Victor Zammit's $million challenge and Randi.

[atalanta]

Hi everyone,

There have been a couple of posts about James Randi and his challenge here lately so I thought I would copy Victor Zammit's counter challenge.  The challenge has been available for eight years and has yet to be collected.  James Randi and CSICOP as well as other well known skeptics know of the challenge and have refused to take it up.  This contract is from my understanding a mirror copy of the one that Randi has.  It is Victor's claim that Randi's contract is a bogus one, because a) he has given himself legal right to not reply or deal with a psychic even if the psychic passes the first test, b) demands absolute rather than scientific evidence, c) he controls what happens with the methods and results, ie, he althers the method and he controls whether the media gets to hear about successful results, d) it requires that the psychic agree to not challenge him legally, so no matter how Randi treats the psychic or how he cheats, he can't be taken to court over it.  These are the ones I am aware of, although Victor will know and have experience of more.  It is Victor's claim that the test is set up for no real purpose except to lure psychics into a situation where they can be taken advantage of and ridiculed.

Victor is requesting psychics to please not take up Randi's challenge because he is not able to legally stop this bogus contract and the only way to stop it is for psychics to stop attempting it.  He hopes that if psychics stop paying it the attention that it currently gets, the publicity will die out and the challenge as well as Randi will fade into history.  Randi is not interested in fairness, truth, evidence, etc, he has one interest only and that is to debunk psychics, he has made a career and a mission out of it.  So please don't be fooled into thinking that he will stop being a vulture because you are the genuine thing and the others must have been fakes.  No matter how good you are at what you do, you will simply not get that prize money, you will only be providing him with ammunition to denigrade yourself, the truth and psychics.


A LAWYER ON THE SKEPTICS
by Victor Zammit
Retired Lawyer of the Supreme Court of New South Wales,
and the High Court of Australia  


$1 Million Challenge
Preface and Conditions
Preface

One million dollars is offered to any skeptic who can rebut the evidence for the existence of the afterlife.

The afterlife is not just a speculative claim like there may be unicorns or there may be green cheese on the other side of the moon. There have been top scientists, genuine mediums, and thousands of others including empirical investigators like myself, who experienced psi and afterlife communication.(See Chapter 2 of my book on the Net)

It is claimed that there is now a substantial body of evidence which supports the existence of the afterlife and which taken as a whole cannot be satisfactorily accounted for except by the existence of the afterlife.

I have had complaints from genuine psychics and those who support the validity of psychic phenomena that those who reject the existence of the afterlife have never really examined the evidence.

Psychics claim they experienced a great deal of frustration when they tried to apply for a highly publicised skeptics' one million dollar challenge. It was put to me that the skeptics' offer is not genuine. Also, it was suggested that the psychics ought to put up a similar challenge reflecting the skeptics' own conditions for the stated prize.

This is how this challenge originated. Naturally, the effort has to be commensurate with the very high cash reward.

The applicant has to rebut the substantive objective evidence presented in Victor Zammit's A Lawyer Presents the Case for the Afterlife (http://www.victorzammit.com/book/) (see chapters 3 to 24) which includes: Materialisation, Electronic Voice Phenomena, Instrumental Transcommunication, the Scole Experiments, Professor Gary Schwartz' Experiments, Mediumship - Mental, Physical and Direct Voice, Xenoglossy, the Cross-Correspondences, Proxy Sittings, Automatic Etheric Writing, Laboratory Experiments, Poltergeists, Apparitions together with the evidence provided by Near Death Experiences and Out of Body Experiences which psychics claim are supportive of and are directly linked with the afterlife.

Further, the applicant has to rebut the technical afterlife evidence presented by the following: Arthur Findlay's On the Edge of the Etheric, Sir William Crookes' On Human Personality and Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism; Sir Oliver Lodge's Raymond and Geraldine Cummins' Swan on a Black Sea and the evidence provided by the Inner Peace Movement.

Here is the challenge for those skeptics who have been continuously campaigning in the media that there is no afterlife: those closed-minded skeptics who have been crusading around the world denigrating, destroying and demeaning the credibility of gifted psychics, trying to dismiss the positive evidence being produced for the afterlife; those skeptics who have been cruelly twisting and manipulating psychic truth to reduce its effect; those who unconscionably have tried to destroy the reputations of some of the greatest and most brilliant 'classical' scientists and psychic writers who ever walked this planet earth like Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William Barrett, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Arthur Findlay and so many others!

I concede that the skeptics' offer has been used very successfully and has provided huge propaganda against psychics. It has misled journalists, radio and TV interviewers. It has been a powerful tool for the dissemination of global darkness. The media's pet rent-a-skeptic vociferates on behalf of some 2% of the population who are closed minded skeptics yet these skeptics have been given exaggerated time and space in the media.

Although there is sponsorship for the offer, I am fully and solely responsible for the said offer.

Given the circumstances it is only reasonable, fair and equitable to match and to mirror as far as possible the skeptics' fundamental conditions one by one as the skeptics have had them on the Internet for a number of years now. It is reiterated that these conditions are based on the skeptics' own conditions.

Conditions

'The challenge' refers to the offer of one million dollars. The 'offeror' refers to Victor Zammit who is making the challenge. 'The Committee' refers to a group of people expert in afterlife evidence. The 'afterlife evidence' refers to the evidence mentioned above in the Preface. 'Applicant' refers to a person applying to meet 'the challenge.' Stage One refers to the first stage of the challenge where the applicant explains in clear terms how the applicant is intending to rebut the evidence. Stage Two, is the stage where the applicant (as in the skeptics' offer) becomes the claimant and clearly explains in the English language in academically acceptable format his rebuttal of the evidence.

1. Stage One- Initial submission.

Because there have been applicants who wasted a great deal of our precious time and money who had not examined the evidence in detail it has become essential and a pre-requisite that prior to any actual submission of any rebuttals of the evidence in Stage Two of the Challenge, a potential applicant must initially submit to the offeror a detailed exposition of how the applicant is going to rebut the evidence outlined in the above Preface.

2. The offeror and the applicant will agree that the applicant has demonstrated the technical skills to rebut the evidence. This is a fundamental and most important condition.

3. In relation to 2 above the decision of the offeror or his appointed representative will be absolute, irrevocable and final.

4. The applicant agrees that all data of any sort gathered as a result of the application may be used freely by Mr Zammit or the Committee in any way they choose.

5. Stage Two- Rebutting the evidence

Once agreement on condition 2 above has been reached the claimant will prepare his submissions to be placed before the Committee.

6. The applicant and the offeror accept that the decision of the Committee in relation to the submissions will be absolute, irrevocable and final.

7. The applicant agrees that the level of proof required to rebut the evidence will be the Cartesian test, "beyond any doubt". This means that there has to be absolutely no doubt at all in the minds of the Committee that the 'evidence' has been rebutted.

8. All correspondence in this challenge must be communicated in the English language and sent to: The Challenge, P.O. Box 1810 Dee Why, Northern Beaches, NSW Australia 2099 by registered mail.

9. All costs incurred by an applicant in relation to this challenge will be borne by the applicant.

10. The applicant agrees that in this challenge he or she is not a commercial consumer and agrees with the offeror that nothing connected to this offer herein expressly stated or imputed will be subject to legal enforceability - to the jurisdiction of any tribunal or court of law or equity.

11. Upon successfully proceeding to Stage Two the claimant will be given all other relevant details.

12. Before the applicant makes a first submission (see paragraph 1 above) he/she must submit a document properly witnessed by a litigation lawyer that the litigation lawyer has explained to the applicant the preface and the conditions and that these have been understood and accepted by the applicant. This submission is to be forwarded to THE CHALLENGE, PO Box 1810, Dee Why, Northern Beaches, NSW AUSTRALIA 2099 by registered mail. Staff check mailbox and vet all mail everyday.

-- Victor Zammit (18th November 2001)

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Copyright © 2001 Victor Zammit.  All rights reserved.  --   Last modified 01/04/2005 10:08:18

[karnautrahl]

Alright! I'd love Randi to read this and grow the BLEEP up. What  a Bleep bleep. He's not a real skeptic, he's a bitter waste of time. Stupid man.

Nice post

[atalanta]

And so say all of us, and so say all of us...

[atalanta]

I forgot to add, I only found out this past week that Randi was the person behind the shutting down of a legitimate scientific lab that was studying paranormal events.  Apparently, he worked behind the scenes to shut down the funding to the university study.

He is a nasty piece of work.

[karnautrahl]

Someone needs to take that ***hole who is POSING as a champion of "truth" down. I mean legally/metaphorically..or make him "see" what kind of a **** he is.

[LordoftheBunnies]

I hate to be a downer here, but while I like many of the things on Victor Zammit's website, some of his personal commentary just makes me cringe.

PRINCE CHARLES/CAMILLA MARRIAGE: a staggering 70% of the British people are against this marriage! True, no woman on earth will ever be in a position to take Princess Diana's place ("There were three of us in our marriage – too crowded.") – perhaps the most popular Princess ever. Two reasons why I support the marriage: there is a heart to heart connection (they've been together emotionally for the last 34 years) and secondly, Prince Charles genuinely supports the religion of Spiritualism – survival and acceptance of contacting those who crossed over.

Umm, what exactly does the prince's support of spiritualism have do with anything?  Then there are other times when he uses extremely long descriptions for skeptics such as "negatively entrenched materialist defeatist dream destroying debunking cynics of ignorance" that, IMO, take away from the professional presentation of the site.

And as much as I like seeing a counter million dollar challenge shoved in the face of the fundamentalist skeptics, to me its no much different than Randi's challange in that it comes across as a publicity stunt.

Don't get me wrong, he has alot of good information on scientists who support the paranormal and his afterlife book is excellent, but some of the personal commentary IMO could really use some tweaking.

[atalanta]

I have asked Victor to have a look at this site and what I have written, so that I also know if I have represented the situation correctly.

I hope he won't mind me saying this.  I really like the bloke, he is sincere in his efforts to bring about the truth, however, that doesn't make him perfect.  I have had debates with Victor about many of his statements.  Some things I find contradictory, many things are written in an emotionally charged way and lets say the guy is 'enthusiastic'.  However, I don't doubt his sincerity, his knowledge of the area and his tireless efforts to bring the truth into the open and thereby challenge Randi and others like him.  Unlike many of us who only get to see Randi occasionally on the tv, Victor has had direct dealings with him and others like him, perhaps after meeting people like this, our language would become rather emotive as well.

The Spiritualist church is one which combines religion and parapsychology.  I don't know much about it but I have been to a couple of their services to see what it is like.  They actively encourage psychic participation, they give readings during their services and even hold seances and the such.  Unlike other religious traditions which would consider this the devil's activities, the Spiritualists incorporate psychic experiences into their spirituality and believe that we are called by Higher Power to do so.  You may see then that Charles having a positive word for the Spiritualists when there is a lot of censoring and negative media going on in England about psychics, is a big deal for Victor.  Victor believes that the traditional religions have had there day and that they are based on falsehoods and that Transpersonal psychology and Spiritualists are the new traditions.  I don't agree with this, but he has a right to his opinions.  This doesn't take away from the fact that Randi has a bogus contract up, which he has explicitly stated that he always has a way out of paying the million dollar prize.