James Randi-A Report from the Paranormal Trenches (1992) 

We need someone else like him to carry on his legacy

A man who really blasted the con men and fakers.

A man that was a very intelligent skeptic. He will be missed greatly. 😢

i agree that his impact has been enormous and underrated.

What a prolific life! I’ve been watching him for decades, and still coming across content I’ve never seen before!

yeah...i heard he, like Elvis, has left the building..

@@WeatherWeasel66 That doesn't change the fact that we need men like Randi more than ever!

Not really. In fact there are a LOT of ppl like him these days. His motivation for 'debunking' the paranormal was that he tried desperately for decades to become famous as a stage magician but was never accepted because of his homosexuality. That in itself is a shame, but he used that bitterness as a tool to attack those who were popular. Yeah he busted fraud 'televangelists' and 'psychics' like Uri Geller, but they were fooling no one but the foolish, and it takes a fool to feel the need to say "Uh uh. Thats not true!". Does anyone go to a David Copperfied or David Blaine show and genuinely believe theyre performing 'magic'? No. Its entertainment and its sad that Randi expended an entire life and talent in a bitter pursuit to attack people because he was rejected. Its no different than someone who watches pro wrestling and feels they have to announce that it's fake. There is no one like Randi anymore bc being gay is much more accepted now than it was then. People are free to be whomever they are so this brand of ignorant bitterness is fortunately obsolete.

​@@M_Linghe was adamantly against the claims of global warming.

@@Versul1good.

The man is blinkered, a showman saying "l haven't seen a ghost so they don't exist".

@@leonardgibney2997 he never said that, you pillock. He wanted proof and explanation under certain conditions

@@leonardgibney2997 Those who believe false claims by woo-woo charlatans, all without the slightest proof, are not just blinkered themselves. They are blind to reason. And you’re one of them.

@@leonardgibney2997 nob, they don’t exist, prove they do.

@@oo0Spyder0oo I really envy you guys with your expertise on what exists/doesn't exist in the Cosmos. Me, l try to have an open mind.

@ecky1965 Yes, it was. Such people are rare.

@@jonchess8844 He will look forward to seeing you and hearing your wonderful words.

@ecky1965 Yes, was it COVID-19?

I'm just sad that he had to see Trump and the way the world was in his final years. Imagine making truth and being skeptical your life's work and witnessing what the world turned into? Witnessing the Internet come into being, a thing that was supposed to democratize information and make everyone smarter, ultimately used as a tool for entertainment and spreading lies. He must have been dead inside.

My hero also!

Good riddance to James Randi. So called "skeptics" are more accurately described as LIARS.

he's in hell

@@phizzelout There is no hell

James Randi was a liar.

No proof of a heaven or hell

Rest in peace, magical fairy

He would rip you apart for saying that

Lol! He had no soul! You should have asked him!

I can only hope there will be someone like him.

yeah another idiot who uses money against God@@A-non-theist

No such thing as R.I.P. He is in for a big shock after he takes his last breath on this earth. When it is your time I am sure you and Mr Randi will have a lot to talk about of just how stupid you where when you were on the earth. Along with Carl Sagan and Mr Dawkins and Mr Sherman. I am looking forward to meeting them all and we can go through all their books, all their TV shows and all their lectures. I will show them all my books and we will see who will have the last laugh. Boy, I am looking so forward taking my last breath, I wish it every night before I sleep to never wake up.

@@tomkerr552 i really do hope your wish do come true, because i am so prepared to give the sadistic engineer behind this mess a piece of my mind and every profanity i know!

@@deeprecce9852 I have no wish to come true I have 100% certainty it will come true and I can't wait for the day. There are a lot of people in spirit waiting to greet him. He has been looking so sheepish for the last 4 days. But, because in spirit and the way it is, they will be full of pity for such an ignorant un-evolved moron.

@@deeprecce9852 There is no great sadistic enginer awaiting you. You will be shown a mirror. You will be given your autobiography to g through from berth to passing and you yourself as the engineer you can see what cog you added to the great gears of humanity. Everyone counts for self. No great escape artist waiting for forgiveness like tge religious nuts.

@@tomkerr552 Since you are 100% certain of your belief, good for you, for your intelligence is beyond my ignorant mind..good luck, hv a nice day!

He got in touch yet ? If so I’d say are the titie bars in hell as great as if imagine & are the gays having a great time #inderculoinchoicaesariumsantorimumstufruitexaccamuccaca malieus mallifictarum eroticis erodicarum fregata serantorum!!! Justicia non normale in americanicowtitikakoxanititi!!!!!! Naferusititata naferus naferztus?

James Randi is the reason why I got my kids a book about "magic". If they understand how people get fooled, maybe they will not get fooled (at least not that easily). Also, it is important to remember that nature can play "magic tricks" too, so if you cannot explain some phenomenon, maybe it is just a trick you didn't understand.

Speak for yourself

@@macysondheim He was.

This issue of failing to exhaust all possible causes for a phenomena, or failing to correctly identify the phenomena, is exactly the problem that paranormal believers fail to appreciate. Our brains are designed to come to quick, intuitive conclusions, which in many cases are correct but in most cases, especially those of a complex subject matter with tons of possibilities to ponder and subsequent questions to ask, our brains short-change us and bypass the logical reasoning route in lieu of a quicker, more comfortable route of intuition. We couldn't survive in the wild if we spent 15 minutes investigating every `squeaky floorboard` to fully and rigorously satisfy our curiosity. Instead our brain tries to let us have the cake and eat it too: we get to come to a conclusion our brain interprets as correct, and can in some cases function to keep us safe (the whistle was scary, right?) but we don't have to go through the lengthy and mentally demanding process of logical reasoning. The price of course is that the methods used to come to the conclusion are less than sound. Not a problem whenever we are hunting for food in a post apocalyptic wasteland and the ominous whistle that we presumably avoid is actually a squeaky floorboard, but when we advance to the point that careful, rigorous reasoning becomes very important and a lack of it can actually lead us very astray and at worst cause serious harm or death, we are in a bind because our brains are evolutionarily adapted to avoid careful logical reasoning in so many situations.

The good news is - we have many videos and programmes here on youtube we can access, whenever we feel the need for a bit of wisdom from James Randi.

The Alpha Kids. >: D

Well, now he's really in bits. And probably pieces. And totally as funny as an HIV infection.

Yes 👍

@zachmorgan6982 > I'm not the sharpest apple > in the picnic basket but I > think this guy is on to something don’t be so tough on yourself… how about not being the sharpest knife in the drawer..? 😉

Who signed it?

@@TraitorFelon.14.3 .......him, obviously.

I think he was referring to the case when a couple of his mentalists had fooled the scientists into the existence of the "paranormal". The funniest thing was, these mentalists had specific instructions by Randi to answer honestly if anyone ever asked them if they were faking it. No one ever asked.

Maybe this en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Alpha

@@hereditarian9813 Maybe! Neat to read up on nonetheless.

I was thinking about Project Alpha during his talk BUT later in the talk he mentioned Project Alpha and I think he would not do this if it was about this project. He restrained few times in the talk telling any information about secret project and it doesn't fit to me to be PA.

This was early 1990’s and there was still much woo-woo in science. Like, government was still paying scientists to explore ESP for military use. And scientists were either deluding themselves into it, or not being up front with the truth, for an easy payday. Taxpayers paid for a lot of nonsense from the 1960’s through the… well, now. Pretty sure that’s what he was referring to, scientists being influenced with a financial or other influencing incentive to find enough evidence to justify more research (I.e. job security). And he couldn’t talk about it because it was told to him in confidentiality and some of the “research” was still classified.

That “word” can be just about anything. The trick is that the magician has to be quick-witted enough to improvise an explanation, turning the jumble into whatever the word is.

You can download the audio version on skeptic.com!

@@skepticmagazine Cheers mate. I've located the file but have not one clue how to download it :(

Plenty of websites were you can convert youtube to mp4 just seacrh for that

I have a guess. When he gives the “stranger” the cards notice he says shuffle them face down. And he says slap the two of them together so that you don’t see what they are. This is to suggest that the person he gave them to couldn’t be in on the trick. Because they saw him shuffle them and then select two cards at random. He then says put them in the envelope and drop the other 3 on the floor face down. I think the “stranger” at that point switches the cards to three known cards that he drops. When Randi goes back to the desk notice he drops the envelope. Why would he do that? Only to switch it. In the one example I saw I would say the sound when the envelope hits the desk suggests that it dropped further than the inch or so if it had landed on the top of the desk. He misdirects everyone with some math. Then picks up the substitute envelope which has the known two cards in it and then opens the envelope.