Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #606898 in Books
• Published on: 1997-03-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Amazon.com
James Randi, professional magician and skeptic, has put together an encyclopedia with something for everyone. Yes, no matter who you are, unless you're a thoroughgoing atheist, Randi is bound to offend your beliefs at one point or another. As Arthur C. Clarke says in his introduction, the book "should be issued with a mental health warning, as many readers--if they are brave enough to face unwelcome facts--will find some of their cherished beliefs totally demolished." Randi is dryly sarcastic about hundreds of topics, including Catholic relics, speaking in tongues, Jehovah's Witnesses, yoga, the origins of Mormonism, dowsing, magnetic hills, UFOs, and every spiritualist of the past several centuries. A typical entry defines a nymph as: "in the real world, the immature form of the dragonfly and certain other insects, or a young woman with robust sexual interests. Take your choice." Comprehensive, exasperating and exasperated, witty, and unsparing, Randi's encyclopedia provides more debunking per page than any other resource. --Mary Ellen Curtin

Midwest Book Review
Truth is separated from fiction in this guide to skeptical definitions of alternative realities. The encyclopedia form charts both individuals and false systems of analysis and representation, and lends to both leisure browsing and light research.

Customer Reviews

OK, could have been better. Hunts for rabbits but ignores the big game
The book is interesting and surprisingly less caustic than Randi's others books. The book might better be described as a small dictionary rather than an "encyclopedia". The book was disappointing in some areas. For instance, Randi give Wicca a pass. When you have a hole fake religion with people claiming to have magic powers, you you think Randi would have had a field day. There is a whole industry devoted to selling voodoo oils with names like "Black Art Oil" which are really just colored mineral oil, which Randi also missed. True, Randi couldn't cover every subject...but if he's going to write an "encyclopedia", he should try to live up to the title. Some entries are simply definitions, such as the one for "athame". He doesn't mention Gardner got the idea from a science fiction story. There were plenty of things Randi could have written about, but didn't. He should have done more research.

There are some interesting tidbits in the book, like a "psychic girl" who was featured on "Unsolved Misteries" in the 80's is now in prison for killing her child.

Not a bad book, but certainly not an "encyclopedia".

Fun read and the TRUTH IS OUT THERE! ( just ask June DiMaggio or that phony James van Praagh!)
Fun read and yeah - what do you expect from a world, who believes more in so called "Psychics" than facing reality and that we are really not that important as we think we are....look up into the sky people and try to imagine where all this ends! Please add this man "James van Praagh"( who also is the co-executive producer of CBS' "Ghostwhisperer" on your list of fakes and phonies! I have hard proof(in form of a box of Marilyn Monroe hair rollers) which he was holding up on national TV in a show of ET on December 2nd, 2005. He agreed on the hair being from Marilyn Monroe - acted as MM was talking to him and creating that whole stick...and talked about the rollers being on a train etc. He also "saw" this and that~ as former believer in the occult and the undescribeable; that apearance has cured me or better shook me wide awake! The hair rollers are from 1974! That is 12 YEARS after Monroe's tragic death! So either van Prague owns a time machine, or Robert w. Otto, the owner and collector of that junk he is trying to display all over the world, are BOTH in for the money!
That is criminal and not even funny, when they charge innocent people a stiff fee of $22,95,-!!!
So of course - whenever someone does not agree with this BS, which is discribed in this book - there are strong opposites! Until you have not seen a table move on it's own. Do not believe it! We are not as important as we think we are!

Okay, but there are better books out there
If you get this book, do so for one of two reasons:

1)You want entertaining tidbits about weird stuff
2)You already own everything else Randi's written

This book simply pales in comparison the the Skeptic's Dictionary (available free online) when it comes to debunking a wide range of paranormal claims. In fact, I'm not sure if there's any good debunking in there. If you want to read about the akashic memory and various forms of flat-earthism, this books if for you. I suppose its nice to have someone who can provide entertaining tidbits in a non-credulous manner, but I wonder it would be better just to buy a believer's encyclopedia and ignore the fact that the author believes the things he's talking about.