Book of Seasons: an Elegy, for Paul Kurtz

Jan Feb 13 2_SI new design masters 11/29/12 11:26 AM Page 17

Journey into Skepticism

CHRIS FRENCH Book of Seasons:

I suspect there are many people who, An Elegy, for Paul Kurtz like me, met Paul kurtz in person only a handful of times and yet whose own lives were greatly—and positively—in - It’s as though fluenced by him. My own journey into these skepticism has a very definite beginning. yellowed up until reading James Alcock’s book Parapsychology: Science or Magic? in trees 1981, I was no skeptic. All of the books are newly I had read until then on such topics as gilded eSP and uFOs were very pro-paranor - by the sun, mal, and there simply was not much their fallen around in the way of proper skeptical analysis. Perhaps naively, I had simply leaves accepted what I had read in such books. old reading Alcock’s book was a revelation hammered to me. I realized that there was another gold. way of thinking about the paranormal So and related topics, one that I found fas - you are gone cinating and convincing—one based upon reason and evidence. I also realized with the season, that there was skeptical literature out before snow’s there. Alcock’s book contained many white pages references to a publication I’d never are scribbled heard of before called the SkePTICAl again InquIrer , as well as the work of people with passages that, up until then, were unknown to me—such as James randi, ray Hyman, you’d find decipherable, and, of course, Paul kurtz. I immedi - that would flow ately subscribed to SI, as well as later like a spring thaw. subscribing to its British cousin, The We’ll see you Skeptic (a magazine that I would subse - often, quently edit for over a decade). I also wherever reason devoured books by my new skeptical he - roes. I probably now have more books grows, on my shelves published by Prometheus flowers anew. Books than by any other publisher. I fully appreciate just how much influence Paul kurtz’s initiatives had on the —Joe Nickell course of my life—and for that, I will al - 2012 ways be grateful.

—Chris French is professor of psychology and head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research unit, Goldsmiths, university of London.

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