>he hates to see them lose, he said. “They’re always rationalizing,” Randi told me as we walked to dinner at the casino steakhouse. “There are always reasons prevailing why they can’t do it. They call it the resilience of the duped. It’s with intense regret that you watch them go down the tubes.”<p>It's nice to see that Randi is still able to see these people as human beings, rather than charlatans to be disproved. I was a big fan of his back when I was reading a lot of Ayn Rand and preaching Reason as the only god, and I took a sort of smug pleasure in watching him debunk psychics and mystics. But I realize now that that was just another form of dehumanization.<p>On an unrelated note, I recall an interview where Randi said he never took drugs because he sought to experience "the realest reality." That strikes me as very odd. Surely hallucinations are a part of reality, albeit a highly subjective part. I'm surprised that someone so involved with the paranormal would have no interest in studying the psychedelic experience.
To anyone interested in reading more about skepticism, Carl Sagan's <i>Demon-Haunted World</i> is one of the most impactful books I've read on the subject.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World</a>
It makes me so happy to see him getting this deserved attention while he's still around to enjoy it. 20-odd years ago I was lucky enough to see him perform and speak and he was indeed amazing.<p>For those who want to know more about him, there's a recent documentary out: <a href="http://anhonestliar.com/wp/" rel="nofollow">http://anhonestliar.com/wp/</a><p>It's a great example to me of how Kickstarter can really work. I was happy to help fund it. They raised circa $100k over the goal, and I'm sure that's because there were a lot of Randi fans like me who were happy to chip in. <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/220588101/an-honest-liar-the-amazing-randi-story" rel="nofollow">https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/220588101/an-honest-lia...</a>
In case some of you don't know it his foundation YouTube channel is really good: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/JamesRandiFoundation" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/user/JamesRandiFoundation</a>
I'm surprised they didn't mention it in the article but BBC just released a great doc about Randi. It covers all the same stuff in this article but goes into a lot more detail, showing many of his confrontations with Geller, Popoff, etc.<p>Stream here: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04ndsb3/storyville-20142015-8-exposed-magicians-psychics-and-frauds" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04ndsb3/storyville-201...</a> (UK only but the tech savvy reader may be able to find it elsewhere)