Skepticism

Derek Ogilvie Cries, Loses the Million Dollar Challenge

No, I’m serious, he cried. I even felt sorry for him, and reconsidered my position on him — maybe he’s not an outright fraud . . . maybe he’s self-deluded. Weigh in if you’d like, after watching him submit himself to testing by the remarkably lovely and funny Professor Chris French and then the always-amazing James Randi.

Other parts after the jump!

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 5:

Thanks to Sid for the link! Sid and Chris were on BBC Radio this weekend and they did a wonderful job representing skeptics (in the pub) as easygoing, humorous, and, um, sexy. True.

Rebecca Watson

Rebecca is a writer, speaker, YouTube personality, and unrepentant science nerd. In addition to founding and continuing to run Skepchick, she hosts Quiz-o-Tron, a monthly science-themed quiz show and podcast that pits comedians against nerds. There is an asteroid named in her honor. Twitter @rebeccawatson Mastodon mstdn.social/@rebeccawatson Instagram @actuallyrebeccawatson TikTok @actuallyrebeccawatson YouTube @rebeccawatson BlueSky @rebeccawatson.bsky.social

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58 Comments

  1. It bugs me when people use “literally” when they obviously mean “figuratively”. Like when he says he, “Literally put it in a box in his mind and threw away the key.”

    If he’s got literal boxes in his mind, he’d better stack them, Fall Guy style, to cushion the tremendous tumble his frontal lobe is about to take.

    And where are the gullible dads bringing their kids to this guy? I saw only one dude in the audience – what’s that about?

  2. That video didn’t actually show the debunking, I wanted to see him cry too. But I agree, he really does seem to believe he has a gift, I have this sixth sense to tell when people are being sincere/ insincere.

  3. Tom, you have to click through to the other parts. I suppose I could embed them as well, but it should be easy enough to do through the related links on the video.

  4. I think he’s just a good actor. People like this aren’t that deluded to believe their shit don’t stink. If you make a good living being a psychic, you know exactly what you are doing.

  5. When I think about James Randi exposing the absurd, I think of FDR appointing Joseph Kennedy to be the first head of the SEC. FDR received intense criticism for appointing one of the ultimate Wall Street insiders to police Wall Street. FDR’s response to the criticism: “It takes a thief to catch a thief.”

    James Randi was a magician (i.e. a fraud) and so he is good at exposing other magicians or frauds. But he is still a fraud. As FDR said, it takes one to catch one.

    James Randi has sold out his reputation for exposing fraud to be a government apologist. Where people should be skeptical of the government, the old-man-time “skeptic” has sold out in lumping such true skeptics with frauds. Frauds like him.

  6. I doubt that an outright fraud would accept the Randi challenge.

    This, incidentally, is one of the reasons why I suspect that Sylvia Browne isn’t a fraud, as opposed to a self-deluded individual. If she were an outright fraud she’d not have accepted the challenge.

    The fact that she’s arguably the least impressive and most inaccurate psychic in recent history adds to this suspicion.

    Why she hasn’t actually done the challenge, I’m not sure. Probably one of her minders, who is a liar, persuaded her not to.

  7. @Pseudonym: Sylvia did NOT accept the challenge. She was cornered on Larry King, sputtering that she would take the challenge, but never followed through despite the JREF continually trying to make contact with her.

    After seeing her live show, I have little doubt that she’s a fraud, through and through.

  8. I looked around and didn’t see a good place to put this. I’m sorry if its not right. Rystefn talked about you guys a lot and I think he would want you to know what’s going on. So I’m going to just say it here, and if its wrong you can move it or whatever.

    Last night, he took a turn for the worse. The pain was so bad, he finally let me take him to the hospital. If you know him well, you know how bad that is. He did make me type in something for him before we left. He was always so stubborn…

    Late this morning, he woke up and asked for water. He seemed very normal at first, thanking me for being kind to him and generally being very sweet. After a few minutes, though, I realized he wasn’t talking to me… He spent most of this morning talking to the memory of his high-school sweetheart… I think that’s when it finally sunk in that I might actually be losing him. He was always so full of life, I just couldn’t shake the feeling that he would beat this. I guess wishing doesn’t make it so. Not even if you want it to really bad.

    They won’t let me stay with him overnight because I’m not family. Not in the way they demand, anyway. I wish I could. He doesn’t sleep well alone, and he should be with someone he cares about right now… Anyway, I’m going back tomorrow morning, and if want me to pass along any messages, I will.

    Feel free to reply here, or if its more private you can email me at sabrina.remainsATgmailDOTcom

    I know this isn’t the place to ask you to pray for him, and he wouldn’t want you to even if it was… but I don’t really know what atheists do in situations like this. Whatever it is, please do it… and do it for me, too.

  9. Oh, don’t I know it, TS. Every time I see a magician perform an illusion that duplicates the act of a psychic or medium, I think to myself “fraud!”. Randi should be ashamed of himself, the big fraudy-fraud. I mean, who is he to offer $1 million for a demonstration of the paranormal? The nerve of the guy! He even said that just because he has never found evidence of the paranormal, that doesn’t mean it’s not out there. Apologist! Fraud!

    …ahem…

  10. Oh, I should probably elaborate. On the point that she herself has dodged the challenge (and no handlers), she is the one quite clearly spinning lies about how the money does exist, the challenge is fixed, etc.

    On the point that she is most surely a fraud, I think that a person who is deluding herself would show at least the slightest hint of compassion for others. Plus, her ex-husband has spoken about her attitude and motives in the past . . . plenty of other data points go into it, and for more I recommend checking out stopsylviabrowne.com.

  11. What drives me crazy about this segment is the end where they “scan his brain” and the brain scientist just spouts all of this woo-woo about how “he’s using his brain the way he says he does.”

    I mean, great, sure, something odd is happening in the man’s brain. That’s empirical. Maybe…I don’t know, maybe something’s gone wrong with his brain that makes him think he can talk to babies? Naaah…

  12. EatPie,

    Hey – what did I say? It takes a fraud to catch a fraud.

    His current fraud is in being an apologist for the government — not challenging the paranormal.

    He conflates, for example, challenging the paranormal with challenging the government’s fairy tale about 9/11. There is a total media blackout on this subject. The very, very longstanding and respected media group — “Project Censored” — has listed this subject for consecutive years as being a top, major censored story, and yet James Randi, the “skeptic,” gives aid to such censorship — favoring the BS government story.

    As far as putting up bets, a prominent European skeptic put up $10,000 for anyone who can produce an authentic passenger manifest to show that any of the alleged patsies ever boarded any of the four flights. It is automatic, absolutely routine and fundamental for any flight crash that the passenger manifests be preserved to verify the identity of all passengers who boarded the flight, but somehow, surprise, surprise, surprise … the government cannot produce any one of four to show that any of these pipsqueaks boarded any of these flights. $10,000. Of course the FBI admits that it does not show Bin Laden as wanted for 9/11 due to the lack of credible evidence even connecting him to this crime.

    So there are many, many scientists, pilots, former intelligence, military and FBI personnel, as well as foreign intelligence personnel, and domestic and foreign politicians, who say the government story is a joke, who are very, very skeptical of the same, and yet this prominent skeptic, James Randi, just blindly drinks the koolaid….. I doubt it. I think he has reverted to his past fraudulent ways … money for fraud.

    After all, the government has trillions to throw around these days. : )

  13. I’ve always maintained,

    That the only fun in being a skeptic is laughing at the “fools”.

    There isn’t much fun in telling people that Mars will never appear as large as the moon, etc.

    It bursts bubbles and is a real “buzz kill” for most people. It’s not fun.

    The only joy, for me, is laughing at the “nut jobs”.

    But he cried.

    That kinda killed it for me. I don’t feel like laughing because it’s not funny. It’s not funny at all.

    I don’t know what else to say,

    rod

  14. So, who’s the guy in the final video, who hooks Derek up to all the wires? Is this guy legitimate?

    It’s that final segment and its conclusions that bothers me. I think the scientist was very vague, but in a way that could lead a lot of people to think that Derek actually has powers. From what I understand, he was just saying that Derek is correct that these visions do occur in his brain, which doesn’t say anything about “psychicness”. I think you’d probably get the same results from someone who’s hallucinating.

    I was also a little disappointed that they made it seem like the two tests were designed to make him fail. They of course failed to mention that the Million-Dollar Challenge tests are designed in conjunction with the testee.

    Not a bad program, but there are a lot of gaps for pseudoscience to wiggle through.

  15. Actually, I consider it to be self-evident that most everyone who tries Randi’s million-dollar challenge is self-deluded. The real frauds know to simply accept the challenge when asked, and then conveniently forget it was ever mentioned.

    One of the things that bothers me most about Randi is that he tends to think every woo is a knowing fraud, when most are actually just self-deluded. I still love the guy though.

  16. [Long time listener, first time caller.] Just as Richard Dawkins would say and my own research has shown, people will believe anything. I would never accuse Olgilvie of not believing what he says, well more more than one time. But I would contend that he is delusional and that he is using normal non-verbal clues to “read” the parents and attribute this to the child.

    Those of us that have had children know that we must alter our public persona when in the presence of out children in order to establish the priority from ourselves to them. By exhibiting this self denial or sacrifice we reveal more about ourselves than we would normally in a one to one interaction.

    I am working an social experiment now with interaction with church goers. I have a long back ground of religion and I am seeing how the people react when a typical answer is not given. They do indeed wait for you to say more.

    In view of this, the parents want to have a resolution to the issue with their child. So they are willing to help in anyway they can to provide the help to find out what is going on in their child’s mind.

    This an also be done with animals by the way. Dogs are the best non-human group since they have the greatest interaction with people.

    A delusion will produce changes in the way the brain functions so there is no surprise that when in a more comfortable setting, Olgilvie got a more positive result with the brain wave patterns.

    Strangely enough I could do what he does. But most people could if they wanted to. Plus some of the stuff is just pure common knowledge. it is just a trick of reading people’s non-verbal clues.

    Try reading Sarah Palin’s. Whoa doggie!!

  17. The scientist at the end just said that he was using non-verbal commumication. Could that be a good way to describe the cold reading being done on the mother in the room with the baby?

  18. Oh, he’s a fraud!

    I’ve watched all of the first clip and part of the second, and I’ve already seen CLASSIC cold read and shotgun techniques, something you have to do consciously, as far as I know.

    What I saw looked almost exactly like what John Edwards does, except with babies instead of dead people. When he was with the group, he even did the lame “I want to talk to a family over here …” waving vaguely at half of the audience.

    If he’s not a fraud, then I don’t know what the definition of fraud is. Can you use fraudulent techniques that require actual conscious thought to utilize and not be aware that you’re using them?

  19. The EEG guy is Dr. Gerald Gluck. He’s a family therapist and biofeedback guy. His profile is here. A couple of highlights:

    Under “credentials” he lists “Brennan Healing Science Practitioner, Energy Healer, Psychotherapist.” There’s no indication of what the “Dr.” is for.

    He’s apparently trained in bio-feedback, but there’s nothing to indicate he’s qualified to make the comparative statements he does about EEG activity. While he may or may not be a woo artist, he certainly does not appear to me to be professionally qualified to make the statements he made. For example, his self-identification as a “scientist” is a stretch at the least. I get zero hits for him on an appropriate search of PubMed (Gluck EEG), so he has apparently published nothing on the subject matter relevant to his claims.

  20. @Rebecca: Not having seen her show, you may well be right. This may be my own credulity, but I still find it hard to believe that a fraud could possibly be quite as unimpressive as Sylvia Browne.

    I must say, though, you’re right about her ex-husband’s testimony. That’s pretty compelling.

    @rdriley:

    I’ve watched all of the first clip and part of the second, and I’ve already seen CLASSIC cold read and shotgun techniques, something you have to do consciously, as far as I know.

    Do we have any evidence one way or another?

    I found the guy at the end interesting. Without evidence to the contrary, I’m inclined to believe him that there’s something detectable on the EEG, and it may well be evidence that the guy isn’t lying. Naturally, that doesn’t mean he’s psychic.

  21. Added to note: So I watched the rest, and both teams seem to countenance the possibility that he’s somehow doing this unconsciously. Far be it from me to say Randi is wrong!

    So that makes me wonder: is it possible to develop cold reading skills without knowing you’re doing cold reading?

  22. is it possible to develop cold reading skills without knowing you’re doing cold reading?

    It’s totally possible to develop skills without knowing it… One guy I knew thought he was learning how to paint fences and put the wax on/wax off of cars, but he was really learning karate!

    Okay, bad example, but I think most teachers would tell you the best way to teach a skill is to disguise it/couch it in something else. “Ha ha! You thought you were playing dice, but you were learning probability! Learn that, suckers!”

  23. rdriley,
    Cold reading techniques are easily used by honestly-believing people. After all, it’s just a matter of gathering clues from the subject, processing them through intuition. People can easily mistake their own intuition for psychic powers. This belief is reinforced when they achieve surprising success.

    Hot reading requires conscious effort, because you need to consciously research your subject before hand. Spoon-bending requires conscious effort, because you need to prepare your spoons. Cold reading is entirely internal, therefore you could even fool yourself.

  24. I think the major problem with the “scientist” at the end is that he already believed in the guy’s so-called psychic pawers going into it. His interpretation of the results is most likely tinted by this expectation.

  25. Did anyone else think it was weird that, of all the things that he could come up with that babies would be talking about, they always seemed most concerned about birthmarks and sores and scars on the mother’s body?

    Derek definitely seems to be delusional, at any rate. It’d be good to see him get some professional help, but as long as everyone around him believes him, I don’t see that ever happening.

  26. Rodney: I might have been able to feel sorry for Ogilvie if he accepted the evidence that his claimed abilities are false, gave up the psychic gig and got an honest job instead. There’s a point at which even the genuinely deluded cross the line into willful ignorance and if failing these two tests and continuing to believe in your magical powers aren’t it, I have no idea what is. On your other point, I’ve found that kicking away people’s crutches *can* end up being a source of comfort to them. Helping people to develop tools they can use to work out what is actually *true* about the world and help them stop deceiving themselves can be immensely rewarding.

    rdriley: I have no difficulty in accepting that Ogilvie might be genuinely deluded rather than an outright fraud. To me, this seems to be backed up by his increasing desperation in the first test. As you point out, he is obviously using cold reading techniques, but becomes frustrated when he receives no feedback since the parents are not present. This suggests to me that he has fooled himself into believing his powers are real as his hits are reenforced by feedback and the misses written off as failure to understand what the child is trying to say.

    I think it is perfectly possible for people to delue themselves in this way. Humans have evolved to detect patterns, probably with quite a high tolerance for false positives. We’ve evolved to place a higher value on reenforcement of patterns as conformation of their reality than on negative evidence blowing them out of the water. For obvious reasons. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if people were able to fool themselves into believing their unintentional cold-reading was true magic.

    I don’t know whether Ogilvie is deluded or fraudulent. However, I have no problem at all in believing that he might be the former, despite (and in some ways because of) his obvious use of cold reading techniques.

  27. Detroitus: I think the problem is not so much with Gluck himself (although as RBH pointed out, his credentials are more than suspect). What he says in the programme could well be true: the results, for all I know, could well be consistent with Ogilvie’s claims. Gluck never says that this is evidence that Ogilvie is psychic, although he does say something rather strange about him ‘receiving images’ from an unspecified source. I’ll reserve judgement on Gluck for the time being, although it did seem as though he had plenty of opportunity to point out that the results didn’t indicate that Ogilvie is psychic, but then failed to do so.

    I think the problem is with the documentary makers. First, they make it seem as though this final ‘test’ was in some way connected to the previous two, when that surely isn’t the case. This adds unwarranted credibility.

    Second, it didn’t stress the most important point, which is (as others here have pointed out) that the results are entirely irrelevant, since we don’t know how to interpret them.

    It seemed like the programme makers were bending over backwards to provide some sort of ‘balance’, whether for political correctness or to make the show easier to sell. This was disappointing after the generally high quality of the first part.

  28. miller: “One of the things that bothers me most about Randi is that he tends to think every woo is a knowing fraud, when most are actually just self-deluded.”

    I don’t think that’s true at all. Randi has said many times that he considers some people deluded rather than fraudulent. For example, search for dowsers on the JREF site. For another example, watch the above for his opinion on Ogilvie, where he says quite explicitly that he considers Ogilvie to be sincere but deluded.

  29. two things which I thought was way cool about these videos:

    1) I thought it badass of the narrator to refer to Randi as “World’s most feared Skeptic”. Kinda cool.

    2) When Mr. Ogilvie went in to have his brainwaves scanned, the music in the background was featuring a theramin.

    A THERAMIN! That’s literally the ‘woo!’ sound! So awesome.

  30. Did anyone else notice the YouTube annotation on Part 5 right at 8:17? When the woo-woo EEG guy is saying, “It’s very very possible that his talent and ability could be increased.”

    Watch the wall behind him.

  31. Yes, I saw that. Stupid thing to do. If you want to maintain credibility, whichever side you’re on, you must maintain respect and maturity.

    I have no sympathy for Ogilivie, whether he’s a knowing fraud or a deluded fool. But that little bit of juvenile editing has the potential to burn any legitimate credibility the show tries to claim. Very bad idea.

  32. @latsot: I have to disagree with you about Gluck. At the very beginning of that segment he said something along the lines of: “I’m excited to get the chance to test someone with his abilities.” It seems like he’s already made up his mind and the results he got back just fed his preconcieved notions. Not exactly an efficient study in my opinion.

  33. my sister (long time closet but newly outward skepchick) and i just kept replaying the beginning of the video over and over again where we makes all the goofy baby noises and laughing hysterically ’til beer shot out of my nose (ouch! btw). this guy is a few commands short of a working program script, that’s for sure! i have to agree i find it hard to believe someone could cold read so effectively subconsciously or not be aware of it on some level. oh, and did this video make anyone else want to give Rand! a huge hug and just squeeze him? maybe that was just me… something about his old man adorableness or something…

  34. oh and the brain scan thing seemed suspiciously like some junk science to me. Compared to Rand! he was so less explicit in his tests and methods (or what he was really even testing or or what his results really meant) and that guy didn’t seem to really explain anything. maybe someone can clear that up? then again i am physicsboy, not brainscienceboy. maybe it was just me but that guy didn’t even look like he believed what he was saying.

  35. “I know I’m not a bullshitter.”

    Good thing P&T didn’t get this guy first. If Professor French made him cry, Penn would probably have made him jump out the nearest window.

  36. The feeling I got was that he’s most likely sincere, and just has a lot of unconscious rationalisation going on. I don’t think he’s consciously trying to con anyone, he just desperately needs to keep believing in himself.

    I mostly enjoyed the show, but was disappointed with where they took it at the end. It was on the same channel that aired his baby mind-reading show originally, so I guess they didn’t want to leave it without providing what looks like some kind of vindication for him after all.

    The whole last section did seem like pretty poorly executed non-science, by someone who’d already made up his mind about Derek’s abilities. How can any kind of brain activity be indicative of psychic powers, when we have no idea what the use of psychic powers does to your brain activity? The comparison I made in my review is that it’s like claiming to know what sorts of materials we would expect to find in the exhaust fumes of an alien spaceship, or what flavour of ice cream is Bigfoot’s favourite.

    If anything, Ogilvie leaves a slightly less foul taste in my mouth now than before I watched this, but it’s still intensely frustrating to see someone just not getting it.

  37. Oxoman: “Good thing P&T didn’t get this guy first. If Professor French made him cry, Penn would probably have made him jump out the nearest window.”

    Heh, damn right.

  38. I’ve seen Oglivie live back when he was a “talks to dead grannies pyschic” and he was so bad at cold reading it was funny. Literally 300 people laughing out loud. Imagine a comedy routine send-up of these “mind readers”, it was like that. At one point he was talking about a women’s “dead” husband for about 10min before he asked if he was right only to be told she was sat next to her very much alive husband, but she hadn’t wanted to spoil his (Oglivie’s) night by telling him he was wrong.

    Clearly the man is a nutter, but he is a funny nutter

  39. Russell, that would be a very funny show indeed. I already can see the skits about, “no she didn’t say THAT, she told ME this…..” and then the confused impassioned argument ensues with the person of attention saying, “Excuse me, but, um, my grandmother is alive. She’s right there.”

    Looks at the CBS show “Numb3rs” and what I hope to be a good series “the Mentalist” as a couple of good examples of reason within a show. I am eager to see how “The Mentalist” plays on its story. But I am a big fan if “Numb3rs”

    Regardless, I was sorry he cried but that is because I don’t like to see anyone cry. but he did deserve to by every measure. Having compassion doesn’t divorce one from the reality of the situation.

    aka: “I am sorry you’re crying. but you have no psychic skills. Well that is no more than the tree outside my window.”

    My psychic abilities tell me he is gay. Not that there is anything wrong with it, but I was right about Clay Akin so I have to be right about him!!

    Hmmmm Did I really say that?

    Look at the shinny thing in my hand.

  40. Whoa, whoa, whoa! Time out here , folks! Ogilive is obviously a deluded fool, but did no one besides me and Kimbo read Sabrina’s comment about Rystefyn?

    @Sabrina: for reference.

    Sounds like the guy is on death’s door! So either no one saw it, or no one cares. Please tell me it’s the former and not the latter.

    Can someone get some info on his situation and post it where we can all see it?

    Sabrina, you are clearly someone important in Rystefyn’s life, and he to yours. You have my deepest sympathies. I hope he recovers quickly from whatever this is.

  41. @SteveT:
    Yeah, I read that too… it’s certainly not that I don’t care, I just don’t really know what to say. It’s kind of the ‘elephant in the room’ type thing. Either way, I really hope the best for Rystefyn, and I’m curious to know more about what’s going on.

  42. Thank you for your concern, Steve, but the people here clearly care. I got many very kind emails from people wishing for me to pass along well-wishes and asking if they could help in any way. I’ll add yours to the list, but there’s very little chance he’ll recover at this point.

    Right now, all we can do is try to ease his pain. Of course, he’s being very difficult, as usual. You should have heard the argument he had with the doctor over whether or not rum is good for him in his condition. “What’s it going to do, kill me?” isn’t quite the irrefutable argument he thought it would be.

  43. I thought it was odd that the narrator kept saying the million was Randi’s personal money – that’s not right, is it? Isn’t it the JREF’s money?

    @rdriley
    I’m somewhat hard of hearing (bad enough that I sometimes use hearing aids) – I taught myself to read lips without knowing I was doing it. I absolutely believe someone could teach themselves cold reading without being aware they’re doing it.

    I agree with others that Gluck did seem to start with the opinion that Ogilvie had abilities – not the sort of neutral stance you’d want from a scientist. However, listening to Gluck’s commentary, I think everything he said is reasonable if he were describing someone with an over-active imagination. If we take the stance the Ogilvie is honestly deluding himself, then him having an over-active imagination does seem to fit. Joe Nickel (sic?) often refers to a test he has for people who are ‘highly imaginative’ – these people often seem to be the ones who have psychic/ghost/alien experiences. I wonder how high Ogilvie would score on Joe Nickel’s test.

    And of course, the really sad thing with all of this is that even though Ogilvie failed two completely fair tests, he hasn’t altered his activities in the least, and people are still apparently buying his books and flocking to his shows. So really, what did the good guys accomplish, here?

  44. @latsot
    Oh, yeah, Randi doesn’t think everyone is a fraud. I just think he tends to be biased in that direction. Or maybe I’m just biased in the other direction.

    I only watched part of the first video, but Randi did say, quote:
    “Psychics are knowing fakes and frauds, and they take advantage of the people who pay them for their services.”
    I’m sure that Randi would, when asked, admit that this is not strictly true of every psychic. But at least this one time, he overgeneralized, and that bothers me. Ah, but it is just a minor flaw; I don’t mean to make a big deal out of it.

  45. Pseudonym”@Rebecca: Not having seen her show, you may well be right. This may be my own credulity, but I still find it hard to believe that a fraud could possibly be quite as unimpressive as Sylvia Browne.”

    Frankly, the contempt Sylvia shows her fans tells me she’s a knowing fraud. She knows the true believers won’t be desuaded.

  46. miller:
    “Psychics are knowing fakes and frauds, and they take advantage of the people who pay them for their services.”

    Yeah, he did say that, but I suspect it was taken out of context, because later in the show he says something about how many are deluded (and he’s said similar things many times).

    Is he biased in the direction of assuming people are frauds? Maybe, but it doesn’t matter. The tests he helps organise and conduct are fair. If the candidates can do what they say they can, the tests will demonstrate it.

    So what does it matter if Randi does tend to assume people are frauds? All he’s trying to demonstrate is that their abilities don’t exist.

  47. This was somewhat entertaining to watch. I guess I am a bit heartless as I didn’t really feel all that bad for him when he started crying after getting told he doesn’t have powers. However he seems a fairly decent fellow, or at the very least, the show presents him as such, and I found myself kinda hoping he that he’d win, even though the preliminary done at the university showed that he would more than likely fail. The last part though, geez that was just silly. Talk about an extreme case of confirmation bias and some major cognitive dissonance. I hope he does take the challenge again, before it is gone for good, although I doubt him failing a second time is going to do anything to prove to him that he has no magic powers.

  48. @Bevans: I noticed that as well. And during the tests at the university, he started doing the same thing with the handler. He maybe right that the “child is in control” if he is indeed psychically speaking with the child, but how would the child know anything about the handler? I doubt that the child had spent much more than a few hours with the person. It was rather laughable.

  49. I think the “rules of the road” have been clearly explained to Ogilvie by now so he cannot plead ignorance. It would be better if he explained it as a trick and perform that way instead of acting like he is really doing something.

  50. @thomtrue: I doubt that’ll ever happen though. He seems convinced that he has the powers he claims to have, so much so that he’s certain that the next time he goes for Randi’s millions (if there is a next time, he has somewhere around a year and a half to try again if he’s allowed to) that he will be successful. I wonder how many times he would have to be shown that he isn’t doing something special before he stops lying to himself and others.

  51. Too bad, this has been taken off YouTube. Was anybody smart enough to download it in time? Then please get in touch :).

  52. Thanks PaulJ, that’s amazing. I hope to convince our netwerkguy to let me torrent through the firewall.

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