Customer Reviews

Scams from the Great Beyond: How to Make Easy Money Off of ESP . . .

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Huston's book is short, funny, illustrated and clearly explains the tricks to fool the gullible behind claims of telepathy, telekinesis, levitation and other New Age nonsense. Particularly good is his account of how simply UFO phots. can be faked.

I bought this as a curiosity more than anything. I enjoy mind games and parlor tricks and was curious to learn how tricksters get "cold reads" from their subjects. If you are looking for a fun book on ESP and how people are tricked then this book is for you.

Huston does a fine job cutting through the mystical BS that New Age hucksters use to separate fools from their money. While acknowledging that there are some unexplainable things out there that, when investigated honestly, make life that much more interesting, Huston has no mercy on self-proclaimed channelers, astrologers, psychics, UFO travelers, and the like who use a combination of charisma and cultish intimidation to bring believers into their fold. Read this book if you're a skeptic with a heart. You will not be disappointed.

While it is true that there are much better explanitory/historical case studies books, and have been for generations now, for a layman it seems to me that this book is worthwhile. If one takes it in this way, even a person more experienced in flim flam scams will find it a good read. This book has spirit and the skeptical community has received it well it seems in book reviews I've read. That is good enough commendation IMO.

This book was so funny. That thing about "If the psychic is so psychic why doesn't the psychic just CALL YOU and tell you whats going to happen you next". Very funny book, why would a psychic need to know what my name is? They should know right? very funny

I wonder if the other reviewers have read the same book... Stylewise, Mr Huston writes very well. So well, that he manages to inflate into a book some twenty ideas which could be exposed in less than ten pages. Very few of his explanations, solutions or recommendations are anything more than common sense observations. There is a lot of tricks out there -from the XIX Century spiritualists on, not to delve any further- of which Mr. Huston brings no references; his research seems quite insatisfactory. I read it on the expectation of finding ways to expose frauds. If the book was intended as a collection of advises on how to better scam people, it would also be morally indefensible. In this case, the good thing is that luckily very little practical advise is provided to the aspiring con-men.