505: Ray Hyman - Skeptical Observer

Nonagenarian Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Oregon, Ray Hyman, is one of the founders (along with James Randi and Martin Gardner) of the skeptical movement. He consulted for Alice Cooper and the federal government during his colorful career. And he still teaches workshops on “character reading” (see: cold reading) to skeptics.

In this workshop from The Amaz!ng Meeting 2012, Ray Hyman instructs participants on how to do "psychic" or character readings. They also perform readings on each other. The goal is not to increase the number of cold readers, but to show how easily a cold reading can convince people they have experienced the supernatural.

This is a TV interview of the truth. Jerry Andrus

In this podcast, Ray talks about meeting Dai Vernon, Dr. Stanley Jaks and Persi Diaconis and his close relationship with Jerry Andrus and James Randi. At one point in his life, James Randi asked Ray to come in to help consult with rock legend, Alice Cooper. He also talks about working with the government to dispel psychic phenomena and the development of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI),

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341: Houdini-Opoly with Dick Brookz and Dorothy Dietrich

Dorothy Dietrich and Dick Brookz own and operate the Houdini Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania. They have both led extraordinary lives and worthy of talking more about their Houdini museum, the Houdini seance, and the former Magic Townhouse in New York City. They talk about all these things but the purpose of this particular podcast is to help the magic world learn more about their newest project, "Houdini-Opoly"

They have been working on this board game for over two years and with the Kickstarter campaign now being fully funded just before this podcast was released. So not it's on to meet their "stretch" goals to pay for the "enhancements". Thanks to your support, it appears that it will be in production soon this year. The Magic Word Podcast is selective in providing a platform for promoting individuals or pet projects. But this is one I support and think is of particular interest to our community. But even if you choose not to support the cause and buy a game, the rest of our chat is interesting as we talk about the old Magic Townhouse in New York City and why it closed and the museum moved to Scranton, Pennsylvania. We also discuss the Houdini seance and the museum.

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The contest is over and we congratulate Pat Darienzo who won a copy of Danny Archer's eBook. — The contest is over and we congratulate **Pat Darienzo** who won a copy of Danny Archer's eBook.

260: The Science of Magic with Tony Barnhart, Ph.D.

During the I.B.M. convention in Phoenix in 2013 I came across a flyer from Anthony Barnhart, Ph.D. soliciting subjects for a scientific study about magic. They were looking for magicians to come to the Arizona State University campus to help with a psychological experiment. Well, I was too busy to make it there, but I kept the flyer. Being the "hoarder" that I am (not unlike most magicians, I'm sure), I recently came across that flyer. I decided that it sounded like an interesting subject for the podcast.

Since that time, the Psychologist who was conducting the study has since moved on to another state. I was able to locate him (thank you, Google) and schedule a time for a Skype chat. Tony (as he likes to be called) is now in the Department of Psychological Science at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin and still continuing his study on the Science of Magic.

He references some articles he's published and you can find them here: The special issue of Frontiers in Psychology: http://journal.frontiersin.org/researchtopic/2464/the-psychology-of-magic-and-the-magic-of-psychology Hid blog, where he's written about some of this stuff in a more informal style is at: http://scienceofmagic.org/

You can follow Tony on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/magictony He is on Facebook, too at: http://facebook.com/magictony

His teaching conference (with a magical flare) can be found at: http://skepticalclassroom.com/

For more information, please visit http://www.AnthonyBarnhart.com. The speakers featured in this video include (in no particular order): James Randi (http://www.randi.org) D.J. Grothe (http://www.forgoodreason.org) Dr. Stephen Macknik, Barrow Neurological Institute (http://macknik.neuralcorrelate.com) Dr. Susana Martinez-Conde, Barrow Neurological Institute (http://smc.neuralcorrelate.com) Roland Sarlot & Susan Eyed (http://www.carnivalofillusion.com) Fr.

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