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Some people cannot believe that

a magician can fool them in such a way

that they can't figure it out.

But magicians can and magicians do.

Swindlers do, con men do, all the time.

They're not magicians.

They're fakes.

They are lying to us,
they're deceiving us.

It's okay to fool people

as long as you're doing that to
teach them a lesson

which will better their knowledge
of how the real world works.

No matter how smart or well
educated you are,

you can be deceived.

Tonight, cross-Canada hit parade
has challenged the amazing randi,

the world's only challenge escape artist,

to break out of a straitjacket

while hanging from his feet.

Are you ready gentlemen?

And now here's miss Joyce Hobbes
paying tribute to

the amazing randi's “magic touch.”

J“ you've got that magic touch j“

j“ it makes me glow so much j“

j“ it casts a spell, it rings a bell j“

j“ the magic touch j“

j“ oh when I feel your charm j“

j“ it's like a four alarm j“

j“ you make me thrill so much j“

j“ you've got the magic touch j“

j“ here I go reeling j“

j“ oh, I'm feeling the glow j“

j“ but where can I go from you j“

j“ I didn't know too much j“

j“ and then I felt your touch j“

j“ and now I learn I can return j“

j“ the magic touch j“

- Hello, how are you doing today?
- Very well, thank you.

Can I bring you something to, uh...

Coffee! Oh yes please, for me coffee.

- I'll get you coffee in a minute, okay?
- Okay.

Oh my heartjust started again,
that's good.

Always a good sign.

See, I've always had my battle

with the psychics, the so-called -

and I use that word in quotations
all the time, remember that.

People who are stealing money
from the public,

cheating them and...

And misinforming them.

That's the kind of thing that
I've been fighting all my life.

Magicians are the most honest
people in the world,

they tell you they are going to
fool you, and then they do it.

Wait a minute, I have to worship here.

Okay.

James randi is the author
of " the faith healers"

and he's best known as an investigator
of psychic and miraculous claims,

would you welcome please,
the amazing randi!

Here he is! The amazing randi!

What did you...
Would you tell us who you are?

The amazing randi. Ta-da!

I was born at a very early age in a log
cabin that I helped my father build,

by the time I was seven
I was eleven, I grew up very fast.

I am a magician, I always have
been a magician...

A conjurer, prestidigitator,
iegerdemainist...

Liar, cheat charlatan and fake.

You're a master magician,

some people have said that you're about
the greatest escape artist since Houdini.

Randi has a real deep natural affection
for magic

and this love of deception.

Agood magician needs to be a little bit
of a con man, I think.

He needs to be sort of a
criminal type, but...

Not have enough guts
to actually Rob banks.

He loves magic. He spent his whole life
as a performer, as a magician.

So he really resents anyone
applying the techniques of magic

for any purpose other than entertainment.

Especially to convince people that
there is something psychic going on here,

he thinks that an abomination.

Tonight on this stage
you are going to meet a man

who claims he can move physical objects
using only the powers of his mind.

Now, you have been touring our country,
debunking psychics haven't you?

I have indeed. And I think that
the solution is rather simple.

Now what I have here is
particles of a white plastic

which will rather conclusively show

that Mr. Hydrick is merely

blowing on both the page
and on the pencil.

- James?
- Ready.

Randi says the public
is being ereced, via trickery

I am going to tell you what's
happening and more to the point

this is going to be crusade to
try and change the world.

If there is something to the paranormal,
let's find out what it is, if anything.

And on the other hand lets not be taken in
by the clap-trap that is being offered us

and at our expense.

I just ingested six and a half days
worth of homeopathic sleeping pills.

Why don't they affect me?

People say, we” what's the harm,
why do you care about this?

Then I saw randi's answer, which was,

bad ideas can cause you serious
damage or death.

The psychic surgeons,
they operate with their bare hands

and profess to remove tumors, malignant
tissue without any marks at all.

And believe me, the gimmick
is so simple

you can buy it for 75 cents
in a magic shop

now what you're about to see is
a bare handed operation...

His point isn't to tell you
that something isn't true.

His point is to
widen your scope of vision

so that you will question the things
that happen in front of you.

Oh no, that doesn't come out.

Some people think that
he's very dogmatic.

It's always some tired person in a shack
some place in Idaho or Iowa

or some place like that who gets
picked up by extraterrestrials

and they have their genitals
examined in great detail

and they can't wait to get on
Oprah to describe it.

Gee, I'll bet you don't believe in
the tooth fairy or Santa claus either.

Well, I'm looking into Santa claus.

He's a great storyteller,
and like all good storytellers,

well, there's probably some
information and detail in there

that may not be appearing
in his version of events.

It is, I will say, interesting,
that a man who has devoted his whole life

to using the tools of deception
to uncover real deception

has at the center of his life,
a... a deception.

And welcome to “to tell the truth.”
let's meet our next team of challengers.

One of these three men pretended
to be possessed... by an ancient spirit.

Number one, what is your name please.

My name is Jose Alvarez.

Number two.

My name is Jose Alvarez.

Number three.

My name is Jose Alvarez.

Only one of these people
is the real Jose Alvarez,

and is the only one sworn...

To tell the truth!

I first met Jose Alvarez

in the Fort Lauderdale
public library.

I offered to explain something about
one of the photographs he was looking at.

This is the actual flower here
for the cactus.

- Yes.
- The little ones. And look at this...

- Yeah, this is fantastic, look at that.
- Yeah, we need to spread that around.

See this is the one that I cut for the...

We end up spending the whole afternoon

talking about our mutual interests

about space exploration.

I remember we looked at
books on telescopes,

and I told him I had such a telescope
at home, the questar.

I went back to my friends
and I said “I just met

this extraordinary man,

and I would like to meet with him again.”

We were able to go out at
night with a tripod

and see the moons of Jupiter
and all kinds of good things like that,

which is always very exciting
to show somebody,

certainly if it's for the first time.

I just got very excited
and I said, I need to...

I need to be with him more!

When I first met randi
I wasn't aware

of who he was.

Okay, tomorrow, don't
tell me about tomorrow...

And I was there when he
won the MacArthur award.

The gentleman announced we are calling
from the MacArthur committee

and he told me that I had won the prize,

and I answered in my most intelligible
way, ”ah de be da be da be da be.”

Then I got a real feel of the kind of
impact that he was having culturally.

And little by little I started
getting more and more involved

in the investigation of paranormal
activities that randi was doing.

And then he asked me to play the
character of a fake channeler

in a project that
we end up working together.

This woman is j.Z. Knight.
She's also the one they call ramtha,

a mystical male spirit 35,000 years old
who claims to be divine.

Now you must understand
that the so-called channelers

were claiming that they could
contact long dead spirits.

Now, not a few hundred years back, no, no.
They were much more ambitious than that,

- tens of thousands of years ago.
- Indeed!

And they would speak in
funny voices like this!

Mmm hmm, god bless you doctor peep/e!

All right I'll say, how are this day of
your time as you create time to exist.

They were very popular. They gave talks,
huge prices for the seats.

There are often so many people
the ramtha organization

can earn up to two hundred thousand
dollars for a single appearance.

And you're my first thirty-five-
thousand-year-old guest.

It was such nonsense.

I can't think of that technical term...

Oh yes, bullshit.

What she definitely is, is part of what is
being called the new age movement.

Lots of people believe
this is something genuine

because they see something on
television and they think,

"my goodness, surely this journalist
would have checked this stuff out."

Trauma from a past life sometimes
seems to spill over into the present.

We are conditioned to
believe that things that

look like documentaries,
but are not factual

must be essentially be true or it wouldn't
be presented as if it were factual.

Hello?

The Carlos hoax started when
60 minutes Australia called randi

because they wanted
to prove that

channelers were a hoax.

On that phone call randi told them that
you couldn't prove that someone who said

that they are inhabited by a spirit forty
thousand years old is a false claim.

What he said to them was,

“what we need to do is create one.”

His name is Carlos and you've
probably seen him on television

or mentioned in the press.

Carlos is involved in the
mystical field of channeling.

Carlos, if you believe him,
is a spiritual messenger

who occupies the body of this
19-year-old puerto rican artist,

Jose Alvarez.

The Carlos hoax
was to show that the media

would fall for most of these stunts
if they sounded attractive enough,

and they wouldn't really
investigate too carefully.

So, one of the very first things we did
to introduce Carlos to the public,

we made up the press package

that we presented
to the Australian press.

What trash this is.

We even invented newspapers and
magazines that never existed.

Theatrical magazines particularly,
announcing the appearance

of the great Carlos at such-and-such
a theater that didn't exist.

But no one in the media bothered
to check up on one of these details.

They could have picked up the
phone and just checked

and they would have found out
that they were being deceived.

Hello?

- It didn't happen.

One man who has been making a name
for himself here in the United States

is now doing the same in Australia.

Jose Luis Alvarez is a nineteen
year old channeler.

By sixty hours after we had arrived,

we had eight major TV appearances,

headlines in newspapers.

Everyone in Australia pretty
well knew that Carlos was there.

Wooooooo!

It will be astronomical... in nature!

Frankly, I was just doing
it without thinking.

Othennise, I wouldn't have
been able to do it.

Last Sunday the opera house drama theater

was packed with a near capacity crowd
of five hundred,

there to listen to Carlos

and to have their questions passed
on to him by his disciples.

Crystals are fossils... of long ago!

I know he's definitely psychic.

It's something that I can feel
coming from him.

I thought it was great.
Very sincere I thought.

- Do you believe him?
- Yeah, I do.

The following Sunday, 60 minutes
Australia revealed the whole hoax.

He billed himself as
a man of the supernatural,

a man who could do amazing things.

And thousands believed him,
making him a celebrity.

But it was all an elaborate hoax.

The most basic fact about Carlos,
was that he simply doesn't exist.

That's the real teaching
of Carlos.

But this doesn't even scratch the surface

of just what a phony Carlos is.

I am Carlos!

Though I had just a year or so
before this Australian event

actually met Jose Alvarez,

I was very pleased at what it
did for our relationship

because it really
cemented it pretty well.

We decided after that that we
sort of belong together.

I recognized, I guess a very early age

that my feelings were different from
those around me.

And it was pretty evident to me
that that was heavily frowned upon.

I perhaps felt like a bit of an outsider.

My father only really spoke to
me twice in my whole life.

Calling me aside, sitting me
down and having a discussion.

We did that twice during my life,
I was surprised both times.

I was pretty well educated on my own.

The local education system
in Toronto, Canada

actually allowed me to
stay out of grade school,

only going in there to take the tests.

I was free to wander around Toronto

and I found the casino theatre
on queen street.

I saw the great blackstone advertised.

I had never seen a magician
before in my whole life.

And Harry blackstone
walked out on stage

and did wonderful things that I
had never dreamed could be done.

He had this young lady walk out
from the side of the stage

and he cast her into a trance.
And he said,

“Princess astra... rise!”

She floated up into the air.

And I looked very carefully,

and I could not see any means whereby
she could be suspended in the air

and caused to move in the air!

That was wonderful, I was transfixed.

How could the man do such a thing?

I determined at that moment that
I was going to become

a professional magician.

And so at 17 I decided I wouldn't
graduate from high school,

I left home and I joined the carnival.

I never went home again.

Now is it possible that I could have
drawn anything on there?

Do you want to take one more look?
Take one more look,

there's nothing in there whatsoever
except a crushed piece of chalk, right?

Now before you open up the slates,

what was the word
that you looked at in the book?

- Would you mind telling us.
- Mackerel.

I was doing, well, so-called
mind-reading tricks and such,

psychic tricks so to speak.

It's been in your hands
all this time, right?

- I assume so.
- All right then, would you open the slates

and see what the spirits have brought us
in the way of a message.

Don't tell her how it was done.

When I introduced myself as a magician,

I used to say to my audience:
"Good evening,

my name is the great Randall.

I am a liar, a cheat and a charlatan.

I will blatantly lie to you,

but for purposes of
entertainment only of course.

And those lies may not be
discernible from the truth.

Randi had this sense of
trying to be bigger than life.

And the easiest way to be
bigger than yourself

is to lie.

I was 21 years of age when I predicted
the outcome of that year's world series.

And it was good for me,
it moved me up a peg.

But it also had some fall out.

People would stop me in the
street, literally,

and start to ask personal questions,
family questions and such

that they thought I could answer,

and even offering me money
to predict whether

the husband that the girl had
chosen was the right one...

That was quite a comeuppance
for me because I realized

you know, people really do
believe this nonsense.

Mentalism can be a deal with the devil.

It's an incredibly seductive feeling

for someone to
imbue you with that power.

It's a very tempting thing.

Then you have to make a decision.

Are you the sort of person that
will look someone in the eye,

and even though you have got
no idea what their future holds,

you're prepared to tell them
something that isn't true,

that may harm them,

just to move money
from their wallet into yours.

You do not have that influence
and power as a magician.

You have it the moment
you deny you're a magician.

I know that surge of power that you feel

when you use a cheap trick

to manipulate someone else into thinking
you have powers that you don't have.

And I think it's very much
to the good of the world

that when randi felt that power,
he backed away from it.

And out of that feeling of that power,

came a rage.

I want now to introduce uri geller.

He's been denounced
by some people as a magician,

and certainly he's a showman.

He gives demonstrations
all over the United States.

Ladies and gentlemen, uri geller.

They said his name was uri geller.

The name didn't mean a thing to me.

He's come to the attention of
Stanford research institute,

and the scientists there are
apparently quite convinced

that he has psychic powers.

What I do is um, telepathy...

And that is, as everybody knows,
is receiving thoughts and uh,

passing thoughts.

And then I have the other power which I,

which I read that they call pyschokinesis.

And that is moving or bending
or breaking objects.

It's cracking I feel it under my fingers.

See how gently it goes.

Look it's like it's
becoming like plastic.

It's breaking... it's breaking.

You can... if, look, it's very...

In 1972, I got a call from colonel
Austin kibler of the defense department,

then acting head ofarpa
as it was called,

advanced research
projects agency.

He says could you drop
everything you're doing

and go to the
Stanford research institute.

There's a psychic down there,

and if he can do what they claim
he can do, we ought to be involved.

Because the Russians have
a big program now going,

using what they call psyop warfare.

This film describes a
five-week investigation

conducted at Stanford research institute

with uri geller, a young Israeli.

Here we present a case
of a double blind experiment

in which someone places an object

into a can chosen at random
from ten aluminum cans.

Geller's task now is to determine

which of these ten cans
holds the steel ball bearing.

Now targ and putoff, the two scientists

who were in residence there at the time,
were quite a pair.

First of all, targ is legally blind.

And, uh, he was one of the observers.

Duh!

He has made his
choice, the steel ball is found.

He fooled the pants off
them, it was astonishing.

They saw nobel prizes on the horizon,

because if you do discover there
really were psychic powers

that would certainly bring you a
nobel prize or two.

In this case, geller guessed
that a four was showing,

and he was quite pleased to have
guessed correctly.

When I made my report to
the government that geller was...

A complete fraud,

targ and puthoff realized they were not
going to get money from the government,

so they took geller on a tour
to get publicity for him

and to raise some private money to
do their research with him.

I've been reading a lot of research on him
from the Stanford research institute

and from science section of
the New York times.

A lot of publicity on this gentleman
whose name is uri, u-r-i uri geller.

Ah, and we hope we're going to see
some rather astounding things tonight.

Would you welcome please, uri geller.

Johnny Carson was the man.
Everybody watched that program on nbc,

and since I had been on the
program many, many times,

they asked if I could come into California
to appear on the show that night.

And I said, boy this is
rather short notice,

but I will talk to your prop man.

And I'll tell the prop man how he can
prepare the props and such in such a way

that if it's real, geller can do it.

But if it's a fake,
geller won't be able to do it.

Are you feeling in the mood yet?

- Huh? More questions?
- All right, lets...

What's the capital of south Dakota?

No, um... I don't mean to pressure you.

Ok, uh, let me see.

I said okay, what I would like you to do
with the little aluminum film cans

is I would like you to coat them
on the bottom with rubber cement.

Don't glue them down to the tray,
just coat the bottoms and let them dry.

When they're put on the tray,
they won't skid, then.

I said because the way he does the
film can thing is he rotates the tray

and he sees which ones move differently.

We'll start eliminating the ones
that do not have the water.

Without touching them.

He is really suspicious, you know.
I am having a hard time with you.

Okay I don't mean to be uri,
I really don't.

Just keep looking.

- Okay, let me rest a little, alright?
- Alright.

They actually shut down the set

for 20 minutes or so

while he hemmed and hawed and wondered
how he was going to do something,

then they came back to the live audience
after a big long commercial break.

All right, we are back. Uri was telling me
you don't feel what, strong tonight?

I don't feel strong...

Geller had to give the whole thing up.

It was a real failure for him,
definite failure.

Because Carson's people had followed
the instructions that I gave them.

- Don't be disappointed. I'm not...
- Okay.

We thought he didn't have a future.

And we were wrong! Very, very wrong,

we didn't know how wrong we were!

Try to make a boy scout knot.

- Really heave on it now.
- There we are.

That doesn't feel very tight, put another
knot on top of that would you please?

Just one more to make sure. I don't
want it to fall off around my ankles.

What did I ever do to you? Why
do you hate me so much?

Now I'm going to see if I can
take this rope off,

it may take me a while,
but I'll see how fast I can do it.

Would you time me please? Do you have
a watch there, just look at your watch.

- Uh, yeah.
- How about you, you got a watch?

I have one. It took, ah,
two and a half seconds.

I think I deserve a large round
of applause for that.

One of randi's great
heroes is Harry Houdini,

and the life of Harry Houdini reads very
similar to the life of James randi.

Starting out as an amazing
magician and escape artist,

he was a great showman and debunker and

dedicated his life to keeping
people from being duped.

Well the thought
naturally occurred to me

that I could base a good deal of my life
on Harry Houdini and his adventures

perhaps do some of the things that he had
done, and perhaps even improve on them.

- Open sesame, try that.
- Open sesame.

Oh, look at it!

The door is opening!

I wanted to break his records

I wanted to stay in a sealed metal coffin
longer than he did,

get out of a straight jacket
faster than he did.

Out of chains, out of leg irons
and handcuffs.

I said if a man could make it,
I could break it.

There was nothing he couldn't get out of.

Or make it at least seem like he
was getting out of them.

The clock is still going, he has
established a world's record.

In some cases two hundred feet of rope
wrapped up in a chair on stage.

You just hope that the theater
doesn't catch fire because

they're likely to
leave you behind to fry.

But it's when some of the things like

hanging over Niagara Falls
in a straightjacket at 20 below zero,

that gets your attention.

J“ billion dollar babies... j“

j“ ohhh billion... j“

in '73 with billion dollar babies we said
this whole album is about extravagance,

so take it to the next level,

let's use illusion.

If you're going to get your head cutoff,

it can be scary and funny
at the same time,

but it's gotta be professional.

So you go to the best guy, and
amazing randi was the best guy.

Now I had never heard of Alice Cooper.

I assumed it was a woman, you see,

silly me!

And I said, yeah, this might be fun.

He really starts to become kind of
a pop-culture figure.

All the way to... happy days!

Good afternoon gentlemen,
I am the amazing randi.

Hey, the amazing randi!

My appearance on happy days
really did a lot for my career.

Fonzie, thanks a lot.
You really saved the day.

Are you kidding? Whoa.

- Heyyy-

- see ya!
- Yeah, hang in there.

This is show business. The showmanship.

That's one respect in which I based
a good deal of my efforts

on what Houdini had done.

He had done it by trial and error,

and I benefitted from his example.

This actually was invented
more than half a century ago

by the late, great, Harry Houdini.

I was asked to do a show
honoring Harry Houdini.

I am going to immerse myself
inside the can,

my body will displace some of the water,

the water will be filled right to the
very top and the lid will be locked on.

And I was going to do the milk can.

Now this is rehearsal, maybe 20
minutes before airtime.

And I tried to perform the escape.

I couldn't get out of the milk can.

Something had jammed and
I heard a crackling noise.

Turned out it was a couple of my
vertebrae that had been chipped.

And the pain was rather
considerable to say the least.

I was in deep trouble.

I knew that if! Panicked I would -
I'd be dead, that's all there is to it.

So you don't panic.

I had to let myself sink back into
the water, I was in a bit of trouble.

Finally I heard the noises that
they were undoing the padlocks.

I roared up out of the water,
there I was, I had been saved.

It was a close call.

Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome the amazing randi!

I came back from the
hospital and I was introduced

down near the end of the show
on a stretcher.

I have just returned from
the hospital and they tell me

that I have a double compression
fracture of the vertebrae,

and it's not something I recommend
you undertake as a hobby.

It wasn't a great blow to me.

And I was at the point where

I thought that maybe it was time
to get out of this business.

Randi probably coulda
kept doing it for a while.

I remember him saying to me,
“you know there comes a point

you just don't want to see
a little old guy getting out of a can.”

I heard that this gonna be the
last escape, you through with it.

Yes, the last straightjacket
escape, certainly.

I may do some jail
escapes and a few things like that,

but I'm going to leave that
stunt to the younger people.

Oh yeah. How old are you?

I'm 55 now and it's time
to get out of that business.

I think it gave him the opportunity
to focus full time

on what he regarded

as the bigger, better targets.

In the name of Jesus!

Everybody with a bone disease,

everybody with a back infirmity,
misplaced vertebraes,

bring them right down
over here to the side.

Did you ever feel anything like this,

it's like warm liquid fire flowing over
this whole building!

Oh, thank you Jesus.

Oh, god. Let her go, that's the power
of the holy spirit.

During the '80s, the faith healing racket
was very, very prominent

literally all over the world.

Let his leg begin to grow, heal the disk.
There it's coming...

In the name of Jesus.

I did a lot of investigation,

I visited a lot of these tent shows
as we called them

and we didn't see any evidence of
healing taking place whatsoever.

But I was particularly obsessed
with Peter popoff.

You've got cancer of the stomach?

Are you ready for god
to burn that cancer out?

A man like reverend Peter popoff,
was a very dangerous man.

In my estimation;
He was a real scoundrel.

Because he was taking people's
faith in their religion,

he was taking away their security.

In many cases he was harming them
physically because he was convincing them

that they didn't have to go to
doctors anymore,

that Jesus had healed them.

If you've got pills,

as an act of faith I want you to
just throw em out in the isles.

Those of you up on the balcony,
just throw them over the side, amen.

Throw them over the side,
throw them over the side.

So you have popoff, who's going
around a congregation

and just seemed to be able to hear the
voice of god and know all about people,

even their addresses, he would
call it out, everyone's impressed.

Is that... John? 3784 archwood road?

God is burning those blood clots out of
his veins, out of his arteries...

Jesus! There it is...

So he was doing a
mentalism act it appeared

and we wondered
how he got the information.

So randi was coming to town,

and he said, "would you
like to come see

this evangelist by the name
of Peter popoff,

and uh, he's supposedly really well known,
and he's going to be downtown

and he's going to be doing
this whole revival thing

and thousands of people will be there."
And I said,

"yeah, I'd love to come."

Is it Ruby, Ruby Harris?

So, I'm sitting there with randi and
there's thousands of people.

Come on up here Ruby!

Here she comes!

They believe this man has a
connection with their god

and he can actually heal them.

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Now listen, I'm going to
tell her what's wrong with her,

but I'm not going to tell it out loud
because it's confidential.

How many of you believe the holy
spirit's a gentleman?

I realized at that moment,
something big is going on here.

This is a lot more than I thought it was.

-Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

God's gonna burn 'em out
right now, here they go!

Here they go - right now, Jesus!

And I have to tell you, it was an
absolutely amazing experience, because

the emotions that you're feeling
when there are people up there

who are in tears...

Right now Jesus! Ah, hallelujah!
He's not gonna need...

Who are shaking and you've got this
entire energy going throughout this room.

It does something to you, even as a
skeptic. It truly does something to you.

Oh hallelujah, get up on
your feet, lets walk!

There is no pain, no pain!
Twelve years, there's no pain!

Look at that! There he goes!

There he goes, hallelujah!

Ohhh, praise god!

How many of you know
that burns the devil up?

After a while you know,
I'm sitting there and

after some of the emotion had
died down in me,

popoff said, "I need people to come down
to collect money” for him

and basically he had 15 buckets

and I'm supposed to go around
the auditorium and collect cash.

God is touching that
thyroid condition right now.

These people were throwing
like fives, tens, twenties

because one of the things popoff
always tells them,

"whatever you give,
you'll get back ten fold."

So if you put a dollar in, hey
you're going to get ten bucks.

You put a hundred bucks in,

you're going to get a lot more money back.
And these people truly believed this.

Here it comes, complete
healing in Jesus — whoo!

You foul spirit of deafness take your
hands off this woman in Jesus' name.

Lord let these ears be open! There it is.

And as I get up close,
I notice in his ear,

that there's an earpiece,
there's no earhole.

It's a little piece of plastic in there

and I come back to randi and I said,
“I think I know what's going on.”

I said what's up?

He said, "he's wearing
a hearing aid, in his left ear."

Now, a man who heals the deaf,

you wouldn't think would be
wearing a hearing aid.

How do I sound now?

- Loud.
- Loud.

At that point I realized
we needed some technical help

so I enlisted the aid of a private
investigator named Alec Jason.

Stand by.

And... action.

One day randi called me

and suggested that Peter popoff
was using radio transmissions,

but they couldn't really figure
out how it was done

and they wanted to know if I
could intercept it or detect it.

I said, I certainly couldn't
guarantee it. Less than fifty-fifty,

maybe, you know, twenty-five percent.

We knew that popoff had a
"service" as he called it,

happening in San Francisco and
we figured we'd better be there.

Do you support
Peter's ministry financially?

Every dime I can, yeah.

What brings you here today?

Well I'm expecting a miracle.
Physical healing.

The day of the event
I dressed as a security guard.

Complete uniform -
badge, shirt, radio, keys...

Everything.

I'm not a security guard;
I just look like one, part of my cover.

And... I was nervous.

I appeared in disguise as Adam jersin.

And if you put those words together
and mix them up, they spell James randi.

So I went down a corridor and
that's where I set up my equipment.

It was sort of concealed, it was in bags.

So I have my scanner going

and it's looking for new frequencies,
anything new that's not there normally.

Get ready...

Get ready. Praise god.

Suddenly on the scanner
one of the lights came on

saying there is a signal and the scanner
has stopped at that frequency.

And I hear what I realize are now...
Footsteps.

High heel footsteps on a hard surface.

How many of you believe it's all right
to praise the lord!

And then I hear someone coming closer
and closer to the microphone

and a woman's voice said,
“hello petey..

Woman:
“Hello petey... can you hear me?

If you can't, you're in trouble...”

Yes!

They were using a radio
frequency, lfound it!

In the name of Jesus...

Jodi Dean. Jodi Dean.

Is it Jodi? Jodi?

Dean? Jodi Dean?

No, she should be right there
on your right side.

Here it comes.

Okay, she lives at 4267 Masterson.

4267 Masterson? I can see
the angels of god all around your house.

Rosa?

- Cameer.
- Is it cameer?

You been taking a lot of medication?

She's there with her son kipper
and he has a lump in his chest.

Waitjust a minute, who's kipper?

He's got a lump in his chest.

You want god to melt it
right now? Kipper, stand-up,

god's gonna burn that thing out right now.

They'd filled out
prayer request forms saying

I have cancer or I have
this problem or that problem.

So she's giving that information
directly to popoff

and then he's reciting that information
as if he's getting it from god.

Martha zacorski...

Is it Martha, is it zacorski?

- Weldon krabb - is it weldon...

- Krabb.
- Krabb?

- Peggy white.
- Peggy white?

- 1305 celono.
- 1305 celono?

- Turn over to the left.
- Hallelujah!

There you go. She's had a hysterectomy,
she can't take hormones.

He's got kidney and eye problems.

You want god to touch your kidneys?
Now let that ear open!

In the name the lord —
Right now Jesus!

Power of the holy ghost!
Here it comes in Jesus - devil back off!

And the bondage is broken!

Woo! In the name of Jesus!

You foul spirit!

I thought I'm getting out of here now.

So I packed everything up,
I turned the equipment off,

took my bags and walked down the
stairs, outside to the cool air.

My heart's pounding now
because I've got the goods.

Not only did we have
the evidence we needed,

we had more than what we needed.

We had it.

So I went on the Johnny Carson show

and when the revelation came
and you heard mrs popoff's voice

hello petey, can you hear me?
If you can't you're in trouble...

Johnny suddenly realized what
the gimmick was and he said,

"oh shit."

It turns out that god's frequency -
I didn't know that he used radio,

is 39.170 megahertz,

and god is a woman obviously, and sounds
exactly like popoff's wife, Elizabeth.

- Has he seen this tape at all?
- No, he does not know about this

- until this very moment.
- Interesting.

I can't imagine what it
would be like to maintain a life

where your living and your well-being
of you and your family

depends upon you lying every single day.

I think that they believe that there is
some way what they are doing is good,

and that there's some moral compass

that they've invented that
allows them to do this.

A double portion of god's power!

Well we did it. We had exposed this man

on probably the most popular
television show of the day.

And he announced bankruptcy
shortly after that.

Oh glory to god!

Ok, we'll take a break,
we'll be right back.

Oh ok, I'll see what I
can do, alright, here we go.

Wait, I'll do a Jackie gleason here.

Yeah, I don't know, hmm.

I'll do a plié at the bar okay?

Oh no, I don't bend that way anymore.

It has been said many times when
you're in love you want to tell the world.

Maybe it will work, I don't know.

And James randi is in love
with the truth.

The so-called psychics
and the other charlatans

are making money at our expense

and we have to bear some
of the blame for it

so let's get to work
and do something about it.

I'll take two eight-by-tens.

The man that puts the fear of god
into all those psychics,

the amazing randi!

James randi isn'tjust about
being skeptical of the paranormal.

He is about promoting a
scientific worldview.

Science has created and shaped
much of the world in which we live.

But constant vigilance
can never be relaxed.

You want people to be educated,

you want to go out and
shake these people and say,

“listen to me, listen to me."

The million dollar challenge
is real ladies and gentlemen.

Why is there not a line-up outside this
organization right now on the street?

Why isn't uri geller here?

Really pull, come on, make it tight.

Ok, I need... I need this chair,

sir, would you take the chair
and pull it up front?

- I got an old one!
- First edition. Yes!

There we go.

The amount that he travels and the amount
of people that he engages with,

he has genuinely changed thousands
and thousands of people's lives

by opening their eyes.

I've got to bring my camera down here
and get some shots of it too.

Just to make Jose crazy.

Is he on your mind?

Always, every minute.

Every minute, because he's not here.

Sometimes I think what an
odd couple we make.

He's very rational, and very much driven,

by um, the skeptic thinking
and all of that.

And sometimes I feel I'm a little bit
or a lot of the opposite.

And somehow we have managed to
build a life together.

And I like it. I like the fact that
we are completely opposites.

Randi's always been supportive
of my career and my persona.

All the way through. From the
moment we met up to now.

It's just an amazing...

No pun intended — life, being with him.

I cannot imagine my life without him.

Okay, so just let me knowas soon as you
ahh... leave the airport.

Okay, bye.

He said they are waiting for luggage.

People find it funny that
I call him amazing.

But I like to call him amazing.

I'm a bit tired, you know that?

Oh, it's so good to be back.

So good to have you back, amazing.

- Good to be here after all that travel.
- Good to have you back amazing.

- Now I gotta show you something.
- Yes.

As you can see, I got a new cane.

Yes, oh!

Yes, and you've got to get the
full effect of it now, you're ready?

Okay let me see. That's
pretty awesome, amazing.

This was given to me by
cicap and massimo.

Oh, oh, nice.

Oh, I rememberthis place, yeah.
We used to live here.

- We are cute aren't we?
- Yup, we are.

- It's a good picture.
- I love that picture.

This is the guy that left
his home at 17 to join a circus.

And go through all the crazy stories

that he has lived.

Ooh, the inside
of this one is icky.

Well then take it out.

No, no. There's lots that
can be saved here.

No, no, no, no.

Yes.

I'll take it out later then.

You probably will.

It's quite an amazing ride and I just feel

very privileged to have been part of it.

Once more, let me hold it here gently.

I'm not even touching it and it's...

Look it, you see, it's plastic.

When geller was on
the tonight show

and randi had
helped Johnny set it up

such that he would not be able
to perform his tricks,

it sure looked like that was the
end of geller's career.

Over, done, three strikes and
you're out - gone!

No! Two days later he's on the
merv Griffin show.

And all I'm saying is bend, bend, bend.

Ok, look, can you see it?

I mean, it's bent, you know.

- That is a very bent key.
- Now what happens,

it's an energy that leaves my mind,
nothing to do with my finger,

penetrates the metal and alters
the molecular structure.

Now instead of bend, I say to
the broken watches, "work!"

Audience: 1, 2, 3 — work!

Work! Just a second. It's working!

Oh my goodness, it's working.

Your mother's watch is working.
Is that like a miracle?

They all started, they're working!

The “I am not a crook watch.”

First of all, I was born with this. When
I was four years old I was eating soup,

and that's four years old, and suddenly
the spoon started bending in my hands!

Now geller probably became
the first superstar psychic

to be apparently accepted by
science and by scientists.

Uri has subjected himself or has been
subjected to some scientific study,

what they call cheat-proof, under
rigid controlled conditions.

I want to tell you this,
that this is not a trick!

These are scientists who are putting
their whole life at stake

in validating these powers.

Randi was very upset by geller's using
trickery to deceive scientists.

He thought that that was very immoral.

And he felt that this was a
prostitution of his beloved magic.

Randi you've been going
around the country,

somewhat as Houdini used to
in the past, trying to debunk

those who say that it's psychic power,
you say it's magic.

- This is my house key.
- Mmm hmm.

Uri geller took it,
he went like this with it,

with his finger that's all. No pressure.

And the key bent, you can see that.

And I've carried it around because I found
that I am a believer now.

Here is my identical key.
Touch it and make it bend.

Would you hold the end of it very lightly
in between your fingers, Barbara.

And I'm just going to stroke it,

now I'm not putting enough
pressure on it to bend it.

- No.
- Okay.

Will you show it to the camera please.

Now is it as bent as much as
this key or not?

Awww!

Are you going to keep
this key too, Barbara?

In one way I almost followed geller
around the country because

if he appeared on some major show,

I simply went on the show and
did his same routine.

Bend.

Now when mr geller does
this he says "bend."

I don't say that, I say "broccoli."

Because it's a simple conjuring trick

that used to be on the back of the
cornflake boxes when I was a kid.

- Ooh!
- Heaven's to Betsy, look at that.

Would you say that key is bent?

I decided to write a book
about him. I wrote a book,

“the truth about uri geller,”

that hit the market when the interest
in geller was at its peak.

The psychokinetic energy melts the
molecular structure of the metal.

It seems to be... oh my.

- I want it to bend, I just say bend.
- Oh my god!

Randi and gellerjust went
back and forth like gladiators,

it was fun to watch.

Can you do the spoon-bending trick?

Does Dolly Parton sleep on her back?

And there's no heat at all - touch it.

They wrote that I have laser beams
in my buckle belt,

and with that I bend keys, yes!

Look at this. You can actually see it
bending over and turning liquid,

right in front of your eyes.

These things used to be on the
back of cornflake boxes Larry,

but apparently some scientists
either don't eat cornflakes

or they don't read the back of the box.

This is my trademark,

and you will not find it
on any cereal box.

- How did you do that?
- Very well I thought.

It's slight of hand. To explain the tricks
to you would give you one solution, but

- it wouldn't give you all of the solutions.
- In many cases,

if not most cases, I simply went on the
show and did his same routine.

But then I would get
the emcee sometimes saying,

“oh yes, well it's all very well
for magicians to do this,

but Mr. Geller
doesn't use magic tricks.”

But what about people who do
come up with the cards...

Do you hear the times
they don't come up with them?

Do you know that uri geller did a
hundred tests with sealed envelopes.

You think this is all fake?

What is the difference between what
I did and what uri geller did?

Is, uh... because, uh...

Well, I guess I really don't
have a... a... a real answer.

Because magicians can duplicate
some of these things with trickery

does not mean that genuine
psychics do it with trickery.

Anyone can imitate the Mona Lisa,

but that does not make
them Leonardo DaVinci.

- You people remember that.
- Got that in mind.

Magicians say, no, nonsense,
I duped the scientists,

they say I fooled them.

They always find loopholes.

I challenge them and tell them, look,

why don't you go and do it in a
laboratory the way I was tested.

My opinion has always been

that parapsychologists,
no matter how well funded,

would not be able to properlyjudge

where someone has set out
to purposefully deceive them.

And I had come to the conclusion

that the only way to show them would be
to perpetrate an outright hoax

by introducing some tricksters into the
laboratory that I knew I could trust.

I read randi's book
“the truth about uri geller,”

and, umm from that book I was
able to put methods together

for bending objects myself,

and I created many of my own methods,
to the point where kids in high school

were stealing silvennare
and bringing it to me to bend.

And I got so good at it that I'm not
sure why, but I wrote randi a letter

and I said look,

if you ever need a kid to try to fool
scientists, I'd be happy to do so.

After I read "the magic of uri geller"
and got to be pretty proficient

as a “psychic metal bender” myself,

I took it upon myself to reach
out to James randi.

Oh Michael, you must be a psychic.

I'm causing that to twist
180 degrees, just like that.

Very shortly after, a very substantial
amount of money had been offered

to a university to do
parapsychological tests.

Maclab was funded by James mcdonnell

and he said “go out and find
me some star subjects.”

And that job fell to a scientist
called Peter Phillips.

We were told that there
were three hundred applicants.

And the maclab ended up
focusing on only two subjects:

Myself, and Steve Shaw.

At that point project
Alpha was ready to take off.

I fly into Saint Louis, and we didn't know
what we were getting into.

We didn't know if they
were going to have one-way mirrors

with cameras hidden behind them.

We had absolutely no clue what
it was we were getting into.

I was 17 years old. It was my first
semester as a senior in high school.

I'm about to pull some basic magic

on some people that
should be very well skilled

and could very likely
see through this quickly.

I might have stepped in a little
bit over my head at that time.

I'm Peter Phillips and
here with me is Mark shafer.

The tape that you're about to see
consists of a series of episodes

suggestive of psychokinesis.

The subjects in these experiments are
two men of about 21, me and ss.

They presented themselves to us
originally as psychic metal-benders.

I wrote to professor Phillips
in order to advise him

on how he should observe the Alpha kids.

As a matter of fact, I sent him a list
of eleven rules

in order to keep control of an experiment.

Don't allow the subjects to alter
the rules established for the tests.

Don't accept excuses like, "the vibrations
aren't right" or "I don't feel right.”

And above all...

You need a professional magician
to keep you straightened out

on what might be trickery!

It was very quickly though that Steve
and I tried to, almost line byline,

get them to violate every one of those
caveats in one way, shape or form.

Mike, sitting to your right
and dressed in white

has just picked up a spoon
that he will attempt to influence.

One of randi's caveats was, Mark
every item with an indelible Mark

or a scratch that couldn't be replicated.

Something that was permanent and
it was something that we couldn't

duplicate on the spot.

The parapsychologists,
in their infinite wisdom,

decided that they would
simply use paper tags with string.

- Can I get this tag off here?
- Sure, sure, slide it off.

We took these paper hanging
tags off of the spoons

to make them easier to work with.

As everybody was focusing
on one spoon

it was a simple matter to
lean on the control spoon,

and later, switch those two tags

so the control spoon looked like
the experimental spoon.

Yeah, it's markedly different,
of course it is!

It just went down instead of up.

- It didn't feel like a thing...
- Like anything at all, but there it is.

We truly believed that if scientists
went in with a pro-biased opinion,

and the majority of the parapsychologists
were doing just that,

they would not use proper science.

And if we could replicate

what geller and sr! Had done in
essence, in terms of

establish scientific protocol
on testing a psychic,

we could undermine geller's claims of
being deemed legitimate by scientists.

We have been working
first of all, to establish

the range of abilities
that Mike and Steve have

because these have
apparently included

being able to move small solid objects
across a table top,

influencing a variety of metal objects

such as keys and metal bars
and metal rods.

Sometimes touching and
sometimes at a distance,

and also influencing photographic film.

We were trying to get the
parapsychologists

to break their own rules.

We were then informing randi of the ways
that we were beating the tests.

Randi in turn was then communicating
back to the maclab

how to safeguard their tests so that
we couldn't beat them any longer.

Needless to say, it got very complicated

as we were forced to become
more and more resourceful.

Another device designed to
illicit pk. In a visible manner

was a light-weight rotor that was
mounted atop a thin metal spindle

under a glass dome.

One of the tests was a spindle with
a small rotor on top

that had a glass dome that fit
over the top of this to protect it.

Ourjobs were to try to move that rotor

without obviously
removing the glass dome.

I thought that that was
a pretty good test.

It's connected to the base real well.

I really was stumped.

Then I look over to the side of the room
and Steve was concentrating on the rotor.

And the rotor starts to move.

Here you see Steve influencing the rotor.

He's causing it to rotate clockwise.

And they said well, to make sure there's
no air currents or anything like that,

can you make it move to the right.

So I start concentrating and slowly it
starts reversing and it goes to the right.

I had no idea how he
was getting this to work.

And if you look carefully, the rotor
is moving counter-clockwise.

So Mike turns to me and he says,

"hey, would you like to go
get a drink at the machine?”

Now I know what he wants. I know he
wants to know how I just did this.

So I go with him down there,
and he says,

"Steve, how the heck
did you just do that?"

And I said, Mike, after all these hours of
sitting in that room and concentrating,

I just found out that
I'm really a psychic!

I think I promptly threw him against the
wall at that point and wanted to know.

And it turned out it was
a very simple deception.

Shortly after that hallway conversation,

both of us could magically make the rotor
move any direction that we wanted to

and the maclab personnel never caught on.

I don't believe that they're tricking us,

especially based on the research
that we'd done in the last year,

where we have exerted as tight a
control condition as we could think of,

even in consultation with magicians
to see if the influence holds up.

And we have found
evidence that it does.

Not as strongly under
these controlled conditions.

It's as if somehow, the extra controls
seem to, uh, inhibit it,

but still an effect persists.

Over the course of Alpha, the controls
did get significantly tougher.

And the tighter the controls
got, the lower the results got,

but their faith in us never diminished.

We do not claim that this tape provides

incontrovertible evidence of p.K.

We regard it rather as a provisional tape,

imperfect, but still with much to offer.

It was over a four-year period,
it was about 180 hours total

that we were at the maclab.

And after all those years of convincing
people that I was a genuine psychic,

I had a huge doubt about
what we were doing

and how it was going
to affect these people,

and it came about when
there was a BBC producer.

Guy by the name of Tony Edwards

who said he wanted to capture
our abilities on tape.

We had taken him from a point
where he was an utter skeptic,

we had then gotten him,

by getting to know him and demonstrating
our abilities off-camera,

to become a believer.

Randi gave him the same eleven
caveats that he had given the maclab,

the difference was Tony
took a look at those and said,

"ok, I'm going to follow these.

Because I want to convince randi,
and if I can convince randi,

I can convince
the rest of the world.”

We were all trying to
record that elusive bend.

As witnesses, a conjurer,
two metallurgists,

and three simultaneously
recording TV cameras,

conditions the benders
were happy to accept.

After six hours recording, nothing.

Dammit.

We sat there all day with Tony.

Nothing happened. Absolutely
nothing happened during the day.

The moment the cameras
went off at the end of the day,

we bent everything in the laboratory,
absolutely everything.

It's almost as if he had
the holy grail in his fingertips

and he let it drop.

Tony Edwards lost it.

He started screaming,
started crying, ranting, raving.

"Randi's the devil. It's randi's fault
that I couldn't get this on this tape!

I shouldn't have
listened to randi.

I shouldn't have followed
randi's advice, it's his fault!"

The man had a mental breakdown.

It was scary for two young kids to realize
that we had hurt somebody like that.

And it was at that point I think Steve
and I realized we can't do this anymore.

We can't be responsible for this
kind of psychological damage

by our ability to trick somebody.

Randi said, “it's just a couple more
months, we have this TV show coming up,

and that's when we want to tell
the world that you're not real."

Randi, he's really the general,

you know the general's rarely
on the front lines anyway.

And sometimes he's sending his
minions to do his good works.

But always at a distance, he's
the one at the strategy table.

He's got the vision for what will come.

The big day comes, the one that
Mike and I have been waiting for,

we're going to reveal that
everything is a hoax.

I am going to ask these two gentlemen
a very simple direct question.

Can you tell us, how do you do it?

As I walked up to the microphone
I said, "its very simple."

Well, to be quite honest,

we cheat.

And the flash bulbs started going off

and the murmurs started up
nside of the audience,

and Steve and I then
at that point admitted

that project Alpha and us as psychics

was nothing more than a bit of illusion.

Magician amazing randi,
you have him now on the phone.

Go ahead, you have the last word.

I was wondering what he thought
about the claims

that this was sort of an unethical way
of carrying out this experiment

and whether or not it's going to
affect the scientific community

and the parapsychologists negatively.

I'm happy to say that the president of
the parapsychological association

described it as a magnificent
experiment that needed to be done,

and from which the results of
may benefit everybody

and I think that's what
we headed out to do

we also should point that
that the director of that program

thought it was a
very lousy thing to do.

He was quoted as saying that you probably
set back the study of it and that...

If Phillips said that then my answer to

my having set back the study of
parapsychology, is no,

they tried to set it back. I brought it
into the twentieth century.

I felt really bad.

They truly believed
in these things,

and I thought that if they had realized
that they had been fooled by somebody,

that they would be
more cautious in the future,

but I felt bad
that I had fooled them.

So you dropped out kind of
in the mid seventies

and just resurfaced lately,
what have you been doing?

At that time I wanted to become rich.

And I met a very important man

who was a chairman of the
largest mining company in england

and he showed me how to use
my talents, my abilities

to look for oil, gold and mineral.

- And I was, I am very successful at it.
- You proved it.

But I am still controversial.

There are a lot of people who
think I am fake and a magician,

but all those people I love because
they do free publicity for me.

Let's try to do the drawing.

Do you know how many times the skeptics
tried to shoot me down?

Do you know how many times
randi tried to ruin my career?

But they failed miserably.

Pick up the national enquirer or any other
paper and you'll find a billion psychics!

Look at movies that Hollywood produces
about ufos and the psychic powers

and paranormal activity. Are you
kidding me? It's much bigger than ever!

You are negative, you are
setting up your own standards

and what you're not understanding
is that the key to realizing

any kind of psychic phenomenon
is first believing in it,

not the other way around.
Once you believe,

- it will happen, it will happen.
- Right. Okay.

Even you sir, the
not-so-amazing-randi, are psychic.

Whether or not you want to believe.

There are millions and millions
of people upon this planet

who have other ways of
intuiting and sensing.

I have never said these
things have not happened...

Why don't you read the papers
and correct yourself!

People think they believe
what they choose to believe.

We don't. We mostly believe
what we need to believe.

You say that uri geller is a fake,

you came here and you've given
everybody a lot of lip service

and you haven't done anything.

We're going for a commercial
break and you can piss off!

We'll be back...

The public really doesn't listen

when they are being told
straightfonnard facts.

They would rather accept what some
charismatic character tells them

than really think about
what the truth might be.

I tell you from now on you are going to
have a song of victory in your heart!

They would rather have
the romance and the lies.

There are a billion
believers out there.

A billion people believe in god.

You can't touch that.

There she goes!

This is what randi is trying to do.

He's trying to say this is a big hoax
and so everything else is a hoax too.

He is trying to say that nothing
divine is being spoken.

But actually our ratings are up!

And the thing is, popoff
got back in the business,

all he changed is he doesn't use
a radio anymore.

He doesn't need to.

He just does dumber stuff that
people accept anyway.

This is water from the pool

that the lord himself
led the christians to

during the horrible
chernobyl nuclear accident.

Tens of thousands died

and yet every Christian
was miraculously spared.

Randi and I once talked
about it and I said, you know,

maybe were on the wrong end of
the business, we should be on that side.

I mean, he's making like a
million dollars a month or more

and I'm not making
a million dollars a month.

And, if randi and I got together we could
come up with some really nifty tricks

that would fool people.

Con people.

Okay, one, two three.

Happy birthday dear randi,

happy birthday to you.

Let her rip, let her rip.

Happy birthday amazing!

In the early days, I think randi sort of
hid his true relationship with Jose.

But I don't think randi hid it
for any bad reason,

I think it was just a thing that people
would use against him.

And I think it took randi a long time to
understand that in this day and age,

you don't have to hide
those things anymore.

Let me tell you my story
about our birthday boy named randi

who met a guy and thought
he was just dandy

well the first thing you know,
they form a great team

and both are living the
American dream

I remember when randi came out,
it was in 2010, at the age of81.

I said, are you sure, are you sure?

But it was just a gesture of
complete honesty out there.

And morally, having built a life

around the fact of telling truth,

he needed to come out publicly.

Thank you so much, thank you so much
for coming to randi's birthday, and uh,

for being our friends, for being
supportive of both of us.

And that's it, that's all I got to say.

Before it was all about
becoming invisible.

Now it should be
exactly the opposite.

I was here in the house,

and I looked out the window

and I saw a uniformed officer outside.

They were all over the place.

Us marshals and FBI personnel as well.

Circling around, trying to
prevent anyone from escaping.

I was terrified.

I had no idea why they were there.

I heard rapid knocking at the
door, I went to the door and

they pushed their way in and

said where is Jose Alvarez.

And they put handcuffs on him
and marched him out the door.

I just saw him put in a car and
driven out the driveway.

What a situation, what a situation.

It's so...

Very disturbing.

When the police showed up
and arrested my partner

and took him away in handcuffs

I was desperate, I just...

I was standing at the edge of the dock
and there were no ships around,

and I was about to fall into the water.

I didn't know what to do.

No matter what his name is,
I know who he is,

and I know what he is as well.

And he's my partner.
He's very, very important to me.

For the last twenty-five years everybody
has known me as Jose Alvarez.

But in reality my real name is
deyvi orangel pena artega.

I was born in Venezuela, I
was raised in Caracas.

And in Venezuela to be gay is the most
despicable thing that you can be.

You knew that everybody that was your
friend, or your loved one or whatever,

they would turn against you.
That's for sure.

I just knew that I should hide it.

When I was 16 years old I was at a party

and three guys came
and grabbed me from behind

and one of them put a gun to my head

and started just yelling
all kinds of things,

"the little faggot" and so on, and so on.

I said, "I have to get out of
here or I will be killed."

And um, and I came here to study art,

and I started seeing like, wow.

I don't have to be like, you know,
who is looking at me? I have to hide.

But still it stays in your brain,

that in order to survive,
I needed to pretend.

But I just didn't have any way
to stay in this country.

And then I met randi.

So, I actually found someone
who got a name for me.

And they told me that
this person was deceased,

and that this name
didn't belong to anyone.

So I wrestled with that situation
for quite a while

whether to go ahead with this.

But I just didn't have any choice.

So I decided to do it, to take the name.

But I wasn't really that aware
of what I was doing, you know.

The thing snowballed.

One of these three men
pretended to be possessed.

Number two,
what is your name please.

My name is Jose Alvarez.

Only one of these people
is the real Jose Alvarez

and is the only one sworn

to tell the truth!

Trying to escape such a terrible situation
I kind of gotjailed in a different one.

With the Jose Alvarez identity,

I applied for a passport
under that name

and then I went to Australia
to play the Carlos hoax.

And I just set off to train him
to be a so-called channeler.

I have lived through
many reincarnations.

My last one was in Venezuela.

Also keep very wide,
keep very wide,

because you are going
to be on a big stage.

He learned fast, and uh, we were
using the Peter popoff method.

I've heard you described
as a fraud and a charlatan.

That's a very rude comment.

Well, that's a very rude comment.

He did a wonderful job, but after all
that is the kind of thing he does well.

I am using this body, Jose Alvarez.

He is an artist in the United States.

The whole thing was
totally against my persona.

I knew that I was playing this
fictitious character.

I just felt, I just felt like a phony!

You know, but I have to go on with it.

It turned out that there was a
real person named Jose Alvarez,

and he decided to apply for a passport

after 25 years of me
living with this identity.

The moment of truth is about to arrive,

will the real Jose Alvarez
please stand up!

The problem is, once you start
to tell people that your genuine

it's really hard
to step away from that

because you've lied to people,
you've lied to their face.

It was extremely difficult when
I was fooling the scientists.

You know, at first I saw them as
the enemy. It was me against the enemy.

Um, but over time
they become your friends.

Were we violating laws?

Probably. Was it fraud in some cases?

Most definitely.

Did it we look at it that way at the time?

I don't think any of us did,

because we thought
the ends justified the means.

Deception has so many layers.

I mean, you have the zenith of deception
and people go to jail for that.

But then you have magicians -
they manipulate the truth.

They are in the business of
deceiving people.

Alpha and Carlos and popoff, these
incredible revelations of deception,

they're actually sort of giant
cons in their own sense, right?

But they're cons
on the right side!

This is what it means
to be “an honest liar.”

It's the difference between using
deception to conceal the truth,

and using deception to reveal the truth.

Director: Up until now, you
haven't really said anything

about Jose being deyvi.

- Here's where I'd like to start.
- Okay.

I think it would be
good if you said something like

“I feel I should come clean..

No, no, no, no. That admits guilt.

I should make something clear.

That's much better.

Are you, are you afraid
of the ramifications?

I have all kinds of fear of that, yes.

Fear of what? I'm not clear.

If I don't have to say, “yes I knew
that he had a false identity,

and he perpetrated it
on the American nation,”

I don't want to say that!

Look at what he was going through,
he was going through hell.

If he went back to Venezuela,
he would...

No, he would be constantly victimized
and abused and attacked.

No I couldn't see that. I...

I had to accept
what I saw happening.

Now none of this must be
used! I mean really! I...

If I thought that
any of this would be used,

I would abandon the film entirely.

- No no no no.
- But I'm being honest with you now,

I'm being taped at the same time
and I have to trust you.

- Ok, well this...
- And I will and I do.

But we had discussed this.

I'm willing to say the story that
I gave you on this camera.

That's fine, okay. I'm not asking you
to do anything else.

But I want the rest of it
to vanish, please.

This last part. Yes,
understood. Understood.

No worries.

I trust you or I wouldn't be doing this.

Thank you.

We all spin personal narratives.

And so when an event happens
that doesn't fit this idea

that he is this amazing
truth-teller and so on,

then something has to happen to
that event and like everyone,

he may well change a few facts
around or rub it out completely.

In entertainment,
there is a kind of an...

Acceptability to deceive.

It's like when there are two Picasso
paintings on the wall.

One is a fake, and the other one
is real, but they look the same.

There is no harm in that.

At the end of the day,

there is nothing to reveal.

Because of what I do is real.

What you do is real.

I think I slept last night.
Some part of it anyway.

Today officially we'll find out
what the judge has to say.

It's got to be the right thing

or I don't know what I'm going
to do or what...

What Jose is going to do.

He's specifically an immigration judge,

and he apparently likes to...

Suggest removal.

That would be the end of him.

The end of him and the end of
us, automatically.

His life literally hangs in the balance.

And I feel somehow that I've got
to come up with some

rabbit-out-of-the-hat to try to get him
back here where he belongs,

not behind bars.

I was just in a state of
total suspension.

You know, and just waiting for him
to say what the sentence was.

It was something I had hoped for,

that we'd all hoped for.

We won. We won this one.

People were really beautiful talking.

I'm not really sure how I feel but
I'm feeling very, uh, thankful.

That's how I feel, very thankful.

I'm not one person, I've got a partner.

For the last quarter of a
century, I've had this partner.

We're one element.

And I have never hesitated to reach out
to help him in every possible way.

I know randi.

He has a mission out there in the world,
as “the amazing randi.”

But, it's compassion.

People don't know how much he cares
when he sees someone in distress.

And it's not just on a social level,

but also on a personal level.

And I include myself
specifically in that equation.

He will do what is necessary to...

To save somebody.

Don't worry about it.

Yea, no, a little bit further, over here.

- Okay.
- Okay.

What do you think? No? Yes?

Randi said years ago

there is nothing that a man can't make
that I can't get out of.

That line is actually a Houdini line.

And the difference was,
is that Houdini, you know,

if somebody ever did bring something,
like a pair of handcuffs

there's no way he could get out?

Houdini's guys, his goons,
would take they guy out back

and beat the crap out of the guy

and the audience
never saw the guy again.

But I bet you anything,
randi truly believed

there was nothing
he couldn't get out of.

Or make it at least seem like he
was getting out of them.

And I'll quote him directly.

“I'm a magician.

I know how to deceive people,

and I know how to recognize when
people are being deceived.

I can cheat you countless different ways
and you won't know.

You won't catch me.”

Some people cannot believe

that a magician can fool them
in such a way

that they can't figure it out.

But magicians can and magicians do.

Don't be too sure of yourself.

No matter how smart or well
educated you are,

you can be deceived.

Okay, that's weird. This
is all that I'm getting,

I have no clue what this is.

My jewelry are a catalyst to
the powers of your mind.

- Yes.
- It's all in the mind.