James Randi
James Randi (born
Randall James Hamilton Zwinge,
August 7,
1928 in
Toronto, Ontario), more often known as
The Amazing Randi, is a
stage magician and
skeptic, best known as a
debunker of
pseudoscience. He is perhaps most known for the One Million Dollar Challenge, in which his
James Randi Educational Foundation will award a prize of one million USD to anyone who is able to demonstrate any
paranormal,
supernatural, or
occult power or event, under test conditions agreed to by both parties. He has appeared on the
television programs
The Tonight Show and
Bullshit!, which is hosted by fellow skeptics and magicians
Penn & Teller.
His interest in debunking the paranormal started when he was in his early teens. He has also been credited with exposing Reverend
Peter Popoff's fraudulent
faith healing schemes in 1987.
He was present at a magic show when a magician asked for someone from the audience to help him with his performance. Randi, having experimented with magic tricks himself, raised his hand. The magician responded, "Ah, young man, you're a magician yourself, aren't you?", much to Randi's amazement. After the show, Randi approached the man and asked how he knew this. The man told Randi he did not. It was simply part of his routine and whenever he turned out to be right, he would credit his "magical powers" and whenever he was wrong, he would turn it into a standard quip (an example of "
cold reading").
Randi subsequently witnessed many tricks that were presented as being supernatural. One of his earliest reported experiences is that of seeing an evangelist using the "
one-ahead" routine to convince churchgoers of his
divine powers.
Randi has worked as a professional stage
magician and
escapologist since 1946. In 1955, he broke
Houdini's record for survival in a sealed coffin (1 hour, 33 minutes) by 11 minutes. In his early career, Randi was part of numerous stunts involving his escape from jail cells and safes.
Randi was the host of
The Amazing Randi Show on WOR radio in New York City from 1964 to January 1966. He took over the late night slot that had been vacated by
Long John Nebel. He also hosted numerous television specials and went on several world tours. Randi is noted for escaping from a
straitjacket while suspended upside down over
Niagara Falls on the Canadian TV program
World of Wizards.
During his early career, Randi had a firm policy of not working for promoters who segregated audiences based on race. He would write into his contracts the promoter may not deny tickets to blacks or segregate the audiences in any way. Once while touring in Florida, he found the concert promoter ignored this stipulation in his contract. He discovered blacks were forced to watch a show from the balcony. He immediately walked away from the tour. Randi got paid in full for the balance of the tour. The promoter and acting union Randi belonged to didn't want the bad publicity.
Randi appeared as "The Amazing Randi" on a television show entitled
Wonderama from 1967 to 1972. In the February 2, 1974 issue of
Abracadabra (a British conjuring magazine) Randi defined the magic community saying, "I know of no calling which depends so much upon mutual trust and faith as does ours."
During
Alice Cooper's 1974 tour, Randi performed as the dentist and executioner on stage. He also designed and built several of the stage props, including the guillotine. An incident where the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police searched the band's lockers during a performance has been cited by Randi as leading him to apply for American citizenship.
Randi is author of
Conjuring (1991), 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!.
Randi entered the international spotlight in 1972 when he challenged the public claims of
Uri Geller. Randi accused Geller of being nothing more than a
charlatan using standard "magic" tricks to accomplish his allegedly
paranormal feats, and he backed up his claims in the book
The Magic of Uri Geller. The original edition contained a number of factual errors, including the claim that Geller had been convicted of fraud in a criminal trial, and misstatements about whether there was a clear view of the window in the room where Geller did his work, a place Randi admitted he had never been. Randi's critics have seized on these statements, claiming that they are deliberate and that they undermine Randi's credibility. Several publications that reprinted Randi's allegations were successfully sued by Geller, or they settled with him. [
1] Randi has since produced a new edition of the book with extensive corrections and revisions, and renamed it
The Truth About Uri Geller.
Randi was a founding fellow and prominent member of
CSICOP, the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. Randi later resigned from CSICOP during the period when Uri Geller was filing numerous civil suits against him. CSICOP's leadership, wanting to avoid becoming a target of Geller's litigation, requested that Randi refrain from commenting on Geller. Randi refused and resigned. He still maintains a respectful relationship with the group and frequently writes articles for its magazine.
Randi has gone on to write several books analyzing and criticizing beliefs and claims regarding the paranormal. He has also been instrumental in exposing
frauds and charlatans who exploit this field for personal gain. In one example, his
Project Alpha hoax, Randi revealed that he had been able to orchestrate a years-long compromise of a privately-funded psychic research experiment. The hoax became a scandal and demonstrated the shortcomings of many paranormal research projects at the university level. Some said that the hoax was unethical, while others claimed his actions were a legitimate exercise in debunking poor research techniques. Later, his "Carlos" hoax, in which he hired performance artist Josè Louis Alvarez to act as a
psychic, pointed out the gullibility of
New Age believers. "Carlos" performances began in
Australia in 1988 as a story for an Australian newsmagazine show, and continued to take place for many years even after the hoax was voluntarily exposed.
Randi was awarded a
MacArthur Foundation "Genius" award in 1986, drawing upon his conjuring skills to write and educate the public on superstition and pseudo-scientific matters.
Randi's comprehensive
exposé of
faith healer Peter Popoff in 1987 resulted in a sharp decline in Popoff's influence and popularity.
In the same year, Randi became a
naturalized citizen of the
United States. In 1996, Randi established the
James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Randi updates the JREF's website on Fridays with a written commentary titled
Swift: Online Newsletter of the JREF. Randi also contributes a regular column, titled "'Twas Brillig", to
The Skeptics Society's
Skeptic magazine.
On Thursday 2 February 2006, Randi underwent emergency coronary artery bypass surgery. While he was recovering from surgery, Hal Bidlack took over writing the weekly commentaries for his website. Randi himself resumed writing the weekly commentaries on April 14, 2006. [
2]
Asteroid
3163 Randi was named after him.
The rivalry between Randi and his opponents has ended up in court on several occasions. These episodes include the following.
* In an interview with
Twilight Zone Magazine, Randi accused
Uri Geller and
Eldon Byrd of being the ringleaders in a criminal
blackmail plot aimed at destroying Randi, and that Byrd was a convicted child molester [
3]. Byrd sued Randi; the jury found that Randi's claim regarding Byrd was defamatory, but awarded Byrd $0 in damages (thus preventing further appeals by Byrd) apparently based on their rather low opinion of him (see
news story).
* In an interview with a Japanese newspaper, Randi was presented as saying that Uri Geller had driven a close friend to "shoot himself in the head", which Randi afterwards claimed was a metaphor lost in translation (see [
4]). However, Randi made a similar statement ("The scientist shot himself after I showed him how the key bending trick was done.") in the August 23, 1986
Toronto Star that seemed to validate Geller's charge. Since the referenced suicide victim died of natural causes, Geller successfully sued both the newspaper and Randi in the Japanese courts. Randi could not participate in the trial, did not recognize the court's authority (since "insult", as opposed to "libel", is not a legally cognizable basis for a civil action in the U.S.), and refused to pay the $2,000 judgement that was awarded.
* Randi once commented that Uri Geller's tricks are of the same quality as those Randi read on the backs of cereal packets as a child. Geller sued both Randi and CSICOP. CSICOP disavowed Randi, pleading that the organization was not responsible for Randi's statements. The court agreed that including CSICOP in the case was frivolous, and the charges against CSICOP were dropped from the action. Geller was ordered to pay substantial damages to CSICOP. [
5] The order specifically excluded Randi from receiving any of the damages. At this time, Randi and Geller had both run up huge legal bills amounting to hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars. In a private meeting they achieved an
out-of-court settlement, the details of which have been kept private. This case, as noted above, was directly responsible for the decision of Randi to part company with CSICOP.
* Alleged psychic
Allison DuBois, on whose life the
television series Medium was based, and whose alleged abilities and other claims Randi has questioned, threatened Randi with legal action for using a photo of her from her website in his
December 17, 2004 Commentary without her permission. [
6] Randi removed the photo, and now uses a
caricature of DuBois when mentioning her on his site, beginning with his
December 23, 2005 Commentary. [
7]
* Late in 1996 Randi launched a libel suit against a Toronto-area psychic/self-published author/entry-level web developer [
8] named
Earl Gordon Curley. [
9] Curley had made a number of objectionable comments about Randi on
Usenet. Despite constantly prodding Randi via Usenet to sue (Curley's implication being if Randi didn't sue then his allegations must be true), Curley seemed entirely surprised when Randi actually retained Toronto's largest law firm and initiated legal proceedings. The suit was eventually dropped in 1998 when
Earl Curley died at the age of 51, allegedly drinking himself to death. [
10][
11]
: (JREF)
The JREF currently offers a prize of one million U.S. dollars to anyone who can demonstrate a supernatural ability under agreed-upon
scientific testing criteria. In 1964, Randi put up $1,000 of his own money payable to the first person who could provide objective proof of the paranormal. Since then, the prize money has grown to the current $1,000,000, and the rules that surround claiming the prize are official and legal. No one has gotten past the preliminary test which is set up and has to be agreed upon by both Randi and the applicant.
In the conditions and rules governing his one million U.S. dollar challenge, Randi plainly states that
both parties (himself and the party accepting the challenge) must agree in advance as to what conditions of the test constitute a "success" and what constitutes a "failure". He also refuses to accept any challengers who might suffer serious injury or death as a result of the test they intend to undergo.
Recently, Randi has accused
Sylvia Browne â€" a well-known, self-proclaimed
psychic medium and author of numerous books on
spirituality, who has performed thousands of one-on-one readings and assignments with a wide variety of groups and individuals â€" of avoiding the $1,000,000 challenge despite agreeing on
Larry King Live in September 2001 to accept it. Interestingly, although Browne made several predictions on the show that night (none of which came to pass), she made no mention of terrorist plots, the Twin Towers, New York, or anything remotely related to the 9/11 event that would occur only the next week.
[ For example, one applicant, Rico Kolodzey, applied by claiming he is able to live only on water (breatharianism). Randi didn't answer at first and, when pressed, he answered in a June 18, 1999 email:][12].Randi has received awards in recognition of his efforts to promote skepticism and humanism, including:]
* MacArthur Foundation fellowship award, 1986
* Richard Dawkins Award, 2003 (inaugural award)
* The American Humanist Association gave Mr. Randi their Humanist Distinguished Service Award in 1990
* CSICOP Fellow
He has also been handing out his own annual "Pigasus Awards" (originally known as "Uri Awards") to mock parapsychological frauds and credulous acceptance or promotion of pseudoscience.* International Zetetic challenge
* Milbourne Christopher* Flim-Flam!, 1982, Prometheus Books, ISBN 0-87975-198-3
* The Magic of Uri Geller, 1982, ISBN 0345247965 (later renamed The Truth About Uri Geller ISBN 0-87975-199-1)
* The Faith Healers, 1987, Prometheus Books, ISBN 0-87975-369-2. (ISBN 0-87975-535-0 1989 edition) (Foreword by Carl Sagan)
* The Mask of Nostradamus: The Prophecies of the World's Most Famous Seer, 1990, Charles Scribner's Sons ISBN 0-684-19056-7 or ISBN 0-87975-830-9.
* Conjuring, 1992
* An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural, 1995, St. Martin's Press ISBN 0312151195 (Online Version)
* James Randi: Psychic Investigator, 1991, ISBN 1852831448Actor
* Beyond Desire - (1994) as the Coroner
* Penn & Teller Get Killed - (1989) ... 3rd Rope Holder ... aka Dead Funny
* Penn & Teller's Invisible Thread - (1987) (TV)
* Happy Days - "The Magic Show" (1978) as the Amazing Randi
* Good to See You Again, Alice Cooper - (1974) as the Dentist/Executioner
* Wonderama - (1955) (TV) as The Amazing Randi
* Ragtime - (1981) (stunt coordinator: Houdini)Himself
* Fornemmelse for snyd (2003), TV series (also archive footage)
* Horizon, "Homeopathy: The Test" (2002)
* Inside Edition, 20 January 2006
* Magic (2004), TV miniseries
* Mitä ihmettä? (2003), TV series
* NOVA, James Randi special
* Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, multiple appearances:
** "Signs from Heaven" (2005)
** "ESP" (2003)
** "End of the World" (2003)
* Spotlight on James Randi (2002)
* The Art of Magic (1998)
* The Power of Belief (1990s)
* The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, multiple appearances:
** 4 January 1972
** 21 January 1972
** 22 March 1973
** 22 April 1986
** 27 May 1986
** 29 July 1986
** 13 November 1986
** 3 November 1987
* James Randi Educational Foundation
* James Randi in the Skeptic's Dictionary
* The 'quack' hunter by Jeanne Malmgren, St. Petersburg Times, 1998-04-14
* sTARBABY - 1981 article about CSICOP and fraud, by a former board member
* CRYBABY response to "sTARBABY" article
* The Search for the Chimera - Lecture given by James Randi at Princeton University in 2001. Made publically available on the internet by Princeton (300k Windows Media Streaming version).
* Same 2001 Princeton Lecture but for 56k users
* A 'Skeptical' Look at James Randi
* Multimedia files featuring James Randi - Archive with links to online audio and video
* A video presentation by James Randi featuring Geller's infamous performance on the Carson show
