Does This Man Have Real Superpowers?

In this video we're going to take a look at Chris Zanetti, a man who for the past ten years has been documenting his journey of learning to use telekinesis and the ability of flight. We will be examining his alleged superpowers, analyze why people embark on such an endeavor and what cost such attempts may have. If you're interested to learn more, stay tuned. Hello critical thinkers and welcome to another episode where we take a critical thinking look at various fascinating subjects. About a month ago I released a video called Why Yogis Don't Actually Have Superpowers, A couple of weeks later as a response to my video I received a comment from a gentleman named Chris Zanetti, where he suggested that I read his book Superhuman Training if I want to learn real supernatural powers. I became intrigued and checked the book out. In his book he claims to teach the state of mind required for telekinesis, how to understand, feel and become sensitive to energy and more. The book has multiple positive responses and reviews. As I continued to investigate Chris, I learned that he also has a YouTube channel with over 27,000 followers and close to 6 million views at the time of filming this video. In his channel he has been documenting his journey of attaining and practicing supernatural powers while at the same time teaching others how to do the same. In some of his videos he has filmed how he uses alleged telekinesis by moving objects without touching them, attempts to fly and use a pyrokinesis, a form of psychic abilities which claims to allow a person to create and control fire with the mind. Some of his videos have thousands of comments of which many are extremely positive and supportive. It is evident that many people express the desire to do the same and even see Chris Zanetti as their teacher. Turns out that there is a whole online community devoted to telekinesis, the alleged psychic ability allowing a person to influence a physical system without physical interaction. While there seems to be a lot of enthusiasm surrounding this supernatural movement, as in everything there are always two sides to things. While it would be easy to jump right into skepticism, criticizing and questioning, first of all I want us to take a look at the more positive side of this situation. Devoting 10 years to something and sticking to it is a special feat on its own. Many people struggle to maintain commitments and perseverance in their chosen endeavors. The fact that Chris has been doing this for 10 years straight is commendable. The same can be said about the online telekinesis community that I found on Reddit. There is a passion behind their posts and some members documented their efforts to attain telekinesis for dozens of days straight in a row. Looking at the comments under Chris' videos, it seems that he has inspired hundreds of people and gave them a sense of hope. He also seems like a positive, well-intentioned and driven individual. While considering oneself as a critical thinker, it is easy to fall to the side of criticism without acknowledging the existence of the other side of the matter. Critical thinkers as much as myself are often guilty of denying the possibility of the extraordinary by relying heavily on rational thinking. To claim that telekinesis is not possible by any means at all would to some degree point to limitations in our own thinking too. Who knows, maybe the extraordinary is possible and one day undeniable extraordinary feats will emerge and prove all the skeptics wrong. But it is also important to take a look at the data we do have and to question what we see. That is exactly what we are going to do in our second step by taking a closer look at Chris' work and that of the online telekinesis community. It is difficult to deny that Chris sincerely believes in his own efforts. He appears earnest in his videos and passionately continues to reinforce his belief that supernatural powers are possible. Chris' followers also seem to be excited as he demonstrates his alleged supernatural powers while he moves various objects without touching them. The issue though is that we are all susceptible to what's known as confirmation bias. The tendency to search for, interpret, favor and recall information in a way that confirms or supports our prior beliefs or values. In simple words, whatever we believe in or want to believe in will naturally seek whatever will confirm this belief. And I believe that that's exactly what's happening to both Chris and his followers. If we take a closer look at his telekinesis videos we start to see a pattern. Whenever he uses the claimed supernatural power it's always with very light objects such as paper or foil. It is interesting to note that the exact same pattern can be witnessed throughout the entire online telekinesis community. In nearly all the videos I've found of people documenting their claimed telekinetic powers it's done with plastic straws, paper or some other very light materials. The used light material does in fact seem to move, but there can be so many other reasons for it moving, for example such as the warmth emitted from hands, air circulation between the hands, conscious or even unconscious use of the practitioner's own breath to affect the object. There are so many causes that could be presented as a much more reasonable explanation than telekinesis. But since these individuals are seeking a confirmation to their belief, they rely on telekinesis as their primary explanation, instead of questioning and examining the occurring phenomena in any other way. The same phenomenon of confirmation bias can be witnessed in pretty much all other videos, such as when Chris claims to move an ice cube with psychic energy, instead of considering that the ice cube moved because it was melting and might have been affected with the addition of the warmth emitted from his hands. In the instances where Chris demonstrates what he calls a chi blast, he is basically knocking over light objects such as small mobile phones, carton boxes or extinguishes a candle flame by basically creating a strong enough current of air with an energetic motion of his hands. There are no examples of moving any heavier objects, for example a brick, and this statement applies to the whole online telekinesis community. Speaking of bricks, in fact there is a video of Chris trying to move a brick without touching it. At first I was curious to take a look and see how it will be done. Turns out though, that the entire video segment was his attempt to do it without any success, only documenting the attempt itself. This is where Chris claims that he is still in the process of learning and that at the moment he can only move light objects. The crazy part to this, is that he has been making this same claim for the past 10 years and up till today firmly believes and claims that one day he will get there, that it's just a matter of time. What I find to some degree upsetting about this, is that he considers his small feats of allegedly moving light objects with his psychic abilities as enough of a reason to teach others. While I did not read his book, some reviews point to the same problem. One reviewer described his book by saying, I didn't finish it. I lost interest when he mentioned he doesn't quite have this down yet and hopes to get there someday. I was hoping for something more extreme by a skilled and experienced person. The same issue appears in Chris' video where he claims to teach flying. First of all, if we take a look at his documented attempts to fly, he just stands on the ground allegedly attempting to do it. There are no signs of him being able to achieve any sort of levitation, yet that does not prevent him from making such videos as, humans really can levitate and fly, and humans really can fly like superman. In the former video, Chris continues to explain for 4 minutes with conviction that it is possible to fly like superman and explaining how he does it for reference. As a response to this video, I wrote a comment saying, So this is a video talking about how superman in the movies and graphic novels fly, but zero actual flying in the actual video. And the description of how superman flies in movies and graphic novels should be enough to make us believe that we can fly? Chris' response was, That, along with the hundreds of other videos on my channel covering the topic of human levitation and flight. Thanks. My follow up comment was, What evidence do you have that human levitation is possible? His response, My evidence is my faith in myself. Whether it takes another 1 year or 10 years, I will fly. The statement reveals another big problem in this case where Chris clearly describes his faith as evidence. This reminds me of a logical fallacy known as the appeal to faith. Appeal to faith itself is a phenomenon used often in religious situations where the religious believer makes an assertion that one must have the right kind of faith in order to understand their argument. This type of argument also alludes to another kind of logical problem witnessed in our case. People like Chris rely on a form of logic where if they have enough faith in their eyes it makes their object of faith possible. For a critical thinker such a statement makes no sense, but for someone who relies entirely on faith, their experienced emotional intensity is mistaken as a reliable source of reference. It is extremely difficult to debate with people who rely on this type of logic, since whenever some proof is presented which counters their claim, these people will almost always fall back to their belief that their faith is enough as evidence, and no counter-argument can break that. The problem with this type of logic is that it may leave the believer down long-lasting endeavors which eventually lead to nowhere, as I believe is the case with Chris Sinetti's story. Another problem is that this logic relying on faith and the previously mentioned confirmation bias can also lead to the abuse of these people, something that we will touch upon next. As I was doing my research for this video, I came across a man who calls himself the telekinesis guru. Similar to Chris Sinetti, he is making videos where he claims to teach telekinesis and levitation to others in a form of video tutorials. One of the first videos I watched from him was a video of him teaching levitation. At first I thought that this is going to be the same exact example as in Chris's video. He will explain the entire video how to fly without showing an example, then to my surprise, he did levitate. Yet, being a critical thinker, my mind did not blow up and I did not rush to believe in his superpowers. Instead, I decided to investigate what really may be happening in his video. I was lucky to have watched some of the incredible episodes of VFX Artist React from the Corridor crew, where they explain how computer generated graphics, or CGI, works and how to spot it. Even at first glimpse, something seemed off about the video. The legs during levitation were extra blurry and the way the camera closed up didn't seem natural. When I compared his before levitation and during levitation shots, everything became clear. First of all, his upper body does not move at all, despite him, quote on quote, levitating. And what is even more evident is how his legs change between the two shots. They not only become blurry and move in a strange way, they also become significantly smaller and even move to the right side of his torso, leaving a whole gap between the upper body and his legs. Taking a closer look at this video, it becomes clear that this guy is using CGI to create an impression that he is levitating. And as far as using tricks to create an impression, everything is fine. David Blaine does all sorts of trickery and it's cool, but the difference is that we all know that most of the tricks that Blaine does are illusions meant to entertain people. The problem in this case is that he is making claims that his superpowers are real. Not only that, he also promises that he will teach others how to do it. Subscribe to this channel because I can teach you so much more. I can help you to move heavy objects, small objects, I can help you to move water and fire. This way he continues to fool dozens of susceptible people who want to believe in the extraordinary, something which is clearly seen when looking through the comments in his videos. As we discussed before, people like Chris Sinetti and his followers will grab onto anything that will confirm their beliefs. And yet again, that can be easily taken advantage of. I do not know what benefits the telekinesis guru receives from doing this, but there are dozens of videos of him doing the same thing without ever telling his audience that he is fooling them. When you take a look at Amazon, there are countless books that claim to teach telekinesis. There are also numerous mobile telekinesis tutorial apps, which include ads and receive revenue too. Maybe some of these products are made with a sincere belief that what they are teaching is real, as I believe is the case with Chris Sinetti. But what are the chances that some of these products are just abusing a target audience which lacks critical thinking? If some of these products are released with sincere effort and belief, where are these beliefs and methods leading these people to? Another question which is very important to take a look at.