A Conversation with James Randi

we're going to cover a few things like you since this is the 40th anniversary of Psych op a little bit about the beginnings of that your investigations your life and apart from that I don't know what is what else will do okay yeah let's roar right ahead okay and it's such a delight for me to be here with you okay we've our passes a happily intersected a number of times over these four decades and boy we've had some good times in various places around the world Randy used to stay at our house when he visited in my city coming to Sandia National Labs we've been in Executive Council meetings together over many many many many years and several really interesting trips together yes Wow when you know I got involved with this group at the original founding conference with Paul Kurtz you were there yeah I think Ray was there Jim Alcock was there but before that we've learned in recent years that you and Martin Gardner and Ray Hyman and particularly those three of you were really trying to come up with some sort of organized enterprise to deal with paranormal nonsense and psychic flim-flam in a society if you want tell me about a little bit about how you became aware of each of those other people and how your interests and intersected there well there was another fellow involved al Vosburgh liens have you ever heard that name no well he he was in at the beginning he was our legal adviser and he volunteered to serve in that capacity and he didn't have much of a profile after that but of course the other folks that you mentioned where we're very instrumental in promoting the idea of getting your foundation ready to handle the the whole situation of a so-called paranormal and I well I do an Martin Gardner for many decades of course decades oh yes and I this him more than then most people who have passed on I can tell you Martin was a astonishing man how many of you are familiar with wearing gardeners works oh look at that Oh Martin you feel pretty good I read Martin you feel I was honest tell you something though Kevin I don't know that I've ever told you this 10-foot perhaps during this this con flap here I did tell you previously but pardon me if I did I'll tell the rest of the ient Martin Gardner often spoke to me by telephone when I lived in New Jersey and he lived in croton-on-hudson and even later when I moved off to Florida of course I'd get calls from every event I I must say usually with a very lame joke he started with a liver a lame joke he was not a humorist but sorry Martin ah he called me one day we were chatting away there was a pause on the other end of the line he said Randy I have to tell you something I said yes and I thought well we can this week he told me I'm a deist now ideas someone who has a basic belief in in a aina God okay of any Schafer's for him I don't know what but or if any favor for him at all but ideas to someone who has an interest in a superior power of some kind and I was sort of stunned that because those of you are familiar with the way Martin wrote and what he said in his various books and no TV appearances he never that I knew of ever appeared on television very very shy but for him to say that he was a deist as I say was a shock and a surprise to me and he said but let me tell you this isin sanitary he said I have no evidence whatsoever to support my belief in a god none said you have all the evidence to the contrary I've read it I've read what you said I've heard what you said I read books and books and what's on it they have all the reason on their side the people who say there is no God I say I interrupt Isaac Martin I've never claimed there's no God because I can't prove that he said no I know that sure stamped and it always has been my cent I don't say there is no God because I can't prove there is no God I very say I don't see enough evidence in nature to believe in a deity and he said but I tell you again you have the whole case in the bag I have no evidence to support my view at all but that's the kind of guy that Martin Gardner was he would state the whole case or nothing about it whatsoever and I said Martin if that makes you comfortable and he said yes it does he said that's why I have that way it makes me a little more comfortable about my life I said that's all I need you're a good friend you're an excellent friend longtime friend all I need to do is hear you say that and I accept that that is your conviction and I won't argue with you about it and he just said thank you and that's the way Martin Gardner was and I meant what I said and I still mean it I was quite satisfied to hear him say that if it gave him comfort I was all for it some in later years I heard some criticism of him from skeptics about that but it goes to what Jamie was asking the other day I think the skeptic community can certainly deal with a deist in the house contra not well she was earning said he said I think maybe they'd rather the fringes I'm not sure I heard time Kendrick I might we'll get this off my chest that's not all my chest at the very beginning I think that the belief in a deity is such a a none personal unprovable claim and set your rather ridiculous claim but I every look at it as ridiculous I think it's an easy way out to explain things to which we have no s and there are many things folks to which we have no answers no question to that I think you'll all agree on that but the fragile if there was this girl died I won't go into that list so you're not that's another detail but I just think that a belief in a god is one of the most damaging things that infests humanity at this particular moment in history it may improve and I see signs that it may be improving and I'll leave it at that now at that time that we're talking about the 70s it was just a rampant sense of paranormal credulity in the media and popular culture I don't know whether it's changed that much since it's changed and certainly but back then what was it that you and Ray and and a few others wanted to accomplish you were you had already you were writing your book on Yuri Geller at that time yes and I had part oh that fella yeah I I had heard from Martin Gardner when I was editor of science news magazine and was displeased with a couple of articles we've done on paranormal themes we did our best we tried to do a good job of science reporting on them and one was on Geller but Martin said we hadn't done a very good job when he wrote he wrote me a long letter and I answered back saying because I knew who he was I'd read his fads and fallacies in the name of science I loved it I thought it was an extraordinary book I will do today I reread it every now and then and I said we need a group of people like you and skeptics to help educate us science editors on these bizarre claims that the public is fascinated with but there's not good scientific information on so as you know then I was delighted when in 1976 I heard from Paul Kurtz's group that we they were founding an organization which turned out to be psych up and you were a founding fellow and Ray Hyman was and Jim Alcott came along very soon and Carl Sagan and Isaac I've known a whole bunch of those people what did the founding of that organization in 1976 you mean did it help support your efforts did it help bring cohesion a little bit oh yes 20 was the whole enterprise yes that's very true we had to have an organization going up the way it happened actually well you're quite correct in your summary of it about I must say that I at first I got the offer right during one of the first meetings they said and of course you'll be the head of the divine figures and I stock I said no I'm in show biz I'm a magician hohoho you know I'm a theatrical character I work on TV and in theatres and whatnot and I goat meditating kids and adults I'm entertainer should not be the head of an organization like that I said however I do know of this gentleman it was Paul Kurtz that I was speaking up and I said he has made a lot of very good statements about believing in the paranormal and the supernatural and I said we should approach him and we did approach him and Paul graciously agreed to accept the position and that's the way it turned out but having been asked that way I was rather frightened for the future of the organization if they chose me to head them up because that is you have to have an academic you have to have some viewers I'm standing at a decent desk let's put it that way well that's what I wanted to ask you not only for your little capsule summary about Martin Gardner but you vote sort of given already but also Ray Hyman who's here with us in the room tonight and then then Paul Kurtz who was a different kind of person but it helped the combination of all these different perspectives and backgrounds helped bring some solidity to the organization and the executive council would you say Paul was a very good argument first of all an excellent academic in so many ways he proved that many many times well with all of his books of course beautiful books that he wrote very concise and very very factual and very convincing very convincing don't ever hesitate to open up a Paul Kurtz book and read a chapter out of it it's it's always inspiring but the fact that he was an academic connected with the University and he he had the time they had the the interest certainly that was very important the interest in such an organization I thought was was ideal and Paul works worked out very very well very very well I must say I want to ask you about one other key figure in the skeptical movement who's less well known and appreciated today but was very much in the public eye back then and that is Isaac Asimov oh he wrote the foreword to your book flim-flam yes he wrote the foreword to a couple of my books as a matter of fact but Isaac Isaac as well back to name to conjure with there's no question of it Isaac Asimov there's a wonderful illustration of him sitting in a huge throne you've seen it I'm sure it's a city I vote like this at a huge throne and he belonged that way now my god pardon yeah my Jew eyes ik none of his relatives sure I hope he was scared to death of flying yes I'm not talking about this guy I'm talking about her through the earth he was scared to death of fly we had to talk to him for a full day to get him convinced that he could fly to California and back whoo that's Victor Oh toto that's that's heavy that's heavy and I I think he was white-knuckle all the way holding out of the seat I don't know I wasn't there so I I shouldn't surmise that but he was here's a medic dealing with a rocket jettison and traveling to the moon to Mars and to other galaxies and whatnot with that great imagination it is let's just say he was afraid of flying well you know what he said was he didn't have to go anywhere because he could go in his imagination well it may be from pickles but doing that sort of thing yeah okay that was good philosophy but he was such a phenomenal prolific writer novels both both novels and nonfiction of science he was my science teacher growing up with his books of nonfiction about Sciences books of essays that came out every about sixteen months yeah and so when he was associated with this fledgling groups I cop to me that also gave it oh yeah immense great status and authority oh yeah the lesser-known academics oh yes you know oh yes it's a matter of fact traveling the world as as I used to do a great deal I'm going to I'm going to Austria to get in a word in a few weeks to have to idea maybe a massive basket of apples or something I don't know something over is coming by wait so I'm doing some more traveling but I travel first-class stuff I sit out on the seat and I wake up and they've landed that's great that's the way I want to fly but I think but what was I heading for it was I tried to tell you you don't know cuz I didn't tell you I'm not psychic it was a flying or whatever well okay we can get back to it you'll think about in a moment okay oh I I did want to ask about one other key figure back then at the time who turned out later to be a bit of a burr burr under our saddle and that was marchello truth see you just said it dirty where who is the first co-chairman actually of SCI cop with Paul Kurtz and then the first editor of the tech which a year later when I became editor we renamed the skeptical Inquirer yeah well there's this zetetic scholar at one time well that was his later manifestation of it oh yeah that's right yeah of course yeah and zetetic means a a k skeptic essentially does it on yeah yes essentially in Alaska a skeptical Inquirer I mean ancient ranked formula yes mark Keller was a strange guy in many ways we had to take him off the job simply because he insisted that we should have an equal number of pages from the pro paranormal people at a equal number of the anti paranormal people he can't do a magazine like that that's ridiculous he had two completely different philosophies in the same book and opposing what I didn't know then that was not doable that was the core of the dispute as I understood it because that's it was his departure that led to my entrance into this hole oh yes yes I mean actually the same and we're very happy with that arrangement don't you think but he was an interesting person he was a sociologist of science at Eastern Michigan University and and recently I have learned that entire book of correspondence between Mario cello Tootsie and Martin Gardner is about to be published by the editor of Martin Gardner letters and it's called dear mart marchello and where did she learned about this oh well from from that order Dana Richard sent me a thing to try to do a blurb for it oh so I've done it it's fascinating and it was amazing to me the volume of Correspondence that Martin Gardner and marchello truths he engaged in starting in around 1973 and going up into the 1980s I don't know I'm only halfway through all of it when they started expressing the tensions in martin by then or marchello had left the organization and had his appendix caller but they debated they must have had there's an entire that first sections about psy cop the second section is about the demarcation problem which is arcane debates about how you define what is science and what is pseudoscience and what that fine line has been between and they would go on and they would write like four page single-spaced letters and that and the day the other one got it our cello say he would write back a four-page letter and then Martin would write back a five-page letter and this this was an amazing amount of correspondence that I think will contribute to the history of The Skeptical movement in the history of I'm an official now I didn't know if you'd know but I heard of this or so anyway it'll probably bring the name marchello trophy back a bit into the into the conversation about but it'll be a new book of Correspondence by Martin Gardner which is something to be again all by self yeah yeah well how would you describe psyche op in those early years what we were doing what we did what what accomplished if you think it's only we had a lot of exchange of information with the press and I think is what the media in general this is before television was really the big thing that it is an outburst and I think we had a very substantial influence on the printed media particularly the printed media in those days there was there was so selection nonsense and is even today so much nonsense coming out in the printed media and TV on science and the difference between that and quackery in what not a thing that occupies me in my eleventh book which is yet to be published but very shortly I'm sure you'll all want to come at the usual price but that's what we were concerned with we had to make a bite we had to get into the media we had to know what they were talking about and I know that I exchanged a great number of personal letters with individual column lists I found that was the way to go and I made contact with Johnny Carson I found out immediately that he was on our side very much on our side he wasn't only a comedian ladies and gentlemen he was a great thinker as a matter of fact that I should just Provo would break away but to tell him that the staff at The Tonight Show whenever I walk in they start to whisper about me because there was a peculiar thing that happened every time I appeared on the show that Johnny had a firm rule that he didn't want them anyone who is going to be on the show before they actually walked through that curtain over to the desk that was a rule of him because he wanted to be a fresh approach to see but with me I would always get a on the door about five or six minutes before they actually started the taping because it was in the state several hours before it actually broadcasting for editing purposes and I do what that was that answered the door and I'd see people staring over John John shoulder like this looking around who what the who could thank me because it done wanted to come around he was so thoughtful and kind to me and he just simply asked what could I mention what do you want me to plug well you know what do you want me to emphasize what do I say if I've asked so himself he wanted to to be aware of how he could help me he liked me and he liked what I did we got to be very close we got from very close and oh and but the night that we exposed peter Popoff ya later Popoff we got him angry got oh yeah I'm sure that all the Innova done on different television channels very small ones and some plays rather you can always find those peter Popoff broadcasting the one with Carson is is a gem but as soon as we finish doing that exposure I was sitting at the desk at the front desk and the audience was was leaving and Fred DeCordova the producer of the show he walked over to the desk and he looked down at the two of us and we were chatting and we both looked up and fred was standing there and he said we're going to get letters [Laughter] and John said yes Fred and you're going to answer them petrichor to visit yeah I just walked away shaking his head he uh there were hundreds of letters deported from all over the country and Canada attitude from Mexico as well because I program carried like crazy the early days so that was one episode that I will never forget well that was one of your most memorable investigations there's no doubt we'll talk about few more of those I want to get back to your beginnings in this whole area what you were faint illusionist and magician escape artist but what is it that made you turn to skepticism or do you see that as part of that or is it what made you a skeptic since I was a kid I had been very skeptical I got my introduction to religion when my my parents who slept in every Sunday and I had a brother and sister very much younger than myself at the age of 11 or 12 or so I was I was initiated into Sunday School that almost pending Sunday school for the whole universe but I I was given a quarter by my father in those days in Canada $0.25 piece was a lot of money it had by quite a bit for that believe me especially if you were a kid and he pressed a quarter into my palm and went right back to sleep he said put that on the collection plate I went to Sunday school on Sunday morning in st. Cuthbert's church on Bayview Avenue in Leeside Toronto Canada so very check it out then sure I'd be but a picture of me on the wall still I think I would darts in it and I I went off to Sunday School and I dutifully put my quarter on the plate and they started to read to me from the Bible and I I introduced a skivvy how do you know that's true it sounds strange in the bible it's in the holy book of god oh okay I'd looked around they were all staring at me as if what kind of a critter is this and so she read on and I said the fact now that sounds that sounds very unlikely and subsequent 7,000 soldiers and eight soldiers I mean I was pointing out some difference in there and she said it's in the Bible again she fingered the Bible again very sharply and so I think if the by woke up I get who is who is do germani or whatever this is this man she said but he wrote for the Bible - I I thought it was God's work and who's this guy John and he has a big sight written in here he wrote this - yes that he was speaking with the voice of God that now that cannot that close the book close a book and she went back to reading her notes through what she was trying to teach us likely and that she was very alert as to whether I might interrupt her again and at the end of the class we got up on the left and they questioned me before I left miss Avery why are you asking all these questions this is the classroom and I thought I could ask questions how do you know that true never I knew right and they gave me a note to take to my parents and it simply said in there some of the effect that you're here your boy Randy is that's my real first name you see it is not necessarily welcome here at st. coverage because he asked too many questions and he interrupts the teachers and so my mother I thought it looks that is that all that you can go back Nikki hit ok don't I think they were happy to get rid of me on Sunday mornings discarded me and that's probably why it was but in any case I went back the next Sunday morning with a quarter in my hand and I was mounting the stairs to st. Cuthbert Church I said cool a living huh Gary lives near a dad boyfriend named Gary and he's just around the corner so I hustled around the corner knocked on the door and he was sleepy and he woke up he said what's up and I said I got a quarter let's go up to Purdue's drugstore forty sharks are on baby you have you look it up my memory is sharpened disrespect not another respect but in this one and he found out but for 25 cents which I had a mother little sister you could get a two flavored ice cream sundae butterscotch marshmallow sprang to mind and poor Gary had to have a butterscotch sandy he only had 15 cents that was his allowance you see and I watered it over him forever but that man was a great lesson to learn yeah like you didn't have to go to Sunday school you could use that quarter to buy a double flavor ice cream sundae oh and they'd ever found out my parents that I know I've never found out oh so you were a skeptic of religion before being a skeptic of the paranormal yes yes had I looked about it with the same flavor singham flavor yeah yeah well in 1964 you had a radio talk show or you were on a radio talk show and you offered a thousand dollars of your own money in a challenge to anyone to show evidence and super natural powers that's right ah what was the start of that what caused you to do that well I used to I had a good friend Long John Neville so you may recognize that name no thank you Long John Neville was on late-night radio on wor Airmen fm and it was a thousand a hundred thousand hundred thousand watch station now that's in credible it even gives you in the radio business you would know that you couldn't get away with that kind of power nowadays that would drown out so many small FM stations and everything else and but it was it was run out of a pig farm in Secaucus New Jersey and the the aroma was not pleasant but the advantage of having a transmitter out there that was the transmitter not the broadcast studio to the studio this way and the advantage of having the station on that location was that you never had to pay for fluorescent tubes the radioactivity from a hundred thousand watts just above your head that all of the fluorescent tubes you went to the cupboard over there it took blinded you and they did burn out eventually they stood the phosphor where is out is he and when they changed tubes they just talked about the wall we had del Crowe on the back though they just stuck him on the wall because they didn't have to be plugged in there are certain advantages to radioactivity using apparently and oh I could tell you a whole stories with rafts of stories of OWR but that's the way they're broadcast first took place and then matter of a few weeks after that now this is before I had the program that's what longtime Neville had it and it eventually moved to to New York 1440 Broadway and right about Times Square and I was a frequent guest fact I was the first few guests on John's show because I had to do various characters yes I was dr. Keyes Elgar and one that's better fertilizer from Germany it had nothing to do with my name but it was those closes like he gets it and I used a name dr. Keyes lugar it's still on sale and told for barnyards that and I was a great am I was several different characters one died I I need window but John was doing your program he was astonished when he asked me a question to try to catch me is he he said I understood we got a new book of doctor and I I was unprepared for that but I answered him quickly back then said yes I do he looks at some right there because he knew I didn't have a new book out and he said what's the name of your book trying to get me again you see and I said Nath Elohim suck he said hello what not will open so oh you don't speak urdu he said oh I don't speak Urdu and he started to laugh is he off microphone and then I pointed out to a magazine that was staying on the table that'll open sokka's cosmopolitan spelled backwards and I just put it down well John broke up and left the studio and I could hear him whooping and hollering down the hall there and I had to carry the rest of the program myself pretty well that night but no it was a good adventure but then John decided that he was going to move to WNBC which he did eventually and I don't know the exact here that but I'm sure you probably have it in the notes of someplace but he gave notice to the station the sanction didn't take him seriously and when the day arrived when he wasn't going to be there that same night I got a call have the living out in New Jersey 75 miles away and I got a call from the station saying can you come in to the station tonight mr. Andy as long Tom is not going to be with us now I knew that he was leaving that night but the station didn't know they didn't take him seriously when he said he was resigning and so I had to go in there and sit down in his chair and do the show from scratch and I carried it for a year and a half until I was fired I was fired now let me tell you how I was fired funny I should mention that I did the program one night and got back home it was just sleep in New Jersey the phone rang picked it up it was Jim McClure who was the program director and Jim said get out here right away back to the station and he hung up the phone what's going on so I got out got in my car very sleek you drove off to Manhattan parked car went upstairs and there was a whole bunch of lawyers and most of the top management of W or sitting right there at this big office I said what's up and one of the big bosses read from the piece of paper he says last night on the radio program on wor you said that Jesus Christ was a religious nut and I looked I said no I didn't yes you did I said no I didn't I said there's such a crowd in New York tonight in Times Square but if a man were to show up dressed in sandals and a robe with a beard carrying a sign saying Jesus Christ said I just come back they would lock him up as a religious nut and we let it go at that it and the people of the studio sort of laughed a bit and then we went on with the program I'd have thought nothing of it whatsoever I said I didn't and he said yes we've listened to the tape we know that you didn't actually say that but the Archbishop of New York says that you did say that so you said it understand I said no I don't understand and I walked out I quit just like that now that was a well-paying job the rest of them I've ever had in my life but I walked out and never went back Oh what role did the mahu Dinis model play in your life of magician escape artist illusionist becoming an educator to the public about our normal claims well when I first found out about who didn t of course I read several books on him some of his autobiography biographical material as well of course and I saw that he was against all paranormal beliefs and such and he even fooling with the spirits was a program he did on vaudeville with his wife Beatrice as matter of fact that they did a fake mind-reading act and that exposed the whole thing that went on for some time on the Orpheum circuit yes and so I thought that's a good attitude to have and I knew that the paranormal from what I'd seen of it and seen it by the street performers and by John it was dirty phony and so I decided that would be a good attitude for me to take - because I greatly admired Harry Houdini of course who in the way back when you just died just before my birthday I mean I the things happened to me at the wrong time SSL is this - it he died two years before my birthday as a matter of fact and I thought that would be a good example so I sort of took up being Harry Houdini though I never claimed to be him and as a matter of fact you're in my career I broke a couple of his records but I must add very quickly that when I broke the records that Houdini had established like being in sealed in a coffin under water but dull additional oxygen etc I broke it by a very slight margin purposely because I didn't want to out do it because I was others good twenty years younger than he was when he did it just really he did some of these records shortly before he died he didn't die as a result of any of the experiments but soured stunts but I I thought that was not fair to say that I had broken his record because I was still Sunday younger at the time like to jump ahead to one of the one of the investigations and trips that you and I and Jim Alcock and Barry Carver on the class and Phil class the late Phil class and Paul Kurtz our trip to Beijing China in 1988 to investigate a whole variety of paranormal claims we were invited by the editor of a science daily newspaper to come bring particularly Randy's expertise to examine these claims that were getting publicity all over the world I want to set the scene though for what it was like in Beijing China and Randy there in 1988 this was not the modern commercial China we have today this was just coming out of the mouth area a lot of people on the streets were still dressed in very gray drab clothes there were tens of thousands of bicycles very few cars and here we were with the great Randy the amazing Randi in his cape and beard and black hat on the streets of Beijing and it was quite a sight yes it was and it was a great adventure it was indeed we had we had a very good time but not only we had a good time but we very devote mr. mr. ding mr. ding you know mr. ding mr. ding had a was getting worldwide publicity for a number of young children girls I think nobody's all girls they were going voice yeah girls and boys who claim to be able to do for that we're talking about the parapsychologist mr. ding yeah there was a row we had a mr. ding on our side our guide yes and interpreter young men me mr. ding also so every out to mr. dings yeah yeah well that mr. ding you know what happened to that mr. Gein rich one just testing him yeah sure now mr. Dingle is her enter I think I know it became a wealthy entrepreneur I said well almost through ah mr. ding he used to come in every every day during our breakfast time and he was skinny kid and he was rather excited because he had just finished his examinations at university now in their system I believe he had 30 points were available to them you got the top score 30 points and so every day that he came in he said the first day that he was waiting for his results and I said oh yes when would you expect oh he said any time at all he said and if I get a good mark I'm going to have a scholarship at UCLA and I said wait a minute I was saying to the other guys I'll bet you every kid thinks it he's trying to go to UCLA if he gets higher none margin it was an innocent enough remark because you know with millions of kids of that age in in vast country like China I suspected that was true but every day we dutifully asked him did you get your result yet no not yet but they said they were in the mail there okay but last day that we stayed I don't know if you remember this I don't remember okay we were in a rather shoddy hotel that projectors out I remember that I remember all shoddy hotels so what is this Italy and Dame walked in with a smile from here to here and I looked up that and I said ding you got your results and he smiled even wider and he said yes and I'm going to UCLA and I had sort of foreboding I wonder if this is but every kid who graduates in Beijing thinks is going to happen and he said we're just waiting for the for the certificate to come now and I said well may I asked what was your your score and then I saw his face change and I thought oh I'm sorry if that's too personal because the Chinese them and I'm sure as now we're very sensitive about asking questions with family or anything like that if you didn't know them very well you see I said if you don't want to answer and he looked and he said the number and I said yes the number and he was so shy he wrote it down perfect score he didn't expect to get anything less than that that's the way the Chinese educational system is they all expect to get top scores I wish we could have a little more of that thinking yet in the American educational system - as a matter of fact but he had the top scorer and no wonder he was grinning from ear to ear is he and so he whether he is now the fifth wealthiest man in China and oh yes and well that was as of about two years ago but I don't know maybe he's only the fourth now I'm not sure but I gotta tell you this business of asking question personal questions but family and such like that is so strong with these people they're very shy about it and I have to when when I got to the United States I bought him a bicycle that is he hadn't come over yet and I was in Los Angeles I was doing some date there bottom a nice yellow bicycle with a bell and I knew that would be very happy for him as a UCLA state student as I can I bought him the bicycle and a couple of weeks later he arrived and I got a call from him but he was very quiet and he said how did you know I was coming I said you told me the date he said yes but how did you get the bicycle in his country he had to wear wait a year and a half to get a bicycle after paying for it and for our automobile it was two and a half years and probably still is I don't know but he was amazed that I just walk into a bicycle store and say I'll take that one because you couldn't do that in China this matter of fact he told me later that he spent hours in Ralphs grocery the all-night grocery and in Los Angeles in California in general and he said he wouldn't be walking around with it with a friend of his who had been there for a year already and saying could I buy this yes you can buy anything you just put it in the wagon oh okay and he picked it up at camp we had a picture of a dog on it and he said oh yes I haven't had any of that along then would we explained you that we fed that to dogs he said why he didn't understand it no we feed them scraps and whatever and this hunk specially here this special food that you know he didn't understand this way of life he was astonished at every turn every place he went and Dayton ended up leaving UCLA and he moved off to a Dallas I think it was yeah it's a Dallas and he invented a system for UCLA which they still use today which enables every incoming student to sign a form that gives him access to fraternities and sororities and all all the different organizations on campus and UCLA had never had a good system for that and they used the DHing system to this day and more importantly are you ready for this he changed his name his name was John being eventually I originally for me he's now known as changed a change in my honor yeah Jim I'll in his presentation and I think muscle Apollodorus you of a film clip Phil class took during the Chinese investigations of this woman writhing on a table while the shoe Gong master is in the other room doing his thing and she is supposedly responding to it but you set up the controlled conditions where she didn't know when he was doing his thing ping and vice versa and I was the record keeper there so it was a fairly astonishing thing for us to see yeah describe what you remember about that well I remember that they the kegelmaster wasn't very happy about that will we suggestion suggest the protocol for it but the woman on the table was she must have been very embarrassed because he would he would be going through his things like this and we put up the screen and the whole business and she would suddenly started kicking like crazy agency in the film the boom ba-ba-boom like that and then she would open her eyes and look around because to get a hint as to whether she should have done that she was rather disconcerted to say the least I was sort of embarrassed because it caught them out that it just didn't work because she didn't move when he stayed Gogan and when he say no she didn't move whatsoever but they thought what about the what join to your memories about the match about children that the other Esther King was the mentor for that was well there were two mr. Dean's as you said earlier one of the mr. Dean's was a parapsychologist yeah so we ran these tests with the kids and the kids got a win out of it with such relaxed conditions it was just ridiculous they were supposed to tell how many matches were in a box with a certain color on them or whatever yeah or what the colors were and he mr. ding ran the trolley and they were always right except that the one little sort of flaws in the experimental protocol in my mind was that they were allowed to go into the schoolyard and play around with it and maybe even peek into the boxes if you could imagine we suspected them of that but of course that Chinese children wouldn't do a thing like that would they and they were always right until we taped up the boxes and they understand understand why we would tape up the boxes maybe because you're Peking I don't know but the experiment rather failed at that point and mr. ding was very now this mr. Gein if her and he went to prison he was the Chinese government eventually caught on to this and they decided this was a disgrace to the Republic of China let me get to it let's go to another criticisms of you I know that's me damn yeah impossible we used to hear it I don't think we've heard it in a long long long long time but back then uh sometimes people would say about you oh you're just a magician what do you know about scientific investigation well yeah what do you know yeah what how did that and another noise you're biased or close-minded well I - a credible you want to take a look at it I think my mind is pretty open and you can see right here show my head very freely and you could almost read right through it but I don't have scientific training that's good now I learned in high school in in Canada I must say I learned much more physics in chemistry than the average American child at that day and time I learned we were what we got out of high school in Canada we were one year ahead of New York schools as a matter of fact in our learning spectrum let's put it that way so we were a much better informed we were pretty well ready to go into first year college that's where it was in high school I was going to ask you how you became so knowledgeable about science and the processes of science to impress the worldwide scientific community with your knowledge and skills well yeah I would say Iowa a lot of it to mr. Tovar a physics teacher now we never knew our speakers first names we never called it as always mr. Ebell or miss quail or whatever we address them that way this is in Canada then I don't know about today it's probably changed enormously but that's the way we were in those days and district evelle was our physics teacher brilliant man I only found out a matter of about three or four years ago I found a reference to him and it turned out he was much more qualified than for just a high school teacher and I I don't know why he took that position but he was brilliant mr. Chappelle would do wonderful things like we always got a two minute though there a bell ring in the hall to Buddhist before we would change classes he can march to another class and what he heard that two-minute Bell he would go to the blackboard and he would uncover something that he'd written on the blackboard the previous day or the previous night it would be so awesome something like a perpetual motion machine and he would say this doesn't work tomorrow I'm going to ask you to pertinent questions about whether it does work or not and if you think it does work they'll build it and we'll see whether it works that was the kind of teacher he was this was not the books this is lay off the book this goes to show you what and what a really great science teacher oh yes oh yeah I mean teacher of any kind oh yeah yeah oh yeah but specifically your science and he was a great teacher that way and to this day I can remember so many wonderful machines and things that he built for us and that weren't in the book they just weren't in the book and he would ask us in advance where the ball would go down here or whatever and we had to figure it out and we had to come up with the right answer so a good she hadn't after Chrysler my English teacher and mr. Harrison my mathematics teacher who I bothered analysts day I'm sure after hours asking to tell me what integral calculus was all about because we didn't take integral calculus I know of calculus in general at that time and today I've been doing dy over DX rather roughly I think I I have I actually got to use calculus and I was valid I was interested and I did this at home well obviously you could have become a PhD if you had wanted to if you cared to go that route a real flip you what I will cook you can I could well yes but I who care so I don't want to go that way well it came about at the casino theater oh if you don't see rect long ago there's only a pile of dust someplace on Queen Street but I saw the the great Harry Blackstone of Harry blackjack if any of your average of addition she will know right away who Harry Blackstone was not Harry Blackstone jr. who I also enjoyed and met of course but the senior and Harry Blackstone he he levitated a woman levitated a living woman on stage now that's not easy to do no well I thought it wasn't easy to it's acting pretty but he at some point I want and learn about that but let's tell me about your books which of all your books is your favorite and which is more successful if it's not if they're not the same one sometime is probably the most success flim-flam yeah ed with an exclamation point please and I suggest yes okay there's very important yes flim-flam really is the most general book on my investigations of the paranormal and the supernatural claims that they're so intesting are still society today and many years ago and the book I forgotten when it was printed even it was in the year one I think it was a very long time but you know it sold very very well and flim-flam I think would come second to that what about tell us about your book that is completed I understand but not me a published magician in the laboratory what is that about not in the lavatory it's laboratory yeah I just in case oh yes yeah magician in the laboratory it's with two different publishers now we're trying to decide whether they want to publish it or also we're trying to decide whether we want them to publish it but they're they're considering it it's going to be a large book well not that large but this is maybe a little thicker than the average book that I would write and it's going to deal with my visits to laboratories all over the world in almost every country in the world over these many years that I've had traveling where these scientists thought they they had something discovered as something paranormal something supernatural whatever and I would go into the laboratories and show them where their errors would were and they were not very happy about it particularly in Russia they were not happy about it at all and I came in for all kinds of scolding and I was told by two of the scientists who were present and young fellows who were present months after I got letters from them saying that the man in charge of the whole thing said they would never let her magician in the laboratory again I showed them where they were so wrong in there now a magician is showing scientists where they're wrong come on that's not very logical to talk but I knew enough about science and about the way it works and doesn't work that's the second thing you got to notice how it doesn't work so those two books have been my bestsellers I believe and the faith leaders was was was a great to connect for me too Quinn that's when Carl's Carl Sagan wrote the introduction to your to faith heaters yes right and he said many many kind things about you but he also had some criticisms for yes he and I'm trying to find the note here but he referred to as crotchety crotchety crotchety yes Jim if he got a spell the word correct IM crocodiie yes oh I certainly I'm guess I he he couldn't quite understand that I actually and Boo my line sometimes and got very angry particularly at the so-called faith theatres and that people are supposed to be bringing relief to the people I think he was saying it in a positive way yeah yeah he met it in a positive way I hope I don't know well Carl while did you mean either Carl is a good friend of all of ours and a supporter and very you and he were made to a fans and yeah yeah but I always just found and I recently reread that sentence in the introduction and I thought it just stuck out to me and yeah yeah it came out do a lot of people they would ask me questions about that but I must say you know on the subject of Carl Sagan it was revealed not too long ago enough that he was a great pot user yes no marijuana values assistant and I read that and I was really good at nonplussed I thought Carl looked like a weed and twisted it he can I know about that because some friends of mine showed it to me and then I thought waiting on I got to think about this now and when I read and he wrote quite an extensive a couple of articles on his use of marijuana that you should should look up because he explained himself very well he found that it did make his mind wander of this and go into avenues where it might not normally have gone listen mysterious thing we got up here in between these bones and look for me at least I don't know about you individually but I had to just rear back and stare at the wall and say ten if Karl thought it was a good thing I won't try it and I have never tried it never tried a psychedelic or any dope so-called then he said have ever been drunk in my life I enjoy a glass of wine every now and then but that's it and if it was good enough for Karl and he got some inspiration out of it I almost feel that I want to try it myself maybe it might it might help in some way but I don't trust myself to be able to do that and and walk away from it in in November 2014 the New York Times published a an article about you or in the magazine New York Times Magazine the unbelievable skepticism of the amazing Randi it was it was quite an under --fill very detailed lengthy revealing article how is that how did you see it and how's it affected you guys oh it was a good article I liked it very much there were a couple things I might have ironed out a little bit by being by that I mean to explain them a little more perhaps but he's hitting over times you know after all you would expect high standards and we got him I was served in Davey and I my partner Davey and I a we were very very happy with the results of it it was done kindly and decently and I was satisfied with it in most ways and certainly the illustrations were very good we're very flattered by I have a number of copies at home as you might imagine let me mention a few things that were said for many of his most zealous followers the opportunity to meet Randy at cam your conference may be as close as they will ever come to a religious experience [Laughter] [Applause] [Laughter] [Applause] bless you bless you let's see here in a he Randy said he did dislike being called a debunker he prefers to describe himself as a scientific investigator I don't set out to debunk well you know right yeah oh no I have a debugger yes plagued by definition but I think scientific investigator covers it there because I tried to be scientific I don't have the credentials for that at all but I have met the pre-approval of many leading scientists including Carl Sagan's and many many other people around the world in that respect so I accept it and I do try to be as scientific as I possibly can and I am Not Afraid to phone people up and asking for advice on how I should state something to make sure that I have it as accurately as I can and then he talked about this person we have kept in the background here Randy's campaign against Geller helped make them both more famous than ever even today Gower credits Randy with helping him become a psychic phenomenon my most influential and important publicist as Geller described him to me what do I think of that yeah where do you think of that I think this is what what do they call it a delusion ha ha ha ha part is mr. Geller yes a very dramatic I do it he likes to think of it that way that I made him but he was well famous as a so-called psychic long before I was called by the New York Times by Time magazine I'm sorry Time magazine had to go and invest that investigation oh that was from you have no idea teller with his great psyche flowers even didn't know that I was a logician and that I do how he was doing it how would he not have known that I i sat on the back of the chair that he was big stuffy chair there in that John durniak I don't know where John is still with us Johnny you know I said I guess he's still with us ed John dirty act was the the photo editor of the Time magazine and he invited us to his office because they said they had this fellow uh period who had insisted it be no magicians present I thought that was a grand idea to be present so Charlie Reynolds do you know the name Carrie went together Hey he was the editor of the popular photography magazine for many years and he was a very very accomplished magician as well in fact he invited invented several magic tricks and he was very close friend of I for many many decades and he was saying over in that part of the room I was saying on this part of the room we were facing one another and Geller was saying right here and at once at one point Gower ventas foon and II he look I and he showed her to me said did you see that and I looked at it I said yes mr. Geller I did see that ha ha ha ha and he just looked hesitating then he put the spoon down I went on with something else but I think it it Tipton to him at moment yes yes that was sort of a revelation to him because I said in that Pleasant way I did see that now a biography of you is being written by Massimo Polidoro yes how how how's that going and what's the status and and how do you like having a book written about you well that's happened before though I have a very close friend of Matt's know about Nolan since you look so big and he's actually dipped at my home for quite some period of time yes and brush up on his English while doing that and he's now a famous writer in Italy is his homeland and he writes in both English and in Italian and that's quite a talent now I'm proud to say that I did something towards teaching him English in my primitive way of course because I'm not really a teacher using this but no I'm pleased to have it in muscles hands but Massimo has agreed to spend the activity on the book because he has so many other projects going all at the same time he's done very well for himself in that respect and he is as I say I agreed to suspend action on that until my next book comes out because it's going to be very much autobuyer biographical as well no this is which a magician of the magician the laboratory it'll be autobiographical about your life as well as about your work and oh yes I'm to the laboratory I get a chance to express that but a mess will come up with his version of course from a different point of view and that's quite understandable I he already has written a very very good book on the story of Harry Houdini history of Harry Houdini among so many other books but by it I this is illicit we need money he needs he needs nothing from us bulimic he's very famous very famous in Italy and now in this country that's like good friend mass smoke what are you here Muslim okay so I prefer okay well you can read him in the skeptical inquirer every issue - oh yes he right columns are there are in 2015 out came a documentary movie about you and honest liar and Ruth and I were very privileged to be among the audience in Sydney Australia we're on the Australian tour with after the Australian skeptics Congress there two years ago or little less and you were in the audience in Sydney the last stop on the tour which was sort of the and one of the main openings of the of that movie I'm interest have seen the movie the honest liar Vigo this good and it's all true that's flattering well I found it a powerful and emotionally moving movie I assume you agree oh yes I do and I first explained to those who negotiated and for those of you who haven't which I find very surprising that there was a sequence in area you'll all remember this there was a point in the movie when I told the producers and is that it happened at my family I don't have to describe it in detail that I didn't wish to be in the movie and I told them in so many words I said now this was not appear in the film this was on camera I knew they were photographing it I've totally knit quickly well not filming you know taping it okay I'll finally get right I'm still thinking the days of film you may remember it had holes along the edge but I I said to them that this is must not be used etc but it was less than 24 hours later that I came to my senses was the next day after I had a chance to think about it and I phoned them up and I said wait a minute I'm supposed to be honest about these things and I I can't I can't have it that way best sequences got to go back in again any way you want just put it back in again there's got to be the true story of my life and it turned out to be that and the reaction was getting to it it's now dubbed in eight different languages subtitles is all over the world and it just showed him in Russia I think for the first time a couple of months ago and it's on YouTube not on YouTube way it's on Netflix so you look it up on Netflix an honest flyer how we have to change your life or the movie yeah the movie the yes how well hit odd ways that you might not realize it ad or not if we go to a to a department store or something not in their immediate neighborhood there's always somebody way across the start mr. Randy and they come running in I spoil your movie okay is the whole thing they recognize both of us of course it has made it a great deal of difference and I feel good because the true story is out there and it's available to everybody the producers of the film did a very very good job and all with my approval I assure you that event in Sydney Australia that I mentioned towards the end well for one thing you were interviewed on stage or had a conversation sort of like this with someone we you and I both admire psyche off fellow named Dick Smith Dick Smith what almond he and a dick is not very well known here in the United States but he's a legend in Australia yeah one of their national treasures literally designated a national treasure on Saturday and on the copy of Time magazine about saturate time sell you know all you have over the years but you were asked a question in from the audience but I thought was very revealing something about he made no well well I wrote about it later in my editorial column in The Skeptical Inquirer you were asked how to treat a friend who ardently believes in the paranormal and you said be kind be kind they believed because they need to believe be compassionate and I wanted to ask you if that is a new Randi or is that the Randi of old now it says it's not a new Randi at all but since I began these investigations I found that these people they believed in it so much and they needed it so much that to disabuse them of the notion was often very difficult to do now at showings of an honest liar if they're in Florida we can often drive to them and and with with some delight and show up for a Q&A following the film and those are always rather exciting in very good sessions however as you might suspect we often get exactly the same questions for the first six or eight questions most questions we would expect to get and those are easy to answer although I usually say that that's a good question that's a lot it was just a very common question but I don't want them to feel that they were not not original you see so I will answer the glare guard David will answer the question and then you get one that really shakes you up and that's a different thing altogether and I take great joy in answering that and we usually put it into our into our memory as something that will will you will come back to later on but those question-and-answer periods are ended when the up is finding leaves big round of applause all day am I still on mic this is okay because I don't sound like I'm on mic into my ears oh good I didn't do it I get all here wait a minute someone's as it had just moved there is that better gotcha yeah am I being heard properly now okay thank I'll just keep my face like this thing when we asked me to redo these QA things after it's in the audience leaves without throwing any stones usually there's always secure eight people left behind can that come to the foot of this lattice look how gratis hello look up at us and they'll come up with the same statement as if we're out there for them to read and they say you made a big change in my life often with tears coming down their faces now folks you cannot buy that that's the greatest compliment we can possibly have and they will try to and they will imitation successfully explain how we set actually change their minds in some way or another and as I say that's very very flattering and we know we made it you know the film worked and it worked well and we get letters letters from all over the world now and from people who say exactly the same thing that's very flattering and wear that in mind so it's clear to you they make that clear to you that you have made a difference in their life yeah in their lives yeah and if you get to chat with them after it's in detail sometimes that happens as well it takes a lot of time but it's worth spending the time of it they were explaining in detail how they used to believe in some preacher or other they sent of all kinds of money and they had to go to the bank they had to borrow money because he was demanding more money from them and such and when you hear this know how much you hate those masters that way that the preachers and such what they've done to these people they've led them astray they've appeared to do miracles of some kind and they've won these people over and they've cost some fortunes in many cases when to briefly ask you about another experience I recall it was an exact psycho cop exactly council meeting in London and we had we're at a restaurant and you were doing your bending the cutlery surprisingly would I do a thing like that and a waiter was watching very intently and it became very clear he was quite emotional about it and he eventually came over and it was clear something was very strongly affecting him and I don't recall whether it was that he had seen you debunking the idea that spoon bending is a paranormal phenomenon I think that's what it was or whether whether or whether he maybe thought you were a paranormal person yourself but I recall you going over and taking him aside and talking to him privately about that to comfort him and I don't know quite what was said but you did do that and I don't know if you remember that experience at all well I've had to do that occasionally to explain to people there are ways of doing this way and then just do it right in front of their eyes and they did how did you do that why would I when I gestured with the spoon like this and I said to you not come over here and as I turned away and you didn't notice that that I concealed the bend I explained to them how I I did that they that they suddenly dawns on them yes it's very easy actually because mr. Geller didn't turn around and walk to the other side of the room and when he turned around again he was most of this room with his dad I couldn't see that whether it was Ben Trebek because that's the way Geller does it it's the easy way we're getting close to the to the end of our our time for this interview but I want to ask you the entire time for this interview this conversation well none of us are as young as we used to be you've had health challenges a heart attack I believe colon cancer something you and I have shared I had cardiac by cardiac bypass aneurysms in your leg cataracts I don't know what else and yet oh you have persevered so I think we all want to know how are you doing how are you doing health-wise and how are you really well I originally had a couple of t is those a transient ischemic attacks and that really stands for a minor stroke I lost the use of my right arm temporarily for a matter of a few minutes but hey it's back again yes I could use it very much I just put it back my hands are exceedingly flexible if you notice yes and no I'm doing very well doing very well for eighty-eight and I only feel like 86 [Laughter] what what do you have any final words for the general final words you know like I word it's just a way that I got to tell you what he asked me previous how you wrote it down he said he was talking about the arrangement for this evening and he said to me well let that about does it any last requests I wrote it down to accept what you asked me if he's got to be careful at how you form your words you know all right do you have any words final or not for for the people who love you the and the next generation of skeptical inquirer who need to be reminded what scientific play the next generation of young people who need to be reminded why scientific skepticism is so important there are people out there that are called magicians they should be more correctly called conjurer's that's the UK expression for it and it's much more accurate a conjurer by dictionary definition is someone who approximates the effects of a genuine magician a genuine magician would be somebody who can do magic miracles of some kind as lesser or greater but a conjurer is a much better expression for it so I'll use it a conjurer can fool you and you have to be smart to be fooled it's hard to fool small children for a funny reason and you may not understand this but think about it they're not sophisticated enough to be fooled example no I'm not going to bring it I don't know what's in this bottle but I do know what the cap does now Oh white plastic all right now I think like this is it looks pong about that you can conceal it doesn't go up my sleeve or anything like that but it goes away for some reason very happens to be down here because that's where I don't it the point is with children they want to see it go from here to there and the hand closed on it you didn't require that I just simply did this and I held it back here you see but the children are not sophisticated enough to go that that's what you would do if you were transferring something from one hand to the other that you could do it where this means as well a miracle a miracle I don't know how it's done and I don't care okay that's that's that's what I've often said and people often ask me to demonstrate it but children and isn't that and think of that now they're not smart enough to be fooled they haven't had enough experience of the real world and how things really happen in the real world to know what it would look like if I just transferred it from one hand to the other so learn from that okay I want to thank you thank you dear Randi we all thank you thank you so much

Channel: Center for Inquiry

Views: 11,869

Rating: 4.9351354 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: DZQNuw2jjzg

Length: 84min 27sec (5067 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 14 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/jade_crayon]

Why does this post have only 64 karma in a sub called r/skeptic?