Criss Angel offers his own Million Dollar challenge

Skeptics were kind of worried when the show “Phenomenon” was announced as collaboration between Criss Angel and Uri Gellar. Most people who know anything about Gellar know he’s an obvious fraud, and Angel has always been upfront about being only a magician. Were both NBC and Angel selling out for money. Well, the jury is still out for NBC, though it should be noted “Phenomenon” is billed as a search for a great mentalist. Mentalists freely admit what they do is a trick. Banachek is also involved, and he’s well known for being a great mentalist (I saw his act in Vegas and he is amazing at what he does.).

During the last episode, a guy named Jim Callahan who claims to be a “paranormalist” did his act to try to impress Gellar and Angel. You can see the whole act right here:

(link to it here: Awful Mentalism Act)

Now, I’m not expert on how to do a mentalism act, but I can tell you that Callahan’s performance was awful. It looked like a bad high school actor’s performance. It was the type of act you tell your kid a white lie about it being good. It wasn’t that good. Gellar, somehow, was impressed. I think (hope) people who see how incredulous Gellar is, will see how full of shit he is. How could the self-proclaimed greatest paranormalist in the world be taken in by such an awful act?

Angel, of course, calls both Gellar and Callahan out, by asking them to tell him what is inside his envelope. If they can tell him, Angel would give them a million dollars of his own money. They both, of course, ignore the challenge as is common when two bit hacks are challenged by a magician with greater skill. Angel knows they are both frauds, called them out on national television, and I think has pretty much ended any speculation (if there was any) that any of the contestants have real powers.

For some reason the incident is being reported as an altercation. I don’t think there was a chance at a physical altercation. I think Callahan stepped toward Angel for dramatic effect and Angel just got out his chair to meet him. I doubt any punches would be thrown. I think this incidence makes up for Angel working with Britney Spears (or nearly working with her) and now makes him a strong skeptic voice (though probably unintentionally so) with regards to psychics and paranormalists.

Shout out to the Skepchick blog for alerting me to this episode.