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Posted by: Brother Of Jerry ( )
Date: May 05, 2014 09:47PM

For those of you in the SL area, RadioWest Through the Lens series will be showing a documentary film on the debunking work of James Randi.

Where: Rose Wagner Theater, 138 W Broadway, SLC
When: Wednesday, May 7, 7:00 pm, doors open at 6:30 (will likely be full by showtime)
Free

Trailer, link to RadioWest broadcast about film, and other details:
http://radiowest.kuer.org/post/through-lens-honest-liar-0

Be there or be square. Bring your tarot cards. :)

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Posted by: Brother Of Jerry ( )
Date: May 06, 2014 07:10PM


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Posted by: Brother Of Jerry ( )
Date: May 07, 2014 05:15PM


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Posted by: Tupperwhere ( )
Date: May 07, 2014 06:08PM

Brother of Jerry requires some massive attention. Please visit his link so he can continue to feel superior to other people that have beliefs. It will really help him feel better about himself. Also, he will be able to stop topping his own posts. It's honestly in the best interest of everyone. :)

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Posted by: Jane Cannary ( )
Date: May 03, 2018 04:59PM

I just saw this on DVD borrowed from my library. I've always love TAR so enjoyed the whole thing, but it was very illuminating how people continued to believe even after he debunked something.

He discovered that a healing minister knew all this stuff about people in the audience because his wife radioed the info taken from prayer requests to his ear. Poke a fork in him, he's done right? Well, that particular ministry declared bankruptcy but he's back with a more mainstream scam. He's selling water from some holy place and other items that are "guaranteed" be be sourced from important christian sites.

He followed Uri Geller around the world for a long time. Uri would go on a show and do his I have a strong mind schtick. Randi would go on the same show within a week and show how it was just a magic trick. So Uri's done, right? Nope, even scientists still believed in his power of the mind. Some of them said sure, it could be done with magic too, but Uri is doing it with his mind. He's still selling jewelry and crap and still has a following.

As an ex mormon wondering why people stay, this is fascinating to me. People continue to believe what they want to believe, no matter what proof you give them.

For the posters asking how to get their spouses or families to listen to them, you really should watch this documentary. I think anything you say or do is a waste of effort. When they're ready to know, they will research it for themselves.

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Posted by: eternal1 ( )
Date: May 05, 2018 01:48PM

Looks like it An Honest Liar is on Netflix. I'll have to watch it now. Sounds interesting.

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Posted by: grudunza ( )
Date: May 04, 2018 06:56PM

Tupperwhere Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Brother of Jerry requires some massive attention.
> Please visit his link so he can continue to feel
> superior to other people that have beliefs. It
> will really help him feel better about himself.
> Also, he will be able to stop topping his own
> posts. It's honestly in the best interest of
> everyone. :)

Really? That’s pretty dismissive. Your comment is more evident of someome seeming “superior.” So he’s plugging a showing of his movie... So what? I’ve seen this doc and it’s fantastic and very relevant to ExMos and people of all beliefs. Challenging beliefs, especially those meant to deceive, is a very worthy endeavor.

Edit: I just noticed how this was from 2014. Heh. Anyway still, worth responding to Tupperwhere’s jerky comment.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2018 07:02PM by grudunza.

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Posted by: spiritist ( )
Date: May 04, 2018 07:33PM

Hate to burst your 'main stream news/beliefs' mindset but psychic ability and many other phenomena the other people here refer to as 'woo' is a 'reality' and works ------ just not 100%.

The average accuracy rate for a single viewer in the normal task per some classes I took is between 50-80%. The normal task is to describe what is at a location (underground base, test site, etc.), but the viewer is 'blind' and only gets an 8 digit number that represents the task. The way to keep the accuracy rate at the high end is to have multiple viewers view the same site independently then an independent person summarizes the multiple views to get the end product. Of course some viewers/psychics are more accurate that others based on their track records and assigned to more high priority projects.

That would make people like 'Randy' less that 'unbiased' and not a very good researcher. Most people with abilities would have never tried his biased 'tests'. That is why 'major league' psychics were never 'exposed' by him. He got the fringe level people, who probably had some ability, but the pass/fail was 100%.

The US trained and used 'remote viewers/psychics' for 15-20 years (directly employed) then after as 'consultants'. They were used in about 27,000 spy projects/tasks. Remote viewing is a psychic skill but somewhat organized into various general steps. Individual viewers then adjust the steps and add any other psychic tools that may help them.

Free training is offered on Utube. I have taken 3 courses and it works. You can find out for yourself in the first few hours whether you can do this ------ most can but abilities may be different especially at first as most people have never tried to 'exercise' this 'psychic' skill.

Now a lot of the 'government remote viewing program' was declassified a lot more utube videos to spread the news in getting out there.

Here a 'statistician' indicated the probability of RV accuracy tested was 1 in 10 billion!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrwAiU2g5RU

This person didn't know at the time but most major countries hire 'psychics, especially remote viewers' as consultants and some of these consultants post on utube also indicating they have multiple government and major corporation assignments. There are a number Remote viewing companies in business along with the major 'research groups' that would be doing RV work for others.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2018 03:41PM by spiritist.

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Posted by: SusieQ#1 ( )
Date: May 04, 2018 08:01PM

spiritist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hate to burst your 'main stream news/beliefs'
> mindset but psychic ability and many other
> phenomena the other people here refer to as 'woo'
> is a 'reality' and works ------ just not 100%.
>

Yes, it does and can work. Nothing is 100%, of course. These kinds of psychic ability, or whatever you want to call it, is found in everyone, to some extent. We all have experiences of intuition,"knowing" something before it happens, for instance. It has happened to me, many times.

I've also tested a few claiming to be psychic and found some to be very accurate. I would never pay for a reading.

It's not that difficult to learn to do "cold readings" either. A bunch of us did an experiment in a class I took some years ago.
However, it can go much further with someone who has some real ability to interpret what their mind's eye, sees and hears and is verifiable.

I like to watch these TV psychics and figure out what they are doing and how they are doing it. It takes a lot of research and time. It's an interesting way to make a lot of money!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2018 08:03PM by susieq.

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Posted by: Dave the Atheist ( )
Date: May 05, 2018 01:35PM

so man up and tell us the correct percentage.

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Posted by: SusieQ#1 ( )
Date: May 06, 2018 02:37AM

Nothing is 100% except math answers! :-)

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Posted by: Elder Berry ( )
Date: December 12, 2018 11:21AM

60 percent of the time it works 100 percent.

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Posted by: Brother Of Jerry ( )
Date: May 05, 2018 02:00AM

Gee, missed Tupperwhere's pointless snark until now. Pity.

In the last year I read books about the Titanic and the sinking of the Lusitania. Both books mention "world famous mediums" that were on the cruises. One mentioned a famous medium that decided not to go on the cruise.

How come there are no world famous mediums anymore? I'm sure there are some minor niche mediums that spiritist can name, but world famous?

In any other scientific endeavor, we got better at it over time. Americans and Europeans used to be quite good at seances in the 19th century. Books were written about how to throw a good seance and chat with the dead. How come nobody can put on a good seance anymore? ;)

I remember attending the James Randi documentary. It was SRO at the theater, so there was a fair amount of interest in the SLC area.

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Posted by: Babyloncansuckit ( )
Date: May 05, 2018 02:07AM

Even if nobody talks to the dead, the nearly dead talk to you via General Conference.

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Posted by: baura ( )
Date: May 05, 2018 02:30AM

"Last night I played poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house
and three people died." -- Stephen Wright

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Posted by: elderolddog ( )
Date: May 05, 2018 03:28PM

From Connell O'Donovan's "Crime Against Nature":

"Sometime around late May or early June 1928, the famous homosexual clairvoyant, George Benjamin Wehner, conducted a seance at the Mormon Tabernacle. Wehner had just spent one year traveling through Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East with his lover, and upon return to the United States had reconnected wtih his longtime patrons, Teresa "Tessy" Phebe Kimball Werner, her sister Winifred Kimball Hudnut, and Mrs. Hudnut's bisexual daughter, Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy (aka Natacha Rambova), the actress, danceuse, and extraordinary movie set designer who was married to silent film star, Rudolph Valentino, allegedly also bisexual. Teresa and Winifred were the granddaughters of the Mormon Apostle Heber Chase Kimball and his first wife, Vilate Murray. The extremely wealthy Winifred Kimball Hudnut, famous throughout the United States and France as a spiritualist and theosophist, had been introduced to Wehner through her daughter, Natacha Rambova.

"The homosexual psychic Wehner (1891-1970) had been a vaudeville actor and singer, and had also composed the very popular Broadway hit, "I Want My Mammy", which had been sung in "black face" by the famous comedic actor Eddie Cantor in 1921's Broadway musical, The Midnight Rounders.

"Rambova employed Wehner for quite some time to assist her in contacting her dead ex-husband, Valentino, to receive messages from him in "the astral plane". These messages and her memoirs of their life together were published in 1926 (a year after their divorce and just months after his death) as Rudy: An Intimate Portrait of Rudolph Valentino by his Wife. This was then reprinted in abbreviated form a year later as Rudolph Valentino, Recollections.

"In 1929, George Wehner published his own memoirs of his life as a clairvoyant and stage performer. The very last page of his autobiography tells of his visit with the Kimball family (consistently misspelled by Wehner) in Salt Lake City a year earlier. While in the Tabernacle, Wehner had extraordinary visions of and received "intimate" messages from Heber C. Kimball, Joseph, Emma and Lucy Smith, Brigham Young, various other Kimball relatives, and finally, none other than the Angel Moroni."

Here's the account, from Wehner's book:

"Here, on one never-to-be-forgotten day, the Tabernacle was closed to visitors for a while, and Edward P. Kimbal [sic], the grandson of Heber C., gave us a private recital on the world-famed organ. As the noble tones of this great instrument swelled and reverberated about us in the lofty Tabernacle, I became clairvoyant and was aware of the presence of numerous spirits.

"And no wonder! For there I sat with Aunt Tessy, Mrs. Hudnut, and others of their relatives, all of them direct descendants of those brave and daring pioneers who suffered almost insurmountable difficulties for the sake of the religion which they felt to be right. It was a soul-stirring moment, and I had never dreamed of "seancing" in the Mormon Tabernacle of Salt Lake City. But after all, what place more suitable for the communion of souls?

"A force far stronger than I began to control me, although I was not unconscious, and I began to whisper rapidly the messages of those returned spirits. The messages were of a personal and intimate nature, and came from Heber C. Kimbal himself, and from his friend Brigham Young, and from Joseph Smith, and Lucy Smith (Joseph's wife who later became the wife of H. C. Kimbal), and from Emma Smith; and from Aunt Margaret Judd Clauson, from William Kimbal (eldest son of Heber C.) and from Phoebe Judd Kimbal, the mother of Aunt Tessy and Mrs. Hudnut.

"At last these spirits faded away and I saw the whole interior of the Tabernacle shimmering in a glorious blaze of golden light, in the midst of which appeared in the air above the organ, the figure of a young man in blue robes holding a long trumpet of gold. From my clairvoyant description of this radiant being my friends recognized the spirit as that of the Angel Maroni [sic], the son of Mormon who, it is said, led his fainting people across the plains and deserts to ultimate safety by showing his presence to them from time to time, as a beacon of faith and love.

"And what more infallible guide can any of us have than love? Angels of Light ever surround us, leading our faltering footsteps along the path of the Christ, ever upward on the spiraling way of progress and evolution to the very doors of God."


Those who haven't perused "Crime Against Nature" yet, ought to. There's something in there for everyone!
http://www.connellodonovan.com/abom.html

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Posted by: Brother Of Jerry ( )
Date: May 05, 2018 11:33PM

Thanks for posting this. I was not familiar with this book. Natacha Rambova is my all time favorite ex-Mo. Talk about Girls Gone Bad. I bet she had GGpa Heber C spinning in his grave.

Wikipedia tends to squeeze all the color and excitement out of a bio, but even there, you still get the sense she had a pretty extraordinary life. And I don't think it even mentions the seances! (Edit: there are references to her being a spiritualist)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natacha_Rambova



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2018 11:52PM by Brother Of Jerry.

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