Magician the Amazing Randi has dedicated his life to promoting critical thinking
WHEN James Randi was told off by Don Lane it helped publicise his cause for more critical thinking.
Today in History
Don't miss out on the headlines from Today in History. Followed categories will be added to My News.
CLEARLY the lanky US talk show host wasn’t interested in anything the short, grey-bearded guest had to say. Despite inviting Canadian-born American magician and sceptic James “the Amazing Randi” on to talk about people claiming to possess supernatural powers, host Don Lane suddenly turned on his guest after Randi demonstrated the sleight-of-hand techniques used by renowned spoon bender Uri Geller.
A very agitated Lane blurted out: “You come over here with your big reputation, you give us a lot of lip service about all this stuff that you’re gonna prove. You go against a lady like (medium and spiritualist) Doris Stokes who never harmed anybody in her whole life and you call her a charlatan and a fake.” (Stokes had already appeared on Lane’s show and he considered her
a friend.)
The interview on August 13, 1980, ended with Lane throwing to a commercial, telling Randi to “piss off” before storming out, flicking away Randi’s bent cutlery as he left. Randi was flustered but largely maintained composure. Lane later apologised for swearing but insisted the American had failed to prove anything. But the controversy made the sceptic more famous in Australia.
Randi, who turns 90 today, never said he would prove anything. Instead, he showed tricks used by fakers and challenged people such as Stokes to prove their specific claims. It is something to which the former carnival conjurer has devoted much of his life, understanding illusions and investigating those who make people believe they are capable of magic.
He promotes critical thinking and encourages people to apply more rigorous standards to grandiose claims, much in the tradition of magicians like Harry Houdini, who spent time uncovering the frauds used by mystics in the 1920s. Just like Houdini, Randi has incurred the wrath of believers, but he has also exposed dangerous frauds. He once offered a prize of a $1 million to anyone who could prove supernatural phenomena, which no one was ever able to collect before it was finally withdrawn in 2016.
Born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge on August 7, 1928, in Toronto, Canada, son of George Zwinge, a Bell Telephone executive, and his wife Marie.
Randi was fascinated by magic after seeing magician Harry Blackstone Jr. He taught himself tricks and tried them out on his family. When a bicycle accident at the age of 17 put him in a body cast, he spent his time reading about magic. Although doctors said he would never walk again, he made his first amazing escape, from the body cast, and proved them wrong.
Calling himself Prince Ibis, he became a professional carnival magician. Later as the Amazing Randi his specialty became escapology, breaking Houdini’s record by spending 104 minutes locked in a trunk underwater in 1956 and escaping from a straight jacket while suspended above Niagara Falls in 1976.
While such tricks made him a star, he moved beyond that when he began exposing the fakery used by some people claiming psychic or other abilities. In the ’60s he offered $1000 to anyone who could prove their claims, gradually increasing the amount. The donations eventually reached $1 million, offered through the James Randi Educational Foundation set up in 1996.
Doing the talk show rounds, Randi demonstrated tricks used by people, such as Geller, to claim paranormal abilities. In a famous 1973 appearance on the Johnny Carson Show, Randi showed Geller was unable to perform any of his feats without preparing his own props.
Randi was also an architect of hoaxes, where people claiming to be psychics volunteered for scientific studies or talk shows, but later revealed they were fakes. From 1979 to 1983 two tricksters, Steve Shaw and Michael Edwards, fooled Washington University researchers into thinking they were real psychics. He also exposed faith healer Peter Popoff as a fake in 1986, although there was some question about whether laws were broken when people allegedly were recorded without their knowledge.
Randi has often made trips to Australia, including the controversial stoush with Lane in 1980, but in 1988 he was behind the tour of mystic Jose Alvarez who was channelling the 2000-year-old spirit of someone named Carlos. It was later revealed that Alvarez, a Venezuelan artist, was his partner and that Alvarez was an identity he was forced to adopt so that he could stay with Randi, who had become a naturalised American citizen in 1987.
Randi has overcome health problems, including bypass surgery in 2006 and later beating colon cancer, but toured Australia as recently as 2014. In an era where dubious claims can go viral and reach millions of people instantly, Randi’s appeal for critical thinking seems more important than ever.