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Million Dollar Excuses Every week or so, I'm offered ingenious rationalizations from or on behalf of applicants for the $1 million JREF prize (www.randi.org /research/index.html) who have failed their tests. [...]

On February 10th, 2005, ABC's Primetime Live aired an hour-long special on a man called 'John of God' who works out of Brazil. This was a major show that could [...]

A would-be applicant for the mullion-dollar challenge has written me, puzzled about the fact that I place homeopathic claims into the 'paranormal' class, for purposes of the JREF challenge. I [...]

Where is Sylvia? Psychic Sylvia Browne has accepted completely the terms of the million-dollar test, which I clearly outlined on a September 3rd appearance with her on the Larry King [...]

Crystal Healing 101 THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE OF RHODE Island (CCRI) has proudly announced that this fall, a 'reiki master' will be holding a seminar on 'crystal and mineral healing' at [...]

THERE ARE THOSE WHO IMAGINE THAT I'm perhaps not quite able to solve trickery and to avoid being deceived by it. Examples of my actual record on this matter abound, [...]

IT'S BAD ENOUGH THAT PSEUDOSCIENCE, flummery, and deception have become accepted by the public. What concerns me more is that government agencies are accepting this nonsense and incorporating it into [...]

IN HIS STORY MURDERS IN THE RUE Morgue, Edgar Allen Poe relates how the protagonist is amazed that super-detective Auguste Dupin has observed his silent behavior and by this means [...]

SHAMELESSLY, I HERE OFFER readers an excerpt from the opening chapter of my next book, A Magician in the Laboratory. It's shaping up--slowly--and I invite you to a preview of [...]

THREE WOMEN IN QUEENS, NEW YORK, WHO claimed to be psychics, were arraigned in July on fortune telling and other charges following a 'sting' operation in which undercover police officers [...]

Preparation 500 We've just heard of one of the more bizarre 'biodynamic practices' known as 'Preparation 500,' not to be confused with 'Preparation H.' This consists of burying cow horns [...]

SCOTSMAN SIR DAVID BREWSTER (1781-1868) was a remarkable intellect. Though he is, unfairly, best known for his invention of the kaleidoscope, he also developed the mathematics of the polarization of [...]

THERE IS A SET OF SO-CALLED UFO PHOTOS at www.billymeier.com produced by 'contactee' Billy Meier in the mid-'70s. A Meier acolyte named Michael Horn has been after myself, Michael Shermer, [...]

THE FAMOUS 'OREGON VORTEX' is up for sale for $3.5 million. I've had a number of calls from the media asking how the mysterious gravitational and magnetic forces exhibited there [...]

ON NOVEMBER 27, 2002, the BBC-TV program Horizon, featuring a test of homeopathy, was broadcast in the UK. Many viewers expressed their conviction that we'd heard the death-knell of this [...]

Medical I Quackery Down Under, Think of a Card, A Step in the Right Direction, Raining on Art Bell's Parade, The big MEG Takes a Fall The Fake Vaccine from [...]

Every now and then, we'll all admit, we have to ask for help, right? To whom did I turn when I needed advice, data, an opinion or an idea, as [...]

THE WELL-ESTABLISHED FACT OF biological evolution is being increasingly and frantically denied in the USA by creationists, and as I write this, a public opinion poll has announced that some [...]

May the Schwartz Be With You It won't stop. Dr. Gary Schwartz of the University of Arizona is the current darling of the media, who eagerly report his belief in […]

Observations on a Bizarre World URI GELLER & THE MOVING COMPASS TRICK IN JANUARY 2000 I appeared on ABC TV's morning talkshow The View, hosted by Barbara Walters and others. [...]

Observations on a Bizarre World The James Randi Educational Foundation continues to receive lots of inquiries about 'psychic' John Edward, who holds forth on the SciFi Channel, pretending to speak [...]

MacArthur 'genius award' recipient James Randi is a professional magician, author, lecturer, and investigator of unusual claims. His books include The Mask of Nostradamus, The Faith Healers, Flim-Flam!, The Truth [...]

EVER SINCE THE JREF began offering the million-dollar prize to any and all of the wonder-workers out there who think they have special powers, or would like us to think [...]

MY FRIEND AND FELLOW MAGICIAN JAMY Ian Swiss has commented that 'astrology' and 'astronomy' have only seven things in common: the letters a, s, t, r, 2 o's, and a [...]

I OFTEN CELEBRATE THE FACT THAT I'VE been fortunate enough to meet and touch the minds of a great number of celebrated intellectuals. Richard Dawkins, Isaac Asimov, Richard Feynman, Carl [...]

To THOSE OF US WHO FIRST COME UPON it, the classic gypsy bazhure swindle is so simple, obvious, and avoidable, that we can't imagine how victims are so easily taken [...]

EVEN AS MY 10TH BOOK, A MAGICIAN IN the Laboratory undergoes proofing and illustration inserts, I must confess that I think I have yet another book in me. There are [...]

I WAS VERY, VERY, SADDENED WHEN I learned that Christopher Hitchens had left us after only 62 years of a brilliant, dedicated life. Before I type one more word, I'll [...]

Talk to a Dead Celebrity! SYLVIA BROWNE HAS YET ANOTHER book out. That this one has certain magical aspects to it is apparent on the cover, as Sylvia seems to [...]

THE SCIENTIFIC ESTABLISHMENT WITHIN the former Soviet Union spent tremendous sums of money in the pursuit of such questionable projects such as 'psitronic machines,' 'faster-than-light communication,' ESP, PK, 'free energy' [...]

WELL, HERE GOES ... MY MOST excellent friend Martin Gardner has passed on, following a magnificent career as a mathematician, philosopher, serious skeptic, author/columnist, ardent amateur magician, and game expert. [...]

How to Conduct a Double Blind Experiment At the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) we have had several requests from potential prize applicants who believe that they have the power [...]

THE HANDLING OF FIRE AND flame, and the apparent immunity to their effects, have been matters of much interest to humanity for many centuries. Countless 'Human Salamanders' have astonished crowds [...]

ON WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24, NBC aired the first of a series called Phenomenon, the latest so-called reality television in the American Idol tradition of performers on stage who are assessed [...]

When some folks get themselves revved up on a specific farce, they can't stop. One such unfortunate, a former Las Vegas promoter named Tom Biscardi, is currently wondering whatever happened [...]

IT WAS MARCH 6TH, 1998, WHEN the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) Million-Dollar Challenge first came into existence. That's almost ten years ago. It's always been a simple, direct, matter: [...]