Senior Editor. James Randi, the magician who escaped from jail cells, underwater coffins and straitjackets before becoming a scientific skeptic bent on debunking those who peddle in the paranormal and supernatural, has died.
He was In , The Amazing Randi appeared live on the Today show, surviving for minutes in a sealed metal coffin submerged in a swimming pool to better a record held by Harry Houdini. Two decades later, he escaped from a straitjacket while suspended upside-down over Niagara Falls. Randi gave up magic and for several decades dedicated his life to exposing frauds. A precociously gifted child, Randi born Randall James Zwinge in Toronto, Canada, in developed an enthusiasm for stage magic.
Like many who investigated spiritualism and seances before him, Randi was keen to be seen as a sceptic rather than as someone on a mission to disprove. He challenged faith-healers, psychics and believers in UFOs, and in he joined with mathematician Martin Gardner, planetary scientist Carl Sagan and science-fiction author Isaac Asimov to found the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. The organization still publishes Skeptical Inquirer , a magazine devoted to the scientific investigation of paranormal or otherwise extraordinary claims.
The idea that stage magic can be used to debunk superstition and psychic fraud was familiar in the nineteenth century. He also showed how the Indian rope trick, which turns a rope into a rigid pole, can be done without recourse to occult powers. The two men developed a strangely symbiotic relationship. Randi created an element of theatre by taping the code identifying the samples for blind testing to the ceiling — not so much to prevent tampering, he later explained, but to see if anyone would make the attempt.
Randi courted that kind of controversy all his life. Some felt that the sage-like beard and wizard-style hats detracted from his debunking mission. But Randi was mindful of the lessons of history: spectacle need not compromise rationality, but can be enlisted in its service. Since the s, he had offered substantial sums to anyone who could demonstrate paranormal or psychic powers — a stunt Maskelyne instigated.
Although quacks and psychics are still in business and probably always will be , today the biggest danger of deception comes in a form that can threaten lives, nations and international structures: disinformation. He sought to disprove not just those who read palms and minds, but chiropractors, homeopaths and others he saw as predators seeking innocent people's money.
Randi targeted those he saw as frauds with a tenacity and dedication he admitted was an obsession. His efforts were reminiscent of those of his great predecessor Harry Houdini, who devoted large portions of his time to debunking spiritualists and their seances.
Once, awaiting the chance to sift through the trash of a faith healer, Randi spent days in his car, eating Twinkies and drinking Pepsi. Goodbye to the truly Amazing James Randi, our inspiration, mentor and dear friend.
We will love you forever. There were other coups for Randi: He once showed the messages television faith healer Peter Popoff claimed to be getting from God about his audience were actually coming from his wife through an earpiece. But the vast majority of those he aimed to show were frauds were lesser known, lured to prove their abilities by the James Randi Educational Foundation.
His loudest detractors said they didn't believe the money even existed, but Randi had the bank documentation. No one ever came close to collecting. Academically, he said he was bored in school and teachers acknowledged he was a prodigy far ahead of his peers. He never earned a high school diploma at Oakwood Collegiate or went to college, spending much time according to a Toronto Star article at the Arcade Magic and Novelty Store on Yonge Street. He spoke with certainty.
While he said he never really questioned his beliefs, he acknowledged there was always a chance he was wrong.
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