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Sept. 27, 2005 I became aware of the existence of James Randi about 10 years ago, while I was looking into such hoaxes as the shroud of Turin, the various Ark discoveries, the tombs of David and Rachel, and the miracles at Lourdes. It just so happened that Randi’s name came up repeatedly in that particular section of the San Diego Public Library, which being organized according to the Dewey Decimal System, lines up books on religion, parapsychology, philosophy and all that kind of stuff together in one big set of shelves which it would be very wise to hire Mayflower Moving and Storage to convey to the nearest recycling plant. James Randi was one of the bright spots in the collection, however, being one of those 1% of the authors who debunk the other 99%. In this he is something like his intellectual predecessor, Harry Houdini, being a magician who knows all the tricks and has made a second career of exposing charlatans and mountebanks. Randi was at one time associated with a magazine called Skeptical Inquirer, until law-suits instigated against him threatened to involve the magazine as well. Apparently, whenever Randi denounces some religious bellwether, quack guru or other swindler, he is sued for libel. You would think that someone who claimed religious, supernatural, paranormal or mystical powers would not have to descend to something so mundane as a lawsuit to vindicate his honor, but that’s what they do do. Randi is also a fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, CSICOP, Other distinguished members of CSICOP were the late Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan. Actually, Randi is not a scientist himself, and admits, for example, not knowing even basic calculus. But that’s not terribly important in my opinion. Any mature, canny, intelligent person, with an IQ of, say, 100 on up should be able to satisfy himself that all talk of the supernatural, the paranormal and the occult is pure nonsense. Unfortunately, most people are not concerned with the truth; they’re more concerned with conforming to the wishes of their friends, family and fellow workers, so they lie. In 1999, for the first time, I had access to all issues of Skeptical Inquirer since its inception. Back issues of magazines in bound volumes are on the open shelves in the Phoenix Public Library. In many of the articles, Randi’s involvement was evident, but the disappointing feature was that while the magazine had many, many articles debunking cults, ghost stories, tales of clairvoyance, precognition and telepathy, and the like, they only infrequently if at all attacked organized religion. I guess the money that churches have at their disposal for legal fees intimidates Skeptical Enquirer. But, of course, I know up front that ghost stories, clairvoyance and so forth are all so much blarney and malarkey, so I don’t have to read about investigation after investigation. I would like, though, to have had more information on the tales of miraculous cures at Lourdes and all the miracles that the Catholic Church pretends to document. Apparently, Skeptical Enquirer will not touch the subject. So my interest in James Randi has been only mild. Sometimes I check on Internet to see what, if anything, he has on the latest charlatan that someone at useless-knowledge.com has dished up, as, for example, Meher Baba, Adi Da or Paul Tipler. Anyway, for a number of years, Randi has had a standing offer of a $1,000,000 reward to anyone who can demonstrate supernatural, paranormal or occult powers in a test with conditions agreed upon by Randi and the claimant. So far, no one has passed even the preliminary examination. What would you expect? Frankly, I cannot even understand why someone would go to all the trouble to debunk what is obvious twaddle in the first place, but I’m glad that someone like Randi does do it. Then in 1999, one Rico Kolodzey made the claim that he doesn’t ever eat anything, but lives on prana, “breath” or “air”. Randi didn’t even invite him to take the preliminary test, but dismissed him out of hand, calling him a “liar”. Now we have a small lunatic fringe that claims that Randi is a “hypocrite” or that Randi “is on the run”, as if there’s a chance in a trillion that Kolodzey actually lives on air. Coincidentally, his name comes very close to the Russian word “Golodniy”, which, fitly enough, means “Hungry.” I don’t know exactly why Randi dismissed Kolodzey so cavalierly, but, believe you me, Randi is not “on the run”. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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