James Randi, a magician who later challenged spoon benders, mind readers and faith healers with such voracity that he became regarded as the country’s foremost skeptic, has died, his foundation announced. He was 92.
Entertainer, genius, debunker, atheist; Mr Randi was them all. He began gaining attention not long after dropping out of high school to join the carnival.
As the Amazing Randi, he escaped from a locked coffin submerged in water and from a straitjacket as he dangled over Niagara Falls.
On a 1972 episode of “The Tonight Show,” he helped Johnny Carson set up Uri Geller, the Israeli performer who claimed to bend spoons with his mind. Mr Randi ensured the spoons and other props were kept from Mr Geller’s hands until showtime to prevent any tampering.
The result was an agonising 22 minutes in which Mr Geller was unable to perform any tricks.
Mr Randi had bushy white eyebrows and beard, a bald head, and gold-rimmed glasses, and bounced his 1.6 metre frame energetically, even in his final years. He sought to disprove not just those who read palms and minds, but chiropractors, homeopaths and others he saw as predators seeking innocent people’s money.
Mr Randi targeted those he saw as frauds with a tenacity and dedication he admitted was an obsession. His efforts were reminiscent of those of his great predecessor Harry Houdini, who devoted large portions of his time to debunking spiritualists and their seances.
“I see people being swindled every day by medical quackery, frauds of every sort, psychics and their hot lines, people who claim to be able to find lost children or to help them invest their money,” Mr Randi told The Associated Press in 1998.
“I know they are being swindled because I know the methods being used.”
There were other coups for Mr Randi: He once showed the messages television faith healer Peter Popoff claimed to be getting from God about his audience were actually coming from his wife through an earpiece. But the vast majority of those he aimed to show were frauds were lesser known, lured to prove their abilities by the James Randi Educational Foundation.
Through that organisation, Mr Randi was guardian of a $1 million prize he promised to give anyone who could prove either their own supernatural powers or the presence of a supernatural being.
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