By Melissa Garza
There are times when I feel like writing about people that I admire. When I was in school, teachers would always assign essays where I could go on and on about the people that I found interesting and those that I respect and adored. Eighth grade composition class was the best. I hated high school for a number of reasons, but it was in that class that I shined. I was able to write about everyone who shaped me and all of those who through their wealth of knowledge and talent I became a little smarter or more inspired artistically.
As an adult, I still like to write about those that I think are marvelous for one reason or another. The Amazing James Randi is definitely on that list. His work as a magician is remarkable, but what he is most notorious for is his keen investigative skills when it comes to matters of the paranormal.
He is a skeptic who protects the mourning, the needy and those all too willing to trade their money for a moment of peace that is destined to pass from the swindlers and the frauds. He offers and has for many years $1 million dollars to anyone who can prove the existence of the paranormal. He has investigated psychics, tarot readers, aura readers, palm readers, faith healers, astrologers, dowsers, etc. and every time the results have shown that no evidence of the paranormal was shown and the answers collected by those tested never surpassed those reached by sheer chance.
Randi makes it more difficult for the parasites in human form that suck dry those taken. One of my favorite examples is Peter
Jackoff – I mean Popoff. Peter Popoff in the 1980s was one of the largest proclaimed faith healers on television. He was one of those idiots that would go to the seriously ill and advise them that God worked through him and that he could cure them. Further mystifying the faithful was his ability to know their name, address and ailment. James Randi suspected that God was at least not the only one talking to him – and he set up a sting. He played a recording on Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show (R.I.P. Carson) which showed Popoff’s wife speaking to him and advising him of the sickness.
Now we’re talking about the sick! There were cases where those who could be helped and treated by traditional medicine died out of the belief that God took away their illness. Diabetics would throw their medication away and cancer patients would walk away from treatment only to die. Well, after Randi exposed him – he had to plead bankruptcy. Sadly, this prick Popoff is back. He has a website and asks you to send him money. Honestly, I think the jerk belongs in prison for life….but hopefully, enough people will find out about his past and his Ferrari driving ass will end up destitute; not that I’m bitter or anything.
Another man that Randi exposed and probably his most famous was the former psychic – now self-proclaimed mystic Uri Gellar. Rather than admitting his spoon-bending talent was a trick, he declared he was a psychic. Gellar travelled around to all the television shows showing off like a peacock. Now there’s nothing wrong with magic. Magic is f’n awesome! The first time I saw Criss Angel, he really did freak the hell out of my mind. I didn’t know how he walked on air – and if I’m totally honest there was a thought that entered my mind thinking that perhaps he wasn’t human.
Now, I unlike Randi am gullible. I freely admit it. I try to think skeptically but sometimes, I’m completely taken in. I don’t buy cold readers. People who say things like, “What does a letter in between B through Z mean to you.” John Edwards (the psychic) and Sylvia Browne are scumbags. I don’t give money to faith healers or psychics.
A prime example of my gullibility was when watching an episode of the UK show Penn & Teller Fool Us ( Why does the UK have all the best shows?). They have magicians on the show who try to show tricks that Penn and Teller can’t figure out. In one episode, there was a guy who had a bowl of balls with numbers on them (like Bingo or lottery balls) and everyone in the audience had a number under their seat as the individual who was to be chosen was random. Penn picked a number and guy came to the stage. Well, the guy ended up being the magician in disguise. I had no clue how they did it. I was completely stumped. It turned out that it was a simple answer. The numbers on the balls were different than the numbers that the audience had under their seat. It didn’t even occur to me. My mind doesn’t work that way. I can read a good book (for example, The Truth about Uri Gellar) and then recite a good portion of it. I can write a twenty page report on a two page essay within a couple hours. Then there are things- common sense things -that I just don’t get.
These are the times I see something on TV that I can’t explain and say to my loving husband, “Honey, how do you explain that?”
And he’ll look at me with affection and say, “I can’t explain it, but that’s because neither of us are trained in that field. I’m sure James Randi knows how he did it.” My husband loves Randi too. He has good taste. That’s one of the reasons I married him.
Going back to those idiots who claim they talk to the dead. Sylvia Browne is the worst. At least, she is the one who pisses me off the most. I remember Montel Williams would promote the hell out of her. What aggravates me most about her is that she AGREED on Larry King Live to take the $1 million dollar challenge and then backed out of it. She agreed in 2001. Now, she has her publicist claim the reason she doesn’t want to do it is because Randi is a Godless man as he’s an atheist. Now, I’m sorry – if there is a grand creator (which I hope there is) when he/she looks at the work Randi did to help people- especially in educating children to be skeptic via the James Randi Educational Foundation -and then looks at the awful things Browne did to make a buck, I’m fairly certain that Randi’s not the one who has anything to worry about.
Deservingly so, there is a documentary being produced about the life and works of James Randi. An Honest Liar is going to delve into Randi’s entire life both as a magician and as an investigator.
Randi is such an amazing individual and exactly what the world needs. He assures that critical thinking is used. He helps repress the instinct that drives some to want to think that tricks are paranormal and drives us to want to analyze things further.
He is an asset, a role model, an excellent speaker and a brilliant man. He’s the kind of person that I strive to be. When I have a child, his speeches are what I would show him or her to assist them to think more analytically than what I’m capable of.
There are so many videos of James Randi available, yet it doesn’t seem like enough. I want all the videos, all the speeches, and all of the stunts he had done in his life to help raise the much needed skepticism that lacks in society.
In a day when reality TV is anything but and the news is constantly retracting stories that they didn’t investigate prior to airing, skepticism is needed just to maintain what real truths there are.
James Randi’s Website: http://www.randi.org/site/
An Honest Liar’s Website: http://www.anhonestliar.com/anhonestliar/Home.html
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