"
A wonderful brain interprets something differently from what it actually is, but it doesn't mean it's made a mistake. It took the information it had and did it's best job." Those are but two tricks from
Jerry Andrus (1918-2007), self-taught magician and illusionist, and
one of great renown amongst
other magicians. But he was more than a slight-of-hand man: he was also
a poet, philosopher, inventor, humanist, agnostic, and skeptic. There are an impressive number of videos of him online, these are but a few to get you started down the rabbit hole:
Jerry Andrus is visual poetry (Google video /
YT, 28 minutes) ::
Jerry Andrus at the Magic Castle (G.vid, 49 min),
Jerry Andrus at 83 his Optical Illusions (G.vid, 41 min) ::
Jerry Andrus and Ray Hyman on Uri Geller (YT, 26 min) ::
James Randi on Jerry Andrus (YT, 5 min) ::
James Randi - who was Jerry Andrus? ::
James Randi describes Jerry Andrus. The last two clips are from
Rex Young, a young illusionist who has recreated many of Andrus' illusions on his
YouTube channel, and
made some of his own.
posted by filthy light thief
on Sep 12, 2011 -
25 comments
Nostalgia and skepticism collide in
this short video of Uri Geller's legendary failure on The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson, introduced by frequent MeFi subject James Randi. More context and nostalgia in
this longer version, which features Geller with a young Barbara Walters, and on The Mike Douglas Show, along with Randi's expose of "healing evangelist" Peter Popoff.
If you want to waste even more time, just start clicking on
these YouTube search results.
posted by The Deej
on Aug 5, 2007 -
93 comments
"Uri Geller [warning: pop ups] became well known for a few scientifically unexplained phenomena. They are Telepathy... Dowsing... Bending, breaking and softening metal and other solids with the power of the mind, e.g. spoons, keys etc, more rarely plastic and glass; Fixing broken watches and appliances, and using collective power, influencing the Big Ben to stop; Moving compasses with the power of thought; Erasing computer tapes and disks; and Sprouting, causing tiny seeds (mainly red radish) to grow a few centimeters in seconds." Why not thrill to a
biography of this favorite pseudo psychic of the 70s? To be frank, until just now, I wasn't even aware that
he was back!
posted by Joey Michaels
on Mar 24, 2003 -
11 comments
