719: Kenton Knepper - Word Wizard

While attending the recent Poe’s Magic Conference in Baltimore, Maryland, one of the presenters was Kenton Knepper. We sat down in a quiet room for a very intense conversation that included his roots and moving to Phoenix, Arizona, and his friendship with noted mentalist, Larry Becker, plus his influences that led him to writing “Wonder Words” for which he is best known for as its author. Kenton has written about 20 different publications over the decades. We discussed NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming) and hypnosis and much more in this week’s episode. Kenton doesn’t often attend major magic conventions so it was a rare privilege to sit down with him for this episode this week.

John was a friend and inspiration to Kenton

In this week’s episode, Kenton talks about the development of his Wonder Words, what it is and how it works, his relationship and inspiration by Larry Becker. He also encourages us to go out and just do it, whatever “it” is and try it. Our conversation went quite deep and I was truly engaged in our conversation so much so that something happened at the end of this episode that has never happened in all my years. Be sure to stay tuned to end of our chat to hear what happened.

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Kenton himself says: "KENTON PRINCIPLES is my legacy book. It compiles and expands on my most important principles in magic and mentalism. It will be the go-to book for the application of my ideas to anything you perform, magic or mentalism. Once you know these principles, anything is truly possible."

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),

261: Project Alpha with Mike Edwards

After viewing the highly acclaimed documentary, "An Honest Liar" about the career of James "The Amazing" Randi, I wanted to talk with Mike Edwards, the "psychic" who was "tested" along with Steve Shaw (Banachek) over a three year period in the late 70;s to the early 80;s. I have discussed Project Alpha with Banachek many times privately, on the podcast and on an L&L Video (Psi Series Volume 4 - Psychokenisis) but I had never met or spoken with, Mike Edwards, his partner on the project.

The stars aligned with my travel plans to Phoenix, Arizona and Mike's availability so we were able to find a relatively quiet corner in an otherwise busy restaurant and record this chat. It is a completely different perspective from the one I have heard from Banachek and the revelation during the last few minutes of our conversation figuratively "bowled me over". I was not expecting that news. You might be surprised and excited once you hear it, too.

Recorded: 5/27/2010 Original Alpha Kid, Michael Edwards pays a visit to the foundation and recalls some of the behind the scenes tricks that he and Steve Shaw (Banachek) did during the MacLab test. From Wikipedia: Project Alpha was an elaborate hoax orchestrated by the stage magician and skeptic James Randi.

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