Sad to see that the Amazing Randi has assumed ambient temperature, but what an extraordinary life, and one well-lived.
I remember seeing this when it first aired, when I was just a wee child. And I remember thinking Randi was just about the most amazing dude ever.
Randi (and, a little later, Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World) went a long way to curing me of my childhood love of, and belief in, stuff like psychics, cryptids, Bermuda Triangles, and so on.
His story and personal life as revealed in his documentary “An Honest Liar” was pretty incredible too.
RIP, if he was into that sort of thing, though he probably wasn’t.
Sad, sad news (although I had no idea he was still alive). Another thumbs up for An Honest Liar
So sad. He was a great man.
I’ve never heard of him, but the guy in the video is named “James”, and I was thinking holy hell, did he shrink down in old age.
A great skeptical mind.
A monster of rationality. Randi more or less changed my life with his acts and writings. He also showed us how to age not even gracefully, but powerfully. You can judge a person by those in their circle, and he had most of the best.
I had the pleasure of meeting him at the second TAM in Vegas, I guess 20 years ago or so. Absolute fireball of energy and intelligence in a remarkably compact package.
Huh, never heard of this guy before. Seems like an interesting fellow.
Might look into An Honest Liar when I have time.
No disrespect, but how did you never hear of the Amazing Randi? Maybe you don’t live in the USA? Seriously.
Or, alternate theory, I am 35 and grew up in a fundamentalist household. So he was both before my time, as well as not something I would have been shown (rather the opposite really) growing up.
I don’t know who this guy is, but that blurry video with someone pretending to do something miraculous with their mind and being thwarted by small pieces of foam is kind of amazing, as in kind of amazing that had to be shown in TV.
Shit. This world is gonna go straight down the crapper without Randi keeping a lookout for the next con artists. :(
Geez, tough room!
It’s important to put context on Randi’s importance. By the mid to late 1970s, as a country we had a fascination with so-called psychic phenomenon, and you had guys like this Hydrick dude and Uri Geller going on national TV shows displaying their psychic talents.
Hydrick had done his nonsense on the show That’s Incredible!, and Randi had awarded them his award for doofuses being taken in by charlatans using tricks well known to magicians. And so he challenged Hydrick to duplicate his feats with some controls and that’s what’s in the video.
Randi spent the last 45 years or so debunking people who claimed their faked psychic ability as scientific fact. Mostly because those folks were using these claims to take advantage of people.
And so it wasn’t just idiots claiming to be able to bend spoons with their minds he went after. He went after faith healers and so-called “psychic surgeons” as well.
His career of skepticism took on lots of unbelievable claims, exposing them as the sham that they were – whether that was quackery, pseudo-religious nonsense, diet claims, and pseudo-science.
He also put forth a $1 million challenge: prove or provide irrefutable evidence of the paranormal, and Randi would give you the million bucks.
This might be a generational thing. I’m roughly the same age as Craig and had never heard of him before this thread. He seems neat, though.
Well just because I didn’t hear of him before this topic, and just because the video is icky and the idea is silly that people fell for this does not mean I don’t appreciate the fact people did do that. I mean it was laughable that that guy claimed foam ruined his abilities which he can’t just turn on and off as he pleases… well unless he wants to I guess. heh.
Oh, I was just dorking around at you young whippersnappers. ;)
The Uri Geller on the Tonight Show thing is equally ludicrous and funny as the dude with his static electricity that you mentioned. Using the controls that Randi provided to the show, you’ve got Geller talking about there not being enough “water” in the metal of the spoons and keys. And then saying he didn’t feel “strong” that night. Just the “Oh shit, I’ve been found out” looks on their faces.
Also, the dude in the first clip, “Hydrick” was a really skeevy dude. Had already done prison time for assaults, and would later get arrested and convicted on pedophilia charges. ICK.
Great videos! What a brilliant thing to devote your life to, and then to do it so well.
Sadly the fact that so few people know who Randi was kinda explains why we are where we are in 2020. Vale Randi, we need a legion more people like you (as well as media bookers willing to put debunkers on the air.)
Australian here! I used to follow Randi a bit way back.
I think an interest in the paranormal many many years ago may have helped, when he had that 1 million dollar paranormal challenge going for mediums and dowsers and the like.
He helped me transition to a healthy scepticism. :)
I caught wind of him as a teenager or early-20’s guy, with his exposure of faith healers and wireless headsets feeding them info from interviews at the door or cards folks filled out.
Even then I knew it was bullshit, but he showed me how banal is really was.