Featured Image Credit: An Honest Liar

We invited a few noted magicians and skeptics to share their thoughts and tributes to James Randi.

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PENN & TELLER

Randi proved so much.

Randi proved that you could be a magician and be honest. He proved that a conjurer could respect knowledge and people enough to get consent before thrilling them with gloriously fake miracles. You have to be more skilled to do magic honestly, and Randi was that skilled. Randi’s first obsession was magic. The latter part of Randi’s life was spent helping the world see through those who prey on grief and false hope, but he never lost his magic chops. He could fool anyone, anytime, anywhere. Randi was a great magician.

Randi proved that we all have to work together toward understanding our universe. We need experimental scientists to invent and follow protocols. We need theoretical thinkers who can create ideas to try to explain what we observe. And we also need streetwise scholars who can educate us in the ways of liars and charlatans and magical tutors who can school us in all the ways we can accidently fool ourselves. Randi shared his erudition even with people who were reluctant to learn. He was always helping get to the truth.

Randi proved being a skeptic is fun. The skeptical community into which Randi came was full of serious scholars. Excellent scientists but not really showmen. Randi convinced the world that the skeptical approach is a blast. He wrote and performed with joyful, stinging, defiant wit. He gave skepticism all the fun and romance of a daredevil magic show. He showed how advocating science can be wicked fun, rebellious, full of high adventure, spy-movie derring-do, and laughs.

Randi proved you could be skeptical without ever being cynical. Randi never hypothesized the worst in people. He never gave up on humanity. He didn’t believe in evil. He trusted and he loved. He was always kind.

Randi was the world’s most famous skeptic, but he was never skeptical of love. Randi knew it existed, and Randi’s whole being proved it. Love was in Randi’s eyes and his smile. Randi had love enough for everyone.

Randi is now proving that we can all live on after death. Our hearts and minds will stay full of Randi until our last breaths. Penn’s children’s lives are better for knowing and loving Randi. There are many thousands of us who shared Randi’s life directly. And there are many millions more whose world was made better by Randi in every medium. That won’t stop. His wisdom, genius, and love will live on for a good long time.

Randi proved to us that we really can make the world better. He did it.

QED.

MASSIMO POLIDORO

The first time I read about James Randi, I was so impressed by his feats that I thought: “This man is so incredible; he can really make a difference!” I was fourteen, and I could not imagine that in a few years Randi would make my own life completely different, allowing me to pursue my passions and help me make my dreams come true.

I became Randi’s apprentice, and working with him every day meant that I was exposed to hundreds of incredible stories and anecdotes, dozens of psychics tested, mysteries investigated, and of course countless “fights” and quarrels with charlatans and frauds. I was there when Randi and Geller openly met for the first time, in Los Angeles, and I was there when legal obstacles were thrown at him, trying to stop him—fruitlessly, of course.

I got a priceless, personal tutoring that could not be obtained anywhere else. But it was not just my personal Yoda that I had found. From the beginning, Randi was like a second father to me. He taught from example. He did not give long lessons; instead, I learned by watching him act and behave and by helping him every day with his research and investigations.

Among the many things I learned from him, one of the most resonant is probably the importance of self-confidence. If you don’t believe in yourself, probably nobody else will.

I was not satisfied to “simply” become an investigator of mysteries. I also wanted to be a writer, but it was something that seemed too big for me. I thought you had to be older, more experienced, and far more educated than I was to write books.

“You know that I dropped out of school, don’t you?” was Randi’s dry observation to my self-deprecating comment.

“Yeah, but you were a child prodigy!”

“So? I had to learn to write, like anyone else. And you can do it too. Just choose something that fascinates you and learn all you can about it. Afterwards, you will see that writing will become a necessity.”

He was right, of course. While living and working with him, I amassed considerable information on Spiritualism, a subject that captured my imagination, and I needed to put it in writing if I wanted to see some order in it.

“Don’t make it too complicated,” Randi warned me. “Just pretend you have to explain it all to your grandmother, and everything will be fine.”

And that’s how my first book was born. It would be followed in the next thirty years by fifty more. Thanks to Randi’s encouragement, I was able to turn writing into a profession.

That is just one small example. I have dozens of other similar stories, as well as testimonies from many others in the world whose lives were improved thanks to Randi’s care for others and his altruism.

Randi was not only the founder and the leading light of modern skepticism but a man who really made a difference, for the better, in the lives of those lucky enough to meet him. Except, of course, for the charlatans …

We are all going to miss an extraordinary man, someone who was larger than life and a living legend. The one I will miss the most, however, will be the mentor, the friend, and, above all, someone whom I could never thank enough.

We are certainly going to miss a living legend who contributed to making the world a better place. But as far as I am concerned, I am saying goodbye to an extraordinary man who was a mentor, a friend, a close relative, and, above all, someone whom I could always trust.

Thank you, Amazing.

JAMES ALCOCK

It is 1976. The lecture hall at SUNY Buffalo is packed. The lecturer, a short man with a powerful voice, is at the podium performing astounding feats. Minds are read; spoons bend themselves; contents of sealed envelopes are divined. All this, we are assured, is accomplished through trickery like that used by “psychic” Uri Geller. Suddenly, a spectator rises to his feet and angrily shouts, “You’re a fraud!” The lecturer, unfazed, responds, “Yes, I’m a cheat and a charlatan. Everything I am doing is by trickery; I am a conjurer playing the role of a magician.” “That’s not what I mean,” counters the heckler as his wife tries desperately to pull him back into his chair. “You’re a fraud because you’re pretending to use trickery but you’re using psychic powers and won’t admit it.” The speaker was, of course, Randi. And the heckler? A respected SUNY professor. What could be more fitting for the founding meeting of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal than this demonstration of the polar opposites of belief?

This was my first encounter with the Amazing Randi, and he most certainly lived up to his adjective. Little did I know that I would interact and travel with him many times over the following forty-four years, laying down many delightful memories, including these:

Another conference and a discussion in Randi’s hotel room. A distinguished philosopher, having just come from a session focused on exposing irrationality, wonders aloud how people could be so gullible as to believe in psychic powers. Randi quietly hands the man a Gideon Bible, averts his eyes, and asks him to choose from it any word. The man complies. The book is closed, and Randi hesitantly, as though stretching mentally into the psychic realm, writes a word on a piece of paper. The philosopher is asked to name his word and is visibly startled when it matches what Randi has written. He is clearly agitated to the extent that he announces that what he has just witnessed is impossible, and he is forced to the sudden realization that psychic powers are real after all! It takes a while, but Randi finally persuades him that he has witnessed only trickery, adding, “Now you understand how even very intelligent people can come to believe in the paranormal.” Teachable moment; lesson learned; calm restored.

Another tale: This time at the Institute for Chinese Medicine in Shanghai where researchers ply us with accounts of paranormal influence on bodily functions. Randi brings the discussion down to earth by requesting that they take his pulse. They are shocked to report that he has no pulse! (Some will recognize the ball in the armpit maneuver.) The conversation immediately shifts from paranormal claims to a serious discussion of the hazards and difficulties of testing paranormal powers. No longer a target of persuasion, Randi is now the teacher.

And one more: It is a Parapsychology Association conference in Dallas. I attend with Randi and Ray Hyman, and our initial reception is decidedly chilly. Randi has been invited to speak about Tina Resch, a teenager whose reported poltergeist experience is attracting worldwide attention. Randi presents a frame-by-frame analysis of TV footage that captured the flight of a telephone supposedly launched by the poltergeist. Widespread applause from the parapsychologists follows his convincing analysis of the movement of the curls in the telephone cord that clearly demonstrates that the power behind the toss must be Tina herself. Another lesson well-taught.

Yes, Randi was many things, but he was also a great teacher. He made time for everyone and was never “off duty” in teaching about how easy it is to be deceived, and he did so without making people feel embarrassed or diminished. I have watched him talk to children with no hint of condescension, and I have watched Nobel laureates giggle like children as he performed conjuring effects while cautioning them about the waves of irrationality sweeping the world. He was a living manifestation of Kipling’s advice to “talk with crowds and keep your virtue/ Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch.” His contribution to teaching will live on. Tell students about psychic surgery—ho-hum. Show them a video of Randi performing it, and the enthusiasm is palpable. Describe the deceptions of evangelical faith healers—yawn. Show the video of Randi’s exposure of Peter Popoff, and they sit up and take notice.

And Randi was also a proud man. Proud of his craft, proud of his intellect and ability. And proud to have exposed charlatans such as his nemesis Uri Geller. And so one more story: Yet another conference, at lunch in the hotel dining room. Randi has been performing some magic for fellow diners when a nearby waiter expresses his astonishment, adding that he has only ever seen one other person do anything more astounding. “Who?” Randi asks. “A man who stayed here last year, a Mr. Uri Geller.” Like Popeye after swallowing a can of spinach, Randi is energized, and the miracles begin to flow! The waiter is overwhelmed; the table mates delighted.

I leave the dining room before Randi’s show of compassion toward the waiter as Ken Frazier has described in his article. A little later while passing through the lobby, the dining room manager approaches, having recognized me as having been at the table with Randi, and asks me to follow him to the kitchen. And there is the waiter, sitting on the floor against the wall, head in his hands, shaking and softly moaning. It is a dramatic sight. He tells me that he has just witnessed black magic, the devil’s work, and is very frightened. My attempt at calming him through assurance that the “man at the table” is “just a magician” goes nowhere. He has seen magicians before, and they did not do black magic. I struggle to offer support, telling him that this is no ordinary magician but the “best magician in the entire world!” Only then does he begin to calm down. “The best magician …?” he murmurs. As I leave the kitchen, he is on his feet, grasping my hand in both of his and thanking me, relieved that the “man at the table” is not a partner of the devil! A chilling demonstration of the human vulnerability that psychics relentlessly exploit. Imagine the success Randi could have had as a “psychic.” Fortunate for us all, he chose a different path.

All who knew Randi no doubt have significant memories of their own. And those who knew him well will remember a man who dominated every social gathering by virtue of his charisma, his intelligence, and, yes, his conjuring. He traveled the world to challenge psychics and to lend his expertise and reputation to encourage and assist emerging skeptical groups. He was self-educated in the canons of science, but I never once heard him claim more expertise than he possessed; he carefully respected his own limits. His genius lay partly in coming up with simple, convincing tests of psychic powers that did not require complicated control groups or statistical analysis. For example, if someone claims to be able to see luminous auras surrounding the human body? Forget fancy thermal imaging or other complex approaches. Simply blindfold the psychic, lead her into a darkened lecture hall where a few people are seated, remove the blindfold, and ask her how many people are in the room!

Randi grew up only two blocks from where I live, and now that he is gone, he often comes to mind as I walk the same streets that he walked and visit some of the same shops where he would have shopped. His was a life well-lived. He has left the world a better place than he found it, and I have no doubt that a century from now his name and his accomplishments in combating irrationality and pseudoscience will reverberate alongside those of his idol Harry Houdini.

Well done, Randi. It was a privilege to know you and to be your friend.

JAMY IAN SWISS

When I was a very young boy, I used to watch a favorite children’s television show every Sunday afternoon called Wonderama, a weekly four-hour marathon hosted by a delightfully warm and playful host by the name of Sonny Fox. One of the periodic highlights of the show for me was a performance by a magician who, looking suitably Mephistophelean in his black moustache and goatee, went by the moniker of The Amazing Randi. Little could I have guessed that someday that inspiration would eventually lead me to a career—in fact, several parallel careers—following in Randi’s footsteps as a magician, author, and skeptic.

In 1975, I read a book titled The Magic of Uri Geller. That Geller was a fake, doing sleight of hand and passing it off as psychic powers, was not a news flash to me, a natural-born skeptic in love with science as well as magic, endlessly fascinated by the first stories I read in my boyhood of Harry Houdini busting phony spirit mediums in the nineteenth century. But Randi’s book had a profound impact on me by making me aware of the fundamental immorality, and the predatory harm, wreaked by phony psychics such as Geller and others of his slimy ilk. The book forever radicalized me, as it did others of the time—such as my future friend and colleague Banachek. My innate skepticism was now destined to a life of skeptical activism.

That path would first come to fruition when, in 1987, I would become one of the founding members of the National Capital Area Skeptics (NCAS), a group that remains active today. (Twenty years later, I would similarly cofound the New York Skeptics, and today I serve as vice president of the San Diego Skeptics Society.) By 1990, NCAS’s size and success would lead to its being chosen to help host that year’s annual CSICOP conference. I had met Randi previously at a national CSICOP conference, but it was at the D.C. gathering that we bonded not only as skeptics but also as magicians. During the course of the convention, I arranged a conference room gathering of magicians—including the legendary Jerry Andrus—to share in a typical magic “session,” in which we passed a pack of cards around the table and everyone performed something for the group.

From then on, Randi and I would spend many years together engaged as both colleagues and friends, in countless shared experiences and adventures. One of my first national television appearances was in a 1993 episode of Nova titled “Secrets of the Psychics,” which featured Randi and in which I briefly appeared performing a feat of apparent psychokinesis.

One unforgettable such adventure was the day Randi called and said, “I’m going to Oklahoma to visit Martin Gardner. Want to come?” I’m not sure humans have yet invented technology that could accurately measure the rapidity of my response. I had performed and presented at the Gathering for Gardner (G4G) conference many times, and I was thrilled at the prospect of meeting another hero, who was also one of Randi’s closest friends, with whom he almost unfailingly spoke weekly. And so I did indeed travel with Randi and spent a couple of days visiting with Martin Gardner. And yet again, meeting not just as skeptics and science buffs but as fellow magicians, Martin and I had the chance to break out a couple of decks of cards and share a memorable “session.”

Upon the eventual formation of the James Randi Educational Foundation, I would serve as the first person to ever stand on a stage as host and say, “Welcome to The Amazing Meeting!” at the very first conference in 2003 in Florida. Through the next twelve years, as the conference moved to Las Vegas and progressively expanded in size and ambitions, I would be present for every TAM save one, presenting onstage talks, performances, and workshops and taking part in the half-dozen live Million Dollar Challenge (MDC) tests that typically concluded those conferences. I also created an annual onstage conversation with Randi, in which we would focus on one of countless aspects of Randi’s storied career, from his days as an escape artist and magician, to his years of confronting Uri Geller, to his knockout hoaxes—including Project Alpha, Carlos, and the taking down of televangelist Peter Popoff—and even revisiting his time spent touring with rock star Alice Cooper. At TAM, Randi presented me as the second recipient of the James Randi Award for Skepticism in the Public Interest, and subsequently I was made a senior fellow of the foundation in 2013.

The first time I stood on stage at TAM with Banachek to host the Million Dollar Challenge, I distinctly recall the sensation of looking out and seeing Randi in the front row and how strange, and weighty, and remarkable a moment it seemed to me. I was following in my mentor’s footsteps, a responsibility and privilege I never took lightly. And I never took any event more seriously than in 2011 when I traveled to New York City to assist Banachek in conducting a special one-time version of the MDC for ABC Television’s news program Nightline. The MDC committee had created a unique set of one-time protocols for the testing, and the pressure was enormous. The result was an unusually skeptic-positive broadcast.

When the exhausting and stressful TV shoot was finally completed for Nightline, I dialed Randi’s cell phone from my own. “The million dollars is still safe,” I told him. “What’s that?” Randi asked. I repeated my relieved pronouncement. “It’s done. And we didn’t lose the million!” “What do you mean?” is all I heard in return. I tried one more time. “Randi, the test for Nightline is done!” There was a short pause, and then: “I’m just screwin’ with ya.” I was stunned into momentary silence—and then laughed for a very long time. Randi was ever a magician, and skeptic, and intellect, and crusader. But he was also at heart an inveterate prankster, and he had caught me cold.

I came to know Randi in his many roles and lives. I was invariably thrilled when the phone would ring and a voice would quietly announce, “It’s Randi.” Even when I was alone, I would feel tempted to look to someone else in the room and whisper excitedly as I pointed to the phone: “It’s Randi!” And that call often meant that he had just arrived in town, and it was time to go meet him at his favorite deli for conversation and a pastrami-on-rye. For all of our shared skeptic ventures, at the core of our relationship Randi and I were magicians, and we could just as easily fall instantly into a conversation talking shop about that endless subject as we could about skepticism and science and psychic scams and so much else that was of infinite interest to his boundless curiosity.

Of the countless memories I have of time spent together with him, one of the best was an entire day together, the two of us strolling around Manhattan visiting magic shops and other magic-related sites, including a rare poster restoration shop that one of us had connected with, and we simply went to have a look and see what we could see and learn. We spent much of that afternoon just sitting on a couch in the historic Flosso-Hornmann Magic Shop, America’s oldest magic shop, which had once been owned by Houdini. Randi and I spent hours that day chatting about magic and sharing stories with owner Jackie Flosso, son of Al Flosso, a legendary magician and old friend of Randi’s. And that was our day: just roaming Manhattan, talking magic tricks and tales. When I think back on it now, it might have been one of the best days of my life. And without doubt, one of the best, of so many, spent with James Randi. Without him here, the world is now left a little less amazing.

CHIP DENMAN

It was 1976. My first year of graduate school. One fall evening I was studying in the library—or, more correctly, I was avoiding studying—when I came across a paperback: The Magic of Uri Geller. The back cover pictured the author: a wild-eyed, scary-looking, white-bearded magician, James “The Amazing” Randi. Until then, everything I had read about parapsychology was either completely credulous or was politely skeptical in that “answer hazy … further research needed” academic kind of way. This book was different. Randi spoke from his deep expertise as a magician—a professional deceiver—and called bullshit on all these “psychic” tricks. I’d dabbled as an amateur magician, and I was also getting serious about a career in math and science. Randi’s words clicked with everything I had learned about magic and science. I had a new hero! And a lesson: tell the truth as you see it; call bullshit if you need to.

It was 1986. I was doing biostatistics and epidemiology at the National Institutes of Health. My wife, Grace, and I had made friends with some of the performers at a local magic-themed nightclub, especially Jamy Ian Swiss. We discovered that we shared a mutual hero: James Randi. That amazing guy had inspired in us an attitude of scientific skepticism, the idea that extraordinary claims should require extraordinary evidence. I was a professional scientist with an amateur’s interest in magic; our new friend was a magician with a love for science. And we three were avid readers of a little—literally; it was still digest-sized—magazine called Skeptical Inquirer.

One night over dinner (alcohol must have been involved) we resolved to start a group in the D.C. area with a skeptical focus. We wrote to the publishers of Skeptical Inquirer, who kindly put us in touch with a couple of others who had also written and helped us to reach out to SI subscribers in the area. We had no idea what we were getting into, but we were fired up around a shared vision inspired by Randi. In March of 1987, the National Capital Area Skeptics held its inaugural meeting. Over 200 showed up. Since then, Grace and I have each served as president, and we continue on the NCAS board. If not for Randi, that group would not have come to be. And we had not even met him yet. Almost immediately after the group was formed, I traveled to my first CSICOP conference in Pasadena, California, where I finally met our hero. Wow.

Over the next few years, especially during the time when Randi was fighting lawsuits brought by Geller and others, we came to be friends. Those were the days when he’d call to tell me about a trick or something super-secret he’d just learned about Geller. I’d be excitedly pointing at the phone and mouthing to Grace, “It’s Randi! It’s Randi!” And after, we’d laugh and wonder how many others he’d called with that super-secret scoop.

It was 1996. A generous benefactor came forward to create the James Randi Educational Foundation, to help Randi remain a thorn in the sides of fakes and phonies. Grace and I went with Randi to meet this person who had stepped forward just when Randi needed that kind of boost. Not long after, Randi was able to take his well-known challenge to the next level: the foundation put up $1 million for anyone who could demonstrate a paranormal ability under mutually agreed upon scientific test conditions—and it’s still there. I became Randi’s statistical consultant for these tests to help keep the money safe from cheats and lucky guesses. A few years later, he asked me to join the foundation’s board of directors.

Randi’s charm and charisma were the crazy glue that connected so many people around the world. In the days following his death, I’ve seen an outpouring of emotion on social media, with many saying that they made lifelong friends because of Randi and The Amazing Meetings. That’s our story too.

After Randi retired from active involvement in the foundation, we felt the best way to honor his legacy was to award grants to others who were doing the kind of work that Randi would have supported. Since then we have awarded Susan Gerbic and her tireless editors who keep Wikipedia honest, Dr. Jen Gunter who is to Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop as Randi was to Geller’s bent spoons, and others actively promoting science, science education, and skeptical thinking.

Randi changed our lives and the lives of many, many others. I hope that through the foundation that he will continue to change the world.

BARRY KARR

I want to tell Randi stories. I want to sit around a table at a bar, maybe at the end of the day at some conference with a group of Randi’s friends and fans, make a toast to the amazing one, and tell stories until we laugh and cry and get thrown out at closing time. So bear with me now. I am going to order another round and take my turn …

It’s 1983, and there is so much commotion going on in the dumpy little office that houses CSICOP. We are getting ready for our first major conference, and someone opens the office door and in comes a bundle of motion, a whirling dervish to meet with Paul Kurtz, but he can’t resist stopping every so often to do a card trick here, engage in banter with the staff there—coins coming out of ears—then into Kurtz’s office. What the hell just happened? I see him later at the conference talking about Project Alpha, where he helped plant young magicians in a parapsychology lab. Oh, so that blur of energy was James Randi! I had read about him!

A couple of years later, walking into a hotel in Boulder prior to a CSICOP conference. I hear “Barry, Barry, come join me.” It was Randi calling me over to join him at his table. How the heck did Randi remember me? Randi is asking me to join him?!

Fast forward. I had traveled to China as part of a CSICOP team conducting investigations into qigong masters, amazing “psychic” children, and remote healers. The results of these investigations can be found in the Skeptical Inquirer. But the stories: I remember a lavish banquet one evening with our hosts. Randi was sitting across from me and staring intently. Feeling nervous, I brought a bite of food to my mouth, a morsel of something, and Randi burst out laughing at me. I never knew what it was I ate. It was good, but I never wanted to know.

I won’t forget the way members of the CSICOP team played with and enjoyed entertaining the “psychic” children. While a test was being conducted everything was very serious, but the next moment at the conclusion of a test there would be Randi performing magic tricks. I remember how James Alcock, who is quite tall, and Randi, who wasn’t, would draw a crowd wherever they went. People were amazed at the juxtaposition.

For years Randi would call me “Barry Automobile” because of the translation of my last name, which kind of stuck with our Chinese hosts.

Watching Randi and Phil Klass trying to create a hoax video of Randi trying to use his psychic powers to transport through the Great Wall. It’s so bad.

What you don’t know: Randi helped bring and pay for the Chinese student translator for our group to come to the United States to go to college. The person worked for a time here and then went back to China and founded one of the first major technology companies in the country. As his English name, he took the name “James” in honor of Randi.

We all know about the investigation Randi led into the faith healers. When Randi went on The Tonight Show and blew the lid off the Peter Popoff ministry, I know that skeptics everywhere felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment.

When Randi’s book on these investigations, The Faith Healers, came out, I was the person who arranged his lecture/publicity tour. For weeks Randi crisscrossed the country doing five, six, seven TV, radio, print, and other appearances in a city, and then on to the next. I had people picking him up and chauffeuring him about and then getting him to the airport and on to the next. It was an incredible grind. I am sure it was close to 150 appearances.

The best moment for me was when Randi went on the Johnny Carson show (not the famous Popoff appearance but a later one). I was visiting at my parents’ house. After the show aired on the east coast, Randi called me. My mother answered the phone, and there she was talking with Randi. We had just watched him on the Carson show, and now he was talking to my mother asking her what she thought of the show, etc. I think it was that moment that my family realized that what I was doing was important work; it had meaning. Before that, the family question to me was, “So you still working for that company that’s going to get you sent to Hell?” That all stopped.

I’ve got so many more, but they will have to wait for another day. Thank you, Randi, for all that you’ve done and what will continue because of you.

HARRIET HALL

The world seems a bit dimmer today without Randi in it.

  James Randi was like Dumbledore, only better. Dumbledore was the kindly wizard who was headmaster of Hogwarts in the Harry Potter books. I compared Randi to Dumbledore in my tribute to Randi in the January/February 2019 Skeptical Inquirer. They were similar in so many ways! Long white beard, thin build, intense gaze, carries a stick (magic wand, skull’s head cane), benevolent, wise, deep capacity for love, immense brainpower, a profound understanding of human nature, a lively sense of humor, impressive feats of magic, associated with an animal (the pet phoenix Fawkes, Pigasus the Flying Pig). And, incidentally, gay—a fact not revealed until late in life (in Dumbledore’s case, after death). The parallels are endless, but Randi was better than Dumbledore because he was a real person rather than just a fictional one. 

  One of the great icons of skepticism and a tireless foe of fakers, his accomplishments are too many to list. Randi will never really die. He lives on in the hearts of the countless multitude of people who met him and were influenced by him. He changed many lives, mine among them. I felt privileged at first just to hear him speak, and you can imagine my delight later on when he recognized me, remembered my name, and wanted a hug. I was proud and honored when he chose me to represent one of the four queens in the Amazing Deck of Cards he created to commemorate the film An Honest Liar (I was the Queen of Spades). So many fond memories! Always the smartest person in the room, he was one of a kind. I respected him, I admired him, and I loved him. I still do. He will be sorely missed but will never be forgotten.

RICHARD DAWKINS

He was a founding father of the American skeptics movement, along with Martin Gardner, Paul Kurtz, and other luminaries. Younger pioneers of the movement will doubtless be giving us their own firsthand tributes. To my regret, I didn’t know him personally so well as they did.

I encountered him each year at TAM events and then at CSICon. On one occasion at TAM, he interviewed me after my lecture, and that was a memorable experience for me. Earlier, in 2003, he was the inaugural recipient of the Richard Dawkins Award, and I felt very honored to present it to him. I think it was before that that I invited him to lecture in Oxford, and he stayed with us as our houseguest. He delighted my young daughter with his twinkling good humor as he performed magic tricks for her over breakfast. And his Oxford lecture was of course spiced with his trademark stunning illusions.

I hugely admired his courageous stand against litigious spoonbending charlatans who grew rich by pretending they were something more than ordinary conjurors—actually rather mediocre conjurors—and who prostituted their so-called “powers” for monetary gain. And also his exposés of bogus spiritualists who faked an ability to communicate with the dead, thereby exploiting the vulnerable bereaved. Well, I said “bogus” spiritualists, but what spiritualist is not bogus?

As a fervent admirer, albeit from the sidelines, I mourn him and salute his memory.

BILL NYE

You may not believe me, but for a brief period in the 1980s I worked hard at being a stand-up comic. My success was limited at best … obviously. To that end, I watched Johnny Carson’s monologue on the Tonight Show almost every night. I was watching when Randi let the world listen in on the convo (as the kids say) between faith-healing charlatan Peter Popoff and his flock—his marks, his targets. The exchanges were enhanced by some significant contributions transmitted to Popoff by his equally deceitful wife through Popoff’s “hearing aid.” That a man of faith would need hearing enhancement might have raised suspicion among the people he was willingly and willfully injuring for profit. For Randi, it wasn’t just mediocre magic; it was absolutely infuriating. He won a MacArthur Foundation grant for his debunking. I was impressed.

A few years later, the National Science Teachers’ Association invited Randi to speak at our annual conference in St. Louis. He stole the show. Come to think of it, he stole all sorts of things—then gave them back. I was entranced. Then I read Flim-Flam! and saw the video of the poor water witchers trying to find buried pipes with no, I mean really, no success. He even took the time to appear on the Science Guy “Pseudoscience”show; it has become one of our most popular episodes. As you would expect, he was a playful presence and a master magician.

Randi was a genius, and he was passionate. If for some reason you have not seen An Honest Liar, the documentary about his life, please do so. And if you are not brought to tears by his deep love for his husband, Deyvi, well …

Randi was remarkable, not only as a magician but as an intellect. He gave deep thought to the human experience and especially to that feature of human nature that enables us, even encourages us, to trick ourselves into believing things that just aren’t so. I claim he succeeded. After all, it’s not his Magic Foundation or Sleight of Hand Foundation. It’s the James Randi Educational Foundation. He educated all of us and left the world better than he found it. Let’s insist that citizens question questionable claims. Let’s do our best to carry his memory, because he taught us all to carry a skeptic’s honest view of the world. James Randi was amazing.

AMARDEO SARMA

It was December 1986 when I felt honored to receive a letter from the unforgettable James Randi himself. I was in contact with CSICOP to start a group in Germany. Randi lifted my spirits with his letter dated December 14, 1986:

I have heard from Mark Plummer, Executive Director of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), that you are interested in forming a group in West Germany similar to CSICOP. I wish to encourage you to do this and hope that you are successful.

We were, and GWUP was founded less than a year later on October 11, 1987. Randi had continued writing letters of encouragement in the months leading to and following the founding of GWUP. He also visited Germany several times during this period, always lighting up our spirits and supporting our work.

One of these first memorable visits was at the European Skeptics Congress in Bad Tölz, Germany. He gave the keynote speech, fascinating us all. Historically noteworthy for skeptics was that alongside him was a young Italian apprentice, Massimo Polidoro. Polidoro became the leading figure in the Italian skeptics group CICAP.

In these first years, Randi became involved in our first big challenge. The German ministry for research had awarded researchers in Munich around $200,000 to find evidence for the effects of Earth rays (E-Rays as Randi called them).

Shortly afterward, with the constant support of Randi, we conducted a similar test in Kassel, Germany, with all the safeguards included. We had devised the conditions carefully, and Randi himself came to Germany to supervise the tests. It was a great learning experience in the double-blind testing of fringe claims. The dowsers failed to accomplish what they believed they could.

Less known is that James Randi also visited Jena in East Germany on October 24, 1989, described as a sign of growing U.S.–East German normality before the fall of the wall on November 10 and the subsequent unification of Germany a year later. His lecture had a large attendance of 500, among which were also known believers in dowsing.

The highlight of the 6th World Skeptics Congress in Berlin in 2012 was Randi. His review of decades of skeptical work followed by a Houdini Seance with Massimo Polidoro and Ray Hyman was fascinating. What an appearance. What a show!

Randi has also been a friend of the family ever since, showing our kids his magic during breakfast whenever he stayed with us. My wife and I are so thankful that we could visit Randi and his husband in 2014 and visit one of the premiers of An Honest Liar during our stay with him in Fort Lauderdale.

Randi’s contributions to the development of skeptics groups in Europe cannot be overstated. He will be remembered as the ever friendly and inspiring elder from the other side of the Atlantic, as well as the central figure of the skeptical movement.

JOE NICKELL

As he was to so many, James Randi was my mentor and friend—a friendship that lasted for over half a century.

I first met him in 1969 in Toronto when I was coproducing as a freelancer a documentary for CBC Radio. It was titled Houdini in Canada, so Randi, the modern embodiment of Houdini, was a must-have for an interview. Magician Norm Houghton knew Randi happened to be in town and called him to enlist his help on my behalf. Randi went on to become the star of our primetime documentary.

I was at the beginning of my own budding career as a magician, and so I was a bit star-struck on meeting Randi. Not only was he a world-class escape artist who freed himself from incredible confinements—a locked safe, a jail cell, a box submerged in water—but he did so with such apparent ease that some dared speak of dematerialization. Everyone was dazed and amazed by “The Amazing Randi.” He was indeed amazing!

Randi became a big influence on me, and soon—like him and Houdini before him—I too was challenging charlatans and investigating the world’s strange mysteries. Randi kept an eye on me and my work and was always there for advice and encouragement—as he provided to many other skeptics. He once sent a letter commending me on my work. I mentioned this once at a meeting of CSI’s Executive Council (which I served on at Randi’s insistence), telling the others that this letter of encouragement had “kept me going once for five years.” At this, Randi—who had been leaning back and “resting” his eyes—opened one eye and quipped, “Remind me to send him a ten-year letter next time!” It was an amazing moment.

Another memorable act of encouragement was not a letter but instead something quite different, addressed to readers and kept secret from me—at first. It was his peer-review for a publisher of the manuscript for my book The Mystery Chronicles. His review was so enthusiastically favorable and colorful that not only did it get the book published, but the publisher asked Randi if it could be used as a foreword! It could. Amazing!

In recent years, Randi was at a conference on stage at a microphone, while an appreciative audience was asking him questions. Someone asked, who did he foresee as his successor? He looked over the faces and stopped at mine. “Well,” he said, “Joe Nickell for one.” I did not have a microphone but yelled back, “You changed my life!” Randi laughed in acknowledgment. Amazing!

I owe Randi more than I ever told him, but, like other generous people, he expected little in return. To him a protégé’s success was his success. Because of him I have made efforts to pay my debt forward. I cry for him now, but I will soon only laugh when I think of him and open my mouth wide in amazement—having learned from him yet another magical secret. Amazing!

SUSAN GERBIC

James Randi is … was … the force of nature we needed to kick us in the pants and start taking pseudoscience seriously. Magical thinking is a cancer that invades the body. Without intervention it can mush the brain, leaving people vulnerable to be preyed on. Randi called out the bullshit, stood up for science, and showed all of us how easily we can be fooled. No one is immune. Given the right conditions we all can fall for the con. Randi worked to educate us on how to see the trap and inoculate ourselves for times when we might be weak. Other times Randi worked to shut down the nonsense so that millions who hadn’t learned about the trap would never come across it.

Randi was truly amazing, and he joins a growing list of people who have shown us a better way of fighting. Use showmanship, investigation, and documentation and surround yourself with like-minded people—then report back even when you fail. These are all lessons we need to learn.

I’m still having difficulty processing the death of Randi, who had a powerful influence on how I think about activism. I float between present and past tenses to describe what he means … meant to me. He had great kindness toward those who have fallen for magical thinking and great anger toward grief vampires and quacks who seek to take advantage of others.

One quick story: Randi tested a man who thought he and his son were magnetic (you can find this on YouTube). Magnet-Man went on a TV show with his son who was about eight years old. They proceeded to stick heavy objects on their bare chests. Randi put talcum powder on the father’s chest, and afterward nothing would stick. It was a giant embarrassment. What is not well known is that Randi asked that the son not be present when it was shown how Magnet-Man was thwarted by talcum powder. Randi knew Magnet-Man had deluded himself into thinking he had magic powers and was teaching his son to think the same. Not allowing the son to see his father fail was a kindness that sums up the character of James Randi. We should all be so kind.

ALEJANDRO BORGO

I met James Randi in 1996, when he came to Buenos Aires invited by the Magician’s Entity of Argentina to give a lecture. Before presenting his talk, he met with some of us—at that time members of the Argentine Center for Research and Refutation of Pseudoscience (CAIRP). We talked about skepticism issues and strategies for getting the skeptical “message” to people.

I asked him if he was in favor of a crude, frontal, and somewhat aggressive skepticism or if on the contrary he preferred to approach the public in a friendly, softer way, showing understanding and kindness. Randi thought both approaches had to be used, depending on the circumstances. It was not the same, he explained, to debate with a charlatan who knows that he is cheating versus addressing people who could often feel intimidated by a rigid or bellicose position. “Friend of the people, enemy of charlatans” was his slogan.

He also told us that Carl Sagan had given him a draft of the book A Demon-Haunted World for Randi to read and advise on. Sagan had given it to Randi because he had doubts: “Wasn’t I very aggressive and strict?”; “Do I have to soften the book?” Randi replied: no, that was fine. Not a single comma should be changed. Arguably, A Demon-Haunted World was the least politically correct book that Carl Sagan wrote.

During that conversation Randi listened and made gestures and jokes. He was constantly moving. He did the same in his lecture. He was a very kind, shrewd person, with an irrepressible sense of humor, although when he debated or faced an enemy, all that kindness disappeared. He maintained the same posture, listened attentively, and sharpened his senses, but he was not the same.

The second and last time I met Randi was at the 5th World Congress of Skeptics held in beautiful Abano-Terme, Italy, in October 2004. Some of the speakers were Paul Kurtz, Joe Nickell, Ray Hyman, James Alcock, Massimo Polidoro, Kenneth Feder, Barry Beyerstein, and Sergio Della Sala, among others. By then, Randi was already a mythical figure in the realm of skepticism.

Randi’s presentation was wonderful and very entertaining. He made a narrative of his television appearances, his detective methods to unravel fraud, his famous “escapes,” hanging upside down in the air while he got rid of a straitjacket and other “small” feats. In some cases, he had to resort to his great talent for improvisation and ingenuity in front of a distrustful public. That is why he was known as James “The Amazing” Randi. He was a connoisseur of the intricacies of deception, and because of that he advised psi researchers to have an illusionist on their team.

You could debate anything with Randi. He had an open mind, although “not so open that your brains fall out,” as a phrase attributed to great British philosopher Bertrand Russell notes. To list here the milestones of his career would take a work from a monumental archive. Needless. Everything or almost everything is in his books, on the website of the James Randi Educational Foundation, on other websites, and in countless articles and notes from many, many media.

I remember his sharp gaze, his patience to listen, and a joke he played that revealed his sense of humor in any circumstance: back at the airport, we were with my friend and colleague Luis Alfonso Gámez standing in front of a screen that announced the flights. Suddenly we heard a familiar voice warning us: “Skeptics are not allowed at this airport!” Who could it be but James Randi himself, winking at us, raising his eyebrow, with a knowing smile?

He was a master of masters.

BENJAMIN RADFORD

It’s not much of a stretch to say that you probably wouldn’t know who I am if not for James “The Amazing” Randi. The first substantive skeptical (that is, not merely hedging but unequivocally evidence-based and critical) analysis of pop culture woo (to use a term he liked) I ever saw was written by Randi. I was in a tiny used bookstore in Logan, Utah, in 1992 on an ill-fated search for beer when I spied the purple cover of Skeptical Inquirer magazine (Fall 1982). The cover read, “Prophecy and the Selling of Nostradamus,” and I’d never seen anything like it.

Oh, I’d heard of Nostradamus, of course … over and over in breathless and sensational magazine articles, books, and TV shows gullibly praising the French writer for his seemingly specific, irrefutably accurate, and obviously inexplicable predictions. Everything I’d heard up to that point promoted the prophecies. I picked up the magazine, turned to page 30, and found a lone voice calling bullshit. Randi had brought—gasp—scholarship to the topic; there were even references! Peppered with witticisms, his piece provided an overview of Nostradamus and gave rational, logical explanations for why the predictions only seemed to be correct, drawing on fields including psychology (a subject I was then completing my undergraduate degree in).

I snatched the magazine off the rack and read it on the plane home. I realized that not only was there a whole other side to the Nostradamus claims but that an educated layperson who had done diligent research could be enough of an authority to write about it. Randi was a magician and skeptic, not a scholar of Middle French. But he knew how to research and to interview experts as needed. I realized that if Randi could do it, then maybe I could do it. (“It” in this case was limited to researching and publishing a skeptical analysis of a popular topic; this was long before I knew what a storied past he had—from magician to Alice Cooper’s stage manager to Uri Geller gadfly.) Throughout his career, he boldly called out bullshit and devised clever ways to expose it.

I later joined the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and Skeptical Inquirer, befriending Randi and other pioneers of the modern skeptical movement. Many of his most prominent investigations (into Geller, Peter Popoff, and Project Alpha, for example) were before my time in the organization, but he was still active, and we overlapped for many years. The more I learned about his investigations and his role in creating CSICOP, the more amazing he was. I dedicated my 2010 book Scientific Paranormal Investigation to Randi (and Joe Nickell), “the best of the best.”

In later years, I mostly saw Randi at conferences and was honored to share the stage with him a few times (on both land and sea) and visit him at his Florida home with his husband, Deyvi. Many of the conferences are a decade-old blur, but I fondly remember accompanying him to Dillards in his zippy sky-blue Mazda Miata to buy a new outfit for an upcoming TV show. Randi delighted a salesman who recognized him with a magic trick. On the way back, we talked about everything from his rivalry with Geller to our shared love of South American travel. Randi never taught me magic tricks (despite playful pleading), but he did teach me the importance of taking time to reach out to others, and that for virtually every “unexplained” topic—from psychics to ghosts to curses—there is another side to the story, often just as interesting as the sensational version. And best of all, it’s the truth.

MARK EDWARD

Randi is gone. We never thought it would actually happen, such was the almost super-human aspect of his personality and achievements. There is no use bemoaning the tremendous loss those of us who loved him have suffered. Rather I’m on the side of remembering the many times I shared with him that were funny and life affirming.

When I first met Randi back in the late 1970s, I had no idea how he would go on to be such a great friend and mentor. From an early start in understanding his style, it soon became apparent I could talk magic with him like nobody else I ever met. He got it and was never in the camp of standard magicians I grew up with who held their secrets in such high regard.

In the later years when I traveled to international events where he presided, as soon as we sat down, we immediately took up wherever we left off about this gadget or that mentalism technique as the rest of the assembled world seemed to fade away. And we could talk and laugh about anything. It was always a nonstop round of ideas and tales that covered many decades of his personal dealings with the best magical minds in the world—because he himself was one of those stellar celebrities. He never turned away from me, either in conversations or during the rough times when I treaded the dark path I chose to negotiate to write my book Psychic Blues. He knew where my heart was because he had been there himself. He generously wrote an introduction to my book for which I will forever be indebted. He likened it to a modern version of Nightmare Alley. His irreverent sense of magical wisdom and playfulness was singular. I remember one lunch with Randi loading a sugar bowl at a high-end restaurant with no-tear sugar packets—and impishly awaiting the victim.

Now I find I have lost one of the few great minds in magic I had left. It wasn’t the tricks or methods he imparted (and there were many); it was the sense of Randi’s vast experience and compassion for the human condition that caught my heart. He will never be replaced.

RICHARD SAUNDERS

The shortest giant I ever knew. That’s what I heard myself saying to someone the day I heard the news of James Randi’s death. And a giant he was. A giant in the world of conjuring, a giant in the world of writing, a giant in the world of skeptical investigation, a giant of the lecturing circuit, and a giant of a friend. There are not many on this earth, in any era, who can say they had the chance to meet someone who embodied the best of a particular walk of life or field of knowledge. Not just someone of note, not just someone near the top or someone who shines very bright but only for a short time.

I never met Picasso. I never met Hawking. I never met Darwin or Newton or Sagan. I have yet to meet McCartney. But not only did I meet Randi, I came to call him friend. I gained much from him, and he, just maybe, a little from me. And standing on his small shoulders gave me a giant’s view of reality. Once you glimpse that view, there is no going back. With everlasting love and thanks to my old mate.

NEIL deGRASSE TYSON

James Randi enjoyed mythic stature in the skeptical uni­verse. With his white beard, bushy eyebrows, and piercing stare, he belonged somewhere on a mountain, looking down at the rest of us mortals. Yes, us mortals. Mortals are human. We are unwitting victims of our own sensory frailties. We are distracted by our biases. We long for what we wish to be true. But when you coupled James’s formidable scientific literacy with this deep understanding of the human mind, and how we can be fooled by others and by ourselves, you get someone who transcends the biological vessel that con­tains him.

In college, the first book I ever read on skepticism was Flim-Flam!, of course written by James Randi. Later, as a professional, I was delighted when we finally met and looked forward to spending any time I could with him. Why? Because he was always the most perceptive person in the room. I felt childlike in his presence, learning at every turn from the master—from offering simple and entertain­ing sleight-of-hand magic tricks, to revealing the tactics of mentalists, mediums, and other charlatans who claim special powers over mind and matter. James Randi was on the front lines of it all, leading the charge against fuzzy thinking and toward a more rational society. Sure, I’m a scientist, so our Venn diagrams of inquiry overlapped in many places. But they did not overlap in subterfuge. In this realm he knew more about how I think, feel, and react than I do. A stark reminder that even with a PhD, I’m still human. Which is the only prerequisite you need to being fooled. And James Randi knew that better than any of us.