HOPE IS THE THING WITH FEATHERS

  As our train slowly pulled into the Red Bank, New Jersey train station on that blistery winter day, all we could see was a sea of people, all trying to get somewhere for the holidays. I nervously asked Frankie how were we ever going to find Randi in the enormous crowd. After all, Randi had no idea what I looked like. But then, I spotted it! It was a huge colorful feather, at least two or three feet in length, moving through the ocean of people. What was the meaning of this? It was very strange indeed. Could it be? Nah, it just couldn’t be.

  Or could it?

  I nudged my brother to look in the direction of this mysterious feather and together Frankie and I watched the vibrant feather make its way through the bustling crowd. And then, just like that, we saw it. The feather was attached to a big black felt hat and the big black hat was perched atop of the head of a very short, white-bearded man with glasses. The Amazing Randi! It was him! In the flesh!

  RIDING SHOTGUN WITH JAMES RANDI

  We jumped off the train and I grabbed a hold of Frankie’s hand and we made a beeline for that feather. After some creative maneuvering through the crowd, suddenly there he was, standing right in front of us, those bright blue eyes of his twinkling, just like Kris Kringle on the day after Christmas.

  Introductions were made and then Randi whisked us away in his Volvo. What he kept forgetting was that this Volvo actually wasn’t his Volvo, but rather his son’s Volvo (they owned matching ones). He informed us that this one, his son’s, was souped up. It was extra fast, as we would soon find out!

  So there we were, flying through the streets of Rumson, New Jersey with Randi telling us all sorts of stories and every now and then forgetting it wasn’t his car and so tapping that gas pedal a little extra, sending us soaring and sometimes leaving the ground for a second or two and coming down hard with a thud to his dismay, as our car roared towards The Amazing Randi residence.

  What a ride and a fun time we had on that drive with Randi. During the ride, Randi told us that his house was actually purchased from a Sears catalog. What! I couldn’t help but imagine what this mysterious house might look like. Would it have secret passageways and bookcases that opened into hidden rooms with a wave of his hand? We were flying through the back roads, my brother in the backseat, me riding shotgun and The Amazing Randi at the wheel. Don’t be careful for what you wish for, you may get it! It has been some journey and we are still only at the very beginning. Don’t worry, we’re just laying the groundwork. Be patient, enjoy the ride, for soon we will arrive at true astonishment beyond words.

  Back in Jersey, we pulled up to the house and I noticed on the lawn near the front of the porch a big sign that read Professional Charlatan. Randi introduced us to his cat Charles and to his talking parrot, Fred. What a day we all had together. We spent hours and hours discussing magic and philosophy and watching magicians on video and Randi showed me his library and his magic collection.

  At one point Randi waved his hands at a bookcase and it mysteriously opened into a secret room. There, in the room, standing right before me, was Houdini’s original Milk Can Illusion. I was blown away. I ran my fingers over the can, inspected the locks, and knocked on its side. Amazing. Houdini’s actual handmade illusion! Randi sat with me and we had hot chocolates and discussed the meaning of life. I told him I was an atheist. I told him that the evidence for science was far greater than the minuscule evidence for the existence of a god. He smiled and said I was right and that he felt the same way. We both agreed that we humans were responsible for bringing meaning into our lives and that consciousness ceased at death.

  Frankie joined us now and then or he read on the couch and smoked cigarettes outside on the porch. I’m so glad Frankie went with me. I felt safe and it was nice of him to give me all of his time that day, allowing me to spend hours with my hero. He was selfless, like my mother and my sister Barbara, all gentle people with big hearts.

  BACK TO SCHOOL

  As the day came to a close, after many amazing hours with The Amazing Randi, we said our goodbyes. Randi gave me a gift, a poster he had personally signed to me, one with a picture of him performing the milk can escape on it, entitled The Amazing Randi: The Man No Jail Could Hold.

  I couldn’t wait to hang it up in my attic room for inspiration. On the train ride back I mostly dreamt of a life in magic, a life spent entertaining people, performing amazing feats of wonder, and most importantly, bringing joy to others. Soon my self-imposed sabbatical was over and I found myself back in high school with my mind on fire with creativity and excitement. I was unsure just how I would be accepted when I came back, but my classmates were very cool to me, welcoming me with open arms and begging for “Magic time” again and again in the cafeteria.

  LESSON ONE

  Randi and I stayed in close touch and we would talk on the phone and we would always write great letters to each other. In one of those very first letters, Randi asked me why I liked magic in the first place. I replied that I wanted to do magic because I wanted to make others happy and that I wanted to use magic as a tool to make people feel good and to make them smile. In other words, to scatter joy. Randi’s next letter arrived in the mail and this was his response:

  You say that you want to do magic to truly make others happy.

  Scratch lesson #1 kiddo. You already know it.

  It’s all about love.

  Those words above were very powerful to me and I have kept them with me my entire life. Not only do I reprint them here, but they are now written on my heart.

  It’s all about love.

  Those words also play a huge role in this book, as the reader will soon see after chapter three!

  Interesting little fact: Both Paul Harris and James Randi, although born many years apart, share the very same birthday. Both of these amazing men were born on August 7th!

  FLORIDA BOUND

  One day I wrote Randi and told him I just couldn’t work a regular job anymore, as my parents wanted. I told him that I didn’t want to conform and be a robot like everyone else. I couldn’t do it. I just wanted to learn about the world and share my magic and make others happy. Two letters arrived just a few days later. Both from Randi. Two!

  I opened one and read it slowly. Tears ran down my face. Randi told me that my parents wanted these things because they loved me. They wanted me to be happy and to be secure with a good job and a future. He said that there is comfort to be found in being in the herd. That was why they wanted me to be like others, it was safer to be a part of the herd. But, I should also be given the chance to follow my own star. He then said that he wanted to make me the following offer:

  Jimmy, I’m preparing to move to Florida and you’re welcome to come and stay there with me as my apprentice.

  You’ll have your very own room, no rent to pay, and you will be free to pursue your dream and to follow that star...

  THE SKEPTIC’S APPRENTICE

  I was floored. My heart was pounding. But wait, there was still that other letter to open! Now I was worried that the second letter would say forget the previous offer, that he’s reconsidered. He had to have made a mistake. It was too good to be true. I opened letter number two and once again read it slowly.

  In this letter, Randi detailed what an enormous undertaking this would be for him. He explained that this was no easy thing to do, opening his home to an apprentice, that he had tried this before and he had been burned. One guy had robbed him and cleaned out his bank account. Another had brought drugs into his home. Randi said that he wanted to help me out and that he saw a lot of promise in me. He said he didn’t think I would do anything bad and that he trusted me, but he wanted to let me know that this was a big deal for him.

  But that said, we should give it a try. Buy a plane ticket and come on down to Florida in a few months!

  -Randi

  And so began the adventure of a lifetime.

  STUDYING WITH THE WORLD’S GREATEST SKEPTIC

  I studied closely with Randi, learning all about the physical universe, about the building blocks of matter, the atoms, and about protons and electrons and quarks and the big stuff like the stars and the quasars and black holes and galaxies. It was all so mind blowing. His close friends were the giants in the fields of physics and chemistry and biology, from Isaac Asimov to Richard Feynman to Carl Sagan to Richard Dawkins. Randi knew them all very well and I was soon learning from them and their books and coming to understand how the universe operated from the very small scale all the way up to the billions of galaxies swirling out there in the deep space of the cosmos. I was what you would call a strict reductionist materialist and very proud of it. I thought I had a firm handle on the truth. All of us skeptics did.

  I had my own room in Randi’s amazing new house in Sunrise, Florida. He set me up with a beautiful chess set and plenty of books and some nice plants. Every day I would go down and feed Fred, Randi’s talking bird, and I’d pet Charles the cat, and then dive deeply into his immense library. One day while perusing Randi’s library I found a book that rocked my world. It was Martin Gardner’s classic book The Annotated Alice in Wonderland. I felt like I had just struck gold. There was so much wordplay and creativity and riddles to be discovered between those pages. I remember browsing through it and Randi poking his head in and asking what I was reading.

  I told him and he said, Ah Martin Gardner, everything that man touches turns to gold, Jimmy.

  That stuck with me.

  All sorts of interesting people would drop by Randi’s house, from world famous scientists to wild looking entertainers, many of them magicians. It was thrilling to be a part of those conversations on life and meaning. I would sit and listen to those amazing minds as they would discuss the latest findings in chaos theory or philosophy of mind or go into great detail about a work of art they had seen or a powerful book they had just read.

  I never wanted to leave.

  The problem was that I had a girlfriend waiting for me back in New York. Cindy was my first serious girlfriend and we were in love and I missed her terribly. We wrote many letters back and forth and would have long talks on the phone late at night. As much as I loved being at Randi’s, I really missed Cindy and my family and friends back in New York. I knew at some point I would have to go back home and informed Randi of this and he said that no matter what my decision was, that we would always stay in close touch and that he felt like a spiritual father to me.

  Before I left for New York, we had one last big adventure in Florida together. The phony faith healer Peter Popoff was in town and was appearing at a local auditorium where he promised to heal people of their diseases and ailments by laying his hands on them.

  Randi knew that Popoff was a liar and a fraud. Popoff would go into the crowd and somehow know people’s names and addresses. He would call these folks out by name and tell them their home addresses and look up to the heavens and would know if they had cancer or cataracts or whatever it was that they were suffering from. He said the knowledge came from God. Randi knew better.

  One day at breakfast Randi asked me point blank how Popoff could have known the names, addresses and sicknesses of all of those people. I thought for minute, took a bite of my omelet, and then said confidently that I bet Popoff had some electronic device hidden on him and he was getting the information from a confidant hidden somewhere in the building. Randi smiled, his eyes twinkling more than ever. He said I was right and that he had already put a friend of his, a guy who was a master of electronics, to work on making a scanner that would catch any radio transmissions to Popoff.

  Then he said that early the next morning we would go and snatch Peter Popoff’s garbage right out of the trash bins and bring it back to our patio and go through it. We’d gather evidence. James Randi did not screw around. He was and still is deadly serious about his work. Being his apprentice, this fierce as fuck attitude rubbed off on me and I learned to be a fearless skeptic, like my mentor.

  We arose before dawn and headed out to the facility and surreptitiously grabbed bags and bags of trash and threw them all in the truck and brought them back to Randi’s patio and then we meticulously went through it all, with gloves on. Popoff claimed that the letters sent to him, which were always accompanied by checks or cash, were prayed upon backstage and anointed with holy oil. Yep. More like preyed upon. We quickly noticed that the only oil to be found on those letters was McDonald’s french fry oil, from the Popoff staff’s lunch. Many letters were shredded and the checks and cash removed and kept by Popoff, who didn’t pay taxes on a dime of it. He only paid taxes on his claimed yearly salary, which was low. The rest of the money, millions of dollars, was considered a donation to his church. Tax free.

  Before I left for New York, Randi started writing a book on the faith healers, exposing their deceptions. He was also up for the coveted MacArthur Genius Grant, which would mean hundreds of thousands of dollars for Randi, helping him to continue his noble work fighting these horrible people who were continuously robbing a naive and vulnerable public.

  But I had to go. I missed Cindy. I missed my friends and family. I missed New York. And I missed pizza. I packed and headed home. Looking back, I had learned an awful lot. I learned that the world was purely physical. I learned that there was no such thing as a god or a soul. I learned that consciousness was based in the brain and that when the brain died, I died with it. Thinking that all of the evidence was on my side, I faced this all with courage.

  Little did I know that I was wrong! So was Randi and the entire skeptical community that I was a part of and that I loved so much. But I’m getting ahead of myself. We’re just about through setting the stage for the discovery of a tremendous mystery that is beautiful beyond words. We’re almost there, my dear friend. One more chapter of my story and then things get real good. Promise!

  RETURNING HOME

  Initially, I didn’t tell most of my friends I was coming back home. I only told Cindy and maybe a very close friend or two. This bought me a little more quiet time to stay in and read, read, read. I made it a time where I threw myself as intensely as possible into all the great pursuits. Psychology, philosophy, anthropology, art, literature, the sciences. I soon learned that many years before me the great writer and Buddhist Jack Kerouac would do exactly this in the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg’s room at Columbia University. Jack holed himself up in there and just studied and wrote and called it his period of Self Ultimacy.

  I took this to heart. And to the extreme.

  Reflecting back to that seminal day in Randi’s library, I asked my mom if she would please do me a favor (since I wasn’t going out in public just yet) and pick up that book I had liked so much. But I couldn’t remember the title! The keywords I gave her to give to the librarian were Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, and Martin Gardner. I also told her what Randi had said, that everything Martin Gardner touched was gold.

  My mom came back with a book that a reference librarian had found for her based on those clues. It wasn’t the right book, but it sure was a big one! It was a seven hundred and seventy seven page tome titled Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas Hofstadter. Its subtitle was A Metaphorical Fugue on Minds and Machines Written in the Spirit of Lewis Carroll.

  On the back of the book was a superb blurb written by, you guessed it, the one and only Martin Gardner, wherein Martin declared that the book was a literary event! Another blurb said that Hofstadter’s GEB was so good that it was without precedent or peer in modern literature. It had also won the Pulitzer Prize. I looked at this amazing book and flipped through it and fondled it and just knew it was a work of genius.

  Its crux was what is the meaning of the word “I”? What was a “self”? How does consciousness arise from three pounds of meat? I held on to it for a bit, but ultimately returned it to the library, knowing full well that I wasn’t ready for it quite yet. But I vowed to myself that someday I would tackle it.

  Boy, did I ever. You wait and see!

  Those days were filled with more and more reading and studying, lots of practicing, honing my sleight of hand skills, and inventing things in magic no one has ever dreamt of, still to this day. I was always very proud of that. I was happy. I was excited. Exuberant! But in the back of my mind I was still haunted by the thought what good was all of this if we just die someday? Just turn blue and rot in the ground. I could not accept that consciousness, my precious consciousness, would suddenly come to a complete stop. That I’d be buried and silenced.

  Forever.

  What was the point of it all? I was smiling, but always, always haunted by thoughts of mortality. By a tragic sense of life. Was the point of life really that life was truly pointless?

  THE DHARMA LION

  It was around this time that I would meet another hero of mine, Jack Kerouac’s best friend, the wonderful poet, Allen Ginsberg. My brother Rob was a graduate student at Brooklyn College and Allen Ginsberg was one of his teachers. It was wild that I studied with The Amazing Randi and Rob studied with Allen Ginsberg. Two bearded intellectual giants!

  As my brother’s first semester with Ginsberg came to a close, Allen threw a holiday party for his students and said that they could bring a guest. Rob asked me and our good friend Bill McSherry if we would like to go and we both jumped at the chance. Bill was one of the smartest and most creative guys we knew and we were both ecstatic to meet the wise professor and poet.

  The Brothers Plath had great love for the writings of Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. They had changed our lives. Before going to college was even an idea in our heads, we would spend our summers reading the Beat Generation writers and then diving into Shelley and Byron and Wordsworth and Blake after learning that the Beats were inspired by the Romantics. Howl, Ginsberg’s powerful poem, had blown me away. Now I would meet the man himself!

 

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