Lewis Jones died on September 9, 2021. He would have been ninety-seven in November. He will be best known by skeptics for writing eighty-four articles for his column “Inklings” in the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry newsletter, Skeptical Briefs. I first met Lewis in 1980 when I represented Prometheus Books in Europe. Lewis telephoned me to order The Psychology of the Psychic and ESP and Parapsychology. During our long conversation, it transpired that we had much in common, not only as skeptics but also an interest in magic. Lewis was a prolific inventor of magic and published many books on card tricks, including Encyclopedia of Impromptu Card Forces, Ahead of the Pack, and Seventh Heaven, the latter being a collection of the best effects of his first seven books. Now out of print, Seventh Heaven is still in great demand by magicians. His effects included cards, coins, business cards, and calendars; see lewisjonesmagic.co.uk for plaudits given him by magicians. Before he died, Lewis had arranged for many of his books to be republished by an American company. An announcement about this will be posted to his website soon.
In Paul Daniels’s BBC magic show broadcast on February 22, 1992, Daniels and Debbie McGee presented a mind reading effect that Lewis had published in Person to Person: A Book of Telephone Telepathy. It was only when watching the show that he knew his effect was being used. Lewis’s effect, called “Pattern Principle,” formed part of the trick that Rick Lax used to fool Penn and Teller on their television show Fool Us.
Lewis had an interesting and successful life. He studied modern languages at Cambridge University. For a short time, he was a teacher at Summerhill School, which describes itself as “the oldest children’s democracy in the world. It is probably the most famous alternative or ‘free’ school.”
After leaving Cambridge, he immediately began writing radio drama and short stories for the BBC. He then spent ten years in Singapore as a presenter, producer, and news reader for national radio and is now an honorary member of Singapore’s IBM Ring 115 (the Great Wong Ring). He was eventually thrown out of Singapore for interviewing someone who the first prime minister, Lee Kwan Yew, disapproved of.
The good thing about his stay in Singapore is that he met his delightful wife, Sush Devi, who came to England with him and played lead violin for the English National Opera. Lewis too was a musician, playing piano. He arranged a selection of Beatles’ songs and other works for Devi’s string quartet, which they played at many venues, including the Purcell Room on London’s South Bank. Settling in London, Lewis initially wrote school radio scripts for the BBC but later became an editor for both Longman and Collins publishers. Lewis is survived by his wife; his daughter, Lynne; son, Dale; three grandsons; and seven great-grandchildren.