Product Details

• Actors: James Randi
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Wgbh Boston
• VHS Release Date: March 28, 2000
• Run Time: 60 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304463189
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #73,653 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Are some of us born with mysterious powers, able to move objects at will, read a person's thoughts, even cure physical ailments with the power of the mind? Follow master magician James Randi as he uncovers the secrets about psychics.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You need this on your video collection, October 17, 2000

By 

Alexis S. Mendez (Aguadilla, PR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nova: Secrets of the Psychics [VHS] (VHS Tape)

It is hard to argue with believers of the supernatural, no matter how many hoaxes are exposed. Sadly, most people are to lazy to read, but they may see a one hour documentary. Just keep this in your collection, and put it on the VCR when you have visitors. You will have then interesting conversations and arguments during the rest of the night.

The first half hour is a summary of some of the exposes by Randi, such as the claims of "psychic" Uri Geller, faith healers, and other. There is also simple but interesting experiments regarding astrology and palm reading.

The second half presents Randi debunking psychics in Moscow. This is great fun, as it is frustrating seeing how the psychics try to escape from his tests (one "psychic" cannot identify which of three glasses with water is the one he previously "energized", because once he thinks about the glasses, the water in all of them gets "energized"!).

Highly recommeded. If you enjoy reading, you must check the books by James Randi (I strongly recommend you try his supernatural encyclopedia, Flim-Flam! and The Faith Healers).

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic Carson episodes, January 18, 2005

By 

Sherry Austin "sherryaustin.com" (Southern U.S.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nova: Secrets of the Psychics [VHS] (VHS Tape)

What's wrong with belief in the paranormal, pseudoscience, and--not incidentally--fundamentalist religious beliefs? Everything. When we're too easily seduced into believing based on the flimsiest of evidence, we blind ourselves to the sense of wonder we can get from looking clear-eyed at the world right before our eyes, to the mysteries that hard science simultaneously explains and deepens. I agree with the previous reviewers that this Nova episode is an excellent overview of how psychics deceive us, and many times themselves. (All my life people have insisted that I'm psychic; careful exercise of my reason has shown me I am not, and many of the principles I've used are explained in this film.)

Because Randi deals with some of the "best" in the psychic field and communicates so clearly, this video might be just the thing to get people thinking, especially people who won't read. We can't expect a true believer in psychic phenomena to buy a copy, though, can we? If everyone who has seen it would donate a copy to their library, maybe we'd begin to make some inroads into the epidemic of irrational belief.

The late, great Johnny Carson was a great friend and supporter of James Randi, frequently sending six-figure checks to the James Randi Educational Foundation. This production will delight you with some classic scenes from Mr. Randi's many visits to the Carson show, including the ones pulling the wool off Uri Geller and "healer" Peter Popoff.

At the end of this film, in a statement also repeated on James Randi's website, he says: "A lot of people hate my skepticism, and I think I understand why. The psychics offer wonders and endless possibilities in a world that often seems difficult and mundane. They promise health, wealth, wisdom, eternal life. But if you examine the record, it's not the psychics but the hard-nosed scientists who have actually delivered the things that improve human life. And, to me, science describes a world far more interesting than any psychic fantasy. It's a good world - not perfect - but it's ours. So we'd better learn to live with it, the way it is."

Well said, Mr. Randi. I would reiterate that the real world "the way it is" is much stranger, many times more wondrous than the one offered us by the charlatans.
--- Sherry Austin.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must have for skeptics or seekers of the truth, May 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Nova: Secrets of the Psychics [VHS] (VHS Tape)

For anyone sick of watching Psychics on TV robbing people of money and their rationality this video is the cure. James Randi is great, I actually purchased a couple of his books after viewing this video. Everything from horoscopes to spoon bending, the Amazing Randi uncovers all their tricks of the trade.