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Unmasking the Masquerade

Three Illusionists Investigate Deception, Fear, and the Supernatural

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Deception

What One of the World’s Greatest Illusionists Says About Unmasking the Masquerade

January 14, 2017 by Rod Robison

For over a half-century Andre Kole has been widely known among professional magicians as one of the most creative illusionists in the world. Many of the over 1000 illusions he has invented are performed by the top magicians in the world including David Copperfield with whom he has collaborated on over 100 illusions including the disappearance of the Statue of Liberty. His tours have taken him to all fifty states and seventy countries world-wide. Having spent more than twenty years investigating claims of psychic powers, Andre is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s foremost authorities on paranormal claims.

Andre Kole and David Copperfield

Several decades ago I issued a challenge to all psychics and others claiming to possess paranormal powers, including but not limited to levitation or walking on water. If any one of the many thousands of them stepped forth and demonstrated their power under test conditions, I would hand him or her a personal check for $25,000. As if that tidy sum wasn’t enough incentive, imagine the acclaim and free publicity to be gained by simply reading a thought, moving an inanimate object with the power of their mind, levitating, or predicting the future—without the use of trickery. I say “without the use of trickery” because, as the inventor of illusions performed by David Copperfield, Siegfried and Roy, Harry Blackstone Jr., Doug Henning, and countless other magicians, and as someone who investigated psychics, witch doctors, psychic surgeons, mind readers, and all manner of paranormal claims all over the world, I’d become adept at spotting deception long ago.

It’s been over forty years since I first made the $25,000 offer. In that time, thousands of psychics have come and gone. Millions of followers have been duped by them, chasing a lie in search of the truth. Billions of dollars have been sucked from those followers’ checking accounts. In that same time, I’ve publically exposed the schemes of many of those who claim to possess paranormal powers. But in all of those years, my resolve to handsomely reward and publicly acknowledge any genuine psychic was unwavering. Frankly, I wasn’t too concerned about losing my $25,000, because I had seen so much deception passing for “the real thing.” Regardless, I was still open to being convinced.

Now here we are, nearly a half-century later, and no one—no one—has been able to claim the prize. Surely, if in fact some people are gifted with psychic and other paranormal powers, someone would have stepped forward, demonstrated just one of those powers, and walked away with the prize money and the acclaim that accompanied it. But those who did step forward, submitting themselves to being fairly tested, failed the test. Just one such test was conducted while I was touring Russia in 1993. An individual claiming the ability to astral project asked to be tested, hoping to win the $25,000 prize. I devised a simple test involving a boxlike cover placed over the individual’s head and the sentence, “Billy is a boy,” written in Russian on the opposite side of a chalkboard only a few feet from the alleged astral projector. The subject was then asked to project his astral body to the other side of the blackboard, read the sentence, and reveal it to the committee we had gathered for the test. After a few minutes the subject shared what he thought was written: “God loves us.” Not a bad guess, since the claimant knew I was a Christian, but a guess nonetheless. I returned to America with my $25,000.

When I collaborated with David Copperfield to accomplish incredible feats like walking through the Great Wall of China, levitating across the Grand Canyon, and making the Statue of Liberty vanish, the impossible seemingly became possible to millions of onlookers. There were those who claimed that David had special supernatural powers. They couldn’t fathom how anyone could accomplish such impossible feats without the aid of otherworldly powers. I’ve been accused of the same despite the disclaimer I issue at the start of every show—that everything the audience is about to witness is only an illusion. Yet there are still some who simply are not about to be convinced.

The belief that some people have paranormal powers is ubiquitous, even in our “enlightened” age and culture. Hollywood and entertainment media have had a field day capitalizing and profiting from this fascination with the paranormal. Some skeptics claim that the prevalence of such beliefs is the result of religious teachings, and, ironically, as a Christian, I agree with them—but not in the way you might think. I do believe in the supernatural. But I also believe that God alone possesses the ability to perform the truly miraculous. What concerns me are teachings within Christian churches suggesting that some people—presumably under the influence of Satan—possess supernatural (or paranormal) powers. Bible passages are even marshaled in an attempt to provide credence to such teachings.

I find that many Christians assume, without really examining the biblical evidence, that Satan has far more power than God ever gave him and that he confers some of his powers to humans. But as I examine the Bible, I find that it lines up perfectly with the empirical evidence before me—people do not, in fact, possess miraculous powers that God reserves only for Himself. The Bible does tell us that Satan is the father of lies. Deception is his stock-in-trade. By deceiving us to believe that he is more powerful than he actually is, Satan’s deception becomes a powerful tool for even more deception.

The three illusionists who wrote Unmasking the Masquerade—Rod Robison, Adrian Van Vactor and Toby Travis—put forth a convincing case that prominent beliefs in the paranormal are erroneous and without merit. You’ll explore with them some of the history of alleged paranormal activities that were later found to be fraudulent or simply misunderstood. Some of these incidents had enormous impact on our culture and still do, years and even centuries later. You’ll delve into what the Bible has to say about Satan’s true powers and lack thereof, and how the scriptures have been misunderstood and even, in some cases, manipulated to lead people down dangerous paths to deception and unwarranted fear.

And you’ll discover why Jesus, who has been accused by ancient and modern-day skeptics and critics of being a magician or even a myth, was, in fact, the One who really did accomplish the impossible, laying legitimate claim to being “God with us.”

Andre Kole

President, Andre Kole Productions

Tempe, Arizona

Filed Under: Christian Magician, Deception, Unmasking Journal

Even Magicians Fall for Deception

January 10, 2017 by Rod Robison

(Because we all do.)

When I picked up the phone one evening just over ten years ago one of the last people I expected to hear on the other end was my magician friend Scott Wolf.  It’s very possible you’ve seen him before.  A video of one of his magic routines gone horribly wrong went viral on YouTube and was seen by millions more on TV.

I was in the audience a few years prior to his phone call when Scott set his entire head on fire.  Not on purpose.  But because he deceived himself into assuming that playing with fire—even as a seasoned and highly trained fire-breathing magician who had performed the trick countless times—would never result in severe burns over his entire face.

Scott Fire Breathing Performance

I’d seen him perform the trick flawlessly many times before. I say “trick” but it’s no trick in the sense that it wasn’t real fire or any real danger.  Scott’s fire breathing act is dangerous and, yes, it is real fire.  Holding a blazing torch in one hand and two others not yet set aflame, he opens his mouth, sticks his tongue out and touches it with the ignited torch. Then, with his tongue on fire, he sets the other two torches aflame.  Repeatedly blowing out and reigniting the torches with his mouth, with no apparent harm, Scott has duly petrified the audience. But he’s just getting warmed up, if you’ll excuse the pun. Then, in an explosive conclusion, Scott chugs a couple of  ounces of lighter fluid, holds one of the flaming torches at arm’s length and blows a massive ball of fire the size of a couch into the air.

But the night of the accident Scott got a little careless, lighting up his face and head like a six foot candle. Frantically patting his face in a vain attempt to extinguish the flames, he ran off stage while the audience gasped in stunned horror.

I was the first to reach Scott offstage.  I found him face down in the stage right wing, the fire now extinguished.  His first words were, “I can’t believe I did that.”

He was rushed to a nearby hospital and, after several painful procedures over the next few weeks, made a full recovery.

A few years later Scott, who had dedicated his life and talents to Christ, began touring with a Christian performance ministry.  Although in his younger days he had abused alcohol and drugs, he’d been clean for several years and was determined to keep it that way.  But with the boredom of life on the road and little accountability Scott let his guard down and the deceptive thought, I can handle it, gained a foothold in his resolve and soon his old habits returned.

After being forced to leave the ministry, Scott moved to Alaska where his downward spiral accelerated, sucking him into a seemingly hopeless life of meth and cocaine addiction.  It was at that point that he picked up the phone and called me.

“Rod, I’m in trouble.”  His trembling voice told me he wasn’t kidding. “I need help. I have to get straight.”

I hadn’t seen Scott in quite some time, so he filled me in on his descent into drug-fueled deception.  For a second time he had played with fire.  And for a second time he was burned badly. This time not only physically, but emotionally and spiritually.

I told Scott I would help him under one condition.  “I’ll see if I can pull together some plane fare from some of our magician buddies and fly you to Tucson where you can get some help and accountability.  But you have to promise me one thing.  When you get off that plane you’re going straight to Teen Challenge treatment center and enter their program.”

Scott happily agreed.  I called Teen Challenge and told them Scott couldn’t afford their program but he desperately needed them.  They agreed to accept him and, true to his word, Scott stepped off the plane and into a new life.

His years-long road to recovery was not without its stumbles, but today Scott is the Director of Teen Challenge Ministry Institute where he oversees interns at eleven campuses across the Northwest.  By God’s grace and Scott’s determination, a magician who himself was badly deceived now helps men find their way out of the darkness of deception by introducing them to the Way, the Truth, and the Light, Jesus Christ.

In our book Unmasking the Masquerade we focus on psychic deception to help illustrate the nature of deception itself and our vulnerability to it.  When I began writing this book and invited my friends Adrian, Toby, and Andre to contribute, I hoped that it could be more than merely an exposure of deception as it relates to apparent paranormal phenomena, as fascinating as that topic is. I wanted that kind of deception to act as a poignant metaphor for whatever deception you and I struggle with daily. It’s tempting to view people who are trapped in various types of psychic deceit as naïve and caught up in something we could never fall for. But the type of deceit we fall for isn’t really the point.  The real point that I hope you take with you when you read the book is that we do fall for it…every day. Being aware of our own propensity to lose our footing when deceit crosses our path makes us much more aware of it when it does, inevitably and repeatedly, cross our path.

The Bible makes it clear that there is an enemy of our souls whose malevolent passion is to not only deceive us but, in the process, to destroy us.  Here’s how one of Jesus’ closest followers, Peter stated it: “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” I Peter 5:8

That can be a terrifying  realization and has, indeed, struck fear in the hearts of millions who have read those words over the centuries. Yet, as we’ve learned in our journey together, the Bible also tells us, rather paradoxically, that we are not to fear that roaring, deceiving enemy, “… because, the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world [the spirit of the anti-Christ.]”  I John 4:4

It’s been said that the phrase “fear not” appears in the Bible 365 times—one for each day of the year.  But that’s not entirely accurate.  While that phrase and “be not afraid” appear 103 times in the King James Version, there are hundreds more that tell us to fear God alone, do not be anxious, and do not worry. Regardless of the phrase count, it’s abundantly clear that we don’t need to fear Satan when Christ is the King of our lives.

Beyond the assurances from Scripture that we need not be afraid, there is ample description of our enemy in the sacred pages to lead us to the conclusion that his stock-in-trade is deception and fear.  Not God-like powers, but deception and fear.  Not conferring miraculous powers to humans as popular lore would have us believe.

Deception

 Fear  

 Ultimately, our liberation from deception and fear is not dependent upon what our enemy can or cannot do.  It is anchored firmly on what our sovereign God, the Creator of the universe, alone can and does do.  He provided us all a Way out of that deception and fear through the Truth and Light–His Son.  It is our hope and prayer that whether you know—as Jesus called Himself—the Way, the Truth, and the Light or are merely one seeking a way forward toward truth and light, that you’ll continue on that path, “…because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”  (Hebrews 11:6)

Anyone.

Filed Under: Deception, Unmasking Journal

Demon Magicians? Really?

January 9, 2017 by Rod Robison

 

Most professional Christian magicians have, at one time or another, been confronted by a well-meaning but uninformed audience member claiming that the magic they just saw on stage had to have been accomplished with demonic assistance. Or as some disparagingly call it, “demon magic.”  The “miracles” witnessed are so inexplicable they must be supernatural in nature.  There could not possibly be any other explanation.

To be sure, the vast majority of Christians know that, as impossible as some magical effects appear, there has to be a natural explanation and that demons were not the magician’s unseen assistants.  But some don’t and go to great lengths to prove to the world that magicians – even Christian magicians — employ the powers of darkness.

“Demon Magicians” Unmasked

Youtube video claims this magician is using demonic powers

Such was the case in 2014 when a series of popular YouTube videos dubbed “Demon Magicians” emerged featuring clips of various magicians, most of them well-known, in an attempt to “prove” that many magicians tap demonic powers to accomplish their magical, mysterious feats. What proof is cited? The author of the series of videos points to the impossibility of the effects and the sinister persona of the magicians. To be sure, some of the magicians in the videos do sport ominous and sometimes downright creepy guises to enhance the mystery experience. After all, they are on stage playing a part.

As for the impossibility of the effects cited as proof positive of demonic aid, I can assure you they are merely magic tricks. Really good tricks—but tricks nonetheless. The secrets are much more mundane than marshalling the demonic forces of darkness; some, such as a levitation cited on one of the videos, use methods that have been commonly employed by stage magicians for well over a century.

Sadly, tens of millions of views and thousands of comments to this video series indicate that many viewers have accepted the false notion that Satan’s powers are far greater than the powers God bestowed on him.  And sadly the series has advanced the stereotype in the minds of non-Christians, who see the folly of the author’s claims, that Christians are backward-thinking pinheads lacking any reasoning ability.

In our book Unmasking the Masquerade we attempt to bring a biblical, rational balance to the discussion of the limits of Satan’s powers.  Although he is unquestionably the enemy of our souls, Scripture is clear that he does not possess miraculous powers that God reserves for Himself.   Nor do his demonic minions.  We also make the case that the more power unwitting Christians assign to Satan, the more unnecessarily fearful they will be of him.  In such cases our enemy scores another defeat.  On the other hand, when we understand that Satan is not to be feared and that his powers are greatly limited by our Creator, we are liberated to reverence alone the God who loves us.

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Deception, Unmasking Journal Tagged With: Demon Magic

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Rod Robison

Encourage Publishing

Adrian Van Vactor

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