Magic and James Hydrick

Some of you might remember the TV show "That's Incredible." On that show a young man appeared in a goofy Kung-fu outfit claiming to be able to move things with the power of his mind- that was James Hydrick. Here's a clip from that show:



Several points, at least for our discussion related to magic:
1. Watch Hydrick's mouth- it doesn't move.
2. Watch the misdirection: all of the attention is on the item to be moved.
3. Note John Davidson's remarks about Hydrick blowing on a pencil, etc.
4. Then note the last item where Hydrick's mouth is covered by Davidson.

Hydrick, according to Danny Korem's interview with him, exposing him as a fraud, tells the story of being in jail in solitary confinement for over a year. That's where he took the simple magician's trick of blowing on the table in front of a pencil and developed it into a masterful presentation of apparent powers.

Then Hydrick appeared on TV with Bob Barker and James Randi. Randi's solution to the problem is brilliantly simple: he sprinkled Styrofoam peanuts on the table. Any breath from Hydrick would then be seen to be moving the peanuts about. Here's the clip :



Here's another from Danny Korem's expose' of Hydrick(unfortunately, it is in Spanish):



The bottom line was that Hydrick was using his tricks to get people to believe he had supernatural powers. Henry Hay, in his Amateur Magician's Handbook notes that if one tries to do this then he is not a magician, but a false prophet, and a fake messiah.