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The Faith Healers
''The Faith Healers'' is a 1987 book by magician and skeptic James Randi with a foreword by Carl Sagan, that documents Randi's exploration of the world of faith healing, and his exposing the sleight of hand trickery and deceit by its practitioners. In eighteen chapters Randi explores the origins of faith healing and psychic surgery, and critically analyzes the claims made by A. A. Allen, Ernest Angley, Willard Fuller, WV Grant, Peter Popoff, Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, and Ralph DiOrio for his claims of miracles at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in the town of Lourdes. Randi shows how people are tricked with magician's tricks under the guise of religion. In 1988, Earl Hautala in a review wrote "an eye opener for the naïve, this book provides a crash course in the methods of skeptical inquiry." The ''New Scientist'' praised the book in a 1990 review. See also *James Randi Educational Foundation James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) is an American grant-making ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Randi
James Randi (born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge; August 7, 1928 – October 20, 2020) was a Canadian-American stage magician, author and scientific skeptic who extensively challenged paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. Rodrigues 2010p. 271/ref> He was the co-founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), and founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Randi began his career as a magician under the stage name The Amazing Randi and later chose to devote most of his time to investigating paranormal, occult, and supernatural claims, which he collectively called "woo-woo". Randi retired from practicing magic at age 60, and from his foundation at 87. Although often referred to as a "debunker", Randi said he disliked the term's connotations and preferred to describe himself as an "investigator". He wrote about paranormal phenomena, skepticism, and the history of magic. He was a frequent guest on ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'', famously expo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sanctuary Of Our Lady Of Lourdes
The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes () is a Catholic Marian shrine and pilgrimage site dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes in the town of Lourdes, Hautes-Pyrénées, France. The sanctuary includes several religious buildings and monuments around the grotto of Massabielle, the place where the events of the Lourdes apparitions occurred in 1858, among them three basilicas, the Basilica of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, the Rosary Basilica and the Basilica of St. Pius X, respectively known as the upper, lower and underground basilica. The sanctuary is a destination for sick and disabled pilgrims, as the Lourdes water, which has flowed from the grotto since the apparitions, is reputed for miraculous healings. The area is owned and administered by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tarbes-et-Lourdes, and has several functions, including devotional activities, offices, and accommodation for sick and disabled pilgrims and their helpers. In addition to the grotto and the three basili ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Religious Studies Books
Religion is usually defined as a social-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements; however, there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion. Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine, sacred things, faith,Tillich, P. (1957) ''Dynamics of faith''. Harper Perennial; (p. 1). a supernatural being or supernatural beings or "some sort of ultimacy and transcendence that will provide norms and power for the rest of life". Religious practices may include rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration (of deities or saints), sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trances, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation, prayer, music, art, dance, public service, or other aspects of human culture. Religions have sa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prometheus Books Books
In Greek mythology, Prometheus (; , , possibly meaning " forethought")Smith"Prometheus". is a Titan god of fire. Prometheus is best known for defying the gods by stealing fire from them and giving it to humanity in the form of technology, knowledge, and more generally, civilization. In some versions of the myth, he is also credited with the creation of humanity from clay. Prometheus is known for his intelligence and for being a champion of humankind, and is also generally seen as the author of the human arts and sciences. He is sometimes presented as the father of Deucalion, the hero of the flood story. The punishment of Prometheus as a consequence of the theft of fire and giving it to humans is a popular subject of both ancient and modern culture. Zeus, king of the Olympian gods, sentenced Prometheus to eternal torment for his transgression. Prometheus was bound to a rock, and an eagle—the emblem of Zeus—was sent to eat his liver (in ancient Greece, the liver was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Books By James Randi
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arrangement is ''codex'' (plural, ''codices''). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf and each side of a leaf is a page. As an intellectual object, a book is prototypically a composition of such great length that it takes a considerable investment of time to compose and still considered as an investment of time to read. In a restricted sense, a book is a self-sufficient section or part of a longer composition, a usage reflecting that, in antiquity, long works had to be written on several scrolls and each scroll had to be identified by the book it contained. Each part of Aristotle's ''Physics'' is called a bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faith Healers
Faith healing is the practice of prayer and gestures (such as laying on of hands) that are believed by some to elicit divine intervention in spiritual and physical healing, especially the Christian practice. Believers assert that the healing of disease and disability can be brought about by religious faith through prayer or other rituals that, according to adherents, can stimulate a divine presence and power. Religious belief in divine intervention does not depend on empirical evidence of an evidence-based outcome achieved via faith healing. Virtually all scientists and philosophers dismiss faith healing as pseudoscience.See also: Claims that "a myriad of techniques" such as prayer, divine intervention, or the ministrations of an individual healer can cure illness have been popular throughout history. There have been claims that faith can cure blindness, deafness, cancer, HIV/AIDS, developmental disorders, anemia, arthritis, corns, defective speech, multiple sclerosis, skin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1987 Non-fiction Books
File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, killing everyone except a little girl; The King's Cross fire kills 31 people after a fire under an escalator Flashover, flashes-over; The MV Doña Paz sinks after colliding with an oil tanker, drowning almost 4,400 passengers and crew; Typhoon Nina (1987), Typhoon Nina strikes the Philippines; LOT Polish Airlines Flight 5055 crashes outside of Warsaw, taking the lives of all aboard; The USS Stark is USS Stark incident, struck by Iraq, Iraqi Exocet missiles in the Persian Gulf; President of the United States, U.S. President Ronald Reagan gives a famous Tear down this wall!, speech, demanding that Soviet Union, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev tears down the Berlin Wall., 300x300px, thumb rect 0 0 200 200 Zeebrugge disaster rect 200 0 400 200 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Randi Educational Foundation
James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) is an American grant-making institution founded in 1996 by magician and skeptic James Randi. As a nonprofit organization, the mission of JREF includes educating the public and the media on the dangers of accepting unproven claims, and to support research into paranormal claims in controlled scientific experimental conditions. The organization announced its change to a grant-making foundation in September 2015. The organization previously administered the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, a prize of one million U.S. dollars to anyone who could demonstrate a supernatural or paranormal ability under agreed-upon scientific testing criteria. JREF also maintains a legal defense fund to assist persons who are attacked as a result of investigating or criticizing those making paranormal claims. The organization has been funded through member contributions, grants, and conferences, though it ceased accepting memberships after 2015. For seve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Scientist
''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publishes a monthly Dutch-language edition. First published on 22 November 1956, ''New Scientist'' has been available in online form since 1996. Sold in retail outlets (paper edition) and on subscription (paper and/or online), the magazine covers news, features, reviews and commentary on science, technology and their implications. ''New Scientist'' also publishes speculative articles, ranging from the technical to the philosophical. ''New Scientist'' was acquired by Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) in March 2021. History Ownership The magazine was founded in 1956 by Tom Margerison, Max Raison and Nicholas Harrison as ''The New Scientist'', with Issue 1 on 22 November 1956, priced at one shilling (a twentieth of a pound in pre-decimal UK cu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Review Of General Semantics
The Institute of General Semantics (IGS) is a not-for-profit corporation established in 1938 by Alfred Korzybski, to support research and publication on the topic of general semantics. The Institute publishes Korzybski's writings, including the seminal text ''Science & Sanity'', and books by other authors who have studied or taught general semantics, such as Robert Pula, Irving J. Lee, Wendell Johnson, and Stuart Chase. Every year since 1952, it has sponsored the Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture, with presenters from a broad range of disciplines, from science to medicine to entertainment, including names like actor Steve Allen, psychologist Albert Ellis, scientist and visionary R. Buckminster Fuller, linguist Allen Walker Read, and philosopher F. S. C. Northrop. The Institute offers periodic seminars, workshops and conferences and is headquartered in New York City. The IGS is closely affiliated with GS groups around the globe, including the Australian General Semantics Socie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magician (illusion)
Magician or The Magician may refer to: Performers * A practitioner of magic (supernatural) * A practitioner of magic (illusion) * Magician (fantasy), a character in a fictional fantasy context Entertainment Books * ''The Magician'', an 18th-century novel by Leitch Ritchie * ''The Magician'' (Maugham novel), a 1908 novel by Somerset Maugham * ''The Magicians'' (Priestley novel), a 1954 novel by J. B. Priestley * ''The Magician'' (Stein novel), a 1971 young adult novel by Sol Stein * ''The Magicians'', a 1976 novel by James E. Gunn * '' The Magician: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel'', a 2008 novel by Michael Scott * ''The Magicians'' (Grossman novel), by Lev Grossman, published 2009 * ''Magician'' (Feist novel), a 1982 novel in the ''Riftwar'' series by Raymond E. Feist * ''The Magician'', a 2021 novel by Colm Tóibín Films * ''The Magician'' (1898 film), a French short directed by Georges Méliès * ''The Magician'' (1900 film), a silent film by Thomas Ed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lourdes
Lourdes (, also , ; oc, Lorda ) is a market town situated in the Pyrenees. It is part of the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Occitanie region in southwestern France. Prior to the mid-19th century, the town was best known for the Château fort de Lourdes, a fortified castle that rises up from a rocky escarpment at its center. In 1858 Lourdes rose to prominence in France and abroad due to the Marian apparitions claimed to have been seen by the peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous, who was later canonized. Shortly thereafter the city with the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes became one of the world's most important sites of pilgrimage and religious tourism. History Antiquity The current municipal area of Lourdes was inhabited in prehistoric times. In Roman times it had to be, since the first century BC, an oppidum hill where today stands the fortress, as is testified by the numerous finds that came to light in the second half of the nineteenth century (remains of walls, fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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