Birthday: James Randi doesn't do spoons

Randall James Hamilton Zwinge, aka James Randi, aka The Amazing Randi (1928- )

Recipient, MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, 1986

Recipient, National Council Against Medical Fraud Award

Recipient, American Physical Society’s Joseph A Burton Forum Award, 1989

Subject, NOVA documentary, PBS, 1993

Recipient, Academy of Magical Arts’ Lifetime Achievement Fellowship, 2012

Author, biographer

Born in Canada, Randi became fascinated by magic during an extended convalescence from an accident as a teen. After high school he joined a carnival as a psychic, but was drawn to an eventual career as investigator and debunker of shams and frauds passed off as magic or miracle.

In his 20s, Randi published a successful newspaper astrology column made up of cut-and-paste collages of other astrologists’ predictions. In 1956, he broke Houdini’s record, staying in a sealed box at the bottom of a pool for 104 minutes on the Today show. He designed the sets for, and played a character in, rock star Alice Cooper’s 1973-74 concert tour.

In 1972 Randi triggered twenty-plus years of controversy with psychic Uri Geller, claiming Geller was a charlatan. "If Uri Geller bends spoons with divine powers, then he's doing it the hard way," Randi claimed. After baiting Geller ten years, Randi expanded his claims in a 1982 book; Geller finally took the bait and sued Randi in 1991. In 1995 Geller’s suit was dismissed as frivolous and he was ordered to pay $120,000 in legal fees. A decade ago, after a bout with cancer, the unrepentant Geller told reporters he would die at some point, just not yet. Then he added he wanted to lavish sendoff. “I just to be cremated, and my ashes blown in Uri Geller’s eyes.

In the ‘70s Randi was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson, and more than once debunked the claims of other psychics and paranormalists, in their presence, on the air. The MacArthur Foundation gave him a “genius” grant, which he divided between fighting Uri Geller’s lawsuit and exposing the shams of religious faith healers like Peter Popoff and Ernest Angeley. For decades he has offered a million dollar prize to anyone who can demonstrate psychic or paranormal powers under controlled conditions. The closest anyone has come to trying was the author and psychic Sylvia Browne, who agreed to do it in 2001 but never did; Randi’s website ran a clock marking the time since she agreed until her death in 2013.

At a meeting where Randi was duplicating the performances of Uri Geller, a professor from the University at Buffalo shouted out that Randi was a fraud. Randi said: "Yes, indeed, I'm a trickster, I'm a cheat, I'm a charlatan, that's what I do for a living. Everything I've done here was by trickery." The professor shouted back: "That's not what I mean. You're a fraud because you're pretending to do these things through trickery, but you're actually using psychic powers and misleading us by not admitting it." A similar event involved Senator Claiborne Pell, a believer in psychic phenomena. When Randi personally demonstrated to Pell that he could reveal - by simple trickery - a concealed drawing that had been secretly made by the senator, Pell refused to believe that it was a trick, saying: "I think Randi may be a psychic and doesn't realize it."

A keen amateur skywatcher and friend of the late astronomer Carl Sagan, Randi was awarded a named asteroid in 1981. Retired, he lives in Florida with his husband. The two were married in 2013 after a 27 year relationship. HIs books included a highly regarded biography of Houdini.

Related sites:

“At 86, James Randi is still amazing,” The Miami Herald, August 30, 2014

James Randi Educational Foundation