Anybody here got any red pills or conspiracies about James Randi?

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the guy sheldrake tested his theory about animals and telekinesis and he never replied to him

randi himself would hand pick what goes on

although sheldrake was friends with terrence mckenna who might have also been cia

tldr everyone might be cia

>>18346862
Randi is a wizard himself and he specializes in suppressing the powers of other wizards.

>>18346870
I've been thinking this is possible lately, that the large amount of atheists and self described skeptics seem to be creating a cynical collective that may result in an occult extinction phenomena

>>18346878
Starting around 2011/2012 though alot of young people started getting in to Buddhism and Satanism

>>18346878

I wouldn't worry so much about that. Plenty of agnostics and atheists shrug/argue against the idea of a singular, omnipotent (etc.) deity, but may be open-minded to generalized phenomena. So many people are sick and fucking tired of the logic-inconsistent clusterfuck that is the belief systems and rationalizations surrounding the abrahamic god, which is the most predominant deity in the western world, that they just go straight to atheism. Just can't take it anymore. Can't speak so much for eastern atheists and the like, though it has a lot of historical reasonings of its own. But man. -man- ...

If people were just a little more gentle, a little less hypocritical and contradictory, the idea would be a lot easier to be neighbors with, so to speak.

>>18346962

Agreed the whole thing is a mess, a cue for Science to Hack it one day and be a phenomena as Important as the Introduction of Internet. Human Development has exploded recently, Elon Musk seems to be the Puppet actually pushing for Evolution of this Field. Personally I experience the Paranormal all the time, super cool being on this Plane really enjoy it.

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>>18346862
He lied about disproving dog telekinesis for skeptic magazine. When the guy who did the original study contacted him via email, no reply. Took a lot of work but basically randi told several differend lies about disproving it, and none were true. In the end he admitted he made it all up because it "sounded like a bullshit theory."
Plus Randi almost never actually replied to applicants unless they were VERY easy to disprove. Then once he got someone on, if they started to do OK in testing(admittedly, not often, /x/ shit is hard to prove) he would change the criteria for the test. I mean if it wasn't good enough to start with why change it to make it harder halfway through the test? This guy is as much of a shiester as most of the psychics on the side of the road. Just on the other side of the spectrum. Dog ESP thing is well documented, he admits to lying(and telling a few different lies after getting caught to try and save face), the other things are pretty well verified.. The king of debunkers is easily debunked. If you're a "magician" or "illusionist" it doesn't take rocket appliances to realize that it's easier to fool people for a living on the other side of the spectrum, than it is to make it doing illusions. He's a real piece of shit. Would have been funny to see someone sue him, at least for changing test criteria mid test. Or even slander when he lied about testing other people's research. I don't think it's a CIA honeypot, it's a failed lazy magician.

>>18346862
The way it's set up is rigged from the beginning by moving goal posts.

Even if someone did unquestionably prove the existence of something paranormal under strict conditions, it would still fail the challenge.

Think about it. Controlled conditions and a phenomenon able to be replicated on command would instantly be put under even further and intense scrutiny, using all available means of equipment and measuring instruments to determine the underlying process. Once it gets to that point, it will no longer be paranormal, it will be a natural process that science just doesn't fully understand yet, and will then be disqualified as "not paranormal".

For example, say you get a place that's extremely haunted with residual spirits. enough attention is brought to it for in depth study, and let's say they find that past events were some how recorded onto the naturally high magnetic field of a certain area (this is my hypothesis on residual hauntings, actually, but have no concrete evidence for). Even though the phenomenon of residual hauntings would then be proven, the method of which it occurs could still be explained scientifically. Our understanding of such things would of course increase immensely, but the result is that they are no longer considered paranormal, making the person who proved it unqualified to win the prize, while he would likely backpedal from "doesn't exist" to "told you it was explainable".

>>18347126
While Randi himself could or could not backpedal, proving that there was something to a previously-held phenomena designated as paranormal would do wonders for overall belief and openness to investigation.

>>18346878
Because the shit is bullshit and there is no god

>>18346962
Any personal god is a god you made up on your own, bro. There's no evidence to support it either

>>18346971
>super cool being on this Plane really enjoy it.
same here bro, i'm on a bit of a different vibrational aspect but still love it to no end

Yeah, fpbp as always. Just read up on Sheldrake trying to reach out to him.

>>18347481

Oh no, I'm not saying that there is. Or that someone could call themselves an atheist and believe in any particular god, really. That absolutely goes for a personal god too - in fact, I'd argue more-so, because there's even LESS of a way to rationalize that it's correct or true in any way shape or form, because I mean, you -made it up-.

Atheism is about, well, not being a theist. And, I should not, it isn't about -dis-belief. It's about a total lack of belief; it's a zero, not a negative. Or, that's how it's supposed to work, anyway. It's not the idea that there 'cannot' be a god - it's that there is no real evidence for one, and there's -plenty- of evidence to explain the world and cosmos and everything we ever see or interact with running just fine without one. Therefore, there is no reason to assume god as the default. And the ideal of 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence' is the ruling way of thought.

Of course, you're going to get some people screeching that god doesn't exist no matter what, there is no way that supernatural things in general could ever be true, etc. etc... But these people are really taking it past the idea of what an atheist is, into something that is much closer to the opposite. Generally, this happens because a person who does not agree to the religious status quo experiences constantly under assault in our society, for being a nonbeliever - or the wrong kind of one.

Once, my younger sister was once at a lunch table at school - the other kids were talking about communion, and she asked what it was. What she later told us, was that they all looked at her like she was the devil and, I shit you not, all vacated the table. The school actually had to have a talk about differing belief systems - and this wasn't a religious school, it was a public one. I spent a good chunk of my childhood being told I was going to hell for not being christian. And this is just some random town not far outside of NYC.

>>18347807

Sorry for the typos before - I didn't see them until afterwards. And when I said that the atheist that goes further becomes more like the opposite, I mean that they're taking a biased position, that has become influenced by dogmatic beliefs.

Anyway, huge wall of text aside, I should note that I am personal an agnostic who does believe in a variety of phenomena. And I don't classify myself as such because of that. I changed from considering myself an atheist to agnostic years ago, and this was more out of terminology nitpicking than anything else. I personally feel that it isn't possible to prove the existence of god. But technically, it isn't possible to -dis-prove the existence of god, either. So, I therefore assume the default is that there is not a god, and function as such - but I am open to the possibility. Many atheists can be classified this way, but I think the term agnostic is just a better fit for me.

So anyway, like I was trying to explain at the beginning of this wall of text before it exploded into nigh-infinite words, a skeptic is not necessarily the same as a person that flat-out denies, and they may be more or less skeptical about various phenomena.

>>18346870
There's a study on this. An open minded skeptic and a psi researcher both ran the same experiment (I believe a remote viewing one) in the same building. The results deviated, the skeptic's data showed no statistical significance and the psy researcher's did.

At the basis of /x stuff is belief and will creating reality, so it would make sense that a convinced skeptic would suppress that kind of thing.

>>18346971
I recently heard him say in an interview "We have physics on our side. Which is what you want..."

That's the kind of thing you'd hear early in most western hermetic traditions (obeying natural law). I wonder whether he's an occultist. There'd certainly be a lot of traditions who'd like to have him as a member.

No conspiracies, he's just a hack with no credentials who leeches off the fame of other people because he's done nothing of actual worth with his life. A quick google search will bring up the numerous experiences people have had with his "challenge" and the many flaws these experiences exposed.

>>18347848

There's another interesting account in, I believe, one of Radin's books, of a test of psychokinesis using both ardent believers and ardent non-believers.

The believers induced results above chance in line with other RNG PK tests, as they were instructed, but the non-believers, instead of inducing chance results, induced results "below" chance, to almost the exact same degree as the believers did above chance. They had the same influence on the RNG, but unintentionally moved it in the opposite direction to the one they were instructed to.

It's a fascinating phenomenon, but ultimately one that could be overcome if parapsychologists would grow some balls, admit they got burned in the whole Uri Geller affair and then go out and experiment on individuals who've cultivated these abilities or otherwise are able to demonstrate them consistently on a macro scale, instead of testing random segments of the population for micro-scale statistical manifestations.

>>18347848

It's also just as likely that the open-minded skeptic simply didn't change the results at all, and the belief of the psi-reasercher did.

In other words, there may have been no suppression at all, but there may have been psychic ... I guess you could say, encouragement, on the other end, for lack of a better word.

/This is not a bad thing/ - if anything, it just demonstrates that belief may (and as we all generally think, certainly does) effect outcomes.

But there is absolutely no evidence to say that the skeptic's results were changed by their viewing them.

Now, if the skeptic's test had shown the results deviating towards even more negative results than usual, that would absolutely be significant, as per:

>>18347895

> but the non-believers, instead of inducing chance results, induced results "below" chance, to almost the exact same degree as the believers did above chance.

See? You can ABSOLUTELY be a skeptic without hindering, changing, or suppressing results - but you have to be sincere about your biases.

Randi is a Lich that absorbs other wizards powers, the challenge is just a easy way to find wizards and take their powers.

>>18347400
But there are so many ignorant fucks in the third world who believe in that shit. It's not going away any time soon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i80qaETtw8

>>18348068

The problem is that both sides go in with so many massive preconceived notions about what they're trying to do. One side is certain that X phenomenon is definitely happening because it fits into their interpretation of previous experimental evidence, and the other side is certain that X phenomenon is definitely not happening because it doesn't fit into their conception of how the universe functions.

What would be much better is if both sides could meet in some kind of middle ground, say "hey, there's 'something' interesting happening here, let's check it out further and see what we can uncover."

I know it's unlikely, given the ego and academic politics and career trajectories involved, but it's nice to dream.

>>18348277
I'd have to agree with the notion, but I would say he is more like a spell eater or some kind of magical parasite. He might even be a white supremist ice mage, the big white beard white kinda reminds of santa and as we all know you anyone who lives in the North Pole is likely in cahoots with all the vril nazi bases they have there

>>18346867
terry wasn't cia
the only basis for that theory is a misquote from his book where they assumed he was talking about working for the government, when in actuality he was talking about working for "the mushroom [entity]"

>>18346881
what?
westerners have been into buddhism since at least the 40s/50s when the suzukis, alan watts, and the beats made it popular