 Richard Saunders is next and Richard Saunders is one another one of my favorite human beings in the world He's from Australia, which you know just look beyond that. He's still really great No, of course one of my favorite human beings I didn't have a chance to write a limerick, but I will afterwards. I will Richard. I'm sorry Please welcome to the stage the one and only Richard Saunders There once was a man called Geo You'll have to make up the rest ladies and gentlemen. I I'm No limerick for Richard Saunders. What's all coming to thank you very much? It's such a pleasure to be here once again at the amazing meeting I I Guess you feel the same way I do those people who come back year after year you find yourself down at the Del Mar Bar Or in the corridor here or sitting there and you think did I really go away? Was there a whole year between Tams? I think they just wheel me downstairs to a cupboard under the roulette table and open the door before Tam and out I spring in here. I am again this year keeping the brain sort of theme going I'm going to be looking at what I call looking into or through or at or With the psychic mirror in other words what do Psychics believers maybe conspiracy theory people think When they look into the mirror What's their world like and what do they think when they see us the skeptical community? Last year. I gave a talk here. We could get the slides up of that. Are you seeing my slides or me? Oh, you're seeing my slides excellent last year I gave a talk which was called looking into the Mind of the true believer again, it's sort of like a little adventure in psychology This is what the one of the most interesting things I find about this whole skeptical adventure. I love looking for monsters in UFOs and Spoon bending and all that But the adventure of looking into the the mind thinking process, especially of the believers is personally for me It's endlessly fascinating first though, I thought I'd bring you a little something from Australia a Genuine card there. I wonder if they spoke to mr. Randy before they saw that I Thought that was very appropriate. We have many wonderful mystics and seers and Strange people in Australia, but this woman really took my attention and this is a skill a rare skill that I think we all should have She talks to chickens does your chicken have a psychological problem What does the chicken say? I'm sure she can translate that Australia if you haven't come to Australia, it's a wonderful place full of people who talk to chickens James Randy is a frequent visitor to Australia. We are so lucky In fact James Randy was one of the reasons Australian skeptics started in the first place He came in 1980 did a series of water-divining tests and that led to the formation of the Australian skeptics. Thank you, sir Thank you Talks to chickens What's wrong with that? briefly As most of you know, I'm the president of the Australian skeptics I've been involved with many things over the years including the James Rageen educational foundation million-dollar challenge Which we're hopefully hopefully working towards again this year I've been on TV. I do TV and movies and I invented the origami flying pig Which some of you have seen around after a request from mr. Randy he I Made rabbits and for him and something years ago and he said Richard make me a flying pig And that was the result. I'm very pleased that you asked me to do that Randy And I love it when people come up to me and show me the pig that they've made the flying pig It's for an origami creator. That's very flattering. It's somebody likes your work so much that that that they want to make it That's that's just tremendous Ladies and gentlemen, I am so pleased that dr. Carl Krasnicki is here at TAM this year Yeah I'm absolutely thrilled. I saw his talk just yesterday, and I know people have been chasing him in the corridor for various reasons he's Australia's best love science communicator and just to have him here and to experience TAM is a personal thrill for me Just fantastic stuff, and I do the skeptics on podcast, which is coming up next week to episode 300 I'm very happy about that 300 every week getting out of podcast. I think Steven novella and a few other people know that what that's like and Here's the gang that helped me put the show together my reporters so to speak Those of you who listen to the show there that the faces Behind the names you know so well our newest reporter is Joe alabaster there in the top Section who's doing a wonderful Segment for us called evidence, please and very soon. It's her birthday So I'm gonna put my little recorder up there if everybody could say after three happy birthday Joe alabaster one two three If she's watching the Twitter feed now, she's just gone red and that's fantastic I think it's Somebody might know but it's two o'clock in the morning in Australia or three o'clock or some some silly hour Then I love doing the skeptic zone and in the last ten minutes I have launched my documentary the vaccination chronicles. It's now live to the world. This is a half hour documentary Made over the last couple of years Interviewing people of their true stories of a time before vaccination It's a message to young parents saying when these people Were younger They saw first-hand polio wards iron lungs and this sort of thing if you get a chance, please Google the vaccination chronicles It was a personal project of mine, and I'm very pleased that that has been launched officially here at Tam It's a good feeling it it truly is a good feeling. It's good to Over the years. I've picked up many skills here and there like origami But one of them is video production and video editing and it's nice to use those skills To create something like this let's think about part of the human condition and why we are here and Why other groups who think differently are somewhere else and I think it's pretty safe to say that we Want and need and like and wish to be on the right side on the winning side We've got the right idea. We've got it right not those other people they make him around to our point of view But we're in the group that is on the right track. This is a universal thing. That's why people come here This is why people go to mind-body spirit festivals or as we call them in Australia mind-body wallet festivals Because There that's their people too and they're right and that's that's absolutely fine I can completely understand that Please keep that in mind. I Keep that in mind when I'm dealing with people who have these claims Most of the people I've met have been sincere about it. They really have there is a small Residual of people who are not and we'll get to that shortly. It's very important to remember now Let's see what happened one time many years ago And there's a few things to look out for here. I Would draw your attention when the time comes listen to the studio audience listen to the studio audience and this is a very good example of how believers react to skeptics And this has audio too, so we might need to adjust that once it starts playing That needs to go up Who could ever forget skeptic James Randy and his appearance on the Don Lane show Randy was on to argue to Don and the audience that psychics were shams Notice here how he first bends the key on the chair before pretending to bend it by rubbing it the way you've bent it before Unfortunately, Randy made the mistake of questioning the powers of Yuri Geller and Don's friend Doris Stokes And it was Don who spat the dummy now you didn't Let me finish what I'm gonna say and then you can talk all right There are people who will love it because they say it was a great moment in television They thought it was terrific, and it's we're talking about it But really don't probably could have done that a big deal with me What you've come here you're offering $5,000 to people to say people are fake She said Doris Stokes is a fake. No, I know you say Yuri Geller's a fake You came here and you give it everybody a lot of lip service and you haven't done anything A lot of tricks I don't think he did it as a stunt I think he probably did feel he was you know angry that his friend was being vilified by this skeptic you you come over here with This big reputation you give us a lot of lip service about all the stuff that you're gonna prove You go against a lady like Doris Stokes who never harmed anybody in her whole life, and you call her a Charlotte and a fake Yes, I do you said that she was a liar on the radio You called her a liar. No, and that woman would lie to anybody, and I don't know whether she's right or wrong I am she would like anybody we're going for a commercial break, and you can Yes, don that's one way to go to a commercial break. Here's another come Wow that clip has been played every year on Australian TV for years and years and years and there's a Relatively younger man. I was watching at home when that all happened. That's the first time actually saw James Randy in any sense or that all happy days. I think mr. Randy that might have been it But what a reaction what a reaction not only from Don Lane who is an American may he died a few years back He was an American who came to Australia and made it big on on television in Australia, but did you hear the audience? Cheering on isn't that interesting? And it just reminds us that the the reaction from the audience That suddenly they're winning against mr. Randy or they who they perceive as the arrogant guy you know and Don Lane is their friend and the TV host and their hero and I could tell I could sense that just in the cheering and clapping It was a win again We're on the winning side in that case the studio audience was on the winning side because Don Lane showed that silly mr. Randy what's what and stormed off in that in that respect very Interesting what's going on in the mind Here's another clip just from the amazing meeting last year with Susan Blackmore and listen it's very short clip But she says something very interesting We turn that up with the with the Believers, I would tell you when I was a believer I did not get hate mail from skeptics Are you surprised or when I became a skeptic I got plenty of hate mail from the true believers Who know about spirits and nice things like that and good energies So she if in case you didn't hear it She said that when she was a believer she didn't get hate mail from skeptics, but when she turned into a skeptic She got hate mail from the believers You start screwing around with people's deeply held beliefs. You're gonna get hate mail I'm sure that you're all well aware of that. It's protection. It's sometimes it's anger. Sometimes it's Wanting to lash out. I guess it's feeling of betrayal if she was a believer and turned to into a skeptic Then there's this betrayal thing and I think we could all sense that I mean heavens if there was a Famous skeptic who gave it all up and was a turncoat and went to the other side I guess we'd feel betrayed too so I can understand that but it was interesting that she said she got the hate mail when She became the skeptic. I find that very interesting again from psychological point of view now getting back to what I said before and Mr. Randy said in 1980 when he visited Australia for these water-divining tests The people he's concerned about all the people he comes across most of the time are the people who innocently deceive themselves And then there's a small residual of people out there who tried to defraud their fellow citizens is exactly what I have discovered in all these years most people I deal with are Sincere they're not out to con anybody to hurt anybody to scam anybody and I always have to keep that in mind at so many times in the media When I'm doing media the media will just put people into two categories either their genuine psychics or Their evil scamming con artists this whole concept of the innocent Believer seems to be lost on them. Maybe it's too hard for them to relate that to their audience, but it's it's the biggest area that we've discovered Somebody else said There are no greater lies in the world than quacks of sick for their pay except for their patients Benjamin Franklin who used to write under the name of Richard Saunders. I kid you not Go figure What he meant by that What he meant by that was the people who have been who's who buy into a system Quackery for example acupuncture homeopathy He doesn't mean they're lying. He means that they will defend this system to the end So that that's what Benjamin Franklin was getting out in that sentence again. It's this entrenched belief and you will defend your entrenched beliefs. This is very human. This is very human and Again when you wake up in the morning and you read your skeptical list, that should be at the top people Many people are sincerely believe in these things and they will defend it And as a skeptical investigator, we have to keep that in mind reactions from believers to skeptics some years ago I Did a couple of series of a TV show in Australia called the one where I was a judge the skeptical judge alongside Stacy DeMarco there who was the believing judge if I can put it that way and Psychics would do various things for us and we would comment on them and at the end of the show I got to kick one off every week That wasn't fun at all however, it's it in this day and age and especially in the last series of the show I was at the the little party when the first show went to air because we taped it weeks before and then It was all edited and we all gathered for a little drink and the show went to air just a celebration that to see it go The producers are now and I'm sure this is the same here when a new show goes out the producers are glued to Twitter Instant reaction Right there. What does the audience think of my show as they're watching it? It's a revolution. It really is and The Twitter stream coming from the show was quite interesting don't worry if you can't read some of those at the moment and many of the people tweeting away were believers and you can imagine how Anti-skeptical they were Defending their point of view again and what it shows to me too is people are not afraid to voice their opinions on the internet. Oh my goodness me It's none of this. I better consider what I'm going to say It's straight away. I'm thinking this I'm tweeting it. It's out to the world So we got interesting reactions That one's just coming up now You know ladies and gentlemen I I'm a performer when I'm on that show I know I'm there not only to give what we might call an expert opinion on these matters But I need to perform on a television show and I tried to be Reasonable and friendly and I'd smile and all the rest of it doesn't matter. I was a skeptic. Therefore. I was the arrogant bastard I really was however It's a two-way street because one of the owl contestant psychics was a rather short-statured lady and People were being mean to her because of that And I found that Not nice at all. I don't care if this Jess is rad is a skeptic or a believer who or what she is To just say someone looks creepy is simply rude. It's just wrong. I Think that's horrible If they say things about me, I guess I'm used to it if they said my nose was big I might have complained but Yeah, so this is again this instant I must say this now even if it hurts people. I don't care. I'm going to tweet and say these things This this is interesting again. I love this this reaction on blogs and Twitter and Facebook and this is coming up to The situation I'll speak about in a moment There are still people out there who cannot believe that there are skeptics and Are absolutely gobsmacked that there's a group of skeptics and they have a president It's beyond them. It's what how can this possibly be? So you can imagine their reaction to to skeptical outreach and skeptical information Skeptics have their own association and a president what? That's crazy We try to test people in Australia as we do here at the Amazing meeting currently we're in negotiations with this lady Donna Abraham's who is trying to put together a TV show 12-series Documentary and good luck to her. Everybody Has the right to make their way in this world if they want to do that And she's looking for fun. So I noticed a report on By her on Facebook. I think it was Facebook on the internet and so This led to us offering her the money, but some of her claims are the sort of thing that we would get from a Someone who is generally thinks they are clairvoyant or psychic remote viewing psychometry Speaking to the dead communicating in this sort of fashion So I wrote on the Facebook. I said this is one for the Victorian skeptics our people in the state of Victoria I'm in New South Wales. I read her She did a reading for a newspaper reporter and I read it and it seemed to me like a typical cold reading now When I look at that again, it's a little abrupt. I think a tiny bit dismissive of me It's not exactly rude or exactly arrogant but it's maybe I could have been a little bit more polite Donna saw this and I Guess it sparked her interest hundred dollars a hundred thousand dollars from Australian skeptics would help her cause no end So she's put it on her Facebook Saying well, you know, she might give it a go she might try for our money So then we got some interest interesting reactions. Excuse me from her Her friends her Facebook friends First of all, I admit my reply was a little you could consider it abrupt But that for the believer that's just absolutely rude and arrogant and horrible as you can see there What a rude arrogant negative he is Go get him, you know us against them this sort of thing and then Here we go. Whoops. I meant a rude arrogant negative dick There you go. She must know my name is Richard. That's all I can assume So and then she wanted to find out more information so I was a bit abrupt with her I said you can't call me a dick and expect to converse me to converse with you So I was yeah, maybe I let them get to me a little bit It happens, you know, it happens So but then her friends had already made up their minds that these skeptics were out to ridicule and belittle and make fools of people As you can see there with the the follow-up postings to her Facebook So one chap there Steve a Narrow-minded idiot. This is me. I'm a narrow-minded idiot. There is no legislation that supports stupidity so on and so on I said it's past your bedtime and And there's he's repeated it down the bottom in in shouting. You're a narrow-minded rude insulin idiot. I mean I Do you think this is going to progress matters? No, he's just some probably some kid Who is now used to actually saying whatever the hell they like on the internet be it rude be it insulting And there's a lot of people are going to discover in the coming years. It's going to be They're gonna find them getting lawsuits. It's got to happen Kids or younger people these days are so used to putting on the internet whatever they're feeling and thinking they're going to end up in court You know, I I think that's going to happen So that's interesting and then we always get what I call the wise friend with a sage advice for our for me and our psychic Suggesting that it's easy to test paranormal people or this is how you should do it Paranormal is simply things vibrating at a frequency. We're not normally trained in it goes on and on and on But we look out for the wise friend they can bend your ear for two hours and say nothing But again, they're coming from this point of view and then we get One of the arguments that I I've heard so many times over the years. I've heard it on my own TV show Which is of course Do I believe in love and initially I didn't answer the question because it's just it's it's such a ridiculous question it and I did Come back. Of course. There's only one answer Yes, of course, I believe in love. Ah, but you can't measure it. Can you skeptic therefore? You'll hear it if believe me folks, you'll hear it. You'll hear it They'll say do you believe in love? Have you ever been in love? You say yes, we'll prove it then skeptic. Ha ha I win Think that needs its own special logical fallacy the all you need is love. That's right so but I Mostly tried to be polite constructive engaging charming Thank you And even the people who originally saying you arrogant so-and-so Had to admit that I spent a lot of time and effort trying to politely answer their questions And that I thought that was great, you know, at least to some of them. I'm not the cartoon Skeptic the evil guy in the big black hat or whatever it is the scientists of the mad lab coat Wanting to do these things So they're saying well They're congratulating me on answering their questions because I did went to extraordinary lengths to be polite and answer all their Questions about our hundred thousand dollar challenge. So you can at least charm people sometimes But here here, let's look at this reaction again of Us against them and these are It's a little hard to see some of those smaller ones But pages and pages of saying to Donna the psychic go on and you can do it go and win Show them up collect the money. We're right all this sort of thing like her cheer squad The psychology of it is fascinating getting behind somebody It must be the same. I mean if mr. Randy's going to do something We're all in our hearts. We're cheering for what he wants to do so I can see that happening on this side, too Absolutely When it comes to testing people like Donna Abraham's in in Australia or anybody I have to Just remind everybody that it's not an easy process by no means and I've certainly discovered that here working at the Million-dollar challenge over the past three years Negotiations are lengthy Fine-tuning is lengthy making sure everybody's happy. It's a very complicated process So if anybody ever says to you all testing a psychic can be easy. Let's let's do something really quick. It's not Sincerely folks. It's a very complicated Business when I was doing it here or doing it in Australia on television many many many hours for every test To get it right. I think For two reasons one we want to keep the applicant very happy and make sure they're comfortable and ready to go and two We want to make sure the test is Reasonably tight as tight as we can feasibly make it Can take a lot of time Let's look more now at the The believers reaction looking into that psychic mirror again not so long ago I was on Australian TV to give my opinion on UFOs There's a man Damien John Knot who photographs clouds and skies and sunsets and everything and Believes he is photographing paranormal events or unknown events and something like that I was the story on the TV show is about him But they interviewed me as the skeptic and that expression in the lower part of the screen sums it up. I think Really I wasn't so impressed Okay, I really wasn't I wasn't blown away by his amazing UFO footage But he took great umbrage To the fact that I was on the segment you can imagine the TV People turn up at your house. They do film a story about you and your Belief and what he does which is go out every night and in the evenings and photograph things and good luck to him Great if he's doing that. That's great and suddenly in the middle of this great story And you're sitting at home with a beer and everyone's enjoying it There's Richard Saunders saying yeah, and you know what I don't think so I can see I can see what's going on so he He wasn't happy and he took to Facebook to express his displeasure and basically saying that out Not so many words out testers is fake and he's not going to take it and it's crazy and his friend has chimed in Calling me a moron And things like this that they're not very happy at all. No, no, no, however Maybe he Changed his mind or his friends convinced him he's out now since then he's interested in applying for our one hundred thousand dollar challenge, which is his right to do it But the tirade that he wrote back to us when negotiation started was comical Absolutely comical. It was as if a 16 year old wrote it trying to be funny and Here's just little a segment of it Scoring very cheap and silly debating points and laughing at us and It just didn't make sense So I don't think this is some way we're going to progress very far, but again, it's this attitude of Let's show up these stupid skeptics Let's prove that they're wrong This anger almost within people against what we do or more importantly their anger is because we don't believe in what they do I would think it's more like it What am I this time some sort of bumbling buffoon am I Some sort of blunder from down under some way. I don't know very interesting. I'm I'm known around the world for Showing up various power balance routines and tricks and things like that There was a company called Shoesie, I think they're still going off. They're from New Zealand and this is interesting I met the the guy who owns it at a mind-body Wallet mind-body spirit fair and we had a bit of an argument All right, as you can imagine We had a bit of an argument and some time after that maybe a couple of weeks after that the following voice messages Came our way at skeptics headquarters in Australia, so we just played that oops try that again Don't don't get up. It's all right. Here we go Very good fellow here. I've decided to take your child challenge We can be choosy I'm gonna take a challenge for a million dollars because we know you're just big scammers Why can't we come and give this challenge to you? We are ready So it's kidding array and very good fellow so He called our line and called us scammers and I'll take your challenge We chased him for months and we're in negotiations to test him and then this happened Just when we were about to do it and on national TV. They fled the country So in a way, I'm sorry. I didn't get to Test them on national TV, but they fled the country Yes, and subsequently thank you Subsequently I did find out from a source that it was our relentless Pursuing of them and they knew I think if they knew that if they came to a real test on national TV Don't then the same fate would Before them as full power balance. I'm sure of that. That's really good But here here what he's trying to do baiting us taunting us the stupid scamming skeptics Another example of this is a similar sort of device called the Bio flow natural pain relief Which does all sorts it doesn't do this by the way doesn't they they weren't using this trick These are at spirit fairs back home and basically what they say if you wear this You know what we make no claims about it. They say but our customers tell us that it's helped in these conditions It's every condition under the Sun It's just ridiculous So I had a word with these people at their stand. I was politely Arguing with them and all their claims. I Think I'll buy some myself and The man behind the the desk there was getting a bit short with me and in a reasonably loud voice so For those of you who can't see that he said something Which I can't repeat Now somebody got the joke But he was angry because I was distracting his customers and No, go get out of here I've got people who are gonna buy this and you're here telling me it doesn't work or asking me for evidence The anger that he told me to do that It was just amazing again looking at how people react Believers and I and I really think I'm talking about real believers here To skeptics a number of years a year ago years ago Connie Sun I think that's pronounced was here right on stage and she did a challenge. She failed and Later blamed basically blamed banner check for cheating her now this is It happens from time to time. It's what happens in the mind of the believer and they'll get angry about it They know their powers work if they don't work then I've been cheated by those scamming skeptics and Then of course we had Andrew needles Just two years ago. I think who was here on stage and didn't succeed again It was quite obvious and went home and later on we discovered he devoted pages on his website To saying how he actually passed our test by the way If you want to Google Andrew needles, thank you James J ref. It's a fascinating read It really is he took stills out of the official video to prove that these people were actually reacting in the correct way to his Marvelous power band. It's the mind protecting itself. Mr. Needles sincerely believes in his product We see this again and again This is completely normal for people to do this it really is and we must keep that in mind Oh, I've had fun over the years from believers folks. That's a great letter. I got many years ago Dear mr. Saunders so and so and so and so the highlighted sections are there But I must admit I've been a call the Mousketeer of evil by anti-vaxxers. That was fun But oh, I'm a wind giant windbag, but I love this I suspect Nothing but a bunch of pimples on the asshole of time The visual image folks is quite extraordinary. You'll have to agree Can you sense the frustration and the anger there? It's fascinating. It really is So Is a few truisms? I think What do they see looking through the psychic mirror back into the real world? What do we see? Undoubtedly some believers if we as we've seen see skeptics as being too arrogant Some skeptics see believers as being too stupid both these perceptions can be reversed And sometimes both these perceptions are true people can be arrogant people can be stupid on on both sides of the equation It's absolutely true My friend dr. Chrissy Wilson Looked at the looks at belief In in this fashion and saying there that Belief is so ingrained in this once the germ has taken root. It's very hard to overturn that belief and then You will do everything to defend your belief This again, I'll get back to why I find this area so fascinating the psychology of believers Even the psychology of skeptics in a way But really the psychology of believers and why they believe and how they defend their beliefs when they look through that psychic mirror Into the world. This is how they perceive it The negotiations with Donna are ongoing, but look at this now. This is from a guy who posted and Really was bitching at me for being too polite and he said very rude things about Donna I won't have that. I'm sorry if we're in negotiations with this woman if you think she's a psychic or not You don't call her horrible names. We don't do that. That's wrong and it doesn't get anybody anywhere so I I said no, I'm sorry You can't say that and he wasn't very happy with me at all But this this can happen from skeptics, you know Some skeptics get upset and start calling people names and bad things Maybe it's just me that I find that unacceptable Thank you, but but don't please don't paint me as the The the angel of virtue here. I get angry too. We're all human. It does happen. It does happen. I just try not to Let my emotions get away with myself there. Look before I wind up I must tell you that in November this year November the 28th of the 30th in Sydney, Australia We're having a huge convention the skeptics guide to the universe will be there George Rob will be there our patron Dick Smith Bettina aren't who is a famous Australian Researcher into sex will be there Sonia Pemberton who did a very great documentary called jabbed about vaccination will be there Dr. Rachel Dunlop will be talking if you're in Sydney, Australia Around the end of November, we'd love to see you at our convention and that's the hall It's going to be held in my goodness me and that looks impressive Ladies and gentlemen, what a pleasure it is to be at my seventh or eighth time I guess I'm losing count and what a privilege it is to be Also working with such people as Chip and Banner check and Jamie on on the million dollar challenge and mr Randy of course and everybody who helps so thank you very much Richard Saunders Richard so wait Richard wait ready, okay Not to step on your applause. I'm sorry. I did that but Richard I come hat in hand I had no limerick for you and in the future I'll pay but please let me say thanks for being the last speaker of Tam Richard Saunders