After reading a scathing review of the television program Phenomenon by Craig Browning at Visions (here), I followed the link to a controversial youtube regarding the attack made by Criss Angel on performer Jim Callahan after a Seance presentation in which Angel broke with the format of the show and attempted to put Callahan on the spot with a demand for an envelope prediction.

Here is the performance and the controversial attack gambit:

JIM CALLAHAN FINDS CRISS ANGEL
AN IDEOLOGICAL BIGOT

Okay, since it was actually addressed to both Uri and Jim, that perhaps the challenge had just a little to do with the Randi challenge controversy? The line "middle-aged man trying to dress like a goth-boy" was quite a bite.

Here is an exploration of the incident, placed in some context with Angel’s interviews and responses:

CRISS ANGEL
HYPOCRISY IN ACTION

Personally, I love mentalism and seance presentations, as entertainments.  I have an outline for a seance type show of my own that uses suggestion and mental effects (without gadgets or gimmicks or stooges), as an entertainment . . . both general and adult variations in play . . . which is likely to see performance as a series of warmup effects early 2008 and then the full performance for Halloween or thereabouts.

However, I find folks who purport to be full-on actual psychics but are obviously mentalists to be creepy to the extreme.  I also believe there may be genuine psychics out there and so don’t immediately dismiss the possibility, albeit I will approach most such entertainers or performers or so-called genuine psychics with an air of critical skepticism, big time.  Like Houdini, I want to believe but I’ll be damned if I let someone bilk or worse with trickery.  Having said that, I’m leaning towards Callahan’s side of this particular exchange.

See Callanah’s webpages here.

All the best,
Brian

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Brian David Phillips, PhD, CH [phillips@nccu.edu.tw]Certified Hypnotherapist
President, Society of Experiential Trance
Associate Professor, NCCU, Taipei, Taiwan
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