I have to agree with you Jim that Hydrik took a simple principle and was able to use it to his own benefit.

He built a convincing “patter” about where and how he obtained this “power”, and convinced others that “it was inside them also”, and that he could help them develop that “power”.

Unfortunately for Hydrick he evidently felt that no one could figure him out. His mistake was to accept Randi’s challenge on a nationally televised program and under the conditions imposed, he could not perform his “miracle”.

Think about this. If he were as smart as you are giving him credit for, he would never have accepted the challenge to begin with, but just continued to do what he was doing all along, and perhaps he could have become very famous. Now that fame and fortune has waned away.

I guess he just did not believe Abraham Lincoln’s words of wisdom: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time”.
Abraham Lincoln, (attributed)
16th president of US (1809 - 1865)

Just some food for thought.

I believe that phrase actually belongs to Mr. Bush, "Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, errr...ummm...a fool can't get fooled again."

Nathan

Actually Nathan, the quote has been around at least 81 years before Bush was born.
I guess he just "misquoted it".