0:12:48 | |
in Toronto, Canada, actually allowed me to stay out of grade school, | 0:12:48 | 0:12:52 | |
only going in there to take the tests. | 0:12:52 | 0:12:56 | |
I was free to wander | 0:12:56 | 0:12:57 | |
around Toronto and I found the Casino Theatre on Queen Street. | 0:12:57 | 0:13:02 | |
I saw The Great Blackstone advertised. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:05 | |
I had never seen a magician before in my whole life. | 0:13:05 | 0:13:08 | |
Harry Blackstone walked out on stage | 0:13:10 | 0:13:12 | |
and did wonderful things that I had never dreamed could be done. | 0:13:12 | 0:13:17 | |
He had this young lady walk out from the side of the stage | 0:13:17 | 0:13:21 | |
and he cast her into a trance. And he said, | 0:13:21 | 0:13:24 | |
"Princess Astra... | 0:13:24 | 0:13:25 | |
"..rise!" | 0:13:26 | 0:13:28 | |
She floated up into the air. | 0:13:28 | 0:13:31 | |
And I looked very carefully, | 0:13:31 | 0:13:32 | |
and I could not see any means whereby she could be suspended | 0:13:32 | 0:13:36 | |
in the air and caused to move in the air! | 0:13:36 | 0:13:40 | |
That was wonderful, I was transfixed. | 0:13:40 | 0:13:43 | |
How could the man do such a thing? | 0:13:43 | 0:13:47 | |
I determined at that moment | 0:13:47 | 0:13:50 | |
that I was going to become a professional magician. | 0:13:50 | 0:13:55 | |
And so at 17, I decided I wouldn't graduate from high school, | 0:13:55 | 0:13:59 | |
I left home and I joined the carnival. | 0:13:59 | 0:14:03 | |
I never went home again. | 0:14:03 | 0:14:05 | |
Now, is it possible that I could have drawn anything on there? | 0:14:05 | 0:14:08 | |
Do you want to take one more look? Take one more look, there's | 0:14:08 | 0:14:10 | |
nothing in there except a crushed piece of chalk, right? Now, | 0:14:10 | 0:14:13 | |
before you open up the slates, what was the word that you looked at in | 0:14:13 | 0:14:16 | |
the book? Would you mind telling us? Mackerel. | 0:14:16 | 0:14:18 | |
I was doing, well, so-called mind-reading tricks and such, | 0:14:18 | 0:14:22 | |
psychic tricks, so to speak. | 0:14:22 | 0:14:24 | |
It's been in your hands all this time, right? I assume so. All right, then, | 0:14:24 | 0:14:27 | |
would you open them and see what the spirits have brought us in the way of a message. | 0:14:27 | 0:14:31 | |
Don't tell her how it was done. | 0:14:31 | 0:14:32 | |
When I introduced myself as a magician, | 0:14:32 | 0:14:35 | |
I used to say to my audience, "Good evening, | 0:14:35 | 0:14:38 | |
"my name is The Great Randall. | 0:14:38 | 0:14:40 | |
"I am a liar, a cheat and a charlatan. | 0:14:40 | 0:14:42 | |
"I will blatantly lie to you, but for purposes of | 0:14:42 | 0:14:47 | |
"entertainment only, of course. | 0:14:47 | 0:14:49 | |
"And those lies may not be discernible from the truth." | 0:14:49 | 0:14:53 | |
Randi had this sense of trying to be bigger than life. | 0:14:55 | 0:15:01 | |
And the easiest way to be bigger than yourself | 0:15:01 | 0:15:04 | |
is to lie. | 0:15:04 | 0:15:06 | |
I was 21 years of age when I predicted the outcome | 0:15:21 | 0:15:24 | |
of that year's World Series. | 0:15:24 | 0:15:26 | |
And it was good for me, it moved me up a peg. | 0:15:26 | 0:15:28 | |
But it also had some fallout. | 0:15:28 | 0:15:31 | |
People would stop me in the street, literally, and start to ask | 0:15:31 | 0:15:34 | |
personal questions, | 0:15:34 | 0:15:35 | |
family questions and such that they thought I could answer, | 0:15:35 | 0:15:38 | |
and even offering me money to predict whether the husband that | 0:15:38 | 0:15:43 | |
the girl had chosen was the right one... | 0:15:43 | 0:15:46 | |
That was quite a comeuppance for me because I realised, you know, | 0:15:46 | 0:15:50 | |
people really do believe this nonsense. | 0:15:50 | 0:15:52 | |
Mentalism can be a deal with the devil. | 0:15:52 | 0:15:55 | |
It's an incredibly seductive feeling for someone to | 0:15:55 | 0:15:59 | |
imbue you with that power. It's a very tempting thing. | 0:15:59 | 0:16:04 | |
Then you have to make a decision. | 0:16:04 | 0:16:05 | |
Are you the sort of person that will | 0:16:05 | 0:16:07 | |
look someone in the eye, and even though you have | 0:16:07 | 0:16:10 | |
got no idea what their future holds, | 0:16:10 | 0:16:12 | |
you're prepared to tell them something that isn't true, | 0:16:12 | 0:16:15 | |
that may harm them, | 0:16:15 | 0:16:16 | |
just to move money from their wallet into yours. | 0:16:16 | 0:16:20 | |
You do not have that influence and power as a magician. | 0:16:20 | 0:16:24 | |
You have it the moment you deny you're a magician. | 0:16:24 | 0:16:27 | |
I know that surge of power that you feel | 0:16:29 | 0:16:34 | |
when you use a cheap trick | 0:16:34 | 0:16:36 | |
to manipulate someone else into thinking you have powers | 0:16:36 | 0:16:40 | |
that you don't have. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:41 | |
And I think it's very much to the good of the world that when Randi | 0:16:41 | 0:16:47 | |
felt that power, he backed away from it. | 0:16:47 | 0:16:51 | |
And out of that feeling of that power, | 0:16:51 | 0:16:54 | |
uh...came a rage. | 0:16:54 | 0:16:57 | |
I want now to introduce Uri Geller. | 0:17:03 | 0:17:05 | |
He's been denounced by some people as a magician, and certainly he's a | 0:17:05 | 0:17:10 | |
showman. He gives demonstrations all over the United States. | 0:17:10 | 0:17:13 | |
Ladies and gentlemen, Uri Geller. | 0:17:13 | 0:17:15 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:17:15 | 0:17:17 | |
They said his name was Uri Geller. The name didn't mean a thing to me. | 0:17:17 | 0:17:22 | |
He's come to the attention of Stanford Research Institute, | 0:17:22 | 0:17:25 | |
and the scientists there are apparently quite convinced that | 0:17:25 | 0:17:28 | |
he has psychic powers. | 0:17:28 | 0:17:30 | |
What I do is telepathy... | 0:17:30 | 0:17:33 | |
and that is, as everybody knows, | 0:17:33 | 0:17:35 | |
is receiving thoughts and passing thoughts. | 0:17:35 | 0:17:39 | |
And then I have the other power | 0:17:39 | 0:17:41 | |
which I, which I read that they call pyschokinesis. | 0:17:41 | 0:17:44 | |
And that is moving or bending or breaking objects. | 0:17:44 | 0:17:48 | |
It's cracking, I feel it under my fingers. | 0:17:48 | 0:17:51 | |
See how gently it goes? | 0:17:51 | 0:17:53 | |
Look, it's like it's becoming like plastic. | 0:17:53 | 0:17:56 | |
It's breaking... It's breaking. | 0:17:56 | 0:17:59 | |
You can... | 0:17:59 | 0:18:00 | |
if, look, it's very... | 0:18:00 | 0:18:03 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:18:03 | 0:18:04 | |
In 1972, I got a call from Colonel Austin Kibler of | 0:18:04 | 0:18:08 | |
the Defense Department, then acting | 0:18:08 | 0:18:10 | |
head of ARPA, as it was called - | 0:18:10 | 0:18:12 | |
Advanced Research Projects Agency. | 0:18:12 | 0:18:15 | |
He says, "Could you drop everything you're doing | 0:18:15 | 0:18:17 | |
"and go to Stanford Research Institute. There's a | 0:18:17 | 0:18:19 | |
"psychic down there and if he can do what they claim he can do, | 0:18:19 | 0:18:24 | |
"we ought to be involved. | 0:18:24 | 0:18:25 | |
"Cos the Russians have a big programme now going, using what they call Psy-Warfare." | 0:18:25 | 0:18:30 | |
This film describes a five-week investigation | 0:18:31 | 0:18:34 | |
conducted at Stanford Research Institute with Uri Geller, | 0:18:34 | 0:18:37 | |
a young Israeli. | 0:18:37 | 0:18:39 | |
Here we present a case of a double-blind experiment | 0:18:39 | 0:18:42 | |
in which someone places an object into a can chosen at random from ten | 0:18:42 | 0:18:47 | |
aluminium cans. Geller's task now is to determine | 0:18:47 | 0:18:52 | |
which of these ten cans holds the steel ball bearing. | 0:18:52 | 0:18:56 | |
Now Targ and Puthoff, the two scientists | 0:18:56 | 0:18:58 | |
who were in residence there at the time, were quite a pair. | 0:18:58 | 0:19:01 | |
First of all, Targ is legally blind. | 0:19:01 | 0:19:04 | |
And, er... | 0:19:04 | 0:19:05 | |
he was one of the observers. Duh! | 0:19:05 | 0:19:08 | |
He has made his choice, the steel ball is found. | 0:19:08 | 0:19:12 | |
He fooled the pants off them, it was astonishing. | 0:19:12 | 0:19:16 | |
They saw Nobel Prizes on the horizon because | 0:19:16 | 0:19:19 | |
if you do discover there really were psychic powers, that would certainly | 0:19:19 | 0:19:22 | |
bring you a Nobel Prize or two. In this case, Geller guessed that a | 0:19:22 | 0:19:26 | |
four was showing, and he was quite pleased to have guessed correctly. | 0:19:26 | 0:19:31 | |
When I made my report to the government that Geller was... | 0:19:31 | 0:19:35 | |
a complete fraud, | 0:19:35 | 0:19:36 | |
Targ and Puthoff realised they were not going to get the money | 0:19:36 | 0:19:40 | |
from the government, so they took Geller on a tour to get | 0:19:40 | 0:19:43 | |
publicity for him and to raise some private money | 0:19:43 | 0:19:46 | |
to do their research with him. | 0:19:46 | 0:19:47 | |
I've been reading a lot of research on him | 0:19:47 | 0:19:49 | |
from the Stanford Research Institute and from the science section | 0:19:49 | 0:19:52 | |
of the New York Times. | 0:19:52 | 0:19:53 | |
A lot of publicity on this gentleman whose name is Uri, U-R-I, Uri Geller. | 0:19:53 | 0:19:56 | |
And we hope we're going to see some rather astounding things tonight. | 0:19:56 | 0:20:00 | |
Would you welcome, please, Uri Geller. | 0:20:00 | 0:20:03 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:20:03 | 0:20:04 | |
Johnny Carson was THE man. | 0:20:04 | 0:20:06 | |
Everybody watched that programme on NBC | 0:20:06 | 0:20:09 | |
and since I had been on the programme many, many times, | 0:20:09 | 0:20:12 | |
they asked if I could come into California | 0:20:12 | 0:20:15 | |
to appear on the show that night. | 0:20:15 | 0:20:17 | |
And I said, "Boy this is rather short notice, | 0:20:17 | 0:20:19 | |
"but I will talk to your prop man. And I'll tell the prop man how | 0:20:19 | 0:20:23 | |
"he can prepare the props in such and such a way that if it's real, | 0:20:23 | 0:20:28 | |
"Geller can do it. | 0:20:28 | 0:20:29 | |
"But if it's a fake, Geller won't be able to do it." | 0:20:29 | 0:20:32 | |
Are you feeling in the mood yet? No. | 0:20:32 | 0:20:34 | |
More questions? All right, let's... What's the capital of South Dakota? | 0:20:34 | 0:20:38 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:20:38 | 0:20:39 | |
No, I don't mean to press you. | 0:20:39 | 0:20:41 | |
OK, uh, let me see. | 0:20:41 | 0:20:44 | |
I said, OK, what I would like you to do with the little aluminium | 0:20:44 | 0:20:48 | |
film cans is I would like you to coat them on the bottom | 0:20:48 | 0:20:52 | |
with rubber cement. | 0:20:52 | 0:20:53 | |
Don't glue them down to the tray, | 0:20:53 | 0:20:55 | |
just coat the bottoms and let them dry. | 0:20:55 | 0:20:58 | |
When they're put on the tray, they won't skid, then. | 0:20:58 | 0:21:01 | |
I said because the way he does the film-can thing is he rotates | 0:21:01 | 0:21:04 | |
the tray and he sees which ones move differently. | 0:21:04 | 0:21:07 | |
We'll start eliminating the ones that do not have the water. | 0:21:08 | 0:21:11 | |
Without touching them. He is really suspicious, you know! | 0:21:11 | 0:21:15 | |
I'm having a hard time with you! | 0:21:15 | 0:21:16 | |
I don't mean to be, Uri, I really don't. Just keep looking. | 0:21:16 | 0:21:19 | |
OK, let me rest a little, all right? All right. | 0:21:24 | 0:21:27 | |
They actually shut down the set for 20 minutes or so while he | 0:21:27 | 0:21:32 | |
hummed and hawed and wondered how he was going to do something, | 0:21:32 | 0:21:35 | |
then they came back to the live audience | 0:21:35 | 0:21:37 | |
after a big, long commercial break. | 0:21:37 | 0:21:40 | |
All right, we are back. | 0:21:40 | 0:21:41 | |
Uri was telling me you don't feel, what, strong tonight? | 0:21:41 | 0:21:45 | |
I don't feel strong... Geller had to give the whole thing up. | 0:21:45 | 0:21:48 | |
It was a real failure for him, definite failure. | 0:21:48 | 0:21:52 | |
Because Carson's people had followed the instructions that I gave them. | 0:21:52 | 0:21:57 | |
Don't be disappointed. I won't. | 0:21:57 | 0:21:59 | |
I'm not. OK. We thought he didn't have a future. | 0:21:59 | 0:22:02 | |
And we were wrong! Very, very wrong, we didn't know how wrong we were! | 0:22:02 | 0:22:05 | |
Try to make a Boy Scout knot. Really heave on it. | 0:22:08 | 0:22:10 | |
That doesn't feel very tight, put another knot on top, | 0:22:10 | 0:22:13 | |
would you, please? Just one more | 0:22:13 | 0:22:14 | |
to make sure. I don't want it to fall off around my ankles. | 0:22:14 | 0:22:16 | |
There we go. What did I ever do to you? Why do you hate me so much?! | 0:22:16 | 0:22:19 | |
I'm going to see if I can take this rope off, it may take me a while, | 0:22:19 | 0:22:22 | |
but I'll see how fast I can do it. Would you time me, please? | 0:22:22 | 0:22:25 | |
Do you have a watch there, just look at your watch. Uh, yeah. | 0:22:25 | 0:22:27 | |
How about you, you got a watch? I have one. It took 2? seconds. | 0:22:27 | 0:22:30 | |
I think I deserve a large round of applause for that. | 0:22:30 | 0:22:33 | |
One of Randi's great heroes is Harry Houdini, and the | 0:22:33 | 0:22:36 | |
life of Harry Houdini reads very similar to the life of James Randi. | 0:22:36 | 0:22:40 | |
Starting out as an amazing magician | 0:22:40 | 0:22:43 | |
and escape artist, he was a great | 0:22:43 | 0:22:45 | |
showman and debunker and dedicated his life | 0:22:45 | 0:22:48 | |
to keeping people from being duped. | 0:22:48 | 0:22:50 | |
Well, the thought naturally occurred to me that I | 0:22:50 | 0:22:53 | |
could base a good deal of my life on Harry Houdini and his adventures, | 0:22:53 | 0:22:56 | |
perhaps do some of the things that he had done | 0:22:56 | 0:22:58 | |
and perhaps even improve on them. | 0:22:58 | 0:23:00 | |
Open sesame, try that. Open sesame. | 0:23:00 | 0:23:03 | |
Oh, look at it! The door is opening! | 0:23:03 | 0:23:07 | |
I wanted to break his records - | 0:23:10 | 0:23:11 | |
I wanted to stay in a sealed metal coffin longer than he did, | 0:23:11 | 0:23:14 | |
get out of a straitjacket faster than he did. | 0:23:14 | 0:23:17 | |
Out of chains, out of leg irons and handcuffs. | 0:23:17 | 0:23:21 | |
I said if a man could make it, I could break it. | 0:23:21 | 0:23:23 | |
There was nothing he couldn't get out of. | 0:23:23 | 0:23:25 | |
Or make it at least seem like he was getting out of them. | 0:23:25 | 0:23:28 | |
The clock is still going, he has established a world's record. | 0:23:28 | 0:23:31 | |
In some cases, 200 feet of rope wrapped up on a chair on stage. | 0:23:31 | 0:23:35 | |
You just hope that the theatre doesn't catch fire, | 0:23:36 | 0:23:38 | |
because they're likely to leave you behind to fry. | 0:23:38 | 0:23:41 | |
But it's when some of the things like hanging over Niagara Falls | 0:23:46 | 0:23:49 | |
in a straitjacket at 20 below zero, that gets your attention. | 0:23:49 | 0:23:52 | |
# Billion dollar babies | 0:24:01 | 0:24:05 | |
# Hey! | 0:24:05 | 0:24:06 | |
# Billion dollar babies... # | 0:24:06 | 0:24:08 | |
In '73, with Billion Dollar Babies, | 0:24:08 | 0:24:10 | |
we said this whole album is about extravagance, | 0:24:10 | 0:24:12 | |
so take it to the next level, | 0:24:12 | 0:24:14 | |
let's use illusion. | 0:24:14 | 0:24:16 | |
If you're going to get your head cut off, it can be scary and funny | 0:24:16 | 0:24:19 | |
at the same time, but it's got to be professional. | 0:24:19 | 0:24:23 | |
So you go to the best guy, and Amazing Randi was the best guy. | 0:24:23 | 0:24:26 | |
I had never heard of Alice Cooper. | 0:24:35 | 0:24:38 | |
I assumed it was a woman, you see, silly me! | 0:24:39 | 0:24:43 | |
And I said, yeah, this might be fun. | 0:24:43 | 0:24:47 | |
He really starts to become kind of a pop-culture figure. | 0:24:50 | 0:24:53 | |
All the way to... Happy Days! | 0:24:53 | 0:24:56 | |
Good afternoon, gentlemen, I am The Amazing Randi. | 0:24:56 | 0:24:58 | |
Hey, The Amazing Randi! | 0:24:58 | 0:25:00 | |
My appearance on Happy Days really did a lot for my career. | 0:25:00 | 0:25:04 | |
Fonzie, thanks a lot. You really saved the day. Are you kidding? | 0:25:04 | 0:25:08 | |
Whoa. Hey! | 0:25:08 | 0:25:10 | |
See ya. Yeah, hang in there. | 0:25:10 | 0:25:13 | |
This is show business. The showmanship. | 0:25:13 | 0:25:16 | |
That's one respect in which | 0:25:16 | 0:25:18 | |
I based a good deal of my efforts on what Houdini had done. | 0:25:18 | 0:25:22 | |
He had done it by trial and error | 0:25:22 | 0:25:24 | |
and I benefitted from his example. | 0:25:24 | 0:25:26 | |
This actually was invented more than half a century ago | 0:25:26 | 0:25:30 | |
by the late, great, Harry Houdini. | 0:25:30 | 0:25:32 | |
I was asked to do a show honouring Harry Houdini. | 0:25:32 | 0:25:35 | |
I am going to immerse myself inside the can, my body will displace some of the water, | 0:25:35 | 0:25:39 | |
the water will be filled right to the very top and the lid will be locked on. | 0:25:39 | 0:25:43 | |
And I was going to do the milk can. Now, this is rehearsal, | 0:25:43 | 0:25:48 | |
maybe 20 minutes before airtime. | 0:25:48 | 0:25:51 | |
And I tried to perform the escape. | 0:25:51 | 0:25:54 | |
I couldn't get out of the milk can. | 0:25:56 | 0:25:58 | |
Something had jammed and I heard a crackling noise. | 0:25:58 | 0:26:03 | |
Turned out it was a couple of my vertebrae that had been chipped. | 0:26:03 | 0:26:07 | |
And the pain was rather considerable, to say the least. | 0:26:07 | 0:26:12 | |
I was in deep trouble. I knew that if I panicked I would...I'd be dead, | 0:26:12 | 0:26:16 | |
that's all there is to it. So you don't panic. | 0:26:16 | 0:26:20 | |
I had to let myself sink back into the water, | 0:26:20 | 0:26:23 | |
I was in a bit of trouble. | 0:26:23 | 0:26:25 | |
Finally I heard the noises that they were undoing the padlocks. | 0:26:25 | 0:26:30 | |
I roared up out of the water, | 0:26:30 | 0:26:33 | |
and there I was, I had been saved. It was a close call. | 0:26:33 | 0:26:37 | |
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome The Amazing Randi! | 0:26:37 | 0:26:41 | |
I came back from the hospital | 0:26:41 | 0:26:42 | |
and I was introduced down near the end of the show on a stretcher. | 0:26:42 | 0:26:45 | |
I've just returned from the hospital | 0:26:45 | 0:26:47 | |
and they tell me that I have a double compression fracture | 0:26:47 | 0:26:49 | |
of the vertebrae, | 0:26:49 | 0:26:52 | |
and it's not something I recommend you undertake as a hobby. | 0:26:52 | 0:26:55 | |
It wasn't a great blow to me. | 0:26:55 | 0:26:57 | |
And I was at the point where I thought that maybe it was time | 0:26:57 | 0:27:00 | |
to get out of this business. | 0:27:00 | 0:27:02 | |
Randi probably could've kept doing it for a while. | 0:27:02 | 0:27:04 | |
I remember him saying to me, "There comes a point | 0:27:04 | 0:27:06 | |
"you just don't want to see a little old guy getting out of a can." | 0:27:06 | 0:27:09 | |
I heard that this going to be the last escape, you're through with it. | 0:27:09 | 0:27:12 | |
Yes, the last straitjacket escape, certainly. | 0:27:12 | 0:27:15 | |
I may do some jail escapes and a few things like that, | 0:27:15 | 0:27:17 | |
but I'm going to leave that stunt to the younger people. Oh, yeah. How old are you? | 0:27:17 | 0:27:21 | |
I'm 55 now, and it's time to get out of that business. | 0:27:21 | 0:27:25 | |
I think it gave him the opportunity | 0:27:25 | 0:27:27 | |
to focus full-time on what he regarded... | 0:27:27 | 0:27:32 | |
as the bigger, better targets. | 0:27:32 | 0:27:34 | |
In the name of Jesus! Everybody with a bone disease, | 0:27:42 | 0:27:46 | |
everybody with a back infirmity, misplaced vertebrae, | 0:27:46 | 0:27:50 | |
bring them right down over here to the side. | 0:27:50 | 0:27:53 | |
Did you ever feel anything like this, it's like warm liquid fire | 0:27:53 | 0:27:56 | |
flowing over this whole building! | 0:27:56 | 0:27:59 | |
Oh, thank you, Jesus. | 0:27:59 | 0:28:01 | |
Oh, God. | 0:28:01 | 0:28:03 | |
Let her go, that's the power of the Holy Spirit. | 0:28:03 | 0:28:07 | |
During the '80s, the faith healing racket was very, | 0:28:07 | 0:28:10 | |
very prominent, literally all over the world. | 0:28:10 | 0:28:13 | |
Let his leg begin to grow, heal the disc. There, it's coming... | 0:28:13 | 0:28:16 | |
In the name of Jesus. | 0:28:16 | 0:28:19 | |
I did a lot of investigation, I visited a lot of these tent shows | 0:28:19 | 0:28:22 | |
as we called them, and we didn't see any evidence of | 0:28:22 | 0:28:25 | |
healing taking place whatsoever. | 0:28:25 | 0:28:27 | |
But I was particularly obsessed with Peter Popoff. | 0:28:27 | 0:28:30 | |
You've got cancer of the stomach? | 0:28:38 | 0:28:40 | |
Are you ready for God to burn that cancer out? | 0:28:40 | 0:28:43 | |
A man like Reverend Peter Popoff was a very dangerous man. | 0:28:43 | 0:28:47 | |
In my estimation, he was a real scoundrel. Because he was taking | 0:28:47 | 0:28:52 | |
people's faith in their religion - he was taking away | 0:28:52 | 0:28:55 | |
their security. In many cases, he was harming them physically | 0:28:55 | 0:28:59 | |
because he was convincing them | 0:28:59 | 0:29:00 | |
that they didn't have to go to doctors any more, | 0:29:00 | 0:29:03 | |
that Jesus had healed them. If you've got pills, as an act of faith, | 0:29:03 | 0:29:07 | |
I want you to just throw 'em out in the aisles. | 0:29:07 | 0:29:10 | |
Those of you up on the balcony, just throw them over the side, Amen. | 0:29:10 | 0:29:14 | |
Throw them over the side, throw them over the side. | 0:29:14 | 0:29:18 | |
So you have Popoff, who's going around the congregation | 0:29:19 | 0:29:22 | |
and just seemed to be able to hear the voice of God and know all about | 0:29:22 | 0:29:25 | |
people, even their addresses, | 0:29:25 | 0:29:26 | |
he would call it out, everyone's impressed. | 0:29:26 | 0:29:29 | |
Is that...John? 3784 Archwood Road? | 0:29:29 | 0:29:32 | |
God is burning those blood clots out of his veins, out of his arteries... | 0:29:32 | 0:29:37 | |
Jesus! | 0:29:37 | 0:29:40 | |
There it is... | 0:29:40 | 0:29:41 | |
So he was doing a mentalism act, it appeared, and we wondered how he got | 0:29:41 | 0:29:45 | |
the information. So Randi was coming to town and he said, | 0:29:45 | 0:29:48 | |
"Would you like to come see this evangelist by the name of Peter Popoff, and he's supposedly really | 0:29:48 | 0:29:53 | |
"well known, and he's going to be downtown and he's going to be doing | 0:29:53 | 0:29:56 | |
"this whole revival thing and thousands of people will be there." | 0:29:56 | 0:29:59 | |
And I said, "Yeah, I'd love to come." | 0:29:59 | 0:30:02 | |
Is it Ruby, Ruby Harris? | 0:30:02 | 0:30:05 | |
So, I'm sitting there with Randi and there's thousands of people. | 0:30:05 | 0:30:09 | |
Come on up here, Ruby - here she comes! | 0:30:09 | 0:30:12 | |
They believe this man has a connection with their God | 0:30:12 | 0:30:15 | |
and he can actually heal them. Yes! Yes! Yes! | 0:30:15 | 0:30:18 | |
Now, listen, I'm going to tell her what's wrong with her, but I'm not going to tell it out loud | 0:30:18 | 0:30:22 | |
because it's confidential. How many of you believe the Holy Spirit's a gentleman? | 0:30:22 | 0:30:26 | |
I realised at that moment, something big is going on here. This is a lot more than I thought it was. | 0:30:26 | 0:30:30 | |
Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! | 0:30:30 | 0:30:32 | |
God's going to burn them out right now, here they go! | 0:30:32 | 0:30:35 | |
Here they go - right now, Jesus! | 0:30:35 | 0:30:37 | |
And I have to tell you, | 0:30:37 | 0:30:39 | |
it was an absolutely amazing experience, because... | 0:30:39 | 0:30:42 | |
the emotions that you feel when there are people up there who are in tears... Right now, | 0:30:42 | 0:30:48 | |
Jesus! Ah, hallelujah! He's not going to need... | 0:30:48 | 0:30:51 | |
Who are shaking and you've got this entire energy going throughout this room. | 0:30:51 | 0:30:55 | |
It does something to you, even as a sceptic. | 0:30:55 | 0:30:58 | |
It truly does something to you. | 0:30:58 | 0:30:59 | |
Oh, hallelujah, get up on your feet, let's walk! There is no pain, no pain! | 0:30:59 | 0:31:04 | |
12 years, there's no pain! | 0:31:04 | 0:31:06 | |
Look at that! There he goes! There he goes, Hallelujah! | 0:31:07 | 0:31:11 | |
Oh, praise God! How many of you know that burns the Devil up? | 0:31:13 | 0:31:18 | |
After a while, you know, I'm sitting there and after some of the emotion | 0:31:20 | 0:31:23 | |
had died down in me, Popoff said, "I need people to come down to collect money" for him | 0:31:23 | 0:31:27 | |
and basically he had 15 buckets, and I'm supposed to go around the auditorium and collect cash. | 0:31:27 | 0:31:31 | |
God is touching that thyroid condition right now. | 0:31:31 | 0:31:35 | |
These people were throwing fives, tens, twenties, because one of the things Popoff always tells them, | 0:31:35 | 0:31:39 | |
"Whatever you give, you'll get back tenfold." | 0:31:39 | 0:31:42 | |
So if you put a dollar in, hey, you're going to get ten bucks. You put 100 bucks in, | 0:31:42 | 0:31:46 | |
you're going to get a lot more money back. And these people truly believed this. | 0:31:46 | 0:31:50 | |
Here it comes, complete healing in Jesus. | 0:31:50 | 0:31:53 | |
You foul spirit of deafness, take your hands off this woman | 0:31:53 | 0:31:56 | |
in Jesus' name. Lord, let these ears be open, there it is... | 0:31:56 | 0:32:00 | |
And as I get up close, | 0:32:00 | 0:32:02 | |
I notice in his ear, that there's an earpiece, there's no earhole. | 0:32:02 | 0:32:05 | |
It's a little piece of plastic in there and I come back to Randi and I said, | 0:32:05 | 0:32:08 | |
"I think I know what's going on." | 0:32:08 | 0:32:10 | |
I said what's up? He said, "He's wearing a hearing aid in his left ear." | 0:32:10 | 0:32:14 | |
Now, a man who heals the deaf, | 0:32:14 | 0:32:17 | |
you wouldn't think would be wearing a hearing aid. | 0:32:17 | 0:32:21 | |
How do I sound now? Loud! Loud. | 0:32:21 | 0:32:25 | |
At that point, I realised we needed some technical help, so I | 0:32:25 | 0:32:28 | |
enlisted the aid of a private investigator named Alec Jason. | 0:32:28 | 0:32:31 | |
Stand by. | 0:32:31 | 0:32:33 | |
And...action. | 0:32:33 | 0:32:35 | |
One day, Randi called me and suggested that Peter Popoff was | 0:32:35 | 0:32:38 | |
using radio transmissions, | 0:32:38 | 0:32:40 | |
but they couldn't really figure out | 0:32:40 | 0:32:42 | |
how it was done and they wanted to know | 0:32:42 | 0:32:44 | |
if I could intercept it or detect it. | 0:32:44 | 0:32:46 | |
I said I certainly couldn't guarantee it. | 0:32:46 | 0:32:48 | |
Less than 50/50, maybe, you know, 25%. | 0:32:48 | 0:32:52 | |
We knew that Popoff had a "service" as he called it, | 0:32:54 | 0:32:56 | |
happening in San Francisco | 0:32:56 | 0:32:58 | |
and we figured we'd better be there. | 0:32:58 | 0:33:00 | |
Do you support Peter's ministry financially? Every dime I can, yeah. | 0:33:00 | 0:33:05 | |
What brings you here today? | 0:33:05 | 0:33:06 | |
Well, I'm expecting a miracle. Physical healing. | 0:33:06 | 0:33:09 | |
The day of the event, I dressed as a security guard. Complete uniform - | 0:33:09 | 0:33:13 | |
badge, shirt, radio, keys... | 0:33:13 | 0:33:16 | |
everything. | 0:33:16 | 0:33:18 | |
I'm not a security guard - I just look like one, part of my cover. | 0:33:18 | 0:33:21 | |
'And I was nervous.' | 0:33:21 | 0:33:23 | |
I appeared in disguise as Adam Jersin. | 0:33:25 | 0:33:29 | |
And if you put those words together and mix them up, | 0:33:29 | 0:33:32 | |
they spell James Randi. | 0:33:32 | 0:33:34 | |
So I went down a corridor and that's where I set up my equipment. | 0:33:34 | 0:33:38 | |
It was concealed n bags. So I have | 0:33:38 | 0:33:41 | |
my scanner going and it's looking for new frequencies, | 0:33:41 | 0:33:45 | |
anything new that's not there normally. | 0:33:45 | 0:33:48 | |
Get ready... | 0:33:48 | 0:33:51 | |
get ready. | 0:33:51 | 0:33:52 | |
Praise God. Suddenly, | 0:33:54 | 0:33:55 | |
on the scanner, one of the lights came on saying there's a signal | 0:33:55 | 0:33:59 | |
and the scanner has stopped at that frequency. And I hear what I | 0:33:59 | 0:34:03 | |
realise are now...footsteps. | 0:34:03 | 0:34:06 | |
High-heel footsteps on a hard surface. | 0:34:06 | 0:34:09 | |
How many of you believe it's all right to praise the Lord? | 0:34:09 | 0:34:12 | |
And then I hear someone coming closer and closer to the microphone | 0:34:12 | 0:34:16 | |
and a woman's voice said, "Hello, Petey..." | 0:34:16 | 0:34:19 | |
'Hello, Petey. Can you hear me? | 0:34:19 | 0:34:22 | |
'If you can't, you're in trouble...' | 0:34:22 | 0:34:24 | |
Yes! They were using a radio frequency. I found it! | 0:34:24 | 0:34:29 | |
In the name of Jesus... | 0:34:29 | 0:34:30 | |
'Jodi Dean. Jodi Dean.' | 0:34:30 | 0:34:32 | |
Is it Jodi? | 0:34:32 | 0:34:34 | |
Jodi? | 0:34:34 | 0:34:36 | |
Dean? Jodi Dean? | 0:34:36 | 0:34:38 | |
'No, she should be right there on your right side.' | 0:34:38 | 0:34:40 | |
Here it comes. | 0:34:40 | 0:34:42 | |
'OK, she lives at 4267 Masterson.' | 0:34:42 | 0:34:46 | |
4267 Masterson? I can see the angels of God all around your house. | 0:34:46 | 0:34:49 | |
Rosa? | 0:34:49 | 0:34:50 | |
'Cameer.' Is it Cameer? You been taking a lot of medication? | 0:34:50 | 0:34:55 | |
'She's there with her son Kipper and he has a lump in his chest.' | 0:34:55 | 0:34:59 | |
Wait just a minute, who's Kipper? | 0:34:59 | 0:35:01 | |
He's got a lump in his chest. You want God to melt it right now? | 0:35:01 | 0:35:05 | |
Kipper, stand-up, God's going to burn that thing out, right now. | 0:35:05 | 0:35:08 | |
They'd filled out prayer request forms, saying "I have cancer," | 0:35:08 | 0:35:12 | |
or I have this problem or that problem. | 0:35:12 | 0:35:14 | |
So she's giving that information directly to Popoff | 0:35:14 | 0:35:17 | |
and then he's reciting that information | 0:35:17 | 0:35:20 | |
as if he's getting it from God. | 0:35:20 | 0:35:22 | |
'Martha Zacorski...' | 0:35:22 | 0:35:24 | |
Is it Martha, is it Zacorski? | 0:35:24 | 0:35:27 | |
'Weldon Krabb.' Is it Weldon... 'Krabb.' Krabb? | 0:35:27 | 0:35:30 | |
'Peggy White.' Peggy White? | 0:35:30 | 0:35:34 | |
'1305 Celono.' 1305 Celono? | 0:35:34 | 0:35:36 | |
'Turn over to the left.' Hallelujah! 'There you go. | 0:35:36 | 0:35:39 | |
'She's had a hysterectomy, she can't take hormones. | 0:35:39 | 0:35:42 | |
'He's got kidney and eye problems.' | 0:35:42 | 0:35:44 | |
You want God to touch your kidneys? | 0:35:44 | 0:35:46 | |
Now, let that ear open! In the name the Lord - right now, Jesus! | 0:35:46 | 0:35:48 | |
Power of the Holy Ghost! Here it comes... Devil, back off! | 0:35:48 | 0:35:52 | |
And the bondage is broken! Whoo! | 0:35:52 | 0:35:54 | |
In the name of Jesus! You foul spirit! | 0:35:54 | 0:35:59 | |
I thought, well, I'm getting out of here now. So I packed everything up, | 0:35:59 | 0:36:02 | |
I turned the equipment off, took my bags and | 0:36:02 | 0:36:04 | |
walked down the stairs, outside to the cool air. | 0:36:04 | 0:36:07 | |
My heart's pounding now, because I've got the goods. | 0:36:07 | 0:36:10 | |
Not only did we have the evidence we needed, | 0:36:10 | 0:36:12 | |
we had more than what we needed. | 0:36:12 | 0:36:14 | |
We had it. | 0:36:14 | 0:36:15 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:36:15 | 0:36:18 | |
So I went on the Johnny Carson show | 0:36:18 | 0:36:20 | |
and when the revelation came and you heard Mrs Popoff's voice... | 0:36:20 | 0:36:23 | |
'Hello, Petey, can you hear me? If you can't, you're in trouble...' | 0:36:23 | 0:36:27 | |
..Johnny suddenly realised what the gimmick was and he said, | 0:36:27 | 0:36:31 | |
"Oh, sh..." | 0:36:31 | 0:36:32 | |
It turns out that God's frequency - I didn't know he used radio - | 0:36:32 | 0:36:35 | |
is 39.170 megahertz, and God is a woman, obviously, and | 0:36:35 | 0:36:40 | |
sounds exactly like Popoff's wife, Elizabeth. | 0:36:40 | 0:36:42 | |
Has he seen this tape at all? | 0:36:42 | 0:36:44 | |
No, he does not know about this until this very moment. Interesting. | 0:36:44 | 0:36:47 | |
I can't imagine what it would be like to maintain a life where your | 0:36:47 | 0:36:50 | |
living and your wellbeing of you and your family depends upon you | 0:36:50 | 0:36:54 | |
lying every single day. | 0:36:54 | 0:36:55 | |
I think they believe there is some way in which what they are doing | 0:36:55 | 0:36:59 | |
is good and that there's some moral compass that they've invented | 0:36:59 | 0:37:03 | |
that allows them to do this. | 0:37:03 | 0:37:05 | |
A double portion of God's power! | 0:37:05 | 0:37:08 | |
Well, we did it. We had exposed this man on probably the | 0:37:08 | 0:37:11 | |
most popular television show of the day. | 0:37:11 | 0:37:14 | |
And he announced bankruptcy shortly after that. | 0:37:14 | 0:37:17 | |
Oh, glory to God! | 0:37:17 | 0:37:18 | |
CARSON: OK, we'll take a break, | 0:37:18 | 0:37:20 | |
we'll be right back. | 0:37:20 | 0:37:21 | |
Oh, OK, I'll see what I can do, all right, | 0:37:36 | 0:37:39 | |
here we go. Wait, I'll do a Jackie Gleason here. | 0:37:39 | 0:37:41 | |
Yeah, I don't know, hmm. | 0:37:45 | 0:37:47 | |
I'll do a plie at the bar, OK? | 0:37:47 | 0:37:49 | |
Oh, no, I don't bend that way any more! | 0:37:50 | 0:37:54 | |
It has been said many times when you're in love, | 0:37:54 | 0:37:56 | |
you want to tell the world. | 0:37:56 | 0:37:57 | |
Maybe it will work, I don't know. | 0:37:57 | 0:37:59 | |
And James Randi is in love with the truth. | 0:37:59 | 0:38:02 | |
The so-called psychics and the other charlatans are making money at our | 0:38:07 | 0:38:12 | |
expense and we have to bear some of the blame for it, | 0:38:12 | 0:38:16 | |
so let's get to work and do something about it. | 0:38:16 | 0:38:19 | |
I'll take two eight-by-tens. | 0:38:19 | 0:38:21 | |
The man that puts the fear of God into all those psychics, | 0:38:21 | 0:38:24 | |
The Amazing Randi! | 0:38:24 | 0:38:27 | |
James Randi isn't just about being sceptical of the paranormal. | 0:38:28 | 0:38:33 | |
He is about promoting a scientific worldview. | 0:38:33 | 0:38:37 | |
Science has created and shaped much of the world in which we live. | 0:38:37 | 0:38:41 | |
But constant vigilance can never be relaxed. | 0:38:41 | 0:38:46 | |
You want people to be educated, you want to go out and | 0:38:49 | 0:38:51 | |
shake these people and say, "Listen to me, listen to me." | 0:38:51 | 0:38:54 | |
The Million-Dollar Challenge is real, ladies and gentlemen. | 0:38:54 | 0:38:58 | |
Why is there not a line-up outside this organisation right now | 0:38:58 | 0:39:03 | |
on the street? Why isn't Uri Geller here? | 0:39:03 | 0:39:07 | |
Really pull, come on, make it tight. | 0:39:07 | 0:39:10 | |
OK, I need... I need this chair. | 0:39:10 | 0:39:12 | |
Sir, would you take the chair and pull it up front? | 0:39:12 | 0:39:14 | |
I got an old one! First edition. Yes! | 0:39:21 | 0:39:24 | |
The amount that he travels | 0:39:25 | 0:39:27 | |
and the amount of people that he engages with, | 0:39:27 | 0:39:30 | |
he has genuinely changed thousands and thousands of people's lives | 0:39:30 | 0:39:34 | |
by opening their eyes. | 0:39:34 | 0:39:36 | |
I've got to bring my camera down here and get some shots of it, too. | 0:39:42 | 0:39:46 | |
Just to make Jose crazy. | 0:39:46 | 0:39:48 | |
Is he on your mind? | 0:39:49 | 0:39:52 | |
Always! | 0:39:52 | 0:39:54 | |
Every minute. | 0:39:54 | 0:39:55 | |
Every minute, because he's not here. | 0:39:57 | 0:39:59 | |
Sometimes I think... what an odd couple we make. | 0:40:14 | 0:40:17 | |
He's very rational and very much driven | 0:40:17 | 0:40:22 | |
by the sceptic thinking and all of that. | 0:40:22 | 0:40:26 | |
And sometimes I feel I'm a little bit or a lot of the opposite. | 0:40:26 | 0:40:31 | |
And somehow we have managed to build a life together. | 0:40:31 | 0:40:34 | |
And I like it. I like the fact that we are completely opposites. | 0:40:35 | 0:40:39 | |
Randi's always been supportive of my career and my persona. | 0:40:50 | 0:40:55 | |
All the way through. From the moment we met up to now. | 0:40:55 | 0:40:58 | |
It's just an amazing... | 0:41:00 | 0:41:02 | |
No pun intended. ..life, | 0:41:04 | 0:41:07 | |
being with him. | 0:41:07 | 0:41:09 | |
I cannot imagine my life without him. | 0:41:11 | 0:41:13 | |
OK, so just let me know as soon as you leave the airport. | 0:41:20 | 0:41:24 | |
OK, bye. | 0:41:24 | 0:41:26 | |
He said they are waiting for luggage. | 0:41:26 | 0:41:29 | |
So... | 0:41:32 | 0:41:34 | |
People find it funny that I call him Amazing! | 0:41:36 | 0:41:39 | |
But I like to call him Amazing. | 0:41:40 | 0:41:42 | |
I'm a bit tired, you know that? | 0:41:51 | 0:41:53 | |
Oh, it's so good to be back. | 0:41:56 | 0:41:59 | |
So good to have you back, Amazing. | 0:41:59 | 0:42:02 | |
Good to be here after all that travel. | 0:42:02 | 0:42:05 | |
So good to have you back, Amazing. Now I gotta show you something. Yes. | 0:42:05 | 0:42:09 | |
As you can see, I got a new cane. | 0:42:09 | 0:42:11 | |
Yes, oh! | 0:42:11 | 0:42:13 | |
Yes, and you've got to get the full effect of it now. You ready? | 0:42:13 | 0:42:16 | |
OK, let me see. That's pretty awesome, Amazing. | 0:42:16 | 0:42:19 | |
This was given to me by CICAP and Massimo. | 0:42:19 | 0:42:22 | |
Oh, oh, nice. | 0:42:22 | 0:42:24 | |
Oh, I remember this place. | 0:42:24 | 0:42:26 | |
Yeah, we used to live here. | 0:42:26 | 0:42:27 | |
We are cute, aren't we? Yup, we are. | 0:42:29 | 0:42:33 | |
It's a good picture. I love that picture. | 0:42:33 | 0:42:36 | |
This is the guy that left his home at 17 to join a circus | 0:42:39 | 0:42:44 | |
and go through all the crazy stories | 0:42:44 | 0:42:49 | |
that he has lived. | 0:42:49 | 0:42:51 | |
Ooh, the inside of this one is icky. Well, then take it out. No, no. | 0:42:51 | 0:42:56 | |
There's lots that can be saved here. No, no, no, no. Yes. | 0:42:56 | 0:43:01 | |
I'll take it out later, then. You probably will. | 0:43:01 | 0:43:04 | |
'It's quite an amazing ride | 0:43:05 | 0:43:07 | |
'and I just feel very privileged to have been part of it.' | 0:43:07 | 0:43:12 | |
Once more, let me hold it here gently. | 0:43:23 | 0:43:26 | |
I'm not even touching it and it's... | 0:43:31 | 0:43:33 | |
Look, you see, it's plastic. | 0:43:33 | 0:43:35 | |
When Geller was on the Tonight Show and Randi had helped Johnny | 0:43:37 | 0:43:41 | |
set it up such that he would not be able to perform his tricks, | 0:43:41 | 0:43:44 | |
it sure looked like that was the end of Geller's career. | 0:43:44 | 0:43:47 | |
Over, done, three strikes and you're out - gone! No! | 0:43:47 | 0:43:50 | |
Two days later, he's on the Merv Griffin Show. | 0:43:50 | 0:43:52 | |
And all I'm saying is "bend". | 0:43:52 | 0:43:54 | |
Bend, bend. | 0:43:54 | 0:43:57 | |
OK, look, can you see it? | 0:43:57 | 0:43:59 | |
I mean, it's bent, you know. That is a very bent key. | 0:43:59 | 0:44:02 | |
Now what happens, it's an energy that leaves my mind, nothing to do | 0:44:02 | 0:44:07 | |
with my finger, penetrates the metal and alters the molecular structure. | 0:44:07 | 0:44:11 | |
Now, instead of bend, I say to the broken watches, "Work!" | 0:44:11 | 0:44:16 | |
AUDIENCE: One, two, three. Work! Work! | 0:44:16 | 0:44:19 | |
Just a second. It's working! Oh, my goodness, it's working. | 0:44:19 | 0:44:23 | |
Your mother's watch is working. Is that like a miracle? | 0:44:23 | 0:44:26 | |
They all started, they're working! | 0:44:26 | 0:44:29 | |
The "I Am Not A Crook" watch. | 0:44:29 | 0:44:31 | |
First of all, I was born with this. | 0:44:31 | 0:44:33 | |
When I was four years old I was eating soup - | 0:44:33 | 0:44:35 | |
and that's four years old - | 0:44:35 | 0:44:37 | |
and suddenly the spoon started bending in my hands! | 0:44:37 | 0:44:39 | |
Now, Geller probably became the first superstar psychic | 0:44:39 | 0:44:43 | |
to be apparently accepted by science and by scientists. | 0:44:43 | 0:44:47 | |
Uri has subjected himself or has been subjected to some scientific | 0:44:47 | 0:44:51 | |
study, what they call cheat-proof, under rigid controlled conditions. | 0:44:51 | 0:44:55 | |
I want to tell you this, that this is not a trick. | 0:44:55 | 0:44:58 | |
These are scientists who are putting their whole life at stake | 0:44:58 | 0:45:02 | |
in validating these powers. | 0:45:02 | 0:45:05 | |
Randi was very upset by Geller's | 0:45:05 | 0:45:07 | |
using trickery to deceive scientists. | 0:45:07 | 0:45:11 | |
He thought that that was very immoral | 0:45:11 | 0:45:13 | |
and he felt that this was a prostitution of his beloved magic. | 0:45:13 | 0:45:18 | |
Randi, you've been going around the country, | 0:45:18 | 0:45:20 | |
somewhat as Houdini used to in the past, trying to debunk those | 0:45:20 | 0:45:23 | |
who say that it's psychic power. | 0:45:23 | 0:45:25 | |
You say it's magic. This is my house key. Uri Geller took it. | 0:45:25 | 0:45:30 | |
He went like this with it, with his finger, that's all, no pressure, | 0:45:30 | 0:45:33 | |
and the key bent, you can see that, | 0:45:33 | 0:45:36 | |
and I've carried it around because I found that I'm a believer now. | 0:45:36 | 0:45:38 | |
Here is my identical key. Touch it and make it bend. | 0:45:38 | 0:45:42 | |
Would you hold the end of it very lightly in between your fingers, | 0:45:42 | 0:45:45 | |
Barbara, and I'm just going to stroke it. | 0:45:45 | 0:45:47 | |
Now, I'm not putting enough pressure on it to bend it? No. OK. | 0:45:47 | 0:45:50 | |
Will you show it to the camera, please? | 0:45:50 | 0:45:52 | |
Now, is it bent as much as this key or not? | 0:45:52 | 0:45:55 | |
Are you going to keep this key too, Barbara? | 0:45:55 | 0:45:58 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:45:58 | 0:45:59 | |
In one way I almost followed Geller around the country | 0:45:59 | 0:46:01 | |
because if he appeared on some major show, | 0:46:01 | 0:46:04 | |
I simply went on the show and did his same routine. | 0:46:04 | 0:46:07 | |
Now, when Mr Geller does this, he says, "Bend". | 0:46:07 | 0:46:10 | |
I don't say that, I say, "Broccoli," | 0:46:10 | 0:46:12 | |
because it's a simple conjuring trick that used to be on the back | 0:46:12 | 0:46:14 | |
of the Cornflake boxes when I was a kid. | 0:46:14 | 0:46:17 | |
Heavens to Betsy, look at that. Would you say that key is bent? | 0:46:17 | 0:46:20 | |
I decided to write a book about him. | 0:46:20 | 0:46:22 | |
I wrote a book, The Truth About Uri Geller, | 0:46:22 | 0:46:24 | |
that hit the market when the interest in Geller was at its peak. | 0:46:24 | 0:46:28 | |
The psychokinetic energy melts the molecular structure of the metal. | 0:46:28 | 0:46:32 | |
It seems to be... Oh, my! | 0:46:32 | 0:46:34 | |
I want it to bend, I just say "bend". Oh, my God! | 0:46:36 | 0:46:39 | |
SHE SCREAMS | 0:46:39 | 0:46:41 | |
THEY SCREAM | 0:46:42 | 0:46:44 | |
Randi and Geller just went back and forth like gladiators. | 0:46:44 | 0:46:47 | |
It was fun to watch. Can you do the spoon-bending trick? | 0:46:47 | 0:46:49 | |
Does Dolly Parton sleep on her back? | 0:46:49 | 0:46:51 | |
There's no heat at all. Touch it. | 0:46:53 | 0:46:55 | |
They wrote that I have laser beams in my buckle belt | 0:46:55 | 0:46:57 | |
and with that, I bend keys. | 0:46:57 | 0:46:59 | |
Look at this. You can actually see it bending over and turning liquid, | 0:46:59 | 0:47:02 | |
right in front of your eyes. | 0:47:02 | 0:47:04 | |
These things used to be on the back of Cornflake boxes, Larry, | 0:47:04 | 0:47:06 | |
but apparently some scientists either don't eat Cornflakes or | 0:47:06 | 0:47:09 | |
they don't read the back of the box. | 0:47:09 | 0:47:11 | |
This is my trademark and you will NOT find it on any cereal box. | 0:47:11 | 0:47:15 | |
How did you do that? Very well, I thought. | 0:47:16 | 0:47:19 | |
It's sleight of hand. | 0:47:19 | 0:47:20 | |
To explain the tricks to you would give you one solution, | 0:47:20 | 0:47:23 | |
but it wouldn't give you all of the solutions. | 0:47:23 | 0:47:25 | |
'In many cases, if not most cases, I simply went on the show | 0:47:25 | 0:47:27 | |
'and did his same routine.' | 0:47:27 | 0:47:29 | |
But then I would get the MC sometimes saying, | 0:47:31 | 0:47:34 | |
"Oh, yes, well, it's all very well for magicians to do this, | 0:47:34 | 0:47:36 | |
"but Mr Geller doesn't use magic tricks." | 0:47:36 | 0:47:39 | |
But what about the people who DO come up with the cards? | 0:47:39 | 0:47:41 | |
Do you hear about the times they don't come up with them? | 0:47:41 | 0:47:43 | |
Do you know that Uri Geller did 100 tests with sealed envelopes? | 0:47:43 | 0:47:46 | |
You think it's all fake? | 0:47:46 | 0:47:47 | |
What is the difference between what I did and what Uri Geller did? | 0:47:47 | 0:47:50 | |
Is, uh...because, uh... | 0:47:50 | 0:47:52 | |
Well, I guess I really don't have a...a...a real answer. | 0:47:54 | 0:47:58 | |
Because magicians can duplicate some of these things with trickery | 0:47:58 | 0:48:02 | |
does not mean that genuine psychics do it with trickery. | 0:48:02 | 0:48:06 | |
Anyone can imitate the Mona Lisa, | 0:48:06 | 0:48:09 | |
but that does not make them Leonardo da Vinci. | 0:48:09 | 0:48:11 | |
You people remember that. | 0:48:11 | 0:48:13 | |
Magicians say, "No, nonsense, I duped the scientists." | 0:48:17 | 0:48:20 | |
They say I fooled them. They always find loopholes. | 0:48:20 | 0:48:24 | |
I challenge them and tell them, | 0:48:24 | 0:48:25 | |
"Look, why don't you go and do it in a laboratory | 0:48:25 | 0:48:28 | |
"the way I was tested?" | 0:48:28 | 0:48:30 | |
My opinion has always been that parapsychologists, | 0:48:34 | 0:48:37 | |
no matter how well funded, | 0:48:37 | 0:48:39 | |
would not be able to properly judge | 0:48:39 | 0:48:42 | |
where someone has set out to purposefully deceive them. | 0:48:42 | 0:48:46 | |
And I had come to the conclusion that the only way to show them | 0:48:46 | 0:48:50 | |
would be to perpetrate an outright hoax by introducing some tricksters | 0:48:50 | 0:48:55 | |
into the laboratory that I knew I could trust. | 0:48:55 | 0:48:59 | |
I read Randi's book, The Truth About Uri Geller, and from that book | 0:48:59 | 0:49:04 | |
I was able to put methods together for bending objects myself, | 0:49:04 | 0:49:07 | |
and I created many of my own methods, to the point where kids in high | 0:49:07 | 0:49:10 | |
school were stealing silverware and bringing it to me to bend. | 0:49:10 | 0:49:13 | |
And I got so good at it that I'm not sure why, | 0:49:13 | 0:49:15 | |
but I wrote Randi a letter and I said, "Look, if you ever need a kid | 0:49:15 | 0:49:17 | |
"to try and fool scientists, I'd be happy to do so." | 0:49:17 | 0:49:20 | |
After I read The Magic Of Uri Geller and got to be pretty | 0:49:20 | 0:49:24 | |
proficient as a "psychic metal bender" myself, | 0:49:24 | 0:49:28 | |
I took it upon myself to reach out to James Randi. | 0:49:28 | 0:49:31 | |
Oh, Michael, you must be a psychic! | 0:49:31 | 0:49:33 | |
I'm causing that to twist 180 degrees, just like that. | 0:49:33 | 0:49:37 | |
Very shortly after, a very substantial amount of money | 0:49:37 | 0:49:40 | |
had been offered to a university | 0:49:40 | 0:49:44 | |
to do parapsychological tests. | 0:49:44 | 0:49:47 | |
MacLab was funded by James McDonnell and he said, | 0:49:47 | 0:49:51 | |
"Go out and find me some star subjects." | 0:49:51 | 0:49:54 | |
And that job fell to a scientist called Peter Phillips. | 0:49:54 | 0:49:57 | |
We were told that there were 300 applicants | 0:49:57 | 0:50:00 | |
and the MacLab ended up focusing on only two subjects. | 0:50:00 | 0:50:04 | |
Myself and Steve Shaw. | 0:50:04 | 0:50:07 | |
At that point, Project Alpha was ready to take off. | 0:50:07 | 0:50:12 | |
I fly into Saint Louis and we didn't know what we were getting into. | 0:50:15 | 0:50:18 | |
We didn't know if they were going to have one-way mirrors | 0:50:18 | 0:50:21 | |
with cameras hidden behind them. | 0:50:21 | 0:50:22 | |
We had absolutely no clue what it was we were getting into. | 0:50:22 | 0:50:25 | |
I was 17 years old. It was my first semester as a senior in high school. | 0:50:25 | 0:50:29 | |
I'm about to pull some basic magic on some people that should be | 0:50:29 | 0:50:34 | |
very well skilled and could very likely see through this quickly. | 0:50:34 | 0:50:37 | |
I might have stepped in a little bit over my head at that time. | 0:50:37 | 0:50:41 | |
I'm Peter Phillips and here with me is Mark Shafer. | 0:50:41 | 0:50:45 | |
The tape that you're about to see consists of a series | 0:50:45 | 0:50:48 | |
of episodes suggestive of psychokinesis. | 0:50:48 | 0:50:50 | |
The subjects in these experiments are two men of about 21 - | 0:50:50 | 0:50:54 | |
M.E. and S.S. | 0:50:54 | 0:50:56 | |
They presented themselves to us originally as psychic metal-benders. | 0:50:56 | 0:51:00 | |
I wrote to Professor Phillips in order to advise him | 0:51:00 | 0:51:04 | |
on how he should observe the Alpha kids. | 0:51:04 | 0:51:08 | |
As a matter of fact, I sent him a list of 11 rules | 0:51:08 | 0:51:11 | |
in order to keep control of an experiment. | 0:51:11 | 0:51:13 | |
'Don't allow the subjects to alter the rules established for the tests. | 0:51:13 | 0:51:16 | |
'Don't accept excuses like, "the vibrations aren't right" | 0:51:16 | 0:51:20 | |
'or "I don't feel right." | 0:51:20 | 0:51:22 | |
'And above all...' | 0:51:22 | 0:51:23 | |
..you need a professional magician | 0:51:23 | 0:51:24 | |
to keep you straightened out at what might be trickery. | 0:51:24 | 0:51:28 | |
It was very quickly, though, that Steve and I tried to, | 0:51:28 | 0:51:30 | |
almost line by line, get them to violate every one of those caveats | 0:51:30 | 0:51:34 | |
in one way, shape or form. | 0:51:34 | 0:51:36 | |
Mike, sitting to your right and dressed in white has just | 0:51:36 | 0:51:39 | |
picked up a spoon that he will attempt to influence. | 0:51:39 | 0:51:41 | |
One of Randi's caveats was to mark every item with an indelible mark | 0:51:41 | 0:51:48 | |
or a scratch that couldn't be replicated. | 0:51:48 | 0:51:50 | |
Something that was permanent | 0:51:50 | 0:51:51 | |
and it was something that we couldn't duplicate on the spot. | 0:51:51 | 0:51:55 | |
The parapsychologists, in their infinite wisdom, | 0:51:55 | 0:51:58 | |
decided that they would simply use paper tags with string. | 0:51:58 | 0:52:03 | |
'Can I get this tag off here? Sure, sure, slide it off.' | 0:52:03 | 0:52:06 | |
We took these paper hanging tags off of the spoons to make them | 0:52:07 | 0:52:11 | |
easier to work with. | 0:52:11 | 0:52:12 | |
As everybody was focusing on one spoon it was a simple matter | 0:52:12 | 0:52:15 | |
to lean on the control spoon, and later, switch those two tags | 0:52:15 | 0:52:20 | |
so the control spoon looked like the experimental spoon. | 0:52:20 | 0:52:23 | |
Yeah, it's markedly different. Of course it is! | 0:52:23 | 0:52:25 | |
It just went down instead of up. | 0:52:25 | 0:52:26 | |
It didn't feel like anything at all, but there it is. | 0:52:26 | 0:52:30 | |
We truly believed that if scientists went in with a pro-biased opinion, | 0:52:31 | 0:52:35 | |
and the majority of parapsychologists were doing just that, | 0:52:35 | 0:52:37 | |
they would not use proper science. | 0:52:37 | 0:52:39 | |
And if we could replicate what Geller and SRI had done, in essence, | 0:52:39 | 0:52:45 | |
in terms of established scientific protocol on testing a psychic, | 0:52:45 | 0:52:50 | |
we could undermine Geller's claims | 0:52:50 | 0:52:52 | |
of being deemed legitimate by scientists. | 0:52:52 | 0:52:55 | |
We have been working first of all, to establish the range of abilities | 0:52:55 | 0:52:59 | |
that Mike and Steve have because these have apparently included being | 0:52:59 | 0:53:03 | |
able to move small solid objects across a table top, influencing | 0:53:03 | 0:53:06 | |
a variety of metal objects such as keys and metal bars and metal rods. | 0:53:06 | 0:53:11 | |
Sometimes touching and sometimes at a distance, | 0:53:11 | 0:53:14 | |
and also influencing photographic film. | 0:53:14 | 0:53:17 | |
We were trying to get the parapsychologists to | 0:53:17 | 0:53:20 | |
break their own rules. | 0:53:20 | 0:53:22 | |
We were then informing Randi of the ways that we were beating the tests. | 0:53:22 | 0:53:28 | |
Randi in turn was then communicating it back to the MacLab how to | 0:53:28 | 0:53:32 | |
safeguard their tests so that we couldn't beat them any longer. | 0:53:32 | 0:53:37 | |
Needless to say, it got very complicated | 0:53:37 | 0:53:40 | |
as we were forced to become more and more resourceful. | 0:53:40 | 0:53:42 | |
'Another device designed to illicit PK in a visible manner | 0:53:42 | 0:53:46 | |
'was a lightweight rotor that was mounted atop a thin metal spindle | 0:53:46 | 0:53:50 | |
'under a glass dome.' | 0:53:50 | 0:53:52 | |
One of the tests was a spindle with a small rotor on top that had | 0:53:52 | 0:53:56 | |
a glass dome that fit over the top of this to protect it. | 0:53:56 | 0:54:00 | |
Our jobs were to try to move that rotor | 0:54:00 | 0:54:04 | |
without obviously removing the glass dome. | 0:54:04 | 0:54:07 | |
I thought that was a pretty good test. | 0:54:07 | 0:54:09 | |
It's connected to the base real well. | 0:54:09 | 0:54:12 | |
I really was stumped. Then I look over to the side of the room | 0:54:12 | 0:54:16 | |
and Steve was concentrating on the rotor and the rotor starts to move. | 0:54:16 | 0:54:20 | |
Here you see Steve influencing the rotor. | 0:54:20 | 0:54:23 | |
He's causing it to rotate clockwise. | 0:54:23 | 0:54:27 | |
And they said, "Well, to make sure there is no air currents or | 0:54:27 | 0:54:30 | |
"anything like that, can you make it move to the right?" | 0:54:30 | 0:54:32 | |
So I start concentrating and slowly it starts reversing | 0:54:32 | 0:54:35 | |
and it goes to the right. | 0:54:35 | 0:54:36 | |
I had no idea how he was getting this to work. | 0:54:36 | 0:54:40 | |
And if you look carefully, the rotor is moving counter-clockwise. | 0:54:40 | 0:54:44 | |
So Mike turns to me and he says, | 0:54:44 | 0:54:45 | |
"Hey, would you like to go get a drink at the machine?" | 0:54:45 | 0:54:47 | |
I know he wants to know how I just did this. | 0:54:47 | 0:54:50 | |
So I go with him down there, | 0:54:50 | 0:54:51 | |
and he says, "Steve, how the heck did you just do that?" | 0:54:51 | 0:54:54 | |
And I said, "Mike, after all these hours of sitting in that room | 0:54:54 | 0:54:57 | |
"and concentrating, I just found out that I'm really a psychic!" | 0:54:57 | 0:55:00 | |
I think I promptly threw him up against the wall at that point | 0:55:00 | 0:55:03 | |
and wanted to know, and it turned out it was a very simple deception. | 0:55:03 | 0:55:08 | |
Shortly after that hallway conversation, both of us | 0:55:08 | 0:55:11 | |
could magically make the rotor move any direction that we wanted to, | 0:55:11 | 0:55:15 | |
and the MacLab personnel never caught on. | 0:55:15 | 0:55:18 | |
I don't believe they're tricking us, | 0:55:18 | 0:55:20 | |
especially based on the research that we've done in the last year, | 0:55:20 | 0:55:23 | |
where we have exerted as tight a control condition | 0:55:23 | 0:55:26 | |
as we could think of, even in consultation with magicians, | 0:55:26 | 0:55:29 | |
to see if the influence holds up. | 0:55:29 | 0:55:32 | |
And we have found evidence that it does, | 0:55:32 | 0:55:35 | |
not as strongly under these controlled conditions. | 0:55:35 | 0:55:37 | |
It's as if somehow, the extra controls seem to inhibit it, | 0:55:37 | 0:55:42 | |
but still an effect persists. | 0:55:42 | 0:55:44 | |
Over the course of Alpha, | 0:55:44 | 0:55:46 | |
the controls did get significantly tougher | 0:55:46 | 0:55:48 | |
and the tighter the controls got, the lower the results got, | 0:55:48 | 0:55:51 | |
but their faith in us never diminished. | 0:55:51 | 0:55:54 | |
We do not claim that this tape provides incontrovertible | 0:55:54 | 0:55:57 | |
evidence of PK. | 0:55:57 | 0:55:58 | |
We regard it rather as a provisional tape, | 0:55:58 | 0:56:01 | |
imperfect, but still with much to offer. | 0:56:01 | 0:56:05 | |
It was at that point I think Steve and I realised | 0:56:05 | 0:56:08 | |
we can't do this any more. | 0:56:08 | 0:56:09 | |
We can't be responsible for this kind of psychological damage | 0:56:09 | 0:56:14 | |
by our ability to trick somebody. | 0:56:14 | 0:56:17 | |
Randi said, "It's just a couple more months. | 0:56:17 | 0:56:19 | |
"We have this TV show coming up, | 0:56:19 | 0:56:20 | |
"and that's when we want to tell the world that you're not real." | 0:56:20 | 0:56:24 | |
Randi, he's really the general. | 0:56:25 | 0:56:27 | |
You know, the general's rarely on the front lines anyway. | 0:56:27 | 0:56:30 | |
And sometimes he's sending | 0:56:30 | 0:56:33 | |
his minions to do his good works. | 0:56:33 | 0:56:36 | |
But always at a distance, he's the one at the strategy table. | 0:56:36 | 0:56:41 | |
He's got the vision for what will come. | 0:56:41 | 0:56:45 | |
The big day comes, the one that Mike and I have been waiting for. | 0:56:45 | 0:56:48 | |
We're going to reveal that everything is a hoax. | 0:56:48 | 0:56:50 | |
I'm going to ask these two gentlemen a very simple question. | 0:56:50 | 0:56:54 | |
Can you tell us, how do you do it? | 0:56:54 | 0:56:57 | |
As I walked up to the microphone I said, "It's very simple..." | 0:56:57 | 0:57:01 | |
Well, to be quite honest, we cheat. | 0:57:01 | 0:57:04 | |
Flash bulbs started going off and the murmurs started up | 0:57:04 | 0:57:08 | |
inside of the audience, and Steve and I then at that point admitted | 0:57:08 | 0:57:12 | |
that Project Alpha and us as psychics was nothing more | 0:57:12 | 0:57:16 | |
than a bit of illusion. | 0:57:16 | 0:57:19 | |
Magician Amazing Randi, you have him now on the phone. | 0:57:19 | 0:57:22 | |
Go ahead, you have the last word. | 0:57:22 | 0:57:24 | |
I was wondering what he thought about the claims that this was | 0:57:24 | 0:57:27 | |
sort of an unethical way of carrying out this experiment | 0:57:27 | 0:57:30 | |
and whether or not it's going to affect the scientific community | 0:57:30 | 0:57:32 | |
and the parapsychologists negatively? | 0:57:32 | 0:57:34 | |
I'm happy to say that the | 0:57:34 | 0:57:35 | |
president of the Parapsychological Association described it | 0:57:35 | 0:57:38 | |
as a magnificent experiment that needed to be done | 0:57:38 | 0:57:41 | |
and from which the results of | 0:57:41 | 0:57:42 | |
may benefit everybody, and I think that's what we headed out to do. | 0:57:42 | 0:57:45 | |
We also should point that that the director of that programme | 0:57:45 | 0:57:48 | |
thought it was a very lousy thing to do. | 0:57:48 | 0:57:50 | |
He was quoted as saying that you probably set back the study of it | 0:57:50 | 0:57:53 | |
and that it... If Phillips said that, then my answer to my having | 0:57:53 | 0:57:57 | |
set back the study of parapsychology, is no, | 0:57:57 | 0:57:59 | |
they tried to set it back. | 0:57:59 | 0:58:01 | |
I brought it into the 20th century. | 0:58:01 | 0:58:03 | |
'I felt really bad.' | 0:58:03 | 0:58:06 | |
They truly believed in these things, and I thought that if they had | 0:58:06 | 0:58:09 | |
realised that they had been fooled by somebody, that they would be | 0:58:09 | 0:58:11 | |
more cautious in the future, but I felt bad that I had fooled them. | 0:58:11 | 0:58:14 | |
So you dropped out kind of in the mid-'70s | 0:58:18 | 0:58:20 | |
and just resurfaced lately, what have you been doing? | 0:58:20 | 0:58:23 | |
At that time I wanted to become rich. | 0:58:23 | 0:58:26 | |
And I met a very important man | 0:58:26 | 0:58:28 | |
who was a chairman of the largest mining company in England | 0:58:28 | 0:58:31 | |
and he showed me how to use my talents, | 0:58:31 | 0:58:34 | |
my abilities to look for oil, gold and mineral. | 0:58:34 | 0:58:37 | |
And I was very, I am very successful at it. You proved it? | 0:58:37 | 0:58:40 | |
Exactly, but I am still controversial. | 0:58:40 | 0:58:43 | |
There are a lot of people who think I am fake and a magician, | 0:58:43 | 0:58:46 | |
but all those people I love because they do free publicity for me. | 0:58:46 | 0:58:51 | |
Let's try to do the drawing. | 0:58:51 | 0:58:53 | |
'Do you know how many times the sceptics tried to shoot me down?' | 0:58:53 | 0:58:56 | |
Do you know how many times Randi tried to ruin my career? | 0:58:56 | 0:59:01 | |
But they failed miserably. | 0:59:01 | 0:59:03 | |
Pick up the National Enquirer or any other paper | 0:59:03 | 0:59:06 | |
and you'll find a billion psychics. | 0:59:06 | 0:59:09 | |
Look at movies that Hollywood produces about UFOs | 0:59:09 | 0:59:12 | |
and the psychic powers and paranormal activity. | 0:59:12 | 0:59:16 | |
Are you kidding me? It's much bigger than ever. | 0:59:16 | 0:59:19 | |
You are negative, you are setting up your own standards | 0:59:19 | 0:59:21 | |
and what you're not understanding is that the key to realising any kind of | 0:59:21 | 0:59:24 | |
psychic phenomenon is first believing in it, | 0:59:24 | 0:59:26 | |
not the other way around. | 0:59:26 | 0:59:28 | |
Once you believe, it will happen, it will happen. | 0:59:28 | 0:59:31 | |
Even you, sir, the not-so-amazing-Randi, are psychic, | 0:59:31 | 0:59:35 | |
whether or not you want to believe. | 0:59:35 | 0:59:37 | |
There are millions and millions of people upon this planet | 0:59:37 | 0:59:39 | |
who have other ways of intuiting and sensing. | 0:59:39 | 0:59:41 | |
I have never said these things have not happened. | 0:59:41 | 0:59:44 | |
Why don't you read a few papers and correct yourself? | 0:59:44 | 0:59:46 | |
People think they believe what they choose to believe. We don't. | 0:59:46 | 0:59:50 | |
We mostly believe what we NEED to believe. | 0:59:50 | 0:59:53 | |
You say that Uri Geller is a fake. | 0:59:53 | 0:59:54 | |
You came here and you've given everybody a lot of lip service | 0:59:54 | 0:59:57 | |
and you haven't done anything. | 0:59:57 | 0:59:58 | |
We're going for a commercial break and you can piss off! | 0:59:58 | 1:00:01 | |
We'll be back... | 1:00:01 | 1:00:02 | |
The public really doesn't listen | 1:00:03 | 1:00:06 | |
when they are being told straightforward facts. | 1:00:06 | 1:00:10 | |
They would rather accept what some charismatic character tells them | 1:00:11 | 1:00:15 | |
than really think about what the truth might be. | 1:00:15 | 1:00:18 | |
I tell you from now on you are going to have | 1:00:18 | 1:00:21 | |
a song of victory in your heart! | 1:00:21 | 1:00:23 | |
They would rather have the romance and the lies. | 1:00:23 | 1:00:26 | |
There are a billion believers out there. | 1:00:26 | 1:00:30 | |
A billion people believe in God. | 1:00:32 | 1:00:34 | |
You can't touch that. | 1:00:34 | 1:00:37 | |
There she goes! | 1:00:37 | 1:00:39 | |
This is what Randi is trying to do. | 1:00:39 | 1:00:41 | |
He's trying to say this is a big hoax | 1:00:41 | 1:00:44 | |
and so everything else is a hoax too. | 1:00:44 | 1:00:46 | |
He is trying to say that nothing divine is being spoken. | 1:00:46 | 1:00:50 | |
But actually our ratings are up. | 1:00:50 | 1:00:54 | |
And the thing is, Popoff got back in the business. | 1:00:54 | 1:00:59 | |
All he changed was he doesn't use a radio any more. | 1:00:59 | 1:01:02 | |
He doesn't need to. | 1:01:02 | 1:01:03 | |
He just does dumber stuff that people accept anyway. | 1:01:03 | 1:01:07 | |
This is water from the pool that the Lord himself led the Christians to | 1:01:07 | 1:01:11 | |
during the horrible Chernobyl nuclear accident. | 1:01:11 | 1:01:15 | |
Tens of thousands died and yet every Christian was miraculously spared. | 1:01:15 | 1:01:20 | |
Randi and I once talked about it and I said, you know, | 1:01:20 | 1:01:22 | |
maybe were on the wrong end of the business, we should be on that side. | 1:01:22 | 1:01:26 | |
I mean, he's making like a million dollars a month or more | 1:01:26 | 1:01:28 | |
and I'm not making a million dollars a month. | 1:01:28 | 1:01:31 | |
And, if Randi and I got together we could come up with some really | 1:01:31 | 1:01:34 | |
nifty tricks that would fool people. | 1:01:34 | 1:01:37 | |
Con people. | 1:01:37 | 1:01:38 | |
OK, one, two, three. | 1:01:45 | 1:01:48 | |
ALL: # Happy birthday, dear Randi | 1:01:48 | 1:01:53 | |
# Happy birthday to you. # | 1:01:53 | 1:01:57 | |
Let her rip, let her rip. | 1:01:57 | 1:01:58 | |
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE | 1:01:58 | 1:02:00 | |
Let her rip! | 1:02:00 | 1:02:01 | |
APPLAUSE | 1:02:01 | 1:02:03 | |
Happy birthday, Amazing. | 1:02:03 | 1:02:05 | |
In the early days, I think | 1:02:05 | 1:02:06 | |
Randi sort of hid his true relationship with Jose. | 1:02:06 | 1:02:10 | |
But I don't think Randi hid it for any bad reason. | 1:02:10 | 1:02:13 | |
I think it was just a thing that people would use against him | 1:02:13 | 1:02:16 | |
and I think it took Randi a long time to understand that in this day | 1:02:16 | 1:02:19 | |
and age, you don't have to hide those things any more. | 1:02:19 | 1:02:22 | |
# Let me tell you my story about our birthday boy named Randi | 1:02:22 | 1:02:26 | |
# Who met a guy and thought he was just dandy | 1:02:26 | 1:02:29 | |
# Well, the first thing you know, they form a great team | 1:02:29 | 1:02:34 | |
# And both are living the American Dream. # | 1:02:34 | 1:02:37 | |
I remember when Randi came out. | 1:02:37 | 1:02:40 | |
It was in 2010, at the age of 81. | 1:02:40 | 1:02:43 | |
I said, "Are you sure, are you sure?" | 1:02:43 | 1:02:46 | |
But it was just a gesture of complete honesty out there. | 1:02:46 | 1:02:51 | |
And, morally, having built a life | 1:02:54 | 1:02:59 | |
around the fact of telling truth, | 1:02:59 | 1:03:03 | |
he needed to come out publicly. | 1:03:03 | 1:03:07 | |
Thank you so much, thank you so much for coming to Randi's birthday, | 1:03:08 | 1:03:13 | |
and for being our friends, for being supportive of both of us. | 1:03:13 | 1:03:17 | |
And that's it. That's all I got to say. | 1:03:17 | 1:03:20 | |
APPLAUSE | 1:03:20 | 1:03:22 | |
'Before, it was all about becoming invisible. | 1:03:22 | 1:03:27 | |
'Now it should be exactly the opposite.' | 1:03:27 | 1:03:30 | |
I was here in the house | 1:03:37 | 1:03:40 | |
and I looked out the window and I saw a uniformed officer outside. | 1:03:40 | 1:03:44 | |
They were all over the place. | 1:03:46 | 1:03:48 | |
US Marshals and FBI personnel, as well, | 1:03:48 | 1:03:52 | |
circling around, trying to prevent anyone from escaping. | 1:03:52 | 1:03:57 | |
I was terrified. | 1:03:57 | 1:03:58 | |
I had no idea why they were there. | 1:03:58 | 1:04:01 | |
I heard rapid knocking at the door. | 1:04:03 | 1:04:05 | |
I went to the door and they pushed their way in | 1:04:05 | 1:04:09 | |
and said, "Where is Jose Alvarez?" | 1:04:09 | 1:04:12 | |
And they put handcuffs on him and marched him out the door. | 1:04:13 | 1:04:17 | |
I just saw him put in a car and driven out the driveway. | 1:04:18 | 1:04:22 | |
What a situation. What a situation. | 1:04:48 | 1:04:51 | |
It's so... | 1:04:53 | 1:04:55 | |
very disturbing. | 1:04:55 | 1:04:57 | |
When the police showed up and arrested my partner | 1:04:58 | 1:05:02 | |
and took him away in handcuffs, I was desperate. | 1:05:02 | 1:05:05 | |
I just... I was standing at the edge of the dock | 1:05:05 | 1:05:09 | |
and there were no ships around and I was about to fall into the water. | 1:05:09 | 1:05:12 | |
I didn't know what to do. | 1:05:12 | 1:05:15 | |
No matter what his name is, I know who he is, | 1:05:15 | 1:05:18 | |
and I know what he is as well. | 1:05:18 | 1:05:21 | |
And he's my partner. | 1:05:21 | 1:05:23 | |
He's very, very important to me. | 1:05:23 | 1:05:25 | |
For the last 25 years, everybody has known me as Jose Alvarez. | 1:05:39 | 1:05:44 | |
But, in reality, my real name | 1:05:46 | 1:05:49 | |
is Deyvi Orangel Pena Arteaga. | 1:05:49 | 1:05:52 | |
I was born in Venezuela. | 1:05:54 | 1:05:56 | |
I was raised in Caracas. | 1:05:56 | 1:05:59 | |
And in Venezuela, to be gay | 1:05:59 | 1:06:01 | |
is the most despicable thing that you can be. | 1:06:01 | 1:06:06 | |
You knew that everybody that was your friend, | 1:06:06 | 1:06:09 | |
or your loved one or whatever, they would turn against you. | 1:06:09 | 1:06:12 | |
That's for sure. | 1:06:12 | 1:06:14 | |
I just knew that I should hide it. | 1:06:14 | 1:06:17 | |
When I was 16 years old I was at a party | 1:06:18 | 1:06:22 | |
and three guys came and grabbed me from behind | 1:06:22 | 1:06:25 | |
and one of them put a gun to my head | 1:06:25 | 1:06:27 | |
and started just yelling all kinds of things. | 1:06:27 | 1:06:30 | |
"The little faggot," and so on, and so on. | 1:06:30 | 1:06:33 | |
I said, "I have to get out of here or I will be killed." | 1:06:33 | 1:06:36 | |
And I came here to study art | 1:06:38 | 1:06:41 | |
and I started seeing like, wow. | 1:06:41 | 1:06:44 | |
I don't have to be like, you know, who is looking at me? I have to hide. | 1:06:44 | 1:06:48 | |
But still it stays in your brain, | 1:06:48 | 1:06:51 | |
that in order to survive, I needed to pretend. | 1:06:51 | 1:06:54 | |
But I just didn't have any way to stay in this country. | 1:06:56 | 1:07:00 | |
And then I met Randi. | 1:07:01 | 1:07:04 | |
So, I actually found someone who got a name for me... | 1:07:07 | 1:07:11 | |
..and they told me that this person was deceased, | 1:07:13 | 1:07:17 | |
and that this name didn't belong to anyone. | 1:07:17 | 1:07:21 | |
So I wrestled with that situation for quite a while | 1:07:23 | 1:07:28 | |
whether to go ahead with this. | 1:07:28 | 1:07:30 | |
But I just didn't have any choice. | 1:07:30 | 1:07:33 | |
So I decided to do it, to take the name. | 1:07:33 | 1:07:36 | |
But I wasn't really that aware of what I was doing, you know. | 1:07:37 | 1:07:41 | |
The thing snowballed. | 1:07:41 | 1:07:43 | |
One of these three men pretended to be possessed. | 1:07:44 | 1:07:47 | |
Number two, what is your name, please? | 1:07:47 | 1:07:50 | |
My name is Jose Alvarez. | 1:07:50 | 1:07:52 | |
Only one of these people is the real Jose Alvarez | 1:07:52 | 1:07:55 | |
and is the only one sworn To Tell The Truth. | 1:07:55 | 1:07:59 | |
Trying to escape such a terrible situation, | 1:08:02 | 1:08:05 | |
I kind of got jailed in a different one. | 1:08:05 | 1:08:08 | |
With the Jose Alvarez identity, | 1:08:11 | 1:08:14 | |
I applied for a passport under that name | 1:08:14 | 1:08:16 | |
and then I went to Australia to play the Carlos Hoax. | 1:08:16 | 1:08:20 | |
And I just set off to train him to be a so-called channeller. | 1:08:20 | 1:08:24 | |
I have lived through many reincarnations. | 1:08:24 | 1:08:29 | |
My last one was in Venezuela. | 1:08:29 | 1:08:31 | |
Also keep very wide, keep very wide, | 1:08:31 | 1:08:34 | |
cos you're going to be on a big stage. | 1:08:34 | 1:08:36 | |
He learned fast and we were using the Peter Popoff method. | 1:08:36 | 1:08:39 | |
I've heard you described as a fraud and a charlatan. | 1:08:39 | 1:08:43 | |
That's a very rude comment. | 1:08:43 | 1:08:44 | |
Well, that's a very rude comment. | 1:08:44 | 1:08:47 | |
He did a wonderful job, | 1:08:47 | 1:08:48 | |
but, after all, that's the kind of thing he does well. | 1:08:48 | 1:08:51 | |
I am using this body, Jose Alvarez. | 1:08:51 | 1:08:55 | |
He is an artist in the United States. | 1:08:55 | 1:08:58 | |
The whole thing was totally against my persona. | 1:08:58 | 1:09:01 | |
I knew that I was playing this fictitious character. | 1:09:02 | 1:09:05 | |
I just felt, I just felt like a phoney. | 1:09:05 | 1:09:08 | |
You know, but I have to go on with it. | 1:09:09 | 1:09:12 | |
No! No! | 1:09:20 | 1:09:22 | |
It turned out that there was a real person named Jose Alvarez... | 1:09:24 | 1:09:28 | |
..and he decided to apply for a passport after 25 years of me | 1:09:30 | 1:09:35 | |
living with this identity. | 1:09:35 | 1:09:37 | |
The moment of truth is about to arrive. | 1:09:37 | 1:09:39 | |
Will the real Jose Alvarez please stand up? | 1:09:39 | 1:09:42 | |
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE | 1:09:45 | 1:09:49 | |
The problem is, once you start to tell people that you're genuine, | 1:09:52 | 1:09:55 | |
it's really hard to step away from that because you've lied to people. | 1:09:55 | 1:09:59 | |
You've lied to their face. | 1:09:59 | 1:10:01 | |
It was extremely difficult when I was fooling the scientists. | 1:10:01 | 1:10:04 | |
You know, at first I saw them as the enemy. It was me against the enemy. | 1:10:04 | 1:10:08 | |
But over time, they become your friends. Were we violating laws? | 1:10:08 | 1:10:12 | |
Probably. Was it fraud in some cases? | 1:10:13 | 1:10:16 | |
Most definitely. | 1:10:16 | 1:10:17 | |
Did we look at it that way at the time? | 1:10:17 | 1:10:20 | |
I don't think any of us did, | 1:10:20 | 1:10:22 | |
because we thought the ends justified the means. | 1:10:22 | 1:10:25 | |
Deception has so many layers. | 1:10:26 | 1:10:29 | |
I mean, you have the zenith of deception | 1:10:29 | 1:10:31 | |
and people go to jail for that. | 1:10:31 | 1:10:33 | |
But then you have magicians. | 1:10:33 | 1:10:36 | |
They manipulate the truth. | 1:10:36 | 1:10:38 | |
They are in the business of deceiving people. | 1:10:38 | 1:10:41 | |
Alpha and Carlos and Popoff, | 1:10:42 | 1:10:45 | |
these incredible revelations of deception, | 1:10:45 | 1:10:47 | |
they're actually sort of giant cons in their own sense, right? | 1:10:47 | 1:10:52 | |
But they're cons on the right side. | 1:10:52 | 1:10:54 | |
This is what it means to be an honest liar. | 1:10:55 | 1:10:58 | |
It's the difference between using deception to conceal the truth, | 1:10:58 | 1:11:02 | |
and using deception to reveal the truth. | 1:11:02 | 1:11:05 | |
Up until now, you haven't really said | 1:11:07 | 1:11:11 | |
anything about Jose being Deyvi. | 1:11:11 | 1:11:15 | |
Here's where I'd like to start. OK. | 1:11:15 | 1:11:17 | |
I think it would be good if you said something like, | 1:11:17 | 1:11:21 | |
"I feel I should come clean." | 1:11:21 | 1:11:25 | |
No, no, no, no. That admits guilt. OK. | 1:11:25 | 1:11:28 | |
I should make something clear. | 1:11:28 | 1:11:31 | |
That's much better. | 1:11:31 | 1:11:32 | |
Are you afraid of the ramifications? | 1:11:32 | 1:11:35 | |
I have all kinds of fear of that, yes. | 1:11:35 | 1:11:39 | |
Fear of what? I'm not clear. | 1:11:40 | 1:11:42 | |
If I don't have to say, "Yes, I knew that he had a false identity | 1:11:42 | 1:11:46 | |
"and he perpetrated it... on the American nation"... | 1:11:46 | 1:11:50 | |
..I don't want to say that! | 1:11:52 | 1:11:54 | |
Look at what he was going through. | 1:11:54 | 1:11:57 | |
He was going through hell. | 1:11:57 | 1:11:59 | |
If he went back to Venezuela, he would... | 1:11:59 | 1:12:01 | |
He would be constantly victimised and abused and | 1:12:01 | 1:12:06 | |
attacked. | 1:12:06 | 1:12:08 | |
No, I couldn't see that. | 1:12:08 | 1:12:10 | |
I... | 1:12:10 | 1:12:12 | |
I had to accept what I saw happening. | 1:12:12 | 1:12:15 | |
No, none of this must be used. I mean, really. I... | 1:12:16 | 1:12:20 | |
If I thought that any of this would be used, | 1:12:20 | 1:12:23 | |
I would abandon the film entirely. | 1:12:23 | 1:12:25 | |
No, no, no, no. But I'm being honest with you. | 1:12:25 | 1:12:28 | |
Now, I'm being taped at the same time and I have to trust you. | 1:12:28 | 1:12:30 | |
OK, well... And I will and I do. But we had discussed this. | 1:12:30 | 1:12:34 | |
I'm willing to say the story that I gave you on this camera. | 1:12:34 | 1:12:39 | |
That's fine, OK. I'm not asking you to do anything else. | 1:12:39 | 1:12:41 | |
But I want the rest of it to vanish, please. This last part? | 1:12:41 | 1:12:46 | |
Yes, understood, understood. | 1:12:46 | 1:12:48 | |
No worries. | 1:12:50 | 1:12:52 | |
I trust you or I wouldn't be doing this. Thank you. | 1:12:54 | 1:12:57 | |
We all spin personal narratives. | 1:13:03 | 1:13:06 | |
And so when an event happens that doesn't fit this idea that | 1:13:07 | 1:13:10 | |
he's this amazing truth-teller and so on, | 1:13:10 | 1:13:13 | |
then something has to happen to that event and, like everyone, | 1:13:13 | 1:13:16 | |
he may well change a few facts around or rub it out completely. | 1:13:16 | 1:13:19 | |
In entertainment, there is a kind of acceptability to deceive. | 1:13:21 | 1:13:27 | |
It's like when there are two Picasso paintings on the wall. | 1:13:28 | 1:13:33 | |
One is a fake, and the other one is real, | 1:13:33 | 1:13:36 | |
but they look the same. | 1:13:36 | 1:13:38 | |
There's no harm in that. | 1:13:38 | 1:13:39 | |
At the end of the day, there's nothing to reveal. | 1:13:41 | 1:13:45 | |
Because what I do is real. | 1:13:47 | 1:13:50 | |
What you do is real. | 1:13:50 | 1:13:52 | |
I think I slept last night. Some part of it, anyway. | 1:14:12 | 1:14:15 | |
Today, officially, we'll find out what the judge has to say. | 1:14:22 | 1:14:26 | |
It's got to be the right thing. | 1:14:28 | 1:14:29 | |
Or I don't know what I'm going to do, or what... | 1:14:33 | 1:14:36 | |
..what Jose is going to do. | 1:14:38 | 1:14:39 | |
He's specifically an immigration judge, | 1:14:44 | 1:14:47 | |
and he apparently likes to... | 1:14:47 | 1:14:50 | |
..suggest removal. | 1:14:53 | 1:14:54 | |
That would be the end of him. | 1:14:56 | 1:14:58 | |
The end of him and the end of us, automatically. | 1:15:08 | 1:15:12 | |
His life literally hangs in the balance. | 1:15:14 | 1:15:16 | |
And I feel somehow that | 1:15:19 | 1:15:21 | |
I've got to come out with some rabbit-out-of-the-hat | 1:15:21 | 1:15:25 | |
to try to get him back here where he belongs | 1:15:25 | 1:15:28 | |
and not behind bars. | 1:15:28 | 1:15:30 | |
I was just in a state of total suspension, | 1:16:00 | 1:16:04 | |
you know, just waiting for him to say what the sentence was. | 1:16:04 | 1:16:08 | |
It was something I had hoped for, that we'd all hoped for. | 1:16:08 | 1:16:11 | |
We won. | 1:16:14 | 1:16:15 | |
We won this one. | 1:16:15 | 1:16:17 | |
People were really beautiful talking. | 1:16:30 | 1:16:33 | |
I'm not really sure how I feel, but I'm feeling very, uh... | 1:16:42 | 1:16:46 | |
..thankful. That's how I feel, very thankful. | 1:16:48 | 1:16:51 | |
I'm not one person, I've got a partner. | 1:16:52 | 1:16:55 | |
For the last quarter of a century, I've had this partner. | 1:16:55 | 1:16:59 | |
We're one element. | 1:16:59 | 1:17:01 | |
And I have never hesitated to reach out to help him | 1:17:01 | 1:17:05 | |
in every possible way. | 1:17:05 | 1:17:07 | |
I know Randi. | 1:17:09 | 1:17:11 | |
He has a mission out there in the world, | 1:17:11 | 1:17:15 | |
as The Amazing Randi. But his compassion... | 1:17:15 | 1:17:20 | |
People don't know how much he cares when he sees someone in distress. | 1:17:20 | 1:17:26 | |
And it's not just on a social level | 1:17:28 | 1:17:32 | |
but also on a personal level. | 1:17:32 | 1:17:34 | |
And I include myself specifically in that equation, | 1:17:34 | 1:17:39 | |
that he... | 1:17:39 | 1:17:42 | |
he will do what is necessary to save somebody. | 1:17:42 | 1:17:47 | |
Don't worry about it, yeah. | 1:17:52 | 1:17:54 | |
Here? Yeah. No, a little bit further, over here. | 1:17:57 | 1:18:01 | |
Here? OK. OK... | 1:18:01 | 1:18:05 | |
OK. Great. | 1:18:05 | 1:18:07 | |
What do you think? No? Yeah? | 1:18:07 | 1:18:10 | |
Randi said years ago, | 1:18:10 | 1:18:11 | |
"There is nothing that a man can make that I can't get out of." | 1:18:11 | 1:18:14 | |
That line is actually a Houdini line. | 1:18:16 | 1:18:19 | |
And the difference was that Houdini, you know, | 1:18:19 | 1:18:21 | |
if someone ever did bring something, | 1:18:21 | 1:18:23 | |
like a pair of handcuffs that no way he could get out, | 1:18:23 | 1:18:25 | |
Houdini's guys, his goons, would take the guy out back | 1:18:25 | 1:18:28 | |
and beat the crap out of the guy | 1:18:28 | 1:18:29 | |
and the audience never saw the guy again. | 1:18:29 | 1:18:32 | |
But I bet you anything, | 1:18:32 | 1:18:33 | |
Randi truly believed there was nothing he couldn't get out of. | 1:18:33 | 1:18:37 | |
Or make it at least seem like he was getting out of them. | 1:18:38 | 1:18:42 | |
And I'll quote him directly. | 1:18:42 | 1:18:44 | |
"I'm a magician. | 1:18:45 | 1:18:46 | |
"I know how to deceive people, | 1:18:47 | 1:18:50 | |
"and I know how to recognise when people are being deceived. | 1:18:50 | 1:18:54 | |
"I can cheat you countless different ways and you won't know. | 1:18:56 | 1:18:59 | |
"You won't catch me." | 1:18:59 | 1:19:01 | |
Some people cannot believe that | 1:19:03 | 1:19:05 | |
a magician can fool them in such a way that they can't figure it out. | 1:19:05 | 1:19:10 | |
But magicians can and magicians do. | 1:19:10 | 1:19:13 | |
Don't be too sure of yourself. | 1:19:14 | 1:19:17 | |
No matter how smart or well educated you are, you can be deceived. | 1:19:17 | 1:19:21 | |
MUSIC: The Magic Touch by The Platters | 1:19:25 | 1:19:27 | |
# You've got the magic touch | 1:19:27 | 1:19:33 | |
# It makes me glow so much... # | 1:19:33 | 1:19:38 | |
OK, that's weird. This is all that I'm getting. | 1:19:38 | 1:19:41 | |
I have no clue what this is. | 1:19:41 | 1:19:42 | |
# It casts a spell, it rings a bell, the magic touch | 1:19:42 | 1:19:47 | |
# Oh, when I feel your charm | 1:19:47 | 1:19:53 | |
# It's like a four alarm... # | 1:19:53 | 1:19:56 | |
My jewellery are a catalyst to the powers of your mind. | 1:19:57 | 1:20:01 | |
Yes. It's all in the mind. | 1:20:01 | 1:20:03 | |
# You've got the magic touch | 1:20:03 | 1:20:06 | |
# Here I go reeling | 1:20:06 | 1:20:11 | |
# Oh, I'm feeling the glow | 1:20:11 | 1:20:17 | |
# But where can I go from you? | 1:20:17 | 1:20:24 | |
# I didn't know too much | 1:20:26 | 1:20:31 | |
# And then I felt your touch | 1:20:31 | 1:20:35 | |
# And now I've learned | 1:20:35 | 1:20:39 | |
# I can return | 1:20:39 | 1:20:42 | |
# The magic touch. # | 1:20:42 | 1:20:49 | |
APPLAUSE | 1:20:52 | 1:20:54 |