Come for the speakers, return for the community—that has been my experience in the seven CSI-Cons I’ve attended. To be honest, I’m normally not one to regularly attend the talks. I know, I know …but this year I was asked to review Dustin Dean’s talk (and I didn’t want to miss the proceeding talks by Stuart Vyse, Dave Farina, and Stephen Hupp). I found that I really enjoyed sitting in the main room, photographing the audience, and listening to the many excellent talks. I managed to attend all but a few, and there wasn’t a bad one in the mix. I learned something from everyone and enjoyed myself immensely.
Dustin Dean: The Modern Age of Psychics and Social Media
James Randi, Jerry Andrus, Ray Hyman, Penn & Teller, Banachek, Mark Edward, Richard Wiseman, and now a new face has joined the fight against the nonsense: CSICon welcomes mentalist Dustin Dean to the community. There has been a long history of magicians—going back to Houdini—interested in unmasking psychic mediums. I was familiar with Dean’s work prior to watching his talk from his short clips on TikTok calling out people who claim to have magic powers, so I was excited to see him in person.