Breaking

 

 

Brick Busting, Bread Bad!, Jailed Witch, Challenge Explained — again!, and Dick Smothers....

 

The following is an article taken from James Randi's web site www.randi.org . 

 

James Randi has an international reputation as a magician and escape artist, but today he is best known as the world's most tireless investigator and demystifier of paranormal and pseudoscientific claims.

 

Randi has pursued "psychic" spoonbenders, exposed the dirty tricks of faith healers, investigated homeopathic water "with a memory," and generally been a thorn in the sides of those who try to pull the wool over the public's eyes in the name of the supernatural.

 

As you all probable know, I regard myself as a skeptic of the highest order and James Randi publishes a weekly article on his web site that I wouldn't miss for anything.

 

I hope you all enjoy the following:

 

We all have hobbies, some stranger than others. Not too long ago, just about every kid regularly slipped into a gi and was whisked off to martial arts school. Years ago, I discovered that all sorts of fraud was taking place in this business, and I recall that I offered to do a fake martial-arts demo for a local audience in New Jersey. I opted to teach an inexperienced 10-year-old how to do the "power" stunts associated with less-than-authentic practitioners of this lucrative profession. Let me make it clear: I respect the discipline taught to students, but I denounce the use of carnival tricks to sell the idea.

 

 

 

 

 

I went to my nearby lumber-yard and asked for some 1" X 8" X 14" pine boards, and the clerk immediately asked if I wanted them for karate demonstrations. Yes, I said, and I wanted the grain going across the boards, not along the length. Well, he told me, we have those already cut, for karate schools — but be careful not to let them bounce around in the car, because they split very easily....

 

He also told me they carried paving-bricks specially made for the schools, too. These were very high in sand-content, he said, so they crumbled easily.

 

I already knew all this, because I'd salvaged broken boards and cement-blocks from the dumpster behind the studio where the Merv Griffin Show was taped, in Hollywood. This was a poorly-kept secret at the time, and I've an idea that the same gimmicks are still being used. I note now that on evangelical TV shows, when they want to show the power of true faith, they have muscle-bound "athletes" breaking huge blocks of ice with their heads and elbows. Same kind of outright deception: the ice has to be handled with great care, because it breaks very readily.

 

Note the illustration shown here. Careful editing has removed the support-points of the stack of slabs — and I've indicated those points by red inserts. Is it any wonder that this pile of special blocks breaks easily? The retoucher should have also removed some of the loose sand that's been shaken from the material....

 

Anyone can do this. It's a simple stunt. It's not a miracle. It's a fake.