Sunday, April 23, 2006
People Are Strange, I mean Stupid.
Not so long ago a group decided it might be fun to hold a seance. nothing new here, seances go on all the time. But this one was big, really big, so big that I an going to capitalize.
IT WAS BIG.
It was a seance that was to be an attempt to contact the late Princess Diana.
This was such a big deal that they recorded the seance and broadcast it. On Pay Per View, of course. Lord knows we wouldn't want to prove the existence of a life after this without making some money from it.
And money the did make. Eight million dollars worth of PPV subscriptions came in to watch a seance that, and I can't stress this part enough, didn't even contact anyone dead. Not Princess Di, not Dianne Chambers, hell, not even a dead tool and dye maker.
Nothing, Nada, Zip, Zero, Zilch.
And they took in eight million dollars for it.
I mean, they didn't even try to fake it. They were that lazy, and still they made a fortune.
And why did they make this fortune? Because it was gripping television? (Ever been to a "real" seance? You sit in the dark, you hold hands and someone talks in a funny voice. Not good theatre.)
No, they made eight million dollars because people are stupid!
I'll say it again. PEOPLE ARE STUPID!!!!!!!
People believe stupid things. They believe that a lottery win is just around the corner. They believe their train will come in even though all they do is sit on the couch and get fat. They believe that people from the spirit world are just dying to talk to them.
Now, let me add right now that I am not going to bash anyone who believes in a religion. I would never do that for any respectable religion. You believe in God, you believe in Jesus, you believe in heaven. Fine with me. Just don't come knocking on my door when dinner is ready.
But if you believe that Mistress Olga can contact the dead while burning incense in a room full of hanging beads, then you are stupid.
Plain and simple.
These medium are fakes, phonies and scam artists. They can no more talk to the dead then I can get Lindsay Lohan in bed. How do I know this? Simple, I read.
in the late eighteen hundreds a fad known as "Spiritualism" was all the rage. People held seances like we today hold "Any reason to get drunk" parties. Some "Mediums" were making big money by making things float in the dark.
Some people decided that enough is enough and decided to look into this. These men were, for the most part, magicians. Why magicians? Who better to recognize trickery?
These people went out to seances, then went public and exposed how these seances worked. They printed articles, published books and actually did exposures into their shows.
One of the most famous of these was a man called Harry Houdini. He did more to debunk Mediums than any man of his time. So much so that there is a theory that he was killed by spiritualists wanting to shut him up.
One hundred years ago, Harry Houdini proved that Mediums were a scam, and yet today we have eight million dollars worth of stupid people watching people sit around in the dark and contact nothing.
Like I said, people are stupid.
This upcoming Monday, the people who brought you the Princess Di Seance are bring you the John Lennon Seance. Advance reports state that they have captured the voice of John Lennon one one of the microphones VIA the magic of EVP. (Don't ask me to explain EVP, just google it and you'll have a laugh.)
What this means is that they learned a lesson. Last time they got nothing, this time they got something, and it was something that just happens to be easily fake-able. Go figure.
And the worst part, more stupid people will spend hard earned money to see this travesty.
I wonder what Houdini would think? Except that in almost one hundred years of Houdini seances, including the first thirty odd hat his wife held, the man who could escape anything couldn't escape from the other realm.
I think this begs the question. If Houdini couldn't escape, maybe there isn't anything to escape from?
BTW: Magicians still lead the debunking. James "The Amazing" Randi is leading the modern day charge. He's taken on Uri Geller, Nostradamus and phony psychics for decades. He even has a challenge. One million dollars to anyone who can perform or prove a supernatural feat that he and his team cannot debunk.
Surprisingly, no winners so far.
James Randi can be found at http://www.randi.org/.
IT WAS BIG.
It was a seance that was to be an attempt to contact the late Princess Diana.
This was such a big deal that they recorded the seance and broadcast it. On Pay Per View, of course. Lord knows we wouldn't want to prove the existence of a life after this without making some money from it.
And money the did make. Eight million dollars worth of PPV subscriptions came in to watch a seance that, and I can't stress this part enough, didn't even contact anyone dead. Not Princess Di, not Dianne Chambers, hell, not even a dead tool and dye maker.
Nothing, Nada, Zip, Zero, Zilch.
And they took in eight million dollars for it.
I mean, they didn't even try to fake it. They were that lazy, and still they made a fortune.
And why did they make this fortune? Because it was gripping television? (Ever been to a "real" seance? You sit in the dark, you hold hands and someone talks in a funny voice. Not good theatre.)
No, they made eight million dollars because people are stupid!
I'll say it again. PEOPLE ARE STUPID!!!!!!!
People believe stupid things. They believe that a lottery win is just around the corner. They believe their train will come in even though all they do is sit on the couch and get fat. They believe that people from the spirit world are just dying to talk to them.
Now, let me add right now that I am not going to bash anyone who believes in a religion. I would never do that for any respectable religion. You believe in God, you believe in Jesus, you believe in heaven. Fine with me. Just don't come knocking on my door when dinner is ready.
But if you believe that Mistress Olga can contact the dead while burning incense in a room full of hanging beads, then you are stupid.
Plain and simple.
These medium are fakes, phonies and scam artists. They can no more talk to the dead then I can get Lindsay Lohan in bed. How do I know this? Simple, I read.
in the late eighteen hundreds a fad known as "Spiritualism" was all the rage. People held seances like we today hold "Any reason to get drunk" parties. Some "Mediums" were making big money by making things float in the dark.
Some people decided that enough is enough and decided to look into this. These men were, for the most part, magicians. Why magicians? Who better to recognize trickery?
These people went out to seances, then went public and exposed how these seances worked. They printed articles, published books and actually did exposures into their shows.
One of the most famous of these was a man called Harry Houdini. He did more to debunk Mediums than any man of his time. So much so that there is a theory that he was killed by spiritualists wanting to shut him up.
One hundred years ago, Harry Houdini proved that Mediums were a scam, and yet today we have eight million dollars worth of stupid people watching people sit around in the dark and contact nothing.
Like I said, people are stupid.
This upcoming Monday, the people who brought you the Princess Di Seance are bring you the John Lennon Seance. Advance reports state that they have captured the voice of John Lennon one one of the microphones VIA the magic of EVP. (Don't ask me to explain EVP, just google it and you'll have a laugh.)
What this means is that they learned a lesson. Last time they got nothing, this time they got something, and it was something that just happens to be easily fake-able. Go figure.
And the worst part, more stupid people will spend hard earned money to see this travesty.
I wonder what Houdini would think? Except that in almost one hundred years of Houdini seances, including the first thirty odd hat his wife held, the man who could escape anything couldn't escape from the other realm.
I think this begs the question. If Houdini couldn't escape, maybe there isn't anything to escape from?
BTW: Magicians still lead the debunking. James "The Amazing" Randi is leading the modern day charge. He's taken on Uri Geller, Nostradamus and phony psychics for decades. He even has a challenge. One million dollars to anyone who can perform or prove a supernatural feat that he and his team cannot debunk.
Surprisingly, no winners so far.
James Randi can be found at http://www.randi.org/.
