The Amazing Randi Dying of Cancer: Huge article in SF Weekly

If you don't live in the SF Bay Area, you may have missed this. It's the cover story in the current edition of the SF Weekly, which is one of San Francisco's largest alternative newspapers:

The Demystifying Adventurs of the Amazing Randi

Though I personally am convinced that human beings do have psychic powers, because I've received psychic readings and healings from people I'm quite certain were not employing cold-reading techniques or other tricks, I do feel James Randi does a tremendous service to the world every time he gets people to question frauds like Sylvia Brown and the numerous, cynical evangelists who fund their megachurches and TV ministries with phony faith healings.

Hey, I've got an idea for an ironic experiment:

Whether it be through prayer, visualization, magic ritual, or whatever you believe in, let's all try to concentrate on manifesting a miraculous cure for Mr. Randis's stomach cancer.

Imagine if it worked!



[edit on 31-8-2009 by flightsuit]

[edit on 31-8-2009 by flightsuit]

Didn't work with Fawcett.

Edit to add: ok the link has been fixed... so I guess the above don't read it lol.

Prayer has been shown in studies to have no effect or significant effect, and in some cases causes more harm then nothing.

[edit on 31-8-2009 by Republican08]

[edit on 31-8-2009 by Republican08]

[edit on 31-8-2009 by Republican08]

Oh my God! I thought I'd copied and pasted the URL for the article, but hadn't! Hence, the last thing I'd copied to my clipboard wound up pasted into that post!

Oops!

Thanks for catching that! The crazy illustration was not my handiwork, but is something a good friend drew and passed to me in class when he and I took a really boring community college course together many, many years ago.

I've fixed the link now. Thanks for bringing that to my attention, and I hope you weren't emotionally scarred by what you saw!

Originally posted by flightsuit
I've fixed the link now. Thanks for bringing that to my attention, and I hope you weren't emotionally scarred by what you saw!

A little scarred lol.

I know I get worried sometimes that I'll hit the wrong thing, and put a picture of an ex girlfriend in the media centre.

I hope Randi pulls through though, isn't he the one with the 1,000,000 dollar award for whoever passes a real psychic test?

That's him. Read the article (now that I've properly linked to it), and you'll find an account of one failed attempt to collect the prize.

Interestingly, the story describes a male as Randi's "longtime companion," implying that he is gay. I never knew that about him.

no thanks, im not hoping for james the illusionist who conned the world with trickery

Originally posted by flightsuit
Interestingly, the story describes a male as Randi's "longtime companion," implying that he is gay. I never knew that about him.

Randi "came out" as a homosexual publicly a few months ago. Nobody seemed to care about it. Randi has also been speaking positively about chemotherapy treatments he has been receiving.

Originally posted by Republican08
Prayer has been shown in studies to have no effect or significant effect, and in some cases causes more harm then nothing.

It has also been shown to have a significant and measurable effect. I guess it depends who you ask then, doesn't it?

It's called the "placebo effect," and yes prayer can fall under the placebo effect, unfortunately for your information warfare.

Materialists have been waging a war on the phenomena and trying to diminish its significance ever since the term was first coined. "Placebo effect"? "Placebo effect" is just another word for self-healing through positive thinking and moods creating a favorable biological environment for healing. And yes, it can be instilled in an individual from others, but only if the individual allows him/herself to change their own thoughts/feelings.

Go ahead and continue to diminish and deny the significance of the so-called "placebo effect." Even if your generation never fully accepts it, millions of people already are and in the future it will be not only accepted but the most natural and favored method for healing, over dangerous pill and radiation therapies of today. And don't tell me people have not been cured of cancer and all number of other diseases this way, because there are plenty of real doctors who can correct you.



Edit to add, I will be hoping that Randi will realize all of this, come out of his pessimistic mindset, and truly heal. Not just physically but emotionally and mentally as well, because Randi does not have cancer for no reason. I really am not surprised at all.

If no such holistic healing occurs, and there is no dramatic change in the way he sees the world and lives his life, the cancer, chemotherapy, and whatever else they put him on, will kill him. It is the poisonous consequence of the mental and emotional baggage he has been carrying all these years in his sarcastic demeanor. If Randi was a flower then this would be him blooming.

[edit on 5-7-2010 by AquariusDescending]

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

Randi "came out" as a homosexual publicly a few months ago. Nobody seemed to care about it.

Some people however are a little concerned about his association with the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, an organisation that seeks to gain the acquittal of people accused of paedophilia by claiming that the victims are making it all up.