Digital Bits Skeptic

By ScienceReasonRationality.blogspot.com
Article ID: 1228

 

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Do you want to learn how to knock out an opponent without touching them? How about learning the art of fighting ghosts with the power of “The Force“? Well, here’s your chance! Japan’s Yanagi Ryuken can teach you now. He holds a 10th degree black belt in five traditional martial arts, and his system is based on martial arts like Daitō-ryū Aiki-jūjutsu and spiritual paths like Qigong. Yanagi Ryuken supposedly won over 200 Vale Tudo competitions (these are “anything goes” fights, involving unarmed combat and minimal rules). According to the author of the video below, you need 500,000 yen (about $5,000 USD) in order to get a chance to fight with Yanagi Ryuken. However, if you win the fight, Yanagi Ryuken will pay you back double: 1,000,000 yen ($10,000 USD)! Good deal, right?

With such a confident offer and so many claimed achievements and victories, you might think there would be more written about this martial arts master. However, little more can be found. Now, watch for yourself the Jedi-like “Master” in action using the power of the “Force”.

Good promotional video to attract new gullible students to join the Dojo (martial arts school), don’t you think? That’s what I call effective Bullshido!

In this video, we have a genuine martial artist and a probable skeptic, Iwakura Goh. He accepted Yanagi Ryuken’s expensive and intimidating martial arts challenge. In the resulting fight, Yanagi Ryuken gets to prove his claims by facing a real opponent on live video and in front of a live audience. Let’s see what happens…

Let’s watch that again from another angle:

This video only proves that Yanagi Ryuken’s invisible “power” or “chi” or “chi kung” or “qi gong” or whatever you want to call it, is nothing but a human fantasized delusion. It has always been the case that when such claims are critically examined under properly controlled and observable conditions; the seemingly paranormal feats of “chi masters” turn out to be nothing but ordinary feats of deception, magic tricks or illusions, and are more of a natural ability than anything unnatural, supernatural or mysterious. Go ahead; try it yourself on a blind and deaf person or on any nonhuman animal. Will anything supernatural happen? Note that amusing the victim doesn’t count.

Another source says that Yanagi Ryuken claimed that he is able to actually fight ghosts. Too bad Iwakura Goh wasn’t a ghost. Maybe then, Yanagi Ryuken wouldn’t have ended the fight laying on the floor bleeding. Maybe then, he wouldn’t have looked like a delusional clown.

There’s a silver lining to this story. Yanagi Ryuken has now decided to retire and will no longer accept any more challenges. And just when I was going to contact him to accept his challenge and make some money out of it too. Maybe there will be someone else like him in the future. Who knows?

If there’s a down side to this story, is that’s some of Yanagi Ryuken’s students and other gullible individuals might still believe or make others believe in such nonsense. They could make a living through the stupidity of others, right? I’m sure they’ll find some excuse for what happened to Yanagi Ryuken that day. They’ll dismiss reality, and go on arguing that no-touch knockouts really do exist.

“There’s a sucker born every minute.”

-David Hannum

Like some rapidly spreading mental virus, this delusion has now infected Western countries, including the United States of America. In this video, Tom Cameron demonstrates his no-touch knockout “power”  on the Fox News show, “The bottom line”.

Tom Cameron was trained by a so-called martial arts Grandmaster, George Dillman. Let’s now see what excuses George Dillman himself gave when his claims didn’t work on a research scientist, Luigi Garlaschelli in a National Geographic special, titled “Superhuman Power: Is It Real?”

Now that you heard all the fantastic excuses from George Dillman, here’s a video of an illusionist, Derren Brown, who demonstrates this ability. Brown does it better than any of the bullshido martial artists. But before that, there are two important things that you should note:

1) Derren Brown is an ultimate skeptic to all kinds of magical thinking and supernatural claims.

2) It is very unlikely that Brown uses any assistance, confederates or stooges in his performance. Brown’s tricks are none other than those used by a stage hypnotist. An uninformed person might believe that what Brown is doing is in fact real magic and that he possesses real supernatural powers. But Brown himself either debunks or openly admits that what he does is nothing but trickery. He does things that many charlatans are very good at. He displays “magic” and “powers” through psychological trickery and sleight of hand. This demonstrates that charlatans can indeed easily deceive people. Brown’s tools used in demonstrations are a combination of social conformity, obedience, expectation and hypnotic suggestion.

In the video, Brown has already introduced the idea that he can make people collapse through a no-touch punch. So, his audience has already been exposed to his mental suggestion of his ability even before the demonstration began. When this idea is successfully established, participants - whether they initially agreed to the idea or not - respond to pre-determined beliefs. This is a trick commonly used by bullshido martial artists to influence weak and uninformed minds. It’s the same method used by Yanagi Ryuken and George Dillman to make money from gullible students.

Other elements that help establish a delusional state of mind are ambiance and lighting. Showing control and authority is also an important factor. Stanley Milgram has expressed how powerful the obedient state of mind is: we can abandon our morality and existing beliefs under the pressure from an authoritative figure. In this situation, Derren Brown does not only seem authoritative because he is in the front of his audience, but also because there was another martial arts master present. The audience could feel that something powerful was happening. All these elements and more play together in order to improve the audience’s suggestibility. Have you ever wondered why an individual’s behavior can change when they’re in a crowd, a group or a gang? How is it that respectable people - with proper upbringing, education, successful careers and status - suddenly turn uncivilized, violent and dangerous when at a soccer match or a rock concert? The answer: conformity. In the 1950s, the Asch Conformity Experiments showed the power of conformity.

Derren Brown uses these elements and more. With practice, it is easier than you think. You can combine these elements very quickly and effectively on weak and uninformed minds.

Here’s a test by James Randi, conducted on a so-called martial arts practitioner who claimed to possess psychic powers. This man was James Hydrick. After this test - performed on a television show in front of a live audience in 1981 - James Hydrick’s powers were definitively exposed as fraudulent. On another program, Hydrick confessed his fraud to Dan Korem, an investigative journalist. Hydrick admitted that he had developed this talent in prison, and had not - as he originally claimed - learned it from an old Chinese Shaolin Kung Fu master.

Do you want to learn how to create an invisible force field around your body? It can’t be cut by the mightiest of swords. It can’t be penetrated by the most powerful of lightsabers. Here is your chance! In the Philippines, people may not necessarily believe in the Chinese concept of “chi” but they too get their super-powers from performing traditional rituals. Calling upon “The Force” may be different in different parts of the world, but it ultimately comes from the same source. The source is called delusion.

In this video, we go to the Philippines to see another martial artist who claims he can call upon a protective power, one strong enough so that no weapons can harm him. Let’s see what happens when this claim is demonstrated on live video.

Before I close this subject, I’d like to share with you one last video that I found really funny. This martial arts master’s power didn’t work either, and it got to his head. Literally.

“The human capacity for self-delusion is boundless, and the effects of beliefs are overpowering.”

- Michael Shermer

Other articles related to this topic:

• Religious revelations are religious delusions
• Astrology is The Forer Effect in action
• Religion is a path to Hell on Earth
• “The Secret” movie delusion
• Faith versus the scientific method