In Memoriam: James Randi
The Amazing Randi has left us following a remarkable 92-year life of stage magic, skeptical debunkings, and quotable quips. A beloved figure in the stage magic scene, he was an inspiration to acts like Penn and Teller and to skeptics everywhere as he unmasked deceivers like Uri Geller and Peter Popoff as showmen and frauds rather than psychics, telekinetics or faith healers.
For a more exhaustive history of this remarkable man, please click here.
Randi’s amazing life and remarkable late discovery that he was gay are chronicled in the film An Honest Liar, which is well worth seeking out. He was an atheist and a progressive. We Atheopagans have him to credit for the term “woo-woo” for unscientific claims of occult and psychic abilities.
His Million-Dollar Paranormal Challenge remains uncollected after decades on offer.
Thank you, Amazing Randi, for being a voice for skepticism as well as a presenter of wonders. May you be long remembered.
Mark Green
Author of ATHEOPAGANISM: An Earth-Honoring Path Rooted in Science and ROUND WE DANCE: Creating Meaning Through Seasonal Rituals, Mark Green is the initiator of the Atheopagan path and editor at the Atheopaganism blog. He volunteers as a staffer to the Atheopagan Society Council to support the growth of Atheopaganism throughout the world. In his home of Sonoma County, California, in the occupied ancestral lands of the Southern Pomo and Coast Miwok peoples, he is best known as an environmental activist and founder of Sonoma County Conservation Action, the largest environmental activism group in his region. He continues to work in the conservation sphere, focusing particularly on protection of natural landscapes on California's federal public lands.
One Comment
johnbrownson
Wow, what a life! And I was completely unaware of him. I think my favorite of his tricks, unintended as they probably were, were the times when people, unable to accept any “normal” explanation for what they were seeing, insisted that he was using paranormal powers, thus, turning the usual relationship between conjuror and “mark” on it’s head.
I’m happy to learn, too, the origin of the term “woo-woo”. Wasn’t someone asking about that, just a few days ago?
Thanks for passing this along, Mark.