324 - Telekinesis

1. Incredible Through the late seventies, a young man named James Hydrick rose to international fame by using his enormous psychic abilities to move pencils and book pages without physically touching them. By the early eighties he was touted as one of the world's leading psychics when he made an appearance on the popular television show That's Incredible.

2. Defined In case you don't know, telekinesis or psychokinesis is defined as "the apparent production of motion in objects (as by a spiritualistic medium) without contact or other physical means."

3. Bunk Hot on the heels of his appearance on That's Incredible, Bob Barker invited Hydrick to be a guest on his variety show That's My Line. Barker was skeptical, so he also invited professional debunker James Randi to be a part of the program. Hydrick performed his page-turning feat successfully but his powers mysteriously failed him when Randi added a simple control to the experiment.

4. Confessions Shortly after his disastrous appearance on That's My Line, Hydrick revealed to investigative journalist, Dan Korem, that he was not actually psychic but that he had put his years in prison to good use by practicing a technique of blowing currents of air imperceptibly from his mouth to cause light objects to move. The video of his confession can be purchased from International Focus Press.

5. Testy So, even though there is no actual evidence that psychokinesis has any basis in reality, you might still believe it is real. Here's your chance to see for yourself if you have any psychic powers yourself. This telekinesis test produces a series of random ones and zeros. Probability suggests that average occurrence of either digit should be about equal. By concentrating on one number or the other see if you can influence a statistically improbable amount of that number to appear.