Paranormal Investigators: Past & Present: James Randi

International Sceptic James Randi

This week we are visiting a famous sceptic and debunker of the paranormal, that's right, a sceptic, Mr James Randi.
Randi, a native of Toronto Canada is an internationally renown sceptic, but also an investigator of the paranormal. Randi has investigated the occult, supernatural beliefs and the paranormal, what he refers to collectively as “woo-woo”.
James Randi started out on his paranormal exploration path as a magician named “The Amazing Randi”, from 1946 he was a professional conjurer and escapologist, he has appeared on many television shows over the years including the Tonight Show, Penn and Teller and in Australia on an infamous episode of The Don Lane Show, where Don was on stage with James Randi. Randi criticised Doris Stokes, a show regular, and the tempers boiled over, Don Lane was outraged and famously said to Randi, "we're going for a commercial break and you can piss off. We'll be back with Diana Trask" see the clip here:

 http://youtu.be/vIPqUJiiMwc at 2:17 onwards.

Don Lane and James Randi

During the 60's Randi hosted his own radio program, of which he often spoke about UFO's, amongst his guests was famous UFO researched James Mosley. Mosely invited Randi to be a guest speaker at a UFO conference in New York where he famously said during a speech “ Let's not fool ourselves. There are some garden variety liars involved in all this. But in among all the trash and nonsense perpetrated in the name of Ufology, I think there is a small grain of truth."
In the '70s, Randi went on tour with hard rock act, Alice Cooper. He performed on stage as a dentist and executioner. He also designed a number of Alice's stage props that were used throughout Alice's macabre stage shows.

Perhaps James Randi is best known for the offer of one million U.S. dollars for any person who can demonstrate evidence of paranormal, supernatural or occult powers under event conditions agreed to by both parties. To this day, the offer still stands with no-one being able to prove their psychic abilities under test conditions.
James Randi, now in his 80's is still working hard, having recently come to Australia for the annual convention of Australian Sceptics in Carlton Victoria. He is also working on a documentary about a stunt he pulled in Australia with the 60 minutes TV show crew back in the 1980s!

Update: James Randi passed away at the age of 92 in October 2020.

You can read more about James Randi here:

http://www.randi.org/site/

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