Randi's Challenge (more smoke blowing) (or where's the money)

[pete stapleton]

Pete Stapleton comments: which is of course
the reason why everyone who decides to
dig a well employs a dowser. When the well
driller want to charge you up to $7,000 to
$10,000 for a well, and you ask what
happens when the well doesn't strike water, you
go out and find the local dowser.

I don't believe Randy has talked to hundreds
of dowsers. Why would anyone do something
like that when all you have to do is find one
and then drill a well according to his instructions.

As far as the offer below relating to over a million
dollars regarding proving claims to dowsing - let
us open the escrow immediately.

Now this is a very simple offer. Randy will open
an escrow with the million dollars he claims within
his post below. After the escrow is actually opened,
so there will be not doubt about the actualy existence
of the million, then his attorneys and my
attorneys will agree upon the terms of the escrow.

Then we will contact an agreed upon legal arbitration
group to decide the results of the agreed upon terms
of the tests. The escrow will be instructed to release
the fund according to the terms of the escrow. If the
dowser dowes correctly, then we have a winner and
we get the one million, if not - then Randy is proven
right.

Nothing could be simpler. Nothing more honest. I wonder
why I believe it will never take place.

As follows:

ske...@cyberwarped.com (James Randi) wrote:

>A RESPONSE TO JOHN MCGOWAN....

>Mr. McGowan is quite incorrect in believing that dowsing is
>non-paranormal. Since it (a) fails all tests, (b) is based upon nutty
>theories, (c) is
>endorsed by folks who consistently refuse to take me up on my
>US$1,094,000
>prize offer, I
>personally believe in its paranormality.

>However, my designation of it as a paranormal claim is based upon the
>statements
>of the hundreds of dowsers I have tested. They, themselves, should
>know how to
>describe their claims. Mr. McGowan disagrees.

>If dowsing depended upon these mysterious "fields" set up by flowing
>water, and
>only when it's underground, we might look into that explanation --
>after, and
>only after, discovering that it works. No number of anecdotal stories
>will
>establish the facts.

>But since ALL dowsers fail ALL tests when they're done double-blind,
>and dowsers
>claim to find lost persons, gold, oil, "ley lines," coal, and even
>coins at the
>beach, using pendulums, forked sticks, coat-hanger wires, and every
>sort of
>wiggly out-of-equilibrium device, the "magnetic fields" idea is not
>applicable.
>But this is like going about measuring the entrances to chimneys to
>decide
>whether or not Santa Claus exists.

>I happily pick up the gauntlet so boldly and bravely thrown down by
>Mr. McGowan,
>and hereby declare that I exempt dowsing (divining, water-witching,
>rhabdomancy,
>etc.) from the definition of "paranormal," for the purposes of my
>challenge.

>On the publication of this news, we might expect that a line of eager
>dowsers
>will begin forming up at the entrance to my Foundation early on Monday
>morning,
>to take the prize. Mr. McGowan might be looked for at the very front
>of this
>line. But this will not happen. Why, I leave it to you to decide.
>Mind you,
>I've found that dowsers are the most honest, dedicated claimants of
>all I've
>ever encountered. Only two, in all the years I've tested these folks,
>tried to
>cheat. The expressions on the faces of the dowsers who discover that
>they do
>not have the powers they thought they did, are sad indeed. But they
>are ever
>resourceful, springing back to irrational and unfounded belief very
>quickly,
>explaining that they failed because Jupiter was in Saggitarius, it was
>too dry
>or damp, it was Thursday, my attitude was wrong, indigestion
>interfered, the sun
>was too bright, or any of hundreds of different alibis.

>But none of them ever return to try a second time. Perhaps their
>mythology is
>too valuable to them.

>Mr. McGowan, I'm sure, can quote endless books and articles endorsing
>dowsing as
>real. But endorsements do not prove a claim, or tens of thousands of
>football
>fans would have assured that O.J. would be proven innocent.

>My offer stands: US$1,094,000 to anyone who can do a successful
>demonstration of
>dowsing under mutally-agreed-upon double-blind conditions. That
>includes
>finding ANYTHING by means of dowsing.

>I await the arrival of the throng of stick-wavers on Monday.

> James Randi

>[And Mr. McGowan would perhaps favor me with a list of his other
>errors
>discovered in ANY of my books, the ones he so easily and quickly
>found? That
>would provide me with the opportunity of immediately correcting them.]

>James Randi Educational Foundation
>201 SE Davie Boulevard
>=46ort Lauderdale FL 33316-1815
>U.S.A.

>phone: +1 954 467 1112
>fax: +1 954 467 1660
>http://www.randi.org

See Stapleton's Astro Market Numbers Jan 1998
Download 1998 SIDEREAL/TROPICAL EPHEMERIS (FREE)
NOW from http://www.czone.net/sidereal/
See Stapletons Astro Market Numbers For Jan 1998

[FltLin1]

You know, maybe we should just get a lot of good energy workers together, and
go psi-bolt dear Randi til he passes out. We could split the money. <eg>

--Winged Wolf
the were/psion
on a borrowed account

[Mike Combs]

pete stapleton wrote:
>
> Now this is a very simple offer. Randy will open
> an escrow with the million dollars he claims within
> his post below. After the escrow is actually opened,
> so there will be not doubt about the actualy existence
> of the million, then his attorneys and my
> attorneys will agree upon the terms of the escrow.

I know something even simpler. Why not take Randi up on his existing
$1,000 bet that the money's there?

--

Regards,
Mike Combs
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Just remember, the Borg are people too... well, partly...

[Cat]

lol! Please don't scare Randy....

FltLin1 <flt...@aol.com> wrote in article
<199803271013...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...