We shouldn’t be too harsh on James Randi for lagging behind with his bio-magnetic reviews. Although he claims to lead an informative institute, we shouldn’t forget that the Amazing Randi is perhaps the top professional conjurer of our times. Having started off as a carnival and nightclub magical performer, Randi soon managed to sway entire departments of the US government (via the MacArthur Fellowship) and leading scientists to stop funding research in pioneering fields. America has now fallen behind China in the scientific study of psi phenomena. What more could be said of a head teacher misguidedly claiming knowledge? In a squabble, James Randi suggested that I go back to being a “fashion photographer.” If the popular demand grows, perhaps I will release some never-before published photos of famous personalities. But I certainly won’t return Randi’s boorishness. Asking James Randi to revisit his old playing field of debased nightclubs and saw dust restaurants would be too unkind.

Peter Fotis Kapnistos worked with Professor Spyridon Marinatos, the archaeologist who excavated the ruins of Akrotiri on the island of Thera (Santorini). Peter was the assistant of Spiros Tsavdaroglou, an official photographer for the National Archaeological Museum of Greece. They photographed Minoan and Mycenaean sites and artifacts for Professor Marinatos, who was one of the premier Greek archaeologists of the 20th century (his name is mentioned in the video game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis). Peter also assisted the team that photographed the royal tomb of Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, discovered in the 1980s by the archeologist Manolis Andronicus. If you happen to come across encyclopedias or history books with monochrome pictures of small trinkets from the Tomb at Vergina depicting the father of Alexander the Great, you can be sure those photos came out of Peter’s darkroom work.

It would be thoughtless of anyone to deny that James Randi has done a good turn to modern society by exposing the trickery of some religious pretenders who have robbed the wealth and dignity of many believers. But Randi is neither a scientist nor an educator. He and his committed followers make the mistake of assuming that if there’s a reported phenomenon that can’t be reproduced or explained, it must be a clever trick.

For example, if one of Randi’s young fans were to dive into a tank filled with freezing water at a temperature below zero Celsius, they would suffer cardiac arrest almost immediately according to modern scientific literature. That’s a medical fact. Thus, anyone able to do this without injury, according to Randi’s pointed logic, must somehow be cheating. But Lewis Gordon Pugh, a British lawyer, would strongly disagree. Pugh is perhaps the only man in the world that can increase his core body temperature at will, only by thinking about it. Scientists are now trying to explain how it’s achievable and are absolutely astounded that Lewis Pugh “the ice-man” doesn’t even shiver (an involuntary reflex for mortal humans) while swimming almost naked at the North Pole.

Shrewdly enough, James Randi completely avoided talking about Pugh in his criticism of my original article. Randi has promised to give a million dollars to anyone who can prove paranormal powers. Lewis Pugh says that he can alter his body temperature simply by “visualization.” Ironically, one of Randi’s supporters (who doesn’t even believe in psi) sent me a frenzied message in a befuddled attempt to redefine the dictionary meaning of psi. Others thought they could at last solve the enigma by declaring that William Tell never existed.

But what exasperated James Randi the most was none of the above. He wound up when I wrote that someone using the name “Randi Schimnosky” was posting on the Internet message boards concerning atheism, kinky sex, and child abuse and making at least some people wonder if it had anything to do with James Randi. This is absolutely true. I made up not an iota of what I reported. Instead of thanking me for tipping him off that a potential cyber teaser might be pestering his prestige, James Randi intimidated me. (I assure you I’m not Randi Schimnosky.)

The weird Schimnosky character emerged through a Canadian Internet service provider and could prompt attention for building fake profiles because Randi Schimnosky sometimes poses as a man and sometimes as a woman. Nevertheless, James Randi apparently believes I should be hauled over the coals for mentioning it. The Amazing Randi agitatedly recalled a time when he had the gratification of “flooring a nasty chap” and intimidated me on his Swift Blog:

“One shot, to the chops. He went down, and was carried out. VERY satisfying, I assure you. Want some, Mr. Kapnistos? I got some...”

How am I supposed to answer that menacing question? Of course, I don’t think an elderly man might be waiting to mete out a serious head injury to me the minute I walk out of a restaurant or movie theater. But I’m not sure about his messy group of tough followers. “Rule No. 5” of the James Randi Forum website states: “You will not post anything that demonstrates a clear and present danger to the welfare of another person, or otherwise tends to create alarm or apprehension that the welfare of any person is in imminent jeopardy.” James Randi did not obey his website rules but instead threatened physical harm. Being a resident of the European Union, I sought qualified opinions. I watched the marvels of an English lawyer that just might make James Randi and his group of heavies “shudder.” His name is Lewis Gordon Pugh.

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