Posted by:
baura
(
)
Date: January 06, 2018 10:37PM
Who determines if it's been proven? Is he the judge? There are
many such offers of money to "prove" something, but it always
turns out that the person offering the challenge also will serve
as the judge of whether the proof is sound or not.
I recall The Amazing Randi with his $10,000 challenge (it's since
been increased to $1 million) putting the decision as to whether
psychic phenomena had been demonstrated to a neutral committee.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CASghTzNhcJames Hydrick was a short-lived Utah sensation. He ran a Kung
Fu studio in Salt Lake City. He was charging parents large sums
to teach their children this "internal power." I first heard
about him at BYU when the BYU Kung Fu club hosted a
demonstration by him of "external and internal power."
He moved a bo-staff that was balanced almost to tipping over on
the edge of a table. He also claimed he had power over life--
the power to make things grow. A plant was brought out and he
waved his hands and one of the leafs on it wiggled. He also
blocked punches thrown by members of the Kung Fu club while
blindfolded.
I called up the president of the BYU Kung Fu club a day or two
later to ask about Hydrick. He told me that one of the guys
throwing punches decided to alter his footwork on one of the
punches. Hydrick failed to block that punch. Clearly he was
using a "nose peek" to see the punchers from at least the waist
down and coordinate his blocks to their footwork.
I called James Randi and relayed this information to him. He
already knew about Hydrick and was on top of the situation. I
told him about the footwork trick with the blindfold punch-
blocking.
Hydrick had a strange ablity, due to the formation of his mouth
or throat or something, to blow air in a thin, laminar path
through the air. When he was in prison, he was able to startle
the guards by "flicking" their ears with this trick when they'd
walk by his cell.
He told about growing up in a Shaolin Temple in China. But his
speech pattern (syntax, accent, and slang expressions) was pure
USA.
The Provo Herald ran a full-page story about him complete with
pictures. It told of his Chinese ethnicity and psychic powers.
I went to the Herald office and talked with the reporter. He
accepted Hydrick's psychic powers but didn't buy his claims of
Kung Fu expertise. His brother was a martial artist, he told me.
Later, Hydrick came clean and admitted how he did everything.
He ended up in prison again for sexually abusing five boys.