Last week we told you about the brilliant and highly effective detective squads mobilized first by Houdini and then by his spiritual son, James "The Amazing" Randi, seen here camouflaging his cherubic face behind a bushy beard. Both Houdini and Randi employed their secret services to expose fake spiritualist healers. Randi and his team of clandestine warriors are all adepts at disguise, as we noted in our detailed account of his ingenious effort to defenestrate Peter Popoff, the television evangelist known for telling people to get up out of their wheelchairs and walk!
The Popoff Book
What we left out of last week's case study was this: Randi's heroic efforts to neutralize Popoff ultimately failed. Dramatically and publicly exposed, the preacher-man was knocked off TV for a while, but came bouncing back and is still on today, doing his same act. Randi, sorry to report, appears close to retirement and has also retired his famous, Houdini-inspired, Million Dollar Challenge. We wonder if it all came down to a few fine details of disguise. Perhaps they needed some pointers from Joanna Mendez, for whom disguise is showbiz, but is mainly a matter of life and death.
No comments:
Post a Comment