So Many Wonders

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 so many more wonders I’ve experienced about which I would like to write, for example:

Arthur Lintgen, the M.D. who could “read” classical LP recordings simply by visually examining the grooves! He named the composer and the selection, and passed a rigorous test I put him through. And, the amazing Lev Schneider, whose “mind reading” act consists of finding a pin secretly concealed in an audience of hundreds of spectators. But is this “mind reading”? Firewalking in England, Japan, the Philippines, Fiji, and Sri Lanka is a genuine phenomenon—with a proper scientific explanation. I presently hold the world record for being frozen in a block of ice—another quite “explainable” stunt. I also hold the record for being sealed in a coffin underwater, last established in England for BBC-TV. You can learn of a scary feat in which anyone may slam ordinary sewing-pins into a wooden table using the unprepared palm of the hand. “Autistic savants” are able to solve highly complicated mathematical problems, yet they’re still unable to speak or perform other simple tasks; scholars have scoffed at this, only to be won over by the undeniable proof offered in support of these claims, but among the genuine savants are those who take “short cuts” that the reader can understand—and use. Still other persons are able to calculate prodigiously because of certain natural processes in their minds, one of whom is Professor Arthur Benjamin, a mathematician at Harvey Mudd College in California. He multiplies 5-digit numbers in his head almost as fast as the average person can solve the problem with a calculator! His methods are seemingly esoteric, but in fact are learned skills that anyone can master (see his book, The Secrets of Mental Math, or his Teaching Company course at Teach12.com). 

How does the conjuror devise his/her wonders? What kind of thinking goes into the development of illusions performed for entertainment? And marvelous powers are claimed for the classic “Pyramid” shape—how does such a notion sustain itself, and what is the really wonderful aspect of “Pyramidology?” How were the pyramids of Egypt constructed? And what led up to the creation of The Legend of King Tut, with its supposed ancient curse and “lost hieroglyphics”? The answer is predictably mundane. 

Was there ever a Planet Vulcan in our solar system, observed by astronomers until recently, and now vanished? Ancient Peru was the home of the fabulous Incas, yet this unique empire, with its highly sophisticated system of government, roads, and culture, never developed a method of writing down speech—nor did they ever discover the wheel! Why not? Somewhere, north of Machu Picchu deep in the Peruvian selva, is the long-lost city of Vilcabamba. It was once assaulted by the conquistadors, then it vanished, lost in the Andean mists. The ruin of the last redoubt of the Incas is out there, untrodden and overgrown, and the still-traceable Incan highways lead right there! Recent evidence from satellite photos clearly indicates that this long-held secret may soon yield to space technology. 

So you don’t believe in mermaids? Think again—there may be a real basis for this belief! After all, P.T. Barnum had actual specimens to show his customers, along with The Cardiff Giant, a monstrous “petrified” figure discovered in New York State and displayed to hordes of gaping “suckers.” Even today, a furry “Anthropithecus” specimen frozen in ice is regularly displayed at shopping malls across the USA. Is it real? And in stores from coast to coast, you can find a technical wonder—a simple felt-tip pen—that is said to be able to instantly spot counterfeit bills. Hundreds of thousands of these have been sold in recent years. Do they work? If not, just how do you spot a phony bill? It’s not all that hard, and with so many bogus bills in circulation you may find some passing through your own hands. What about those ancient maps that Von Däniken told us charted the then-unknown world with the assistance of visitors from outer space? And was England’s infamous Borley Rectory really haunted, or had fakers run wild? What part did psychic investigator Harry Price play in “helping” this phenomenon? Was the success of the famous Piltdown Skull hoax a result of technology, or a rather amateurish fraud and the wishful thinking of the scientists who were taken in by it? 

It is a charisma that attracts the attention of an audience—and it is yet another wonder to us all.

How do we explain the fact that in 1978, the Pennsylvania state lottery had several thousand persons betting on a single four-digit number—which turned out to be the winning combination? Odds against that many bets on one number, particularly the winning number, are tens of millions to one. Or are they? But there is a solution, and no, there was no cheating! Author Jonathan Swift, in his classical Gulliver’s Travels, described the planet Mars as having two tiny moons—a century before it was discovered to be so! How could this be? And astronomer Percival Lowell mathematically calculated the presence of an object that until recently, counted as our ninth planet, Pluto, from irregularities in other planetary orbits. After Lowell’s death, Pluto was found almost precisely where he’d said it would be. Yet, as a result of subsequent observations, we know now that Lowell’s calculations were based upon spurious measurements—and that his calculations were simply wrong! Yet, there sits Pluto, just where he said it would be. How come? 

Russia’s monk Rasputin, France’s mountebank Count Cagliostro, and modern “psychics” are all cast of the same material and dressed in similar garb, and they are believable for the same reasons. The secret of their success is in the strong impression they make as actors—as personalities that are convincing in themselves, aside from the physical gimmicks that accompany such impostures. They share, along with Hitler, Gandhi, Tiny Tim, Jim Jones, Liberace and other unlikely successes, the panache that cannot be taught nor inherited. It is a charisma that attracts the attention of an audience—and it is yet another wonder to us all. 

All these subjects, and more, are awaiting my loving attention. Perhaps I’ll have enough time left to me for an in-depth examination of them … 

But first, what have I already seen? In China, I visited the Ming Dynasty tombs near Beijing and reverently touched the monstrous marble blocks, and in Xi’an I was stunned by the full-scale ceramic army still standing—in armed formation with their steeds—awaiting a command from the first Emperor of China, to march. I walked Tiananmen Square, not suspecting that only a few weeks after I returned home, I would see on live TV—from afar in the Washington CNN studios with TV host Larry King—unarmed students confronting army tanks; that appearance with King was rescheduled because we chose to witness that historic moment. 

I’ve seen Niagara Falls up close from a rather rare point of view—hanging upside-down trussed in a straitjacket on a freezing January morning, just to make myself a couple of months income.

In Houston, Texas, I was given a VIP tour of the NASA Space Flight Center. Dressed head-to-foot in a sterile costume (my beard was vacuumed in case there were alien contaminants lurking there!) I held actual Moon rocks—pieces of our satellite brought from a quarter-million miles away!—in my gloved hands. I’ve experienced sundown at Stonehenge, in Salisbury, England, and dawn at the fortress of Sacsahuaman in Peru. I’ve seen Niagara Falls up close from a rather rare point of view—hanging upside-down trussed in a straitjacket on a freezing January morning, just to make myself a couple of months income. And I watched a live TV shot of a Moon Landing projected on the great dome of the Hayden Planetarium. 

In June of 1990, I saw a total solar eclipse in Jonsuu, Finland, and in 2000 I walked on the surface of the great radio telescope at Parks, Australia, in the company of my partner. And, I actually walked the boards of the Teatro Verdi in Trieste, Italy, in the company of Massimo Polidoro—the same stage from which Guiseppe Verdi introduced Rigoletto, La Traviata, Aïda, and other such masterpieces. 

I’ve wandered through the vast rooms of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, and the Kremlin in Moscow. I climbed to the very top of the great pyramid at Teotihuacán, Mexico—and could not resist, when I arrived there, shouting down to the friend who had deferred that delight, “Top of the world, Ma!”—but if you didn’t see that Cagney film, as my friend hadn’t, you might not get the joke. 

This need to see the wonders of the world began, with me, at a very early age. One of my first space-thrills was being held up by my uncle to the eyepiece of the David Dunlap Observatory’s 74-inch telescope in Richmond, Ontario, Canada, to see the ringed planet Saturn shimmering and shaking before me like a great luminous grapefruit. I was told that the image took several minutes at the speed of light to reach my eye! Wow! 

Then as a teen, I was exposed to one of the famous Professor John Satterly lectures at the University of Toronto, in which he demonstrated the wonders of liquid air by freezing a goldfish so that it could be hammered into dust, then he doused his fringe of white hair in a liquid—which I later discovered was a mixture of carbon tetrachloride and carbon disulfide (don’t try this at home) and he literally set himself on fire with a match as he exited. Now, that’s science in action, don’t you think? 

Now I’ll name-drop a bit. Backstage at The Mike Douglas Show (TV), I sparred with Pearl Bailey and Eartha Kitt, both of whom were thoroughly woo-woo believers. Twice I sat with Johnny Carson in his white Corvette following Tonight Show appearances. I wish I could share those chats with you, but Johnny was a very private person. I once had Betty Ford tend to my swollen eye while being closely watched by fierce and very unhappy Secret Service men. I recall that I dared to ask the First Lady if she would participate in my show—given at Christmas for the children of Washington diplomats—by handing me a small red handkerchief, a Secret Service officer stepped between us and firmly told me that Mrs. Ford did not take part in magic shows. Mrs. Ford stepped up, accepted the handkerchief, and stuck it in her belt. “I’ll be proud to wear your colors, Mr. Randi,” she said, and glared at the officer. I still have a photo of that moment hanging on the wall here at my home. 

Sadly, I’ve yet to visit the Great Pyramid at Giza, the solemn Sphinx, Tibet, and the Mayan ruins in Mexico. But I’m only 84!