 So so the answer to the question is should magicians be involved? Well, it depends on the magician Randy, do you have some thoughts on this magician involvement in the scientific investigation? Oh, yeah Yeah, a couple of points if I made very quickly please first of all on the first point It was made here that learning magic makes you a better skeptic I'm glad that the board came to a to an agreement on that and I certainly agree with everything they've said on it because You need and I think the folks may agree with me here as a magician You need a very deep understanding of how conjuring works. That is fake act of doing magic tricks You need a very deep knowledge of that that a superficial knowledge of a thumbtip that exists Oh, wow, there's a big secret and yeah, exactly a little fanfare, please but if you know 40 50 a hundred tricks if you don't have a basic understanding of the psychology The methodology behind all that the funny little things that you need to know to be a competent magician Then you are not the kind of guy to call in by the parapsychologist and sit there Look what happened with the parapsychologist who called in Magicians to test Geller these people were total Incompetence and they they didn't know enough about the magic art the deep meaning the real principles behind the art of deception They didn't know enough about that and they were taken in by Geller at the same time So you can't attain that depth of knowledge just by learning magic tricks That's the first point. The second point was the expression half smart think about that a great deal Half smart is not smart at all It's just smart enough that you can be sucked in and completely eaten up by these these these fakers out there Don't be half smart be all smart or forget it Now I get academics who come up with this business after I talked to them what the foundation or after a show or whatever And they sit there and they say, you know, I just can't believe All of these people who believe in this paranormal crappy ola. That's a technical term by the way I can't believe that they must be really stupid No, they're just uninformed. They're like the vast majority of people out there Who just don't know how these tricks are done and if I get the opportunity if I'm you're a bookstore I found a library and if any place with more than 30 or 40 books I will do that the best goddamn Book test you've ever seen with these people go to that shelf and take two books off the shelf and bring them over here And then I'll blow them away with it and they'll rear back and they'll say That wasn't a trick was it? Yes, it was and I fooled you with it because you're not all that damn smart Don't give me this story that these people are stupid because they fall for the psychic tricks No, they're just uninformed and our job at the J ref and in the whole skeptical community is to try to inform people somewhat Better, but not by teaching them how to do magic tricks so they'll understand it those academics I really jump on all together because they say well they wouldn't fool me Yeah, and then I go right ahead and I fool their asses right off them and they look and they say oh my I guess I can be food too another point if I may Tim Schoenberg who's doing my my biography Getting together in details of stuff that I've totally forgotten Decades and decades ago. She comes up with all kinds of stuff from secret boxes someplace I don't know where she gets it, but she came up with something very interesting recently I have often been asked, you know If you had a dying relative or somebody really grieving Would you perhaps tell them a little white lie and say, you know, well, maybe heaven does exist in such Yes Yes, because if there's nothing lost By allowing these people to believe in things that you know are at patently ridiculous Yes, and then Kim came to me and laid this down in front of me. It was a copy of a letter That I sent to my grandfather many decades ago I didn't know that I had a copy of that letter, but I did carbon copy of it. I sent it to my grandfather Shortly before his death after my grandmother had died who he had lived with up until the age of 94 My grandmother had died and he was seeing that his death was coming Inevitably and he wrote me and said something to the effect You know, I just don't know what your belief is on this my grandson But I'd like to know and I wrote him a letter and I said in that letter Confession time Yes, granddad I believe that you will probably be with Janie your beloved wife very shortly And you will see the rewards of the the exemplary life that you led together That was a lie a blatant outright lie But it's a white lie and it worked and I'm sure that that gave that old man some comfort as he closed his eyes for the last time Yes, I will lie in that respect because nothing is lost by it, but I will not do it under other circumstances