Magician-turned-skeptic aims to expose frauds

“I think that the same way a computer dies when you put a bullet through it after pulling the plug out, I don’t think that we live beyond the grave at all,” he said. “I don’t see any compelling evidence to support that belief.”

For all the analysis Randi puts into everything, he still finds delight in observing magic he knows is a stunt or watching a film that is just fantasy. He talks about the crushing feelings of having a dying friend and speaks of the magic of love, though he has always been single.

‘The true believers will not pay any attention’
At 78, Randi is 5-foot-6, with gold-rimmed glasses, a bald head and bushy white eyebrows and beard. He drives a light blue Mazda Miata with “Amazing” on the license plate. Peacocks can be heard and seen on the lawn outside the foundation’s office and they leave their droppings on the path to the front door. Everyone calls him Randi.

He is energetic and lucid, quick with a joke, and looking back on his life he can’t help feeling some frustration. No matter what fraud-busting light he casts on purveyors of the paranormal, they seem to pull off escape acts of their own, continuing to win new followers and to earn checks Randi says are cashed at the expense of realism.

Alan Diaz / AP James Randi gestures during an interview in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., June 29, 2007.

“I’m not able to do the things that I want to do,” he said. “The true believers will not pay any attention to evidence that does not show that they believe to be untrue.”

His voice grows as he begins the litany of offenders — Geller and Popoff and so forth. “I’m very angry,” he said. “I should be able to get them brought to justice.”

Geller, who remains a target on Randi’s Web site, acknowledges his appearance on “The Tonight Show” was a “humiliation” but notes his career has soldiered on.

“I thought, ‘This is it. I’m finished.’ But exactly the opposite happened,” Geller said. “People like Randi — skeptics — actually made my career. They did for me what a PR man would have asked a million dollars for.”

Randi is not the least bit shaken talking about death. He nearly died last year, undergoing double bypass surgery and remaining hospitalized for two months. Some might credit God for their survival, but not Randi. He has seen no proof.

Envelopes continuously arrive at Randi’s office seeking to take him up on his seven-digit challenge, seeking to prove the unprovable. None of the entries has made him question his beliefs, but his certainty, he acknowledges, always comes with a sprinkling of uncertainty, too.

“I am probably right. But I’m always only probably right,” he said. “Absolutes are very hard to find.”

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