Join us on Facebook
Magic Tricks For Kids
  • Home
  • Magic Lessons
    • Magic Lessons #1 – Paper Bag Magic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #2 – Change Bag Magic Prop
    • Magic Lessons #3 – Audience Magic Tricks
    • Magic Lessons #4 – Halloween Magic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #5 – Magic Paddle Move
    • Magic Lessons #6 – Knife Magic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #7 – Vanishing Coin Magic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #8 – Stage Magic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #9 – Magic Seeds Wand
    • Magic Lessons #10 – Rubber Band Magic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #11 – Water Magic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #12 – Food Magic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #13 – Jumping Carrot Magic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #14 – Match Box Magic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #15 – Newspaper Magic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #16 – Win a Coin Toss
    • Magic Lessons #17 – Money Magic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #18 – Penetrating Matches Trick
    • Magic Lessons #19 – Finger Illusion Trick
    • Magic Lessons #20 – Instant Star Magic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #21 – Torn and Restored Napkin
    • Magic Lessons #22 – Jumping Rubber Band Trick
    • Magic Lessons #23 – Cut and Restored Balloon Trick
    • Magic Lessons #24 – Balloon Penetration Trick
    • Magic Lessons #25 – Disappearing Sugar Trick
    • Magic Lessons #26 – Cups and Balls Trick
    • Magic Lessons #27 – Linking Shoelace Trick
    • Magic Lessons #28 – Age Prediction Magic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #29 – Clipped Card Trick
    • Magic Lessons #30 – Paper Rose Napkin Magic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #31 – Comedy Card Trick
    • Magic Lessons #32 – Jumping Flea Magic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #33 – Jingle Bell Monte
    • Magic Lessons #34 – Sneaky Card Sleight
    • Magic Lessons #35 – Frog Prince Magic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #36 – Hindu Force
    • Magic Lessons #37 – Bigger Smaller Magic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #38 – False Shuffle
    • Magic Lessons #39 – Fantastic Mr Plastic Magic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #40 – Magic Force Bag
    • Magic Lessons #41 – Quiz Show Magic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #42 – That Magician Is Me
    • Magic Lessons #43 – Appearing Wand Magic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #44 – Can I Call You?
    • Magic Lessons #45 – Towel Elephant
    • Magic Lessons #46 – Elephants Never Forget Trick
    • Magic Lessons #47 – Sheikh Mabooty
    • Magic Lessons #48 – Smart Feller
    • Magic Lessons #49 – CSI Magic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #50 – Coin Fold Magic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #51 – Crazy Matchbox Trick
    • Magic Lessons #52 – Mystery of the Missing Sock
    • Magic Lessons #53 – Pencil Magic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #54 – It’s Magic Time
    • Magic Lessons #55 – Glass Through Table Trick
    • Magic Lessons #56 – Magazine Prediction Trick
    • Magic Lessons #57 – Nut and Bolt Trick
    • Magic Lessons #58 – Lucky Coin Trick
    • Magic Lessons #59 – Sneaky Shoelace Trick
    • Magic Lessons #60 – Misdirection Lesson
    • Magic Lessons #61 – Jumping Bean Trick
    • Magic Lessons #62 – Secret Magic Code
    • Magic Lessons #63 – Grandma’s Bra Trick
    • Magic Lessons #64 – Magic Pen Trick
    • Magic Lessons #65 – Safety Pin Trick
    • Magic Lessons #66 – Floating Steel Ball
    • Magic Lessons #67 – String Trick
    • Magic Lessons #68 – Dice Trick
    • Magic Lessons #69 – Behind Back Card Force
    • Magic Lessons #70 – Long Card Trick
    • Magic Lessons #71 – Get Down Trick
    • Magic Lessons #72 – Easy Card Force
    • Magic Lessons #73 – Missing Card Hotline
    • Magic Lessons #74 – Magic String Trick
    • Magic Lessons #75 – Magic Mail Box
    • Magic Lessons #76 – Card-O-Matic Trick
    • Magic Lessons #77 – Need a Magic Hand?
    • Magic Lessons #78 – My Friend Has Three Eyes
  • All Tricks Index
  • Magicians Dictionary
  • About US
  • History of Magic
    • Fox Sisters
    • Kuda Bux
    • Al Goshman
    • Richard Potter
    • Shin Lim
    • Nate Leipzig
    • Max Malini
    • Dedi the Magician
    • Orson Welles
    • Fred Kaps
    • Cardini
    • Derren Brown
    • Charles Dickens
    • Ali Bongo
    • The Amazing Kreskin
    • Theodore Hardeen
    • David Blaine
    • Louis Haselmayer
    • Joseph Dunninger
    • Burling Hull
    • Penn and Teller
    • Haruo Shimada
    • Professor Louis Hoffmann
    • Hieronymus Scotto
    • Theodore Annemann
    • Zanzigs
    • Talma
    • Murray
    • Uri Geller
    • James Randi
    • Tommy Cooper
    • Stewart James
    • John Henry Anderson
    • Annie Abbott
    • Kalanag
    • Dante the Magician
    • Al Koran
    • Paul Daniels
    • Matthias Burchinger
    • Siegfried and Roy
    • Harry Blackstone Sr.
    • Robert Harbin
    • Dai Vernon
    • Criss Angel
    • Juliana Chen
    • Lance Burton
    • John Nevil Maskelyne
    • Mark Wilson
    • Dynamo
    • David Copperfield
    • Chung Ling Soo
    • Edgar Wilson Benyon
    • Doug Henning
    • Aldo Colombini
    • Jean Eugène Robert Houdin
    • Harry Houdini

James Randi

November 10, 2015 by David O'Connor

The Magic of James Randi

James Randi PortraitIn this week’s History of Magic, we put the spotlight on Randall James Hamilton Zwinge, born in Toronto on August 7th 1928 but is better known by his stage name, ‘The Amazing Randi’. Now retired but still very magically active, he became known as an escapologist, mentalist, conjuror, and scientific skeptic. After a bicycle accident as a child he was placed in a body cast for 13 months and read a number of magic books. Then he saw Harry Blackstone Sr. perform and decided then and there to make magic his life. It was Harry Blackstone’s levitation of a lady high above the stage that filled Randi with wonder and awe. He managed to skip a few classes at school then dropped out of high school at age 17 to join a travelling carnival as a conjuror, perhaps the best apprenticeship a magician can ever aspire to. In his early twenties he posed as a psychic merely to demonstrate that psychics used tricks and began a weekly horoscope column full of ridiculous but eagerly read comments by gullible believers in fortune telling.

Escapes and Escapades:

His early career really started as a night club mentalist under the name of The Amazing Randi, then having been inspired by Harry Houdini trained as an escapologist. He performed many straightjacket escapes, could free himself from chains, manacles and handcuffs and would escape easily after being securely roped and tied to a chair with long lengths of rope. He was also able to escape from being locked inside a steel safe. While it is very difficult to break into a locked safe, what is not so well known is that it’s not as difficult to escape from inside a safe. James Randi made some spectacular escapes from jail cells and while hanging upside down in a straight jacket over Niagara Falls. He travelled extensively to different countries and throughout Canada and the United States as a performer of renown.

After a very successful magical career he retired from stage work at 60 to devote his time and efforts into exposing fraudulent psychics and those claiming to have paranormal powers. He has had numerous television series and appeared many times on the Johnny Carson T V show, (Carson is also a magician). Randi is a prolific author with many books to his credit on magic, the occult, pseudo-science and is a sought after global lecturer. He has been called a ‘debunker’ but prefers’ investigator’. He is extremely knowledgeable about the trickery, scams and methods used by people who claim supernatural or paranormal capabilities. In 1976 Randi in collaboration with Ray Hyman and Martin Gardner established the ‘Committee for Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal’ (CSICOP).  Randi has exposed many so called psychics like Ted Serios and James Hydrick. He can be very outspoken on subjects that are dubious like UFOs or topics without scientific verification yet still attract many susceptible adherents.

The Amazing Randi vs Popoff & Geller:

One of his most dramatic exposures was of the U S televangelist, the Rev. Peter Popoff who ran a massive spiritual healing programme where he duped thousands of gullible churchgoers by claiming Divine communication with Jesus, healing the deaf, the lame, vision impaired, cripples and folk with life threatening diseases. As he called forth members of his massive congregations, he was able to give their full names and address and their afflictions. Each person seemed to forget that they had given all their details on the admission cards before the service that were then transmitted secretly by his wife off stage by means of an electronic transmitter. Randi noticed that for a pastor who wore a ‘hearing aid’ he seemed unable to cure his own deafness while claiming to cure his congregation of theirs. After the shame of exposure and blatant theft of millions of dollars from all those who attended his huge rallies and religious healing sessions with the words,” By James Randi and Honest Liargiving generously you will be rewarded tenfold”. The Rev. Peter
Popoff disappeared for a while and then re-emerged once again, brought back by the misguided thousands of devotees who still believed he had divine powers to heal them.

In 1972 The Amazing Randi entered the brighter spotlight when he challenged the claims of Uri Geller by alleging he was a charlatan and fraud who just used standard magic tricks to accomplish his alleged paranormal feats and presented his claims in his book, “The Magic of Uri Geller”. Randi’s book was endorsed by Leon Jaroff the senior editor of Time Magazine, Carl Sagan, and many other reputable magicians and celebrities from the world of science and journalism.

Then in 1991 Geller sued Randi and the CSICOP for 15 million dollars and lost. The suit was thrown out in 1995 and Uri Geller was ordered to pay $120,000 for filing a frivolous lawsuit. James then went on to write many articles criticizing claims and beliefs about paranormal effects and the flaws in the scientific studies and examination of so called psychics. He now appears on many TV shows as a guest speaker and lectures around the world warning of the dangers surrounding people who make false claims. Magician and TV host Johnny Carson called Randi just prior to an interview with Geller requesting advice. Randi spoke to the back stage assistants to make sure that Geller never came in contact with any of the cutlery and props to be used on the show. The staff complied and the interview went off with Geller claiming he was ‘unwell’ being unable to demonstrate any of his powers. James Randi, although criticized by some, continues to monitor and make people aware of the traps and susceptibility of people towards false claims. Barbara Walters became an ardent believer and Geller cult fan despite all the exposure of his tricks, methodology and weird, false claims, yet Randi duplicated everything for the lady.

The Million Dollar Challenge:

The Amazing Randi has himself been accused as being a psychic fraud while demonstrating some of Uri Geller’s tricks. A professor from Buffalo University jumped up shouting that he was a fraud. Randi replied, “Yes indeed I’m a trickster, a charlatan, fraudster and this is what I do for a living. Everything I have done here is by trickery” Whereas the professor shouted back, “No that’s not what I mean, you’re a fraud because you are pretending by using trickery but using your psychic powers and misleading us by not admitting it”. It is amazing that so many academics fail to recognise when they are being duped or tricked.James Randi Quote - No Amount of Belief Makes Something a Fact

As many magicians will tell you that it is often easier to fool academics or highly trained professionals with magic than it is children. Any magician would be naive to make outlandish claims about his magic tricks being other than just tricks and although we perhaps tell a few fibs and make false statement about what we are doing, audiences love to be fooled by a magician.

The magic fraternity is grateful to the Amazing Randi for his strong stand against those who make false claims, just as Houdini and Dunninger did for us all those years ago by exposing frauds. The James Randi Foundation offers one million dollars to any person who can prove conclusively some phenomenon they can exhibit is definitively by psychic means. To date and after countless tests, not one person has managed to persuade the committee they have paranormal power or been awarded the million dollars. I feel confident that the money is in safe custody and will remain so indefinitely. Randi will be remembered in the history of magic for his ongoing dedication in unmasking frauds and cheats who often unscrupulously dupe people into parting with large sums of money. His work maintains that the craft of magic remains highly respectable and one of the noblest of the performing arts. It’s often fun to be fooled by magicians but not to be blatantly deceived by frauds.

Follow the Magic Tricks For Kids Team to Keep Up With New Posts!

YouTube

Twitter

Facebook

Do you want to read more about the history of magic? Click here!

Filed Under: History of Magic Tagged With: History of Magic, James Randi, magic tricks for kids, The Amazing Randi

Easy Card Tricks For Kids

Easy Card Tricks For Kids Card magic is … Click the picture to see more

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Youtube
  • Twitter

Welcome

  • All Tricks Index
  • Magic Lessons
  • Magician's Dictionary
  • History of Magic

Information

  • About Us
  • Info for Parents
  • Terms of Service
    Privacy Policy
© 2023 - The Magic Tricks For Kids.
All Rights Reserved
Design by Muse