James Hydrick first rose to fame in the early 1980s appearing on several television shows claiming to have powers of telekinesis which is defined as the psychic ability allowing a person to influence a physical system without physical interaction; essentially moving things with the mind. An avid martial artist who was oftentimes described as a guru of Kung Fu, Hydrick ran a successful martial arts school in Salt Lake City, Utah however; has led a truly disturbing and unfortunate life.

James Randi is a retired stage magician and scientific skeptic who has extensively challenged paranormal and pseudoscientific claims oftentimes travelling all over the world to expose these frauds. In 1980 on the television show That’s My Line, Randi confronted Hydrick on national television challenging his psychic abilities.

The first illusion that was explained by Randi was the famed pencil moving trick; this trick is completed when a person seemingly spins a pencil using only the power of their mind. Hydrick amazed the crowd with this illusion only for Randi to come behind him, explain how the illusion was performed, and then performed the trick himself. Next up was the page moving maneuver where Hydrick claimed he could turn the page of a phone book using only his mind. The video below is edited for time but again, the Great Randi exposed Hydrick as a fake.

Unfortunately, Hydrick has led a truly disturbing life. He was arrested in 1989 and sentenced to 17 years in prison for molesting five boys in Huntington Beach, CA and served his sentence however; he was then involuntarily sent to a psychiatric hospital under the state’s sexually violent predator law where he resides to this day.

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Jacob C. Stevens is a lifelong athlete and cerebral martial arts enthusiast who is also skilled in the art of linguistic manipulation, his published work, Afterthoughts and Handgrenades, can be found here…