Theos-Talk Archives (April 2004 Message tt00409)

stevestubbs wrote:
> Is that ypur perception having met him up close or does he just come 
> across that way in the media?
OK, you have to realize that Randi has changed over the years. At 
first, it was just Uri Geller. Then he started branching out into 
exposing all sorts of frauds. Sometimes, he went a bit overboard, 
debunking claims that were never actually made (such as the "levitation" 
by practitioners of transcendental meditation; Randi was looking for 
floating in the air, and all he saw were people hopping in a lotus-like 
position. TM practitioners say that "levitation" IS the term they use 
for their hopping, and that they call it levitation because they can 
continue unconsciously for long periods of time, while trained athletes 
can only continue for a few minutes. I don't know of any testing of THAT).

Then, he joined the skeptics movement, and things changed. He was then 
out to prove that there is no such thing as supernatural phenomena. I 
was expecting him to go into a church, and do DNA testing on the Host. 
It was during this period he got together the pledge for the $1,000,000 
challenge (essentially, anybody who can perform a supernatural act that 
can be objectively measured will get the money. Both the testee and 
James Randi have to agree on the test conditions). Since then, the money 
has actually been collected, and is sitting in an escrow fund.

Currently, at least based on my private correspondence with him, he 
would be quite happy if someone won the money, but he does not believe 
that it will happen. He recognizes the fact that many practitioners of 
what he calls "pseudo-science" (although he accepts the possibility of 
"proto-science") believe that what they are doing is real, and does not 
actively try to stop them. We have discussed, on and off, creating 
"self-tests" in certain areas, so that practitioners can test themselves 
BEFORE going to him.

A number of people have claimed that they have won the prize and that 
he refuses to pay them. Randi points out that these people didn't 
fulfill an important part of the conditions: He never agreed to the test 
conditions.