The Amazing Randi demonstrated feats of illusion during a presentation sponsored by the Science Undergraduate Society PHOTOS: OWEN EGAN

Deliberate deception:
Magician targets psychic frauds

SYLVAIN COMEAU | The performer shows an audience member a newspaper article and asks him to choose a word from it. He then instructs the audience member to read the contents of an envelope under his seat, which reveals the chosen word! Was it psychic powers? ESP? Don't even say such a thing to James "The Amazing" Randi, magician, author, sceptic and tireless debunker of supernatural and mystical claims. The demonstration of this feat, part of Randi's lecture at the Fieldhouse Auditorium last Thursday, had nothing to do with paranormal or otherworldly abilities. "What I've shown you is a magic trick," said Randi. "I do these things in order to show that we magicians do better tricks than all the so-called psychics." Such tricks are the stock-in-trade of mentalists -- magicians who specialize in guessing things which they apparently have no way of knowing. Randi is an admirer of mentalist Steve Shaw, "an excellent performer who always closes his shows by saying, 'Ladies and gentlemen, I use my five senses to create the illusion of a sixth.'" But Randi has a much lower opinion of those who use tricks to make people believe that they possess supernatural powers. Following in the footsteps of Harry Houdini, another famous magician who worked for years to expose charlatans, the Toronto native has appeared on countless TV shows and documentaries, and written 11 books, all hammering home his message: Don't believe the hocus pocus. "Today it's politically correct to know nothing and believe everything. Think about that -- that's pretty scary. I travel all over the world telling people things they should already know. I do some of these demonstrations because I want you to realize that you can be deceived. And that doesn't just apply to stupid, ignorant, unschooled people. You and I can be deceived. "I am a magician by trade, which means I go through my life deceiving people, but for the purposes of entertainment. As a magician, I know how people are fooled and, more importantly, how they fool themselves." The deception inherent in magic -- whether for entertainment or for exploiting people's gullibility -- is based on audience assumptions. "Magicians need to understand how people's minds work. They need to know what they will assume, and what they will accept easily. Usually, these assumptions won't cost you anything, but they can cost you your health and emotional stability." For example, Randi has exposed several "faith healers," including U.S. evangelist Peter Popov, who would receive information on audience members through a hearing aid which was actually a radio receiver. Popov went bankrupt some time after Randi revealed the trick years ago on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. But at 70, Randi is still in business because faith healers and their ilk are still in business -- including Popov, who recently resurfaced and has appeared in Toronto and Montreal. "One family I talked to thanked me for exposing Popov. So they liquidated all their assets and gave it to another faith healer! Some people are determined to be fools, and they will be fools." Randi says that miraculous cure claims fall under three categories -- people who were never sick in the first place, people who recovered with the help of a doctor's care, and people who died. "In one case, we went to the home of a gentleman we had interviewed two days before. As we reached the door, they brought out a gurney with a body bag. The man had died of the disease he said he had been healed of. The family had given everything they had to Popov, who did nothing for them. "Unfortunately, you can't stop these people. They deal with gullible people all the time. My book (The Faith Healers) was my last attempt." Another favorite Randi target is the work of French astrologer Nostradamus, who wrote rhyming prophecies in the 1500s and who still enjoys renown as a seer. Randi says that followers of the so-called prophet have for years rewritten his predictions in order to ensure their historical accuracy -- after the "predicted" events occurred, of course. But what about Nostradamus's famous Hitler prophecy? "Nostradamus wrote that 'the Hister will overflow its banks,' and the believers out there say that this means that the Nazi hordes will overrun Europe. But 'Hister' is the Latin name for the Danube. He lived on the Danube. And every six or eight years, it overflowed its banks. That was a prediction that had to work; and he was talking about the damned river!" Randi's book The Mask of Nostradamus systematically demolishes the claims about his "prophecies," but the Frenchman's apparently bulletproof reputation remains intact among true believers. Despite his avowed scepticism, Randi generously offers psychics and mystics a chance to prove themselves and sting him financially in the bargain. Early in his career, he offered $10,000 to anyone who could demonstrate para-normal feats under "controlled observed conditions." The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF), which Randi created to promote critical thinking and research into supernatural claims, currently offers $1.1 million, which is still unclaimed. "We're offering over a million dollars for them to do what they claim they do all day long. I sit in the JREF offices all day, and no one's knocking on the door." But there has been the occasional rather dubious claim. "One guy walked in and said, 'I can make the person on TV say anything I want.' We turned on the Oprah show, and he said that Oprah would say my name. After about a minute, he said, 'There, did you hear it?' Of course, none of us heard it, so we offered to tape it. He said, 'It won't show up on tape.'" It looks like the money is safe.