>>>Like my last Unposted Credibility, this post stems from going to a Campus Crusade production.<<<

Thursday, I went to see a magician by the name of Andre Kole perform on campus. What drew me in was the e-mail from Campus Crusade I got promoting the event:

Prepare to be amazed by Andre Kole!

World renowned magician, illusionist and investigator of the supernatural presents two mind-boggling hours of elaborate stage presentations dealing with the illusion and reality of life’s most intriguing questions:

Why am I here?
Where am I going?
Is there any real meaning and purpose to life?

A provocative magical and spiritual experience you will remember for as long as you live…and perhaps even longer!

Considered to be one of the greatest magical entertainers of our time, Andre Kole has performed in 79 countries for millions of people. His show will include his first hand investigation of the possibility of communication with the dead, the occult, and other psychic phenomena. Andre also studied the miracles of Jesus Christ to determine if his miracles could have been the work of a master magician.

Come see him at the Memorial Union Theater this Thursday, October 27, at 7:30 PM. Tickets on sale now to students for $5 at the Union box office!

With a little Googling, I found his skeptic’s credentials were, for the most part, solid. His online biography said he exposes hoaxes as part of his stage show and he apparently feels strongly that Satan can’t grant supernatural powers. He’s gone after Christian faith-healers as well. (The Taylor bit says he conceeds a tiny fraction of healings are real, but this seems to indicate by “real” he means “psychosomatic.”)

All of this makes it rather surprising that he would try to investigate Jesus’s alleged miracles. In the books I’ve read on paranormal investigation, one point comes out again and again: it is often impossible to look at a miracle-claim after the fact and figure out what happened. This point was even conceeded by one pro-parapsychology book. I made up my bring this issue up if there ended up being time for questions after the show.

Still, I walked to the show generally thinking positive thoughts about him. Previously, the most religious “skeptic” I knew of was Orac, who’s described himself as a “lapsed Catholic” and said, “I’m not an atheist. I’m not even sure I’ve reached the level of agnosticism yet.” (Does that make him a super-agnostic?) Nice to see someone on the other end of the religious spectrum fighting the good fight.

The show itself was excellent. Most of it could be divided into two categories: the mind-blowing illusions which began with his teleportation on stage and ended with his vanishing off, and audience participation stuff that, while simple, was acompanied by hilarious comic showmanship.

There was also a replica of an old spiritualist’s routine, though I imagine performed with more flair than than any 19th-century fraud. It involved him being tied up with some noise makers inside a “spirit cabinet,” i.e. cloth cylinder held up by assistants, along with first noise makers and then a blindfolded audience member. He began by making some noise, then throwing the noisemakers, the tabel they were on, and finally his guest’s shoes out of the cabinet. He also managed to put on a coat with his arms tied behind his back. At the end, he reminded everyone that it was all just a trick, and he wanted to show us an example of something that can seem quite convincing in an situation when honesty is taken for granted. I think he meant it to be obvious that the trick was some kind of escape-artistry, but he didn’t give away the exact secret.

After he was done with most of the magic, he explained he’d be going into the evangelism segment, and anyone who wasn’t interested could leave during the break he’d be taking. The main topic was Jesus and having a personal relationship with God, accompanied by a minor trick for flavor and a life story involving going to college in philosophy and psychology.

He did more railing against occultism, citing James Randi’s million-dollar challenge. Randi got air-brushed out of the picture though, here’s how he phrased it: “When Houdini came to this campus years ago, he was offering $25,000 for any proof of real paranormal powers, now it’s up to $1,000,000, and no one’s even gotten past the perliminary test.” I had to wonder if he didn’t want looking up and being led astray by the damn atheist, though maybe he just thought the name wasn’t important. He said we should only think Jesus was God if he did things only God can do, and sure enough, when he examined Jesus’s miracles from a magician’s perspective, they held up.

Then came the part that blew my mind far more than any of his tricks, though not in a good way. It was a comment made in a segment of his speech where he touted the 400 (actually, 399) scientists who have rejected Darwinism: “I know as a magician that you can’t get something from nothing, we seem to do it, but it’s really impossible.” In other words, he confused the cosmological argument with criticisms of evolution. As I walked out of the building, I couldn’t stop wondering, who the hell gave this man a philosophy degree? The Jesus thing, I could understand. He was no biblical scholar and seemed to think the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses, but I’d expect someone with a philosophy degree to avoid such an obvious fallacy. I was considering challenging him on that bit of bull rather than the miracle investigation. The point was mooted, though, when he did his vanishing finish and didn’t come back.

James Randi has pointed out that being a scientist doesn’t mean you know anything about sleight of hand. This story is a reminder being a magician doesn’t mean you know anything about science or Biblical scholarship, and having studied philosophy in your youth doesn’t mean you have the slightest skill at reasoned argument.