"Hearing about miraculous happenings in local spiritualist churches, he decided to see for himself. ... Watching the preacher divine the contents of sealed envelopes handed him by his parishioners, Randi, then 15, was outraged. "He was using the old ‘one ahead’ method," Randi explains, still indignant. Striding to the pulpit, he fished one of the opened envelopes out of a wastebasket and accused the preacher of cheating. An uproar followed, and Randi was arrested for disturbing a religious meeting. At the police station, he vowed that he would someday fight back against those who defiled his art.

...Uri Geller quickly became a celebrity, but Randi watching him perform was unimpressed. "The tricks were very simple," he says. "There was nothing you couldn’t get off the back of a cornflakes box, so to speak.""

"From some un-named Internet source, here's an analysis of one tirade that's currently making the rounds. ..."

"He (Randi) is a charter member of CSICOP, a militant athiest [sic] organization that was evicted from the Ethical Humanist society, when CSICOP activities engendered lawsuits that alarmed the "ethics" of the "humanists."

"Wrong, wrong, and wrong.

I am not a "member" of CSICOP, though I am one of the original founders. We separated years ago when I was told that I could no longer mention Uri Geller in my writings on behalf of CSICOP, so I opted not to go along with that admonition.

CSICOP is not an atheist organization, and never was. Many members of CSICOP are religious folks, and have no problem with the goals of CSICOP.

And, CSICOP was never part of the Ethical Humanist Society, so was never "evicted" at all. In fact, when I contacted the Chicago branch of the AES(typo for AEU? -- American Ethical Union -- of which the Ethical Humanist Society is a member), the person I spoke with didn't even recognize the CSICOP name."

"Before the testing had started, James Randi had written to the lab with a list of eleven "caveats" they should be wary of, and his suggestions on how to avoid them. These included a rigid adherence to the protocol of the test, so that the subjects would not be allowed to change it in the midst of the run. ...

Throughout the early phases of the project, many people claiming to have psychic powers presented themselves to the lab. ... after a short while it became apparent that two of the young men, Steve Shaw and Michael Edwards, were in fact much better than the others, and the lab started to focus their energies on them.

In fact, the two young men were "plants" of Randi's, friends of Randi who he had met some time before. Both were amateur magicians who had no problems fooling the researchers with the simplest of tricks. The project had originally started with spoon bending, so the two quickly developed a way to accomplish this trick."

"Interviewer: [A certain] "faith healing ministry" crashed and burned immediately after your exposure; his ministry went bankrupt.

Randi: ... he didn't go bankrupt at all. He said that he went bankrupt, but he had considerable means to survive. He just went out of business temporarily, he changed the name of the ministry ...

How come it didn't work? Well, it didn't work because people are not very smart out there; they don't seem to want to learn a lesson. They don't listen carefully to what they are told. They want to believe in something that has emotional value, and is easy to believe, that is pleasant and that sounds that all they have to do is to give money and they'll be healed or they'll be saved or they'll go to heaven rather than hell. ...

Some people will and some people will not learn the lesson. I get emails and personal letters from people just about every day saying 'Thank you for relieving me of this belief.' But half of those will also go on to say, 'Now I don't give my money to [someone exposed as a charlatan by Randi] anymore, I give it to Reverend So and So…' Someone else doing exactly the same scheme, though not necessarily exactly the same method, but simply another, a different form of fakery. But they won’t learn. They will give it to somebody else. They want to be suckered, they want to be swindled. They seem to open their arms and their pockets and their wallets. ...

Interviewer: Do you see any positive signs of a healthy skepticism gaining ground?

Randi: Oh yes, yes, in general skepticism. But not necessarily when it comes to religious tomfoolery, because people who have religious beliefs believe in heaven and hell and goblins and demons, jinns and seraphims and all of this nonsense. They are already prepared to believe anything that comes along if it's attractive and sounds as if it's religious, so I don't think there's very much help for that. They very, very seldom revert away from that because it's too comforting and comfortable for them and easy to understand."