Richard Wiseman on Luck and Illusion
The Tim Ferriss Show hosted by Tim Ferriss - Podcast Index
Richard Wiseman, a leading psychologist and expert on luck, illusion, and the paranormal, joins the discussion to dive into captivating psychological concepts. He reveals intriguing insights about keeping a luck diary and shares his experiences with mentalism and parapsychology. Wiseman tackles misconceptions surrounding NLP, explores the fascinating world of dreams, and critiques self-help literature. He also discusses the magical intersection of performance and human connection, emphasizing authenticity in artistry while exploring the allure of the impossible.
Snips
[07:51] The Edinburgh Fringe Festival
🎧 Play snip - 1min️ (06:30 - 07:50)
✨ Key takeaways
- The Edinburgh Festival is a huge event that takes place throughout the whole of August with about 20 thousand shows performed.
- The speaker has a memory of Edinburgh involving indulging in several kilos of fudge and experiencing a fever dream.
- The speaker came across the person being interviewed through a subconscious imprint and reading an article recommended by their brother.
📚 Transcript
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Richard Wiseman
Takes place throughout the whole of August in Edinburgh. And yeah, I think it's about 20,000 shows or so performed. And it's huge. So it's everything. It's drama, it's music, it's magic, it's cabaret, and everyone should come. It's wonderful. Wow.
Tim Ferriss
You know, my only, this is self-indulgent to tell this story, but my memory of Edinburgh, I have a few memories. And I say a few because I think I put myself into a diabetic coma by having several kilos of fudge, which I didn't know was a thing in Edinburgh. I went there for an all-blacks game with a friend who is a huge rugby player from New Zealand. And I had a lot of fudge, went into this fever dream of some type, ended up at, I want to say the cafe where J.K. Rowling wrote the first in the series of Harry Potter. It was a great visit, but I don't remember all too much. So maybe I'll get back to the festival. To hop from that in a very lateral segue, I want to describe how I came across you and your name. So the first time it was a subconscious imprint, and I'll come back to what the hell that means. Then I was reading a piece on, let me pull it up here, Slate Star Codex, and the piece is called The Control Group is Out of Control, which was recommended to me by my brother who has a PhD In statistics. And