James Randi was a Canadian-American stage magician, author, and scientific skeptic who extensively challenged paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. He was the co-founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), and founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Randi began his career as a magician under the stage name The Amazing Randi and later chose to devote most of his time to investigating paranormal, occult, and supernatural claims. Randi retired from practicing magic at age 60, and from his foundation at 87.
Susan Jane Blackmore is a British writer, lecturer, sceptic, broadcaster, and a visiting professor at the University of Plymouth. Her fields of research include memetics, parapsychology, consciousness, and she is best known for her book The Meme Machine. She has written or contributed to over 40 books and 60 scholarly articles and is a contributor to The Guardian newspaper.
Uri Geller is an Israeli-British illusionist, magician, television personality, and self-proclaimed psychic. He is known for his trademark television performances of spoon bending and other illusions. Geller uses conjuring tricks to simulate the effects of psychokinesis and telepathy. Geller's career as an entertainer has spanned more than four decades, with television shows and appearances in many countries. Magicians have called Geller a fraud because of his claims of possessing psychic powers.
James Alan Hydrick is an American former stage performer and self-described psychic.
Ray Hyman is a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, and a noted critic of parapsychology. Hyman, along with James Randi, Martin Gardner and Paul Kurtz, is one of the founders of the modern skeptical movement. He is the founder and leader of the Skeptic's Toolbox. Hyman serves on the Executive Council for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.
Spoon bending is the deformation of objects, especially metal cutlery, purportedly by paranormal means. It is a common theme for magic tricks, which use a variety of methods to produce the effect. Performers commonly use misdirection to draw their audience's attention away while the spoon is manually bent. Another method uses a metal spoon that has been prepared by repeatedly bending the spoon back and forth, weakening the material. Applying light pressure will then cause it to bend or break.
Mentalism is a performing art in which its practitioners, known as mentalists, appear to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities. Mentalists perform a theatrical act that includes special effects that may appear to employ psychic or supernatural forces but that is actually achieved by "ordinary conjuring means", natural human abilities, and an in-depth understanding of key principles from human psychology or other behavioral sciences. Performances may appear to include hypnosis, telepathy, clairvoyance, divination, precognition, psychokinesis, mediumship, mind control, memory feats, deduction, and rapid mathematics.
Marcello Truzzi was an American sociologist and academic who was professor of sociology at New College of Florida and later at Eastern Michigan University, founding co-chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), a founder of the Society for Scientific Exploration, and director for the Center for Scientific Anomalies Research.
Breaking the Magician's Code: Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed is a series of television shows and specials in which the methods behind magic tricks and illusions are explained by a narrator and are performed in a warehouse in the United States with no audience, by an unknown "world class" magician known as the "masked magician" who does not speak and wears a mask on the show to protect their identity and career. This "masked magician" is also assisted for many tricks performed on the show by a group of attractive female assistants and normal stagehands, who also do not speak but do not have their face masked, as they are not the masked magician's regular assistants and stagehands.
Keith Patrick Barry is an Irish mentalist, hypnotist, magician and activist for the elderly.
The Truth About Uri Geller, originally published as The Magic of Uri Geller in 1975, is a 1982 book by magician and skeptic James Randi about alleged psychic Uri Geller.
"Secrets of the Psychics" is a 1993 episode of the PBS series NOVA, presented by retired illusionist and paranormal investigator James Randi. Also appearing in stock footage are Peter Popoff, Uri Geller, and many others. It contains historical footage of Randi's 25 years of testing claims of supernatural powers, as well as more current footage of his trip to Russia to investigate the people making paranormal claims there. Belief in the paranormal has thrived in Russia since the dissolution of the USSR.
Banachek is an English mentalist, magician, and "thought reader".
Telekinesis is a purported psychic ability allowing an individual to influence a physical system without physical interaction. Experiments to prove the existence of telekinesis have historically been criticized for lack of proper controls and repeatability. There is no reliable evidence that telekinesis is a real phenomenon, and the topic is generally regarded as pseudoscience.
Mark Edward was an American mentalist and author. He wrote books on mentalism and séance theory and production, including Psychic Blues (2009), where he discussed working for the Psychic Friends Network. Wilson made appearances on television as both primary consultant and on-air performer in programming such as ABC's The Con, A & E's Biography: "Houdini, the Great Escape", NBC's The Other Side, and Psychic Secrets Revealed, the Sci-Fi Channel's Mysteries, Magic and Miracles, Disney's Forces Beyond, as well as two episodes of the Learning Channel's Exploring the Unknown. His featured segment as a spirit medium on the pilot episode of Showtime's Penn & Teller's Bullshit! series, titled "Speaking with the Dead", helped secure an Emmy Award nomination for that episode in 2002. He coined the term "grief vampire" as a description of alleged psychic mediums who prey on vulnerable people. Edward was a fellow with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.
Guy Bavli is an Israeli mentalist, illusionist, actor and lecturer. He is known for being the first Israeli citizen to win an international magic competition in the United States. He owns the entertainment company "Master of the Mind", based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Henry Gordon was a Canadian author, journalist, magician and skeptic. He was the founder of the Ontario Skeptics and a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI).
An Honest Liar is a 2014 biographical feature film documentary, directed and produced by Justin Weinstein and Tyler Measom, written by Weinstein, Greg O'Toole and Measom, produced through Left Turn Films, Pure Mutt Productions and Part2 Filmworks, and distributed by Abramorama. The film documents the life of former magician, escape artist, and skeptical educator James Randi, in particular the investigations through which he publicly exposed psychics, faith healers, and con-artists. The film also focuses on Randi's relationship with his partner of 25 years, José Alvarez, who at the time of filming, had been discovered to be living under a false identity, calling into question "whether Randi was the deceiver or the deceived."
Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, California carried out research on various phenomena characterized by the term parapsychology from 1972 until 1991. Early studies indicating that phenomena such as remote viewing and psychokinesis could be scientifically studied were published in such mainstream journals as Proceedings of the IEEE and Nature. This attracted the sponsorship of such groups as NASA and The Central Intelligence Agency.
Tyler Henry Koelewyn is an American reality show personality who appears in the reality show series Hollywood Medium with Tyler Henry and Life After Death with Tyler Henry as a clairvoyant medium since 2016. He has published two books.