Issues with Dalia Bergoin's presentation at Contact in the Desert

[Charlie Wiser]

Issues with Dalia Bergoin's presentation at Contact in the Desert

(on YouTube, timestamped below)

[10:20]The guy running this segment (who is that?) tries on the Mindfold and declares it's opaque - but when Dalia wears it, it's higher on her face.

[11:00] She names the color of huge pieces of card held behind her. Each time, she ducks her head to sneak a look behind (Note that only for this "looking behind" demo is the prop so huge. They have smaller pieces of colored paper that they use later for forward-looking tests.)

[13:15] She makes a show of putting one of those blue tape patches on one eye and then identifies smaller shapes and colors from the guy holding them up in the audience. "I'm gonna put one patch on first, just to kind of warm myself up."

[17:40] She puts on both pieces of tape as he explains she's going to go into the audience to read from bits of card the audience has written on. Then pre-emptively she says "Can I get your arm?" and he says "Please don't fall" and he leads her down the steps (and then around the floor). Why does she need help navigating if she can see everything? (Here's a TikTok of her doing an impromptu session where at the end she says she can see everything, especially in front of her, and even walks her dog with the blindfold on - more on this link below.)

After reading cards in the audience, she adds a 3rd layer (black eye patches) which nobody checks for opaqueness. This seems very showmanshippy as they build up the layers. Why not start with all the layers? Those patches are basically an admission that the blindfold could have gaps. (How about putting a thick black sack over her entire head for one test to control for a leaky blindfold? This reminds me of Geller's SRI tests where he controlled how he was tested and only (successfully) did the tricks he knew how to do.)

[25:24] She goes back into the audience and reads from brochures. Her head is tipped back and/or the page is held low.

[26:45] This guy wants her to read through the back of the brochure, which you'd think would be no problem if she can psychically see though three layers of mask. She turns the brochure around. "I can do that too [read thru the back] but not right now." Why not right now?

[31:55] Demo with her daughter Lidu begins, which is just regular Spelling 2 Communicate. Dalia is not blindfolded for any of it and can see whatever is being held up while Lidu is blindfolded.

The TikTok video of the impromptu session after the stage show - Dalia starts with just the Mindfold and reads various things, often stumbling over tiny text. Her psychic eye apparently has the same quality of vision as her regular eyes. [0:42] When the item is a few feet away and at eye level, she tips back her head:

[2:55] Then she adds the tape and patches and... well, see for yourself where she places the Mindfold as the testing continues - it's literally on her forehead.

[3:29] Dude is like Wait a minute... But nobody challenges her throughout this 5-minute display.

[4:45]

I can see everything, especially in the front, I can pretty much see everything. Behind me is like - I don't use behind me enough so that's why I'm kind of limited to colors and shapes.
Q: So when you're walking, you might see stairs?
Oh yeah yeah yeah, definitely. I can walk with it. I walk my dog with them.

"Them" presumably means the 3 layers. I imagine it would take some practice to learn how to place the underlayers in exactly the right way to leave gaps when the blindfold is placed on top and shifted into position. But again, if the Mindfold is completely opaque, why are those underlayers needed?

She's somewhat lost for words and fidgets nervously when asked (by Mr Dubious above) how she learned to do this. (*Hakim Isler is standing behind her - he hosted the stage-show panel.)

[5:05]

Q: How long have you had the ability?
Only about a year.
Q: So you developed it.
Yeah.
Q: How did you develop it?
Well um, basically I um. [shrugs] I always say that I activated it in the sun. So, and also it's important that-- [tugs on the Mindfold band].
Q: How did you activate it in the sun?
So-- [nervous laugh]
Q2: By gazing? [unintelligible]
No, I did it with Rob Freeman.
*Hakim: Yeah, Vision Without Eyes. So she and I both trained with the same guy.

The most important thing to know about Vision Without Eyes [website] is that they have an Official Song:

with inspiring lyrics:

Blindfold on
See the light
In this place
Everything bright
Feel the touch
Read the mind
[here I got bored transcribing]

Dalia is a guest demonstrator/facilitator at the upcoming Vision Without Eyes 9-day conference in CA for $2995. Don't be difficult with your diet, okay? "The complimentary lunch is fixed and cannot be exchanged or customized for any dietary preferences." Enjoy the FREE T-SHIRT!

This is the accompanying image where a group of conventionally attractive blindfolded young persons are playing a fun game of Dicey Card.

Another seminar coming up in Orlando. I wrote a song about it. The chorus goes:
You must be This Hot
To secure a spot

 

[Charlie Wiser]

Someone on Twitter told me the following:

This hypothesis doesn't work when she also had tape on her eyes and read from someone's book in the dark audience with the spotlight shining in her face. I'm skeptical too, but this doesn't fit.

(sarcastically) Ok, she wasn't wearing blue tape over her eyes under the blindfold and didn't have a spotlight on her and didn't read the persons book from 15 meters away. I mean, if you're going to discuss this in good faith we need to start from the position of understanding the basic facts. The how comes after that. I'm open to it being a trick.

I watched the entire demo and at no point does Dalia read a book in the dark with the spotlight in her face, or read a book from 15 meters away. (In fact she has trouble when outside in the light trying to read small print from a few feet away.) I mention this to show that this person remembered incorrectly what they saw on the video. While it's good that they're open to it being a trick, they're currently in a state of being impressed with the demo but only because they remembered things that never happened.

 

[Fin]

[2:55] Then she adds the tape and patches and... well, see for yourself where she places the Mindfold as the testing continues - it's literally on her forehead.
View attachment 81480

At this point in an amateur magic show I'm asking for my money back and heading out for an iced latte & a hearty laugh. How anyone there can take it seriously I have no idea. Not letting others put the blindfold on & check for gaps is like not letting an audience member shuffle your deck of cards. Its unforgivable, unless you're using a gimmicked/stacked deck, of course, and then its absolutely fine Smart audiences know this stuff by now and will want to shuffle the deck. Audience management in these situations is key: Make excuses. Change the subject. Lie.

 

[Fin]

Great article here about the history of blindfolds in magic and coercing kids to lie a-la "third eye activation". None of this is new.


Source: https://medium.com/@nakulshenoy/opening-eyes-looking-beyond-blindfolds-2aa2d5f081e7

"So I accompanied the excited Pradeep back to this sweet little girl. She told me that she just needed to touch the object to her forehead and she could sense the colour. To demonstrate, she diligently wore her blindfold and asked me to hand her one of the many coloured balls that lay on the table. I did as instructed. She touched it to her forehead and divined the colour correctly! Amazing.

I then picked three of those coloured balls, repositioned myself behind her, and bringing it from over her head, placed one of the balls to her forehead — exactly where she had placed it a moment back. She went blank and in the voice of the sweet 11-year-old that she was, said, "I can't sense that. I… I've not been trained to do it like that".

Of course, I had intentionally avoided the ball coming anywhere near or under the bridge of the nose. After all, seeing through (down) the natural gap between the blindfold and the bridge of the nose, is the oldest trick in the book — one we have all performed as kids playing blindfold games. Whether we had to catch somebody playing tag or pin a tail on a donkey, our head would slowly tilt back and we would gather a quick look-see through the nose."

 

[NorCal Dave]

Well strap yourself in because it's about to get worse.

So apparently our friend Dalia is associated with a group called Vision Without Eyes and it's my pleasure to tell you that there's still time to reserve your exclusive ticket for VWE's An Epic Journey Beyond the Mind and Stars Seminar for only $2,995!

We really need a "Holy Shit" badge, because the "Wow" one just isn't enough for this. I think this photo from the VWE website pretty well sums it up. One can see UFOs through a blindfold:

Maybe that's the problem with Skywatch, the Tedescos, UAPx and all the others, they're not blind folded. And as a quasi-local, Mt Shasta is about 2 hours north of me, I really disappointed there is zero mention of the mountains most famous inhabitants, the Luminarians. Going to Mt Shasta and watching UFOs is all well and good, but ignoring the Luminarians is just disrespectful.

If I had more money than I knew what to do with, there's a part of me that would be interested in how these guys teach someone to see through a blindfold. I'm assuming they don't straight up say "peek through the bottom" but this section from the website may give a clue:

I imagine it becomes a lot like performing glossolalia in a Pentecostal church, which the wife and I had a brief experience with. At some point the inability to perform the supposed feat, becomes the shortcoming of the performer. It's not that God isn't talking to you, you're not listening. Likewise, Rob is giving participants what they need to see through a blindfold, if they can't, they aren't keeping the "bully" occupied enough. Giving these folks are paying 3Gs ($3k), not including accommodations, 9 days of food and one has to get their ass up to McCloud, peeking through a blindfold starts to look pretty good.

 

[Fin]

Maybe that's the problem with Skywatch, the Tedescos, UAPx and all the others, they're not blind folded.

Skywatcher has got you covered!

 

[MonkeeSage]

Great article here about the history of blindfolds in magic and coercing kids to lie a-la "third eye activation". None of this is new.

Good read, thanks for sharing! The end note is great as well

Note: The author humbly submits that this article was typed while fully blindfolded.

 

[John J.]

@Charlie Wiser's post is the best documented example of ESP (Evident Snoot Peeping) that I've ever seen.

To be more serious- the people doing this know what they are doing. Anyone trying the "VWE" method and getting results knows what they're doing.
I think we can safely predict that Dalia Bergoin and friends are not going to allow their claimed abilities to be assessed, while being filmed, by any impartial and competent investigator(s).

There might be some issues with relying on this vision technique:

 

[Ben Harris]

It's an age old scam. Dozens of books have been written on the methods used.

 

[JMartJr]

Here's a TikTok of her doing an impromptu session where at the end she says she can see everything, especially in front of her,

Well if nothing else I am pretty sure THAT is true...

 

[FatPhil]

It's an age old scam. Dozens of books have been written on the methods used.View attachment 81553View attachment 81552

And there's not even any secrecy any more, the down-the-nose peek is far from arcane knowledge.

E.g. the first 4 Startpage search results for ``blindfold mentalism'', with no "peek" or "nose" added to the search to bias things, are one yt vid that I couldn't be bothered to watch, and these 3 examples (so I'm counting that as 3 out of the top 3):

But make no mistake about it; using blindfolds, including this design, goes back far longer than that, as does the method of looking down the nose to glimpse things.

-- https://www.fourteenthstep.com/product/stainless-steel-blindfold/

Welcome to the evolution of the blindfold. Gone is the down the nose peek, and here is the ultimate blindfold - using duct tape.

-- https://www.lybrary.com/ultimate-bl...y0kKlyDzVzLhRN_l7Vh41sZWX7cP1hk7zowvMMRBbEnxH

The instruction book that accompanies it gives 4 different uses for the blindfold including using it for a legitimate blindfold (with practical applications), for the down-the-nose peek

-- https://osterlindmysteries.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=36

 

[jarlrmai]

Make them wear a motorcycle helmet covered in duct tape, then we'll see.

 

[Mendel]

Make them wear a motorcycle helmet covered in duct tape, then we'll see.

But remove the wireless helmet comms first.

 

[Ravi]

Get Dalia one of these! (it's a gimmicked magic item from ebay)

 

[eleggua]

Cognitive Dissonance is a euphemism for "polite company", in the instance of the VWE audiences.