For the complete debate with materialists see this list

Sina's response to Randi's 3rd and 4th letters. 

Thank you Mr. Randi for explaining your technique. Of course a mentalist is a magician and magicians have techniques. The point (a) that I suggested is very much the same thing. You got the information prior to the show and that is what I tried to say in poit (a). How you got that information is your business.

I gave three possibilities:

a) You had prior information. (Forget about the aunt. That was just to add a touch of humor)
b) You are making up or sexing up the story.
c) You are psychic.


Now I hope you do not want us to believe that Van Praagh has some friends who go all around America and Canada to pry information about the people who may call in his show.

Also your explanation that he pries the information by questioning the callers does not match my observation of him in the only show I saw of him while he was a guest in Larry King Live. But that is not difficult to find out. All we have to do is to order a tape of that show and analyze it carefully. If you are right then Van Praagh is a fraud. Even then it is no proof that psychic power does not exist. I personally have had premonitions and dreams that I can't dismiss as coincidence.

The point is that demonstrating through magic one can deceive others does not prove that all the unexplainable phenomena are magic. If you get time read the last part of my response to Aparthib where I talk about a hypothetical crime and the police handling of it. It is number (3)

http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/sina40316.htm


Sorry if this discussion has kept you away from you busy schedule. I too have been dragged into it without wanting. I was asked to write an article for the Day of Rationalism. I knew writing that article will open a Pandora box. It is like shouting in Mecca that Allah is not God. However what I overestimated was my own will power to stay out of the controversy.


Kind regards


Ali