On October 20, the skeptical magician and scientist James Randi passed away at the age of 92, a fact that was made known by a publication by the James Randi Educational Foundation. “We are very sad to say that James Randi passed away yesterday from age related causes. He had an amazing life. He will be missed,” the statement read.
Born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge on August 7, 1928, Randi first became a magician under the name The Amazing Randi. He performed stage magic and escape acts around the world, breaking one of Harry Houdini’s records on live television by remaining in a sealed metal coffin submerged in a pool for 104 minutes.
After a prolific career in magic, Randi refocused on what would become his lifelong legacy: debunking con men, whether they were psychics, healers, mentalists, or anyone who claimed to have magical healing formulas, and even wrote a book about the “psychic” Uri Geller, who claimed he could do spoons with his mind when in fact they were simple magic tricks.
In an appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, the host asked Randy to choose the spoons and other objects that Geller would have to fold. The interview was a disaster for the fraudulent mentalist since he had not had access to any of the objects previously: after a series of excuses, such as that he did not feel “strong” or that he was experiencing “too much pressure” from Carson, he did not fold any of the items.
Rewards and other challenges
Following the episode with Geller, Randi began publicly offering a $10,000 reward to anyone who could prove to him that they did indeed have supernatural mental powers.
One of those who took up the challenge was illusionist James Hydrick, who claimed he could move objects with just his mind, a supposed power known as telekinesis. On another television show, the fake mentalist came face to face with Randi who offered him the reward after he had performed the trick of moving leaves and a pencil, supposedly with just his mind.
The Amazing Randi He went on stage and, in front of his face, told him that what he had just done was an act of illusionism. In fact, the skeptic replicated the acts and explained that the way Hydrick had placed the pencil, balancing it on the edge of the table, had the object react easily to drafts.
Randi asked him to perform the act of moving the pages of a telephone book again, but on one condition: around the book there would be small pieces of lightweight foam that, if Hydrick blew, would move. . After several attempts to perform his telekinetic act, he was unsuccessful and made a bunch of excuses: he claimed that the stereo and the stage lights created an electrostatic field that pushed the sheets and made them heavier.
Over the years, Randi gradually increased his reward until it reached the whopping sum of US$1 million, which, until the day of his death, no one could claim because everyone, absolutely everyone who passed in the face of his inclement skepticism, was defeated.
Against healers and televangelists
Randi not only went against false mentalists but also sought to remove impunity from healers who claimed to have miraculous magical remedies or ultra-natural healing powers.
One of the most famous cases was when he discredited an American quack and televangelist media named Peter Popoff. In a documentary, Randi showed the preacher doing his act in which he supposedly demonstrated his powers in front of a packed church. Later in the video, the audio of a recording that the magician had obtained at the time using a radio scanner is heard: in said audio, Popoff’s wife was heard giving him instructions through a small earpiece that she was wearing very well camouflaged in inside your ear.
At the height of his career, Popoff collected up to $4 million a year in donations for his evangelistic ministry.
Also against homeopathy
Later, the obvious target for Randi was homeopathy, a controversial alternative treatment that is not considered a science in most of the world. In an appearance at TED, before his speech, he swallowed a box full of what appeared to be dozens of pills of some medication.
Said pills were homeopathic tablets supposedly prescribed for sleeping: the dose he had ingested was for more than a week and he did not reveal it to the audience until he had swallowed the entire contents of the box. To murmurs and nervous laughter from the audience, he fired: Stay in your seats, everything will be fine. I don’t really need [atención médica] because I’ve been doing this stunt for audiences all over the world for the last eight or 10 years, taking fatal doses of homeopathic sleeping pills.”
“What is homeopathy?” he explains to the audience about him. “It’s taking a drug that really works and diluting it far beyond Avogadro’s limit (a ratio of one atom in six hundred thousand trillion atoms). Dilute it to the point where there is nothing left.
“Friends, this is not just a metaphor that I am going to give you now, it is true. It’s exactly equivalent to taking a 325-milligram aspirin tablet, throwing it in the middle of Lake Tahoe (which has a volume of 150.7 km³), and then stirring it up, obviously with a very large stick, and waiting two years or so until the solution is homogeneous. Then, when your head hurts, you take a sip of this water and voila! – She’s gone. That’s true. That’s what homeopathy is all about.”
“And another claim they make – you’ll love this one – is that the more diluted the preparation is, they say, the more powerful it is,” he added.
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