10-21-2020, 11:58 PM
James Randi, magician and debunker of pseudoscience:
James Randi (born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge; August 7, 1928 – October 20, 2020) was a Canadian-American stage magician[3][4][5] and a scientific skeptic[6][7][8] who extensively challenged paranormal and pseudoscientific claims.[9] He was the co-founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), originally known as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP). He also founded the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). He began his career as a magician under the stage name The Amazing Randi and later chose to devote most of his time to investigating paranormal, occult, and supernatural claims, which he collectively called "woo-woo".[10] Randi retired from practicing magic at age 60, and from the JREF at 87.
Although often referred to as a "debunker", Randi said he disliked the term's connotations and preferred to describe himself as an "investigator".[11][12] He wrote about paranormal phenomena, skepticism, and the history of magic. He was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, famously exposing fraudulent faith healer Peter Popoff, and was occasionally featured on the television program Penn & Teller: Bullshit!
Before Randi's retirement, JREF sponsored the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, which offered a prize of one million US dollars to eligible applicants who could demonstrate evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event under test conditions agreed to by both parties.[13] In 2015, the James Randi Educational Foundation said they will no longer accept applications directly from people claiming to have a paranormal power, but will offer the challenge to anyone who has passed a preliminary test that meets with their approval.[14] The foundation continues to make grants to non-profit groups that encourage critical thinking and a fact-based world view.
Randi was born on August 7, 1928 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada,[15] the son of Marie Alice (née Paradis) and George Randall Zwinge.[15] He had a younger brother and sister.[16] He took up magic after seeing Harry Blackstone Sr.[17] and reading conjuring books while spending 13 months in a body cast following a bicycle accident. He confounded doctors who expected he would never walk again.[18] Randi often skipped classes and, at 17, dropped out of high school to perform as a conjurer in a carnival roadshow.[19] He practiced as a mentalist in local nightclubs and at Toronto's Canadian National Exhibition and wrote for Montreal's tabloid press.[20]
In his twenties, Randi posed as an astrologer and, to establish that they were actually doing simple tricks, he briefly wrote an astrological column in the Canadian tabloid Midnight under the name "Zo-ran" by simply shuffling up items from newspaper astrology columns and pasting them randomly into a column.[21][22] In his thirties, Randi worked in the UK, Europe, Philippine nightclubs, and all across Japan.[23] He witnessed many tricks that were presented as being supernatural. One of his earliest reported experiences was that of seeing an evangelist using a version of the "one-ahead"[24] technique to convince churchgoers of his divine powers.
Though defining himself as a conjuror, Randi began a career as a professional stage magician[26] and escapologist in 1946. He initially presented himself under his real name, Randall Zwinge, which he later dropped in favour of "The Amazing Randi". Early in his career, he performed numerous escape acts from jail cells and safes around the world. On February 7, 1956, he appeared live on NBC's Today show, where he remained for 104 minutes in a sealed metal coffin that had been submerged in a hotel swimming pool, breaking what was said to be Harry Houdini's record of 93 minutes, though Randi calls attention to the fact that he was much younger than Houdini had been when he established the original record in 1926.[27][28]
Randi was a frequent guest on the Long John Nebel program on New York City radio station WOR, and did character voices for commercials.[29]:31:00 After Nebel moved to WNBC in 1962, Randi was given Nebel's time slot on WOR, where he hosted The Amazing Randi Show from 1967 to 1968.[29]:35:00 [30] The show often had guests who defended paranormal claims, among them Randi's then-friend James W. Moseley. Randi says he quit WOR over complaints from the archbishop of New York that Randi had said on-air that "Jesus Christ was a religious nut," a claim that Randi himself disputed.[29]:35:00
Randi also hosted numerous television specials and went on several world tours. As "The Amazing Randi" he appeared regularly on the New York-based children's television series Wonderama from 1959 to 1967.[31] In 1970, he auditioned for a revival of the 1950s children's show The Magic Clown, which showed briefly in Detroit and in Kenya, but was never picked up.[32] In the February 2, 1974, issue of the British conjuring magazine Abracadabra, Randi, in defining the community of magicians, stated: "I know of no calling which depends so much upon mutual trust and faith as does ours." In the December 2003 issue of The Linking Ring, the monthly publication of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, it is stated: "Perhaps Randi's ethics are what make him Amazing" and "The Amazing Randi not only talks the talk, he walks the walk."[33]
During Alice Cooper's 1973–1974 Billion Dollar Babies tour, Randi performed on stage both as a mad dentist and as Alice's executioner.[34] He also built several of the stage props, including the guillotine.[35] In a 1976 performance for the Canadian TV special World of Wizards, Randi escaped from a straitjacket while suspended upside-down over Niagara Falls.[36]
Randi has been accused of actually using "psychic powers" to perform acts such as spoon bending. According to James Alcock, at a meeting where Randi was duplicating the performances of Uri Geller, a professor from the University at Buffalo shouted out that Randi was a fraud. Randi said: "Yes, indeed, I'm a trickster, I'm a cheat, I'm a charlatan, that's what I do for a living. Everything I've done here was by trickery." The professor shouted back: "That's not what I mean. You're a fraud because you're pretending to do these things through trickery, but you're actually using psychic powers and misleading us by not admitting it."[37] A similar event involved Senator Claiborne Pell, a confirmed believer in psychic phenomena. When Randi personally demonstrated to Pell that he could reveal—by simple trickery—a concealed drawing that had been secretly made by the senator, Pell refused to believe that it was a trick, saying: "I think Randi may be a psychic and doesn't realize it." Randi consistently denied having any paranormal powers or abilities.[38]
Randi was a member of the Society of American Magicians (SAM), the International Brotherhood of Magicians (IBM), and The Magic Circle in the UK, holding the rank of "Member of the Inner Magic Circle with Gold Star."[39]
Randi has said that the hardest people to fool are not the highly educated, but children, who are not sophisticated enough to be fooled because they have not learned the body cues that adults recognize and which magicians take advantage of.
Randi is the author of ten books, among them Conjuring (1992), a biographical history of noted magicians. The book is subtitled Being a Definitive History of the Venerable Arts of Sorcery, Prestidigitation, Wizardry, Deception, & Chicanery and of the Mountebanks & Scoundrels Who have Perpetrated these Subterfuges on a Bewildered Public, in short, MAGIC! The book's cover says that it is by "James Randi, Esq., A Contrite Rascal Once Dedicated to these Wicked Practices but Now Almost Totally Reformed". The book selects the most influential magicians and tells some of their history, often in the context of strange deaths and careers on the road. This work expanded on Randi's second book titled Houdini, His Life and Art.[41] This illustrated work was published in 1976 and was co-authored with Bert Sugar. It focuses on the professional and private life of Houdini.[42]
Randi also wrote a children's book in 1989 titled The Magic World of the Amazing Randi, which introduced children to magic tricks. In addition to his magic books, he wrote several educational works about paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. These include biographies of Uri Geller and Nostradamus as well as reference material on other major paranormal figures. In 2011, he was working on A Magician in the Laboratory, which recounted his application of skepticism to science.[43][44] He was a member of the all-male literary banqueting club the Trap Door Spiders, which served as the basis of his good friend Isaac Asimov's fictional group of mystery solvers, the Black Widowers.[45]
Other books are Flim-Flam! (1982), The Faith Healers (1987), James Randi, Psychic Investigator (1991), Test Your ESP Potential (1982) and An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural (1995).
Randi was a regular contributor to Skeptic magazine, penning the "'Twas Brillig ..." column, and also served on its editorial board. He was a frequent contributor to Skeptical Inquirer magazine, published by CSI, of which he was also a Fellow.
Randi gained the international spotlight in 1972 when he publicly challenged the claims of Uri Geller. He accused Geller of being nothing more than a charlatan and a fraud who used standard magic tricks to accomplish his allegedly paranormal feats, and he presented his claims in the book The Truth About Uri Geller (1982).[25][46][47]
Believing that it was important to get columnists and TV personalities to challenge Geller and others like him, Randi and CSICOP reached out in an attempt to educate them. Randi said that CSICOP had a "very substantial influence on the printed media ... in those days."[29]:20:05 During this effort, Randi made contact with Johnny Carson and discovered that he was "very much on our side. He wasn't only a comedian ... he was a great thinker."[29]:21:15 According to Randi, when he was on The Tonight Show, Carson broke his usual protocol of not talking with guests before their entrance on stage, but instead would ask what Randi wanted to be emphasized in the interview. "He wanted to be aware of how he could help me."[29]:21:30
In 1973, Geller appeared on The Tonight Show, and this appearance is recounted in the Nova documentary "Secrets of the Psychics".[48][a][b]
In the documentary, Randi says that Carson "had been a magician himself and was skeptical" of Geller's claimed paranormal powers, so before the date of taping, Randi was asked "to help prevent any trickery". Per Randi's advice, the show prepared its own props without informing Geller, and did not let Geller or his staff "anywhere near them". When Geller joined Carson on stage, he appeared surprised that he was not going to be interviewed, but instead was expected to display his abilities using the provided articles. Geller said "This scares me" and "I'm surprised because before this program your producer came and he read me at least 40 questions you were going to ask me." Geller was unable to display any paranormal abilities, saying "I don't feel strong" and expressing his displeasure at feeling like he was being "pressed" to perform by Carson.[48][50] According to Adam Higginbotham's Nov. 7, 2014 article in the New York Times:
However, this appearance on The Tonight Show, which Carson and Randi had orchestrated to debunk Geller's claimed abilities, backfired. According to Higginbotham,
According to Higginbotham, this result caused Randi to realize that much more must be done to stop Geller and those like him. So in 1976, Randi approached Ray Hyman, a psychologist who had observed the tests of Geller's ability at Stanford and thought them slipshod, and suggested they create an organization dedicated to combating pseudoscience. Later that same year, together with Martin Gardner, a Scientific American columnist whose writing had helped hone Hyman's and Randi's skepticism, they formed the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP).[6]
Using donations and sales of their magazine, Skeptical Inquirer, they and secular humanist philosopher Paul Kurtz took seats on the executive board, with Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan joining as founding members. Randi travelled the world on behalf of CSICOP, becoming its public face, and according to Hyman, the face of the skeptical movement.[6]
András G. Pintér, producer and co-host of the European Skeptics Podcast called Randi the grandfather of European skepticism by virtue of Randi "playing a role in kickstarting several European organizations."[40]
Geller sued Randi and CSICOP for $15 million in 1991 and lost.[6][51] Geller's suit against CSICOP was thrown out in 1995, and he was ordered to pay $120,000 for filing a frivolous lawsuit.[52] The legal costs Randi incurred used almost all of a $272,000 MacArthur Foundation grant awarded to Randi in 1986 for his work.[6] Randi also dismissed Geller's claims that he was capable of the kind of psychic photography made famous by the case of Ted Serios. It is a matter, Randi argued, of trick photography using a simple hand-held optical device.[53] During the period of Geller's legal dispute, CSICOP's leadership, wanting to avoid becoming a target of Geller's litigation, demanded that Randi refrain from commenting on Geller. Randi refused and resigned, though he maintained a respectful relationship with the group, which in 2006 changed its name to the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI). In 2010, Randi was one of 16 new CSI fellows elected by its board.[6][54]
Randi went on to write many articles criticizing beliefs and claims regarding the paranormal.[55] He also demonstrated flaws in studies suggesting the existence of paranormal phenomena; in his Project Alpha hoax, Randi successfully planted two fake psychics in a privately funded psychic research experiment.[56] The hoax became a scandal and demonstrated the shortcomings of many paranormal research projects at the university level.[citation needed]
Randi appeared on numerous TV shows, sometimes to directly debunk the claimed abilities of fellow guests. In a 1981 appearance on That's My Line, Randi appeared opposite claimed psychic James Hydrick, who said that he could move objects with his mind and appeared to demonstrate this claim on live television by turning a page in a telephone book without touching it.[57] Randi, having determined that Hydrick was surreptitiously blowing on the book, arranged foam packaging peanuts on the table in front of the telephone book for the demonstration. This prevented Hydrick from demonstrating his abilities, which would have been exposed when the blowing moved the packaging.[58] Randi writes that, eventually, Hydrick "confessed everything".[57]
Randi was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1986. The fellowship's five-year $272,000 grant helped support Randi's investigations of faith healers, including W. V. Grant, Ernest Angley, and Peter Popoff, whom Randi first exposed on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in February 1986. Hearing about his investigation of Popoff, Carson invited Randi onto his show without seeing the evidence he was going to reveal. Carson appeared stunned after Randi showed a brief video segment from one of Popoff's broadcasts showing him calling out a woman in the audience, revealed personal information about her that he claimed came from God, and then performed a laying-on-of-hands healing to drive the devil from her body. Randi then replayed the video, but with some of the sound dubbed in that he and his investigating team captured during the event using a radio scanner and recorder. Their scanner had detected the radio frequency Popoff's wife Elizabeth was using backstage to broadcast directions and information to a miniature radio receiver hidden in Popoff's left ear. That information had been gathered by Popoff's assistants, who had handed out "prayer cards" to the audience before the show, instructing them to write down all the information Popoff would need to pray for them.[59][60][61]
The news coverage generated by Randi's exposé on The Tonight Show led to many TV stations dropping Popoff's show, eventually forcing him into bankruptcy in September 1987.[62][63] However, the televangelist returned soon after with faith-healing infomercials that reportedly attracted more than $23 million in 2005 from viewers sending in money for promised healing and prosperity. The Canadian Centre for Inquiry's Think Again! TV documented one of Popoff's more recent performances before a large audience who gathered in Toronto on May 26, 2011, hoping to be saved from illness and poverty.[64]
In February 1988, Randi tested the gullibility of the media by perpetrating a hoax of his own. By teaming up with Australia's 60 Minutes program and by releasing a fake press package, he built up publicity for a "spirit channeler" named Carlos,[6] who was actually artist José Alvarez, Randi's partner. While performing as Carlos, Alvarez was prompted by Randi using sophisticated radio equipment. According to the 60 Minutes program on the Carlos hoax, "it was claimed that Alvarez would not have had the audience he did at the Opera House (and the potential sales therefrom) had the media coverage been more aggressive (and factual)", though an analysis by The Skeptic's Tim Mendham concluded that, while the media coverage of Alvarez's appearances was not credulous, the hoax "at least showed that they could benefit by being a touch more sceptical".[65] The hoax was exposed on 60 Minutes Australia; "Carlos" and Randi explained how they had pulled it off.[66][67]
In his book The Faith Healers, Randi wrote that his anger and relentlessness arose from compassion for the victims of fraud. Randi was also critical of João de Deus (John of God), a self-proclaimed psychic surgeon who has received international attention.[68] Randi observed, referring to psychic surgery, "To any experienced conjurer, the methods by which these seeming miracles are produced are very obvious."[69]
In 1982, Randi verified the abilities of Arthur Lintgen, a Philadelphia doctor, who was able to identify the classical music recorded on a vinyl LP solely by examining the grooves on the record. However, Lintgen did not claim to have any paranormal ability, merely knowledge of the way that the groove forms patterns on particular recordings.[70]
In 1988, John Maddox, editor of the prominent science journal Nature, asked Randi to join the supervision and observation of the homeopathy experiments conducted by Jacques Benveniste's team. Once Randi's stricter protocol for the experiment was in place, the positive results could not be reproduced.[71]
James Randi stated that Daniel Dunglas Home, who could allegedly play an accordion that was locked in a cage without touching it, was caught cheating on a few occasions, but the incidents were never made public. He also stated that the actual instrument in use was a one-octave mouth organ concealed under Home's large moustache and that other one-octave mouth organs were found in Home's belongings after his death.[72] According to Randi, author William Lindsay Gresham told Randi "around 1960" that he had seen these mouth organs in the Home collection at the Society for Psychical Research (SPR). Eric J. Dingwall, who catalogued Home's collection on its arrival at the SPR does not record the presence of the mouth organs. According to Peter Lamont, the author of an extensive Home biography, "It is unlikely Dingwall would have missed these or did not make them public."[73]The fraudulent medium Henry Slade also played an accordion while held with one hand under a table.[74] Slade and Home played the same pieces. They had at one time lived near each other in the U.S. The magician Chung Ling Soo exposed how Slade had performed the trick.[75]
Randi distinguished between pseudoscience and crackpot science. He regarded most of parapsychology as pseudoscience because of the way in which it is approached and conducted, but nonetheless sees it as a legitimate subject that "should be pursued", and from which real scientific discoveries may develop.[76] Randi regards crackpot science as "equally wrong" as pseudoscience, but with no scientific pretensions.[77]
Despite multiple debunkings, Randi didn't like to be called a "debunker", preferring to call himself a "skeptic" or an "investigator”:
Skeptics and magicians Penn & Teller credit Randi and his career as a skeptic for their own careers. During an interview at TAM! 2012, Penn stated that Flim-Flam! was an early influence on him, and said "If not for Randi there would not be Penn & Teller as we are today."[78]:1:40 He went on to say "Outside of my family ... no one is more important in my life. Randi is everything to me."[78]:5:34
At the NECSS skeptic conference in 2017, Randi was asked by George Hrab what a "'skeptic coming of age ceremony' would look like" and Randi talked about what it was like as a child to learn about the speed of light and how that felt like he was looking into the past. Randi stated "More kids need to be stunned".[79]
At The Amaz!ng Meeting in 2011 (TAM 9) the Independent Investigations Group (IIG) organized a tribute to James Randi. The group gathered together with other attendees, put on fake white beards, and posed for a large group photo with Randi. At the CSICon in 2017, in absence of Randi, the IIG organized another group photo with leftover beards from the 2011 photo. After Randi was sent the photo, he replied, "I'm always very touched by any such expression. This is certainly no exception. You have my sincere gratitude. I suspect, however that a couple of those beards were fake. But I'm in a forgiving mood at the moment. I'm frankly very touched. I'll see you at the next CSICon. Thank you all."
Exploring Psychic Powers ... Live was a two-hour television special aired live on June 7, 1989, wherein Randi examined several people claiming psychic powers. Hosted by actor Bill Bixby, the program offered $100,000 (Randi's $10,000 prize plus $90,000 put up by the show's syndicator, LBS Communications, Inc.[81]) to anyone who could demonstrate genuine psychic powers.
James Randi (born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge; August 7, 1928 – October 20, 2020) was a Canadian-American stage magician[3][4][5] and a scientific skeptic[6][7][8] who extensively challenged paranormal and pseudoscientific claims.[9] He was the co-founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), originally known as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP). He also founded the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). He began his career as a magician under the stage name The Amazing Randi and later chose to devote most of his time to investigating paranormal, occult, and supernatural claims, which he collectively called "woo-woo".[10] Randi retired from practicing magic at age 60, and from the JREF at 87.
Although often referred to as a "debunker", Randi said he disliked the term's connotations and preferred to describe himself as an "investigator".[11][12] He wrote about paranormal phenomena, skepticism, and the history of magic. He was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, famously exposing fraudulent faith healer Peter Popoff, and was occasionally featured on the television program Penn & Teller: Bullshit!
Before Randi's retirement, JREF sponsored the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, which offered a prize of one million US dollars to eligible applicants who could demonstrate evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event under test conditions agreed to by both parties.[13] In 2015, the James Randi Educational Foundation said they will no longer accept applications directly from people claiming to have a paranormal power, but will offer the challenge to anyone who has passed a preliminary test that meets with their approval.[14] The foundation continues to make grants to non-profit groups that encourage critical thinking and a fact-based world view.
Randi was born on August 7, 1928 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada,[15] the son of Marie Alice (née Paradis) and George Randall Zwinge.[15] He had a younger brother and sister.[16] He took up magic after seeing Harry Blackstone Sr.[17] and reading conjuring books while spending 13 months in a body cast following a bicycle accident. He confounded doctors who expected he would never walk again.[18] Randi often skipped classes and, at 17, dropped out of high school to perform as a conjurer in a carnival roadshow.[19] He practiced as a mentalist in local nightclubs and at Toronto's Canadian National Exhibition and wrote for Montreal's tabloid press.[20]
In his twenties, Randi posed as an astrologer and, to establish that they were actually doing simple tricks, he briefly wrote an astrological column in the Canadian tabloid Midnight under the name "Zo-ran" by simply shuffling up items from newspaper astrology columns and pasting them randomly into a column.[21][22] In his thirties, Randi worked in the UK, Europe, Philippine nightclubs, and all across Japan.[23] He witnessed many tricks that were presented as being supernatural. One of his earliest reported experiences was that of seeing an evangelist using a version of the "one-ahead"[24] technique to convince churchgoers of his divine powers.
Though defining himself as a conjuror, Randi began a career as a professional stage magician[26] and escapologist in 1946. He initially presented himself under his real name, Randall Zwinge, which he later dropped in favour of "The Amazing Randi". Early in his career, he performed numerous escape acts from jail cells and safes around the world. On February 7, 1956, he appeared live on NBC's Today show, where he remained for 104 minutes in a sealed metal coffin that had been submerged in a hotel swimming pool, breaking what was said to be Harry Houdini's record of 93 minutes, though Randi calls attention to the fact that he was much younger than Houdini had been when he established the original record in 1926.[27][28]
Randi was a frequent guest on the Long John Nebel program on New York City radio station WOR, and did character voices for commercials.[29]:31:00 After Nebel moved to WNBC in 1962, Randi was given Nebel's time slot on WOR, where he hosted The Amazing Randi Show from 1967 to 1968.[29]:35:00 [30] The show often had guests who defended paranormal claims, among them Randi's then-friend James W. Moseley. Randi says he quit WOR over complaints from the archbishop of New York that Randi had said on-air that "Jesus Christ was a religious nut," a claim that Randi himself disputed.[29]:35:00
Randi also hosted numerous television specials and went on several world tours. As "The Amazing Randi" he appeared regularly on the New York-based children's television series Wonderama from 1959 to 1967.[31] In 1970, he auditioned for a revival of the 1950s children's show The Magic Clown, which showed briefly in Detroit and in Kenya, but was never picked up.[32] In the February 2, 1974, issue of the British conjuring magazine Abracadabra, Randi, in defining the community of magicians, stated: "I know of no calling which depends so much upon mutual trust and faith as does ours." In the December 2003 issue of The Linking Ring, the monthly publication of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, it is stated: "Perhaps Randi's ethics are what make him Amazing" and "The Amazing Randi not only talks the talk, he walks the walk."[33]
During Alice Cooper's 1973–1974 Billion Dollar Babies tour, Randi performed on stage both as a mad dentist and as Alice's executioner.[34] He also built several of the stage props, including the guillotine.[35] In a 1976 performance for the Canadian TV special World of Wizards, Randi escaped from a straitjacket while suspended upside-down over Niagara Falls.[36]
Randi has been accused of actually using "psychic powers" to perform acts such as spoon bending. According to James Alcock, at a meeting where Randi was duplicating the performances of Uri Geller, a professor from the University at Buffalo shouted out that Randi was a fraud. Randi said: "Yes, indeed, I'm a trickster, I'm a cheat, I'm a charlatan, that's what I do for a living. Everything I've done here was by trickery." The professor shouted back: "That's not what I mean. You're a fraud because you're pretending to do these things through trickery, but you're actually using psychic powers and misleading us by not admitting it."[37] A similar event involved Senator Claiborne Pell, a confirmed believer in psychic phenomena. When Randi personally demonstrated to Pell that he could reveal—by simple trickery—a concealed drawing that had been secretly made by the senator, Pell refused to believe that it was a trick, saying: "I think Randi may be a psychic and doesn't realize it." Randi consistently denied having any paranormal powers or abilities.[38]
Randi was a member of the Society of American Magicians (SAM), the International Brotherhood of Magicians (IBM), and The Magic Circle in the UK, holding the rank of "Member of the Inner Magic Circle with Gold Star."[39]
Randi has said that the hardest people to fool are not the highly educated, but children, who are not sophisticated enough to be fooled because they have not learned the body cues that adults recognize and which magicians take advantage of.
Randi is the author of ten books, among them Conjuring (1992), a biographical history of noted magicians. The book is subtitled Being a Definitive History of the Venerable Arts of Sorcery, Prestidigitation, Wizardry, Deception, & Chicanery and of the Mountebanks & Scoundrels Who have Perpetrated these Subterfuges on a Bewildered Public, in short, MAGIC! The book's cover says that it is by "James Randi, Esq., A Contrite Rascal Once Dedicated to these Wicked Practices but Now Almost Totally Reformed". The book selects the most influential magicians and tells some of their history, often in the context of strange deaths and careers on the road. This work expanded on Randi's second book titled Houdini, His Life and Art.[41] This illustrated work was published in 1976 and was co-authored with Bert Sugar. It focuses on the professional and private life of Houdini.[42]
Randi also wrote a children's book in 1989 titled The Magic World of the Amazing Randi, which introduced children to magic tricks. In addition to his magic books, he wrote several educational works about paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. These include biographies of Uri Geller and Nostradamus as well as reference material on other major paranormal figures. In 2011, he was working on A Magician in the Laboratory, which recounted his application of skepticism to science.[43][44] He was a member of the all-male literary banqueting club the Trap Door Spiders, which served as the basis of his good friend Isaac Asimov's fictional group of mystery solvers, the Black Widowers.[45]
Other books are Flim-Flam! (1982), The Faith Healers (1987), James Randi, Psychic Investigator (1991), Test Your ESP Potential (1982) and An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural (1995).
Randi was a regular contributor to Skeptic magazine, penning the "'Twas Brillig ..." column, and also served on its editorial board. He was a frequent contributor to Skeptical Inquirer magazine, published by CSI, of which he was also a Fellow.
Randi gained the international spotlight in 1972 when he publicly challenged the claims of Uri Geller. He accused Geller of being nothing more than a charlatan and a fraud who used standard magic tricks to accomplish his allegedly paranormal feats, and he presented his claims in the book The Truth About Uri Geller (1982).[25][46][47]
Believing that it was important to get columnists and TV personalities to challenge Geller and others like him, Randi and CSICOP reached out in an attempt to educate them. Randi said that CSICOP had a "very substantial influence on the printed media ... in those days."[29]:20:05 During this effort, Randi made contact with Johnny Carson and discovered that he was "very much on our side. He wasn't only a comedian ... he was a great thinker."[29]:21:15 According to Randi, when he was on The Tonight Show, Carson broke his usual protocol of not talking with guests before their entrance on stage, but instead would ask what Randi wanted to be emphasized in the interview. "He wanted to be aware of how he could help me."[29]:21:30
In 1973, Geller appeared on The Tonight Show, and this appearance is recounted in the Nova documentary "Secrets of the Psychics".[48][a][b]
In the documentary, Randi says that Carson "had been a magician himself and was skeptical" of Geller's claimed paranormal powers, so before the date of taping, Randi was asked "to help prevent any trickery". Per Randi's advice, the show prepared its own props without informing Geller, and did not let Geller or his staff "anywhere near them". When Geller joined Carson on stage, he appeared surprised that he was not going to be interviewed, but instead was expected to display his abilities using the provided articles. Geller said "This scares me" and "I'm surprised because before this program your producer came and he read me at least 40 questions you were going to ask me." Geller was unable to display any paranormal abilities, saying "I don't feel strong" and expressing his displeasure at feeling like he was being "pressed" to perform by Carson.[48][50] According to Adam Higginbotham's Nov. 7, 2014 article in the New York Times:
Quote:The result was a legendary immolation, in which Geller offered up flustered excuses to his host as his abilities failed him again and again. "I sat there for 22 minutes, humiliated," Geller told me, when I spoke to him in September. "I went back to my hotel, devastated. I was about to pack up the next day and go back to Tel Aviv. I thought, That's it — I'm destroyed."[6]
However, this appearance on The Tonight Show, which Carson and Randi had orchestrated to debunk Geller's claimed abilities, backfired. According to Higginbotham,
Quote:To Geller's astonishment, he was immediately booked on The Merv Griffin Show. He was on his way to becoming a paranormal superstar. "That Johnny Carson show made Uri Geller," Geller said. To an enthusiastically trusting public, his failure only made his gifts seem more real: if he were performing magic tricks, they would surely work every time.[6]
According to Higginbotham, this result caused Randi to realize that much more must be done to stop Geller and those like him. So in 1976, Randi approached Ray Hyman, a psychologist who had observed the tests of Geller's ability at Stanford and thought them slipshod, and suggested they create an organization dedicated to combating pseudoscience. Later that same year, together with Martin Gardner, a Scientific American columnist whose writing had helped hone Hyman's and Randi's skepticism, they formed the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP).[6]
Using donations and sales of their magazine, Skeptical Inquirer, they and secular humanist philosopher Paul Kurtz took seats on the executive board, with Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan joining as founding members. Randi travelled the world on behalf of CSICOP, becoming its public face, and according to Hyman, the face of the skeptical movement.[6]
András G. Pintér, producer and co-host of the European Skeptics Podcast called Randi the grandfather of European skepticism by virtue of Randi "playing a role in kickstarting several European organizations."[40]
Geller sued Randi and CSICOP for $15 million in 1991 and lost.[6][51] Geller's suit against CSICOP was thrown out in 1995, and he was ordered to pay $120,000 for filing a frivolous lawsuit.[52] The legal costs Randi incurred used almost all of a $272,000 MacArthur Foundation grant awarded to Randi in 1986 for his work.[6] Randi also dismissed Geller's claims that he was capable of the kind of psychic photography made famous by the case of Ted Serios. It is a matter, Randi argued, of trick photography using a simple hand-held optical device.[53] During the period of Geller's legal dispute, CSICOP's leadership, wanting to avoid becoming a target of Geller's litigation, demanded that Randi refrain from commenting on Geller. Randi refused and resigned, though he maintained a respectful relationship with the group, which in 2006 changed its name to the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI). In 2010, Randi was one of 16 new CSI fellows elected by its board.[6][54]
Randi went on to write many articles criticizing beliefs and claims regarding the paranormal.[55] He also demonstrated flaws in studies suggesting the existence of paranormal phenomena; in his Project Alpha hoax, Randi successfully planted two fake psychics in a privately funded psychic research experiment.[56] The hoax became a scandal and demonstrated the shortcomings of many paranormal research projects at the university level.[citation needed]
Randi appeared on numerous TV shows, sometimes to directly debunk the claimed abilities of fellow guests. In a 1981 appearance on That's My Line, Randi appeared opposite claimed psychic James Hydrick, who said that he could move objects with his mind and appeared to demonstrate this claim on live television by turning a page in a telephone book without touching it.[57] Randi, having determined that Hydrick was surreptitiously blowing on the book, arranged foam packaging peanuts on the table in front of the telephone book for the demonstration. This prevented Hydrick from demonstrating his abilities, which would have been exposed when the blowing moved the packaging.[58] Randi writes that, eventually, Hydrick "confessed everything".[57]
Randi was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1986. The fellowship's five-year $272,000 grant helped support Randi's investigations of faith healers, including W. V. Grant, Ernest Angley, and Peter Popoff, whom Randi first exposed on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in February 1986. Hearing about his investigation of Popoff, Carson invited Randi onto his show without seeing the evidence he was going to reveal. Carson appeared stunned after Randi showed a brief video segment from one of Popoff's broadcasts showing him calling out a woman in the audience, revealed personal information about her that he claimed came from God, and then performed a laying-on-of-hands healing to drive the devil from her body. Randi then replayed the video, but with some of the sound dubbed in that he and his investigating team captured during the event using a radio scanner and recorder. Their scanner had detected the radio frequency Popoff's wife Elizabeth was using backstage to broadcast directions and information to a miniature radio receiver hidden in Popoff's left ear. That information had been gathered by Popoff's assistants, who had handed out "prayer cards" to the audience before the show, instructing them to write down all the information Popoff would need to pray for them.[59][60][61]
The news coverage generated by Randi's exposé on The Tonight Show led to many TV stations dropping Popoff's show, eventually forcing him into bankruptcy in September 1987.[62][63] However, the televangelist returned soon after with faith-healing infomercials that reportedly attracted more than $23 million in 2005 from viewers sending in money for promised healing and prosperity. The Canadian Centre for Inquiry's Think Again! TV documented one of Popoff's more recent performances before a large audience who gathered in Toronto on May 26, 2011, hoping to be saved from illness and poverty.[64]
In February 1988, Randi tested the gullibility of the media by perpetrating a hoax of his own. By teaming up with Australia's 60 Minutes program and by releasing a fake press package, he built up publicity for a "spirit channeler" named Carlos,[6] who was actually artist José Alvarez, Randi's partner. While performing as Carlos, Alvarez was prompted by Randi using sophisticated radio equipment. According to the 60 Minutes program on the Carlos hoax, "it was claimed that Alvarez would not have had the audience he did at the Opera House (and the potential sales therefrom) had the media coverage been more aggressive (and factual)", though an analysis by The Skeptic's Tim Mendham concluded that, while the media coverage of Alvarez's appearances was not credulous, the hoax "at least showed that they could benefit by being a touch more sceptical".[65] The hoax was exposed on 60 Minutes Australia; "Carlos" and Randi explained how they had pulled it off.[66][67]
In his book The Faith Healers, Randi wrote that his anger and relentlessness arose from compassion for the victims of fraud. Randi was also critical of João de Deus (John of God), a self-proclaimed psychic surgeon who has received international attention.[68] Randi observed, referring to psychic surgery, "To any experienced conjurer, the methods by which these seeming miracles are produced are very obvious."[69]
In 1982, Randi verified the abilities of Arthur Lintgen, a Philadelphia doctor, who was able to identify the classical music recorded on a vinyl LP solely by examining the grooves on the record. However, Lintgen did not claim to have any paranormal ability, merely knowledge of the way that the groove forms patterns on particular recordings.[70]
In 1988, John Maddox, editor of the prominent science journal Nature, asked Randi to join the supervision and observation of the homeopathy experiments conducted by Jacques Benveniste's team. Once Randi's stricter protocol for the experiment was in place, the positive results could not be reproduced.[71]
James Randi stated that Daniel Dunglas Home, who could allegedly play an accordion that was locked in a cage without touching it, was caught cheating on a few occasions, but the incidents were never made public. He also stated that the actual instrument in use was a one-octave mouth organ concealed under Home's large moustache and that other one-octave mouth organs were found in Home's belongings after his death.[72] According to Randi, author William Lindsay Gresham told Randi "around 1960" that he had seen these mouth organs in the Home collection at the Society for Psychical Research (SPR). Eric J. Dingwall, who catalogued Home's collection on its arrival at the SPR does not record the presence of the mouth organs. According to Peter Lamont, the author of an extensive Home biography, "It is unlikely Dingwall would have missed these or did not make them public."[73]The fraudulent medium Henry Slade also played an accordion while held with one hand under a table.[74] Slade and Home played the same pieces. They had at one time lived near each other in the U.S. The magician Chung Ling Soo exposed how Slade had performed the trick.[75]
Randi distinguished between pseudoscience and crackpot science. He regarded most of parapsychology as pseudoscience because of the way in which it is approached and conducted, but nonetheless sees it as a legitimate subject that "should be pursued", and from which real scientific discoveries may develop.[76] Randi regards crackpot science as "equally wrong" as pseudoscience, but with no scientific pretensions.[77]
Despite multiple debunkings, Randi didn't like to be called a "debunker", preferring to call himself a "skeptic" or an "investigator”:
Quote:(...) if you go into a situation calling yourself a debunker then it is as if you have prejudged the topic. It's not neutral or scientific, and it can turn people against you.[11]
Skeptics and magicians Penn & Teller credit Randi and his career as a skeptic for their own careers. During an interview at TAM! 2012, Penn stated that Flim-Flam! was an early influence on him, and said "If not for Randi there would not be Penn & Teller as we are today."[78]:1:40 He went on to say "Outside of my family ... no one is more important in my life. Randi is everything to me."[78]:5:34
At the NECSS skeptic conference in 2017, Randi was asked by George Hrab what a "'skeptic coming of age ceremony' would look like" and Randi talked about what it was like as a child to learn about the speed of light and how that felt like he was looking into the past. Randi stated "More kids need to be stunned".[79]
At The Amaz!ng Meeting in 2011 (TAM 9) the Independent Investigations Group (IIG) organized a tribute to James Randi. The group gathered together with other attendees, put on fake white beards, and posed for a large group photo with Randi. At the CSICon in 2017, in absence of Randi, the IIG organized another group photo with leftover beards from the 2011 photo. After Randi was sent the photo, he replied, "I'm always very touched by any such expression. This is certainly no exception. You have my sincere gratitude. I suspect, however that a couple of those beards were fake. But I'm in a forgiving mood at the moment. I'm frankly very touched. I'll see you at the next CSICon. Thank you all."
Exploring Psychic Powers ... Live was a two-hour television special aired live on June 7, 1989, wherein Randi examined several people claiming psychic powers. Hosted by actor Bill Bixby, the program offered $100,000 (Randi's $10,000 prize plus $90,000 put up by the show's syndicator, LBS Communications, Inc.[81]) to anyone who could demonstrate genuine psychic powers.
- An astrologer, Joseph Meriwether, claimed that he was able to ascertain a person's astrological sign after talking with them for a few minutes. He was presented with twelve people, one at a time, each with a different astrological sign. They could not tell Meriwether their astrological sign or birth date, nor could they wear anything that would indicate it. After Meriwether talked to them, he had them go and sit in front of the astrological sign that he thought was theirs. By agreement, Meriwether needed to get ten of the 12 correct, to win. He got none correct.[citation needed]
- The next psychic, Barbara Martin, claimed to be able to read auras around people, claiming that auras were visible at least five inches above each person. She selected ten people from a group of volunteers who she said had clearly visible auras. On stage were erected ten screens, numbered 1 through 10, just tall enough to hide the volunteer while not hiding their aura. Unseen by Martin, some of the volunteers positioned themselves behind different screens, then she was invited to predict which screens hid volunteers by seeing their aura above. Since random guessing would be expected to get about five correct, Martin needed to get eight of the ten right. She stated that she saw an aura over all ten screens, but people were behind only four of the screens.[citation needed]
- A dowser, Forrest Bayes, claimed that he could detect water, even in a bottle inside a sealed cardboard box. He was shown twenty boxes and asked to indicate which boxes contained a water bottle. He selected eight of the boxes, which he said contained water, but it turned out that only five of the twenty contained water. Of the eight selected boxes, only one was revealed to contain water and one contained sand. It was not revealed whether any of the remaining six boxes contained water.[citation needed]
- A psychometric psychic, Sharon McLaren-Straz, claimed to be able to receive personal information about the owner of an object by handling the object itself. In order to avoid ambiguous statements, the psychic agreed to be presented with both a watch and a key from each of twelve different people. She was to match keys and watches to each owner. According to the prior agreement, she had to match at least nine out of the twelve sets, but she succeeded in only two.[citation needed]
- Professional crystal healer Valerie Swan attempted to use ESP to identify 250 Zener cards, guessing which of the five symbols was on each one. Random guessing should have resulted in about fifty correct guesses, so it was agreed in advance that Swan had to be right on at least eighty-two cards in order to demonstrate an ability greater than chance. However, she was able to get only fifty predictions correct, which is no better than random guessing.[82]
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.