back to article Superhuman Chinese monk does a bunk

A celebrity Taoist monk has gone awol after it was revealed he probably couldn't in reality sit crossed-legged under water for two hours. "Supreme Master" Li Yi, 40, attracted a following of 30,000 faithful, including the rich and famous who were willing to cough up to 9,000 yuan (£900) a week to attend "health and philosophy …

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  1. Flugal

    Surely not?

    "Religious type in turns-out-to-be-a-liar" shock.

    Whatever next....Biblical "miracles" turn out to be a load of old bovine manure?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Taoism

      Isn't a religion.

      Never mind, I think I get your point.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Doesn't supprise me

    I've seen those monks on the telly. The swords they use are all bendy and floppy and they just pretend to stab each other with those spears which aren't even real spears.

    They just jump about a lot, they're like a bunch of Pocoyos.

  3. Lottie

    Southern Metropolis Daily

    That is the single coolest newspaper name. EVER!

  4. mego
    FAIL

    ...could withstand 220 volts of electricity circulating through his body

    So can everyone. Consider these marvels that any idiot can perform:

    ->A typical tazer delivers around 5000 volts; no healthy human has reported dying from this.

    ->Static electricity can reach easily over 12000 volts, didn't seem to faze any of my brothers when I was young

    It's not the Vots, its the AMPS that kill you (even as low as 0.6). You'd think a journo would have some basic science knowledge or at least check the claims before repeating them..

    1. deadlockvictim
      Troll

      volts, amps, ohms...

      all of these sciency things are the same anyway. there's 110 (or 220 in yerp) of them in sockets and thems is badboys.

      it's a bit like alcohol, cigarettes and drugs. drugs, like grass, are very bad for you. mild drugs, like alcohol and cigarettes[1], are not drugs, therefore they are not so bad for you.

      or sugar. i remember someone telling that because sugar is 100% fat-free, that it wouldn't make them fat.

      science is just too hard.

      [1] who will fall for the bait?

      1. LuMan
        Troll

        re-Volting (geddit)

        If I hurtle back through my somewhat cluttered memory to my secondary school physics lesson I remember being told that "it's the volts that jolts, but the millis that killies!" Cute.

        Anyhoo, at the risk of being a bit pendantic, we're on 230v (rms) here in yerp. Us Brits used to be on 240v, but it was changed to fall in line with the rest of the continent (or something).

        1. Boring Bob

          Clever

          The UK was 240V and the rest of Europe was 220V so to harmonise the supply voltages throughout Europe the EU decided everyone would have to conform to 230V +-5%. So no one needed to change anything and we are now on the same voltage as the rest of Europe! Clever but pointless.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Pirate

            But it happened in China...

            where the domestic mains voltage is (nominally) 220V.

            Anyway, the guy's a genius... unlike the techie types here (including myself) who have had a shock or three due to carelessness/forgetfulness/someone didn't turn it off when they said they had, the bastard and said, "I don't want to do that again!", this guy decides to use it to prove his mystic credentials, and runs off with $$$.

        2. Grease Monkey Silver badge

          Cute?

          "If I hurtle back through my somewhat cluttered memory to my secondary school physics lesson I remember being told that "it's the volts that jolts, but the millis that killies!" Cute."

          Cute it may be. Bollocks it also is.

          Take a big 12V battery from a car. That baby can deliver huge current for a very short time. Ever tried touching the positive and negative terminals on one with either hand? You don't even get a shock. Why? Because the resistance between your hands is so damned high that's why. IOW you need an awful lot of volts in order to shove any meaningful current through the human body.

          If you want it simplyfying volts amount to electrical pressure and they shove the current round. Think of it like water; low pressure, low flow rate; high pressure, high flow rate. And you can think of pipe bore as resistance if you like. To all you pedants: I know it's not a perfect analogy, but it's close enough for jazz.

    2. Dave Cradle

      @mego

      Do you know how journalism works?

      Both the "220 volts" thing and the "underwater for 2 hours" things were "abilities" that he claimed to impress his dumb audience.

      He reported the guys claims and I imagine didn't bother running a robust analysis of the volts claim for the same reason he didn't on the underwater one.

      (Oh I wish I could remember the sketch I'm hearing in my head now, I think it was a sermon in a church where everything was tediously picked apart. Might have been Stuart Lee)

      Although making electicity circulate is quite an achievement. Go fake guru!

    3. Vincent Ballard
      Alert

      Self-reported death

      > no healthy human has reported dying from this.

      Well, no, people tend not to report their own deaths.

    4. It wasnt me

      Yawn.

      Yes, yes, amps not volts. Or get really picky, its the lack of blood to the brain. More volts are more likely to give more amps for a given supply impendance. It not a journo's job to give a science lesson with every article just to keep he pedants at bay.

      Besides which, to the best of my knowledge, no-one has ever been killed by a vot. Im not sure a vot has ever tried to kill one, but in a pedants world ..................

  5. Evil Auditor Silver badge

    Volts circulating?

    I probably could withstand 220 volts (or even much, much more) of electricity circulating through my body. Though I have absolutely no idea how volts can circulate. Maybe I could swallow a highly charged capacitor?

    But I'd be very willing to connect the Supreme Master to 220 volts without any series resistor and I would also measure the current circulating his body.

    Hey, it's Friday and just the thought of a jerking Supreme Master makes me happy! All kids out there, don't try this at home (except if your career aspiration is Supreme Master).

    1. Grease Monkey Silver badge

      Circulate

      If we're being picky the current wouldn't circulate in his body, it would enter his body at one point, travel through his body and out through another point. However let's not be picky on technicalities.

      Let's get picky on what the big deal is instead. In my time as an electrical engineer I've taken a number of 240V shocks without needing medical attention. It happens when you're assured the power is off and it isn't. And one case of finger in a light socket: "The light is just inside the door." Turned out "the light" was basically a 15A plug (remember the old round pins) with a bayonet bulb socket in the back, plugged into a socket at light switch level. Reached into the dark plant room, stuck my finger out to hit the switch and instead plunged it into the bulbless socket. Hurt like a hurty thing, but no lasting problems (twitch, twitch).

    2. Captain Save-a-ho
      Coat

      Re: Volts circulating?

      You can easily withstand 220 volts, so long as we're talking about extremely low amperage. Hell, make it 1000000 volts. It's the amps that will turn you into a tasty meal for the local cannibals (or taoists...i'm sure that boast was down the line once he ran out of other lies to propagate).

    3. fandom

      Voltage is harmless

      It is the amperage that kills you, so if you have a transformer that gives 300,000 volts and only a few microampers you can take them just fine.

      I

    4. Wallyb132
      Heart

      Its not the volts thhat kill you...

      Its the AMPs that light you up like a Christmas tree, I'm sure he could take 220 volts at say like 0.1 AMPs no problem, probably wouldnt even feel it. Now take that 220 volts and put say 20 AMPs behind it, that will cook your goose. It'll tend to give you an irregular heart rhythm for a few days and will make you feel a little slow and sluggish for that same few day period. I know this from experience, as one day fixing my roommates dryer, I tested the dryer then took a break for lunch, forgetting to unplug it. when lunch was over, I reached in and grabbed the 220v leg entering the dryer from inside and holy shit...

      Both my roommate and i were paramedics at the time, my roommate being an instructor, he had all kinds of medical gear at home, including a cardiac monitor, in which he promptly hooked me up to, my heart rate was extremely irregular, a condition that corrected itself after a few days.

  6. D@v3

    twatdangler...

    ....git Taoist?

    TFIF

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    He also claimed he could get a cow to live without food.

    But just when he thought he'd succeeded.

    It died.

  8. jake Silver badge

    Eh?

    "Li has the honour of becoming El Reg's first Taoist twatdangler."

    Eh? Larry Ellison, shirley ... And Steve Jobs, if you squint a little ;-)

  9. Bassey

    Impressive bloke

    So hang on a minute, this bloke lives in the most populous country in the world but appears to have vanished, without trace, with £1million in his pocket? Sounds like he has super-natural powers to me.

  10. Tom 38
    FAIL

    As my old physics teacher told us

    It's the Volts that thrill, Amps that kill. I could probably take a couple of mA myself..

  11. Mike Moyle
    Coat

    How the mighty have fallen...

    ... a Super-man outed by a Metropolis Daily reporter.

  12. David 45

    Another physics saying

    It's the volts that jolts and the mills that kills.

    Mills referring to milliamps, of course but then you knew that anyway! ......You didn't? Oh well - never mind. Suit yourselves.

  13. chrrris

    Skin Effect

    Jack up the frequency of the AC to keep the current in the epidermis, and I'll happily touch 30kV. Ever touched the sparks coming out of a Tesla coil? Easy.

    1. fch
      Pint

      skin effect ...

      ... Violet wands anyone ?

      Have always been wondering if, assuming you push the amperage on a high-frequency current up high enough, you could make instant pork crackling without charring the meat underneath. That'd be a stunt worth a Heston Blumenthal.

      Sorry for being off-topic, obviously there are no similarities between pork crackling and successful businessmonks like described in the article.

      ... some beer with the crackle !

  14. JohnG

    He disappeared into thin air!

    Famous vanishing trick.

    However, when the Chinese authorities catch up with him, no doubt they will be testing his ability to withstand electricity by passing some through his nuts whilst questioning him about what he has done with the money.

  15. M Gale

    HeNe laser tube starter circuit

    Works a bit like a CRT HV coil. About 15 kilovolts starting voltage, creating sparks long enough to reach from inside the laserdisk player to my hand. I tell you what: that shit hurts!

    Though perhaps not as impressive as the 100KV or so that you might get touching a car door on a cold dry morning.

    Hm, maybe I'm in the wrong line of employment. Maybe I should dress up in funky robes and persuade girls to have sex with me to cure their "spiritual ills". Yeah, that'll do it.

  16. John Sturdy

    Testing voltage -- no equipment needed

    I've heard of an old engineering lab tech investigating an oscilloscope that wasn't working; he opened it up, switched it on, put his thumb on a contact and said "Hmm, that's wrong, it should be 600V, it's only 500."

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