First off, let me say that I don't hate Criss. I'm kind of indifferent to him, to be honest. My opinion is if he uses stooges, so what? He doesn't claim to have powers. He's an entertainer and a good one, apparently.
Let me go on to say that I've only seen the orginal clips. The ones of the television progam itself when Jim came right out and said he had a "power". I haven't seen any of the others posted here, because I'm at work.
But I'd like to say something about this.
As someone who does mental magic, including an effect where I "talk with the dead", I make it clear that it's just a trick. It's a responsiblity to make it clear. In my experience it doesn't take away any of the "awe factor" the effect gives. None. The audience is still floored.
In fact, I start all my performances with the line "Unless I say 'I'm telling the truth here', I am lieing through my teeth", and end my performances with the reinforcement that I do not have any powers whatsoever.
And yet, even with those disclaimers both at the beginning and the end of the show, people will STILL come up to me and ask me to contact the dead or something. It's sad that they are that desparate.
In my humble opinion, to get on national television, during a live television show and proceed to claim that you have supernatural powers and do an effect to illustrate that is beyond low. As I just stated, even when you tell people outright you have no powers and it's a trick, some poor souls are desprate enough to believe you do.
Jim claimed he had powers, he didn't try to say he didn't, he got defensive when Criss called him on it. It looks like to me that he was trying to gain a name for himself not with his talents as a magician, but with his bogus claim of have "powers".
I, for one, am glad Criss stood up to him. I agree with the opinion that he should've done it off stage and in the papers, but people who do that should be exposed for the frauds they are.
People who claim to have these "powers" aren't helping the grieving, they don't provide comfort to them, it's nothing but a self-serving way of preying on people's suffering for their own gain.
Jim decided to go down that route on that night, Criss blocked him. Good for Criss! Stooges or no, I have more respect for Criss than I do for Jim.
As for Uri, he's a worse than Jim is. He's been claiming that he's had powers for years. Most of you out there are too young to remember him. I do. I remember being very young and Uri on television bending keys (gee, I wonder how he did that???) and warning the people watching at home to not have any keys near the television during the time he did this because they might bend too. The first thing I thought of was "what if this was a repeat show? How would it do that?" and I was pretty young. Uri has been trying to prove his "powers" too, for a long time, been disproven over and over, and yet he still tries. He's much worse than Jim is.
Sorry about the wall of text, but I really felt like venting about this.....
Thanks!
