Ask and it shall!

Here's an email I sent last night to the communications contact at the James Randi Educational Foundation.

Back up a second. You probably already know that Randi is the wonderful magician who is also the author of some fantastic books about skepticism and debunking. His Foundation offers a million-dollar prize to anyone who can "demonstrate any psychic, supernatural or paranormal ability of any kind under mutually agreed upon scientific conditions." That's all famous stuff.

The not-famous part is that Randi has meant a lot to me ever since I was a teenager and read Flim-Flam! and The Truth About Uri Geller and realized that I wasn't a failure; I'd just been had.

Briefly, my parents were believers in pretty much any kind of psychic claim that came their way. The larger universe, as they seemed to think of it, was much cooler than this drab little planet ever could be. We never had the money or time for summer camp or travel or even the occasional day trip to the first-class art museums that surrounded our suburban home, but when Silva Mind Control offered a weekend children's workshop, the hundreds of dollars necessary for my family to attend materialized like, well, magic.

My parents had their priorities straight. Travel and exposure to culture would only have broadened and fed my young mind; Silva Mind Control would give it the power to do anything I chose. Especially if I chose to bend a spoon.

Heaven only knows why that was the cutlery and task of choice. I didn't then and don't now. I only know that in the circles in which my parents moved, having a child who could put a ripple the silver was a real coup.

But they had me, and I couldn't do it.

Plenty of other kids in the class could, as they pointed out. I should try harder.

When I pointed out in reply that the teachers would leave the classroom for minutes at a time, and that said spoon-bending children then took the opportunity to attack their spoons with both hands and all the muscle they possessed, I was chided. These children had not been cheating. They had been "loosening the metal up," preparatory to the push they'd be giving it with their minds. The ultimate work was done mentally, and that was what mattered.

Being an idiot child, I bought it. Sort of. I still believed that the kids had cheated, but I also believed that the task really could be done psychically, if only one tried hard enough.

I kept trying and kept failing and kept feeling like a failure. And then I got a little older and found James Randi's books and saw that the only failure on my part had been not questioning more and sooner. I'm now grimly proud to have been the only failing student in that Silva class.

Back to the present. Here is the email I sent to the JREF last night:
 
I'm the editor of Secular Homeschooling Magazine, a print quarterly publication. Our next issue is going to focus on critical thinking and skepticism.
Recently, I was lucky enough to interview Sid Fleischman, a wonderfully skeptical children's writer. He mentioned to me that his upbringing had been perfectly conventional, but learning magic at an early age had propelled him toward skepticism.
This really got me thinking. I would very much like to run an article about how teaching our children about magic can help them build critical thinking skills. A friend suggested I get in touch with you, since your organization is all about education and you work closely with magicians.
Can you help me get in touch with anyone who might be interested in and capable of writing a piece such as I describe? My magazine is fairly young, so unfortunately I can't pay much. It would have to be pretty much a labor of love, but your organization certainly seems like the place to find people passionate about spreading the skeptical word, as it were.
 
I always feel like a huge dork writing such letters. Asking for charity (which is what I always feel as if I'm doing when I go a' begging for articles) is bad enough; asking for weird charity is, well, weird. I expected to hear back in a few weeks, if at all. I figured such an odd request might take time to process.

I sent this around ten o'clock last night. First thing this morning, I wandered over to the computer in my usual morning state (don't talk to me, don't touch me, and for pity's sake don't look at me), managed to open up my email, and found the following:
 
I've sent your request off to James Randi. Someone here will definitely write you an article, but Randi would be the obvious first choice. :)
Thanks for contacting us
 
SHRIEK!

We've been going back and forth via email. Still figuring out who's going to write it -- the man I'm mostly talking to would be fantastic, since he's taught critical thinking himself and used magic as an educational tool in his classrooms.

As for me, I'm just thrilled that I might be able to be in a position to help some kids learn skepticism and critical thinking a little earlier and less painfully than I did.