Seeing is Believing ?
I’ve been a card carrying Skeptic for nearly 40 years now and it has been informative and at times, a lot of fun. We ran water diving trials at Mitta with a big prize for anyone who could prove it works. Locally we have exposed homeopathy and psychics and a variety of other charlatans who I have found are either delusional or frauds. A few years back I offered a reward for anyone finding (and presenting) a dead or alive panther following numerous claims of sightings in the bush. Plenty of dead black feral pussy cats were dished up but none of these - even after a few reds - ressembled a panther. So no money paid out!
But what is interesting is the intersection of magic and skepticism, strange bedfellows you might think. Harry Houdini became a rabid skeptic, exposing fellow magicians who claimed physic powers. He and others who followed understood that how little we see and perceive is real, and how much is actually synthesied in our brain. Skeptics "seek the evidence" and understand how the mind can easily be deceived; belief in the paranormal is therefore of interest as is deception by crooks AND magicians!
James Randi, a famous magician based in the USA (now deceased), took up Houdini's cause and spent a lifetime explaining and exposing, one of the most notworthy was Uri Gella with his 'psychic' spoon bending fraud. Faith healers and their tricks were also fair game.We spent many hours at various presentations by Randi both here and in the US and I was fortunate to work a panel with him at a Melbourne conference. That's the diminutive Randi on the left in 2012 at a Melbourne Skeptics conference. You can find details of the many published books on the net.
Another pair of magicians, probably the best in the World is Penn and Teller. They have a permanent show in Las Vegas where we met them at a Skeptics conference. They are the current masters of deception and are very active skeptics. P&T toured Australia in 2022 and we were lucky to see the show at the Sydney Opera House.