Psychic Yoga Challenge: Yogi Ashwini Vs. Rationalists
A Skeptic Vs. Psychic event is set to take place in Bangalore on the 31st of this month. The meeting will attempt to resolve a challenge proposed by Yogi Ashwini of the Dhyan Foundation to rationalist Narendra Nayak, president of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations. The Yogi claims that his representative from the foundation can accurately diagnose the health-condition/disease of people from just their photographs. Here are the details of the event:
Date: 31st May, 2009 at 11:00 AM.
Venue: Ashoka Shishu Vihara at Shankarapuram, Bangalore.
Description: The psychic will attempt to accurately diagnose the current health of 10 people, from their photographs alone.
Contact: Narendra Nayak: 94482 16343
The challenge was proposed when Yogi Ashwini (often seen in his PR photos as posing with a mace for dramatic effect) contacted Narendra Nayak, the president of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations, in regards to the astrology challenge announced here. (Note: A report on the abysmal failure of the astrologers who participated in that event to predict the election results can be found here.) There was a back-and-forth by email between the two, from which this challenge emerged. It was first proposed by Ashwini himself. The press has been invited to cover this event. The Yogi, who is peddling superstition in Europe at the moment, will not be present at the challenge. His representatives from the Dhyan Foundation will represent the psychic yoga side.
Here are some specifics: Narendra Nayak will provide the pictures in sealed envelopes to be opened at the time of the event. The medical reports 
of the persons in the pictures will be also be provided in sealed envelopes. After the envelopes containing the photos are opened on the spot in the presence of the press and representatives from both sides, and after the diagnosis is made by the psychics, the envelopes containing the medical reports will be opened. Yogi Ashwini has requested that there be 10 photos, 5 being of persons seriously ill (cancer or something similar), living or dead, and the other 5 being of healthy individuals. He has said that the pictures of the sick individuals may be from an earlier time when they were healthy. He has claimed that his representative will be able to say who is sick and who is not with 100% certainty. (It is my personal conviction that a statistically significant result should suffice in our estimation that yoga is indeed a powerful diagnostic tool, although such a statistical result would require multiple trials in order to lower the margin of error).
One comment from the email exchange struck me as peculiar. The Yogi accused Narendra Nayak of having “no faith in his culture“. It is amusing that pseudosciences such as astrology and psychic yoga are considered Indian culture by these con-artists, while reason, rationality and skepticism are not. The Yogi needs to get educated about India’s long tradition in dialectical philosophy and materialism, before he slanders India as a land of superstitions by implying that reason was never part of our traditions. It can be said that he has no faith in his culture, in the same vein, because he rejects those aspects of our culture that are truly great. In truth, the Yogi seems to be ignorant of what science is, because in another email he states unequivocally that “Astrology is a perfect science”! Not only does he not know the history of India, but he also has no clue as to what science constitutes.
If this challenge demonstrates that the claims of the psychic yogis are false, will they concede that psychic predictions don’t work and will they close down their profitable organizations? Somehow I doubt that they will. It’s more likely that they will come up with some excuse to justify their failure. I invite our readers to suggest excuses in order to save them the mental strain of using their brains.
Update: The representatives of the foundation are now demanding that the FIRA send them the photos by mail and that they will deliver us the results at the venue! Of course, this is not acceptable, simply because it is not what was agreed to. The propaganda machine of the foundation is trying to spin this by saying that WE are the ones who are scared and backing away. Have you ever heard of any test where the people getting tested are the ones who set up the conditions of the test? These challenges between skeptics and so-called psychics follow well-established protocols. For example, James Randi in the US has been performing such challenges for decades. In all these cases, it is the rationalists who provide fool-proof conditions where these “psychics” cannot resort to tricks. We are all aware of the resourcefulness of charlatans in their trickery. So, unless the Dhyan foundation abides by the rules agreed to by both parties, this is a victory for rationalism and our claim that the yogi Ashwini is a con-man will be established.
Related posts:
- Eyewitness report of the Psychic Yoga Challenge
- Will Astrologer Bhaskar Shetty Keep His Word And Take Up The Rationalists’ Astrology Challenge?
- The strange case of Ashwini and his Dhyan Foundation
- Astrologer Bhaskar Shetty Accepts Rationalist/Skeptic Narendra Nayak’s Astrology Challenge
- Yogi In Politics: A Rationalist’s Thoughts On Baba Ramdev
- One Million Rupees Election Results Prediction Challenge to Astrologers
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One should not follow anybody blindly. Mind it I say blindly. I don’t go by what others say. Being a real rational, first do a test, produce results and then take it as a fact.
I did same, met yogi ashwiniji, did practices as told had amazing experiences in all aspects (be it financial, emotional, health, relationships and etheric) and hence I can conclude yogi ashwiniji has turned my life to the positive. So for me its a fact that I have experinced true power. I will advise readers, to go by their own experience. Don’t go by what i say or anybody else, your own experience will tell you the truth.
For more read : ‘SANATAN KRIYA – 51 MIRACLES AND A HAUNTING” BY YOGI ASHWINI (a book that compile experiences of 51 educated people and professionals from all walks of life)
@ ajitaji : please publish complete email and not the distorted facts or chosen parts that suits your motive to defame the pure science and misguide people.
I am an educated person, did masters in finance and currently working with an MNC. So definately I am a aware citizen.
Whether you believe in gravity or not but you are bound by gravity. Likewise if you believe or not facts wouldn’t change about thousands years old vedic science.
The science which makes one experience that a human is not just physical body and by accesing higher level of conciousness nothing is impossible for a being. It is not a superstition which is based on belief but a pure science which is based on facts and proofs. Experience yourself and you can find truth.
Deepti,
You seem to be unaware of the difference between anecdotes and science. There is a famous quote that goes something like this:
“The plural of anecdote is not data”.
You claim that I only published part of the email. This is a lie. I did not edit or in any way distort the emails that were sent to Prof. Nayak. It is you who is ill-informed.
The fact that you are an educated person is irrelevant as to your propensity to believe in pseudoscience and irrational ideas. It does not help that you are misinformed as to what science constitutes, and are repeating the common misunderstanding that experience somehow equals science. Please read some of Carl Sagan’s books to understand what science really is.
We are still waiting for Ashwini to keep his word. What is preventing him from doing so? We are willing to organize this event and have the TV channels there as well. This is in writing. The conditions required have been agreed to by both sides, and have been posted here. Instead of ganging up to defend your godman, why don’t you ask him to take up our challenge?
The truth is, you are being conned by this guy AShwini. There are many simple tricks that these conmen use to convince people like you that they have magical powers. Please look up ‘cold reading’, just as an example. Besides, the fact that you are already emotionally invested in this foundation has primed you to ignore any facts that are inconvenient and may get in the way of your belief. This is why we need scientific tests to judge the truth. Science helps us transcend our subjective biases, and to see things for what they are.
Many frauds have been caught and exposed to be cheaters, but not one human has been able to prove in a scientific experiment that they have supernatural powers. There are several important criteria that a true scientific test must pass, most important of which is the statistical significance of the data. Also, please look up “double-blinding”, an important design step in establishing scientific credibility to such experiments. There are many such rules that must be satisfied for an idea or experiment to be considered scientific.
Some people respond to this with “That is how you define science, now how I define it”, further exposing their ignorance that science is a constantly defined, rested and modified body of rules that are pretty rigidly adhered to by a powerful academic community through the process of peer review. In other words, what you are doing is misappropriating the word science.
theirs a book released by yogi ji named 51 miracle and the haunting. plz get the book read it, there are certain evidences provided, research on them. and then say whatever you people are willing to say
By definition, a miracle is supernatural. There is no point in researching miracles
It is like researching UFOs. There are people in this world who want to believe in all kinds of weird things, so as to give some justification for their own absurd lives.
Whether we want to waste our times conversing with them is a decision each individual has to make for himself / herself.
But I am really admire guys like Narendra Naik who drive some sense into the masses. Because ultimately, we live in a society, and a healthy rational society yields more happiness to everyone than one which is mired in superstition.
You keep making this outrageous claim that what we do is a waste of time. Professor Nayak has eliminated much suffering in the world. What have you done for humanity, to be so arrogantly denouncing the work of these people?
arthritispain,
I guess you are relaxed by yoga then why is your id is “arthritispain”?
Or are you just on a propaganda trail trying to say yoga can heal arthritis pain?
i practice Yoga purely for the purpose of reducing stress and it really works. Yoga keeps both of my mind and body relax.
Dr. jadeja is blot on our religious and spritual system.they are enemy of the society .they did not help in any way the society infact they always cheated the innocent people.that’s why Dr. narendra nayak chairman of the rationalistic society of India is said spritualism is total fraud. this is one of the best example and we witness thousands of such cases in the history of spritualism/ religion.this kind of god and godman were always in controvercy with their activity and was under suspicion.their miracle was hidden they did not alow to examine by rationalist and scientist .they cheat people in the name of faith this the weakness of our society.recently one altaf baba also caught in Guna who also claim give me 1 Rs I will give you 10 Rs back.
It is duty of the intellectual and civilized people to awake our masses and eradicate blind belief and superstition from our society to uplift our society and country .This would certainly be a humanitarian work selfless service of humanity.
I humbly request writer mediamen thinker and social worker to guide our innocent people from such cheater
have you actually heard of these guys? I had to look them up and it looks like they’re pretty big!!!!!
Students have books and all sorts of help, to do questions,at home.What can DF people do with the photos of healthy or unhealthy ,living or dead people.Millions and trillions of people are here in India.I don’t think FIRA should have any problem with it.What they want,they will be getting by mail or on the spot.Come on face the challenge.
Your people already lost the challenge. Question your leaders as to why they avoided meeting the challenge under the conditions that they agreed to, before you defend them blindly. They are fooling you into being their spokesperson. There is a set protocol for such challenges, in order to establish the objective, controlled nature of the experiment. Refer to my comment in the other article here: http://nirmukta.com/2009/05/31/eyewitness-report-of-the-psychic-yoga-challenge/ for why a test needs to be controlled for it to be acceptable.
The fact that the tester cannot provide a mechanism for how the test-taker will cheat is not a reason for the test-taker to set the conditions of the test. Your empty calls for us to face the challenge are laughable, since the challenge is already over and you failed. Again, like I said, turn your critical eye on your leaders and really question them why they did not meet the challenge when they easily could have. Don’t be a mouthpiece.
In the future if your organization wishes to take the challenge again, it will have to be under similar fool-proof conditions that we can monitor carefully. For information on established protocols as to how “psychics” are tested by skeptics refer to the James Randi challenge:
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html
You can win a million dollars for your foundation to do its great work for mankind. Why are your leaders (who are all powerful and psychic as per your claims) not taking up this challenge? Of course the conditions of the test eliminate any possibility of cheating, but I’m sure that, like all the other “psychics” your leaders will find some excuse as to why their psychic powers” cannot work under the objective testing conditions.