Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Expose Of ESP Hoaxers - Fooling Scientists
Review: Flim Flam, as the subtitle says, is about other delusions, and how James Randi investigates and exposes the tricks, frauds and fakery in the field of Psychic "Research". This field is really the wrestling arena for the con-artists who live by hype - either by fooling scientists, or in collusion with the pseudoscientists who live by money conned from good Samaritans, us - the tax payers and consumers and scientists of the normal. The Bermuda Triangle, Biorhythm, photos of fairies, ghosts and kirlia, levitation, pyramid power, Mayan visitors from outer space, tele-what-nots, TM and Z-rays are some of the "other delusions" exposed in this book. We know that these are bunk. But how do we convince our friends that they are? Give them this book. Show them how any of those so called psychic phenomena cannot stand the test of any skeptic with scientific approach which does not preclude the possibility of fraud or delusion or both. James Randi is the hit man of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) and in this book you get an idea of how hard it is pull those punches. Besides hundreds of names of people, places and institutions associated with these frauds, details from correspondence, this book has photos and diagrams of the hoax-rooms where the paranormal fakers did hoodwink and unnerve the rationality of the respectable scientists. The charts that were designed to fool the custodians of money - to be wasted through the propagation of pseudoscience of para-psychology and pollute the minds of the future generations of Americans with pure non-sense, the money that has been lost by genuine scientific and medical research - such charts have also been included in this book. Issac Asimov in his introduction to this book rightly says, "Folly and Fakery has never before been dangerous as it is now" and that we therefore more than ever be grateful to Randi who deserves our admiration for his courage, diligence, perseverance, and the k! een senses needed for exposing these "rascals and knaves". Dr. Russell Targ and Dr. Harold Puthoff are the Laurel and Hardy of Psi as a chapter title appropriately describes them. Reading this chapter it becomes at once obvious that if two scientists decide to cheat other men of science, tons and tons of our money can go down the drain. The directors of monies have to come up with an explanation for the misdirected research when the skeptics expose them. Because an apology would mean personal disaster, half-truths, rationalization, lies, damned lies, and, to back them up, statistical charts, and so on and on, until the consumer and tax-payer believes that there must be some truth somewhere beyond his common-sense beliefs. The fact that the Stanford Research Institute has been humiliated by these clowns, is only the tip of the iceberg of harm done by hype. The flood of betting, lotto, and related software in the market is but the natural outcome of the pseudo-science of psi sanctified by misguided scientists who cannot tell the "law" of chances of mathematics from the laws of the physical world and believe that it can somehow determine the outcome of the roll of the dice, and their shortcut to fortune. If one just remembers that the people who sell such wares did not make money by the techniques they sell, but only by perpetuating wishful thought of the gullible, one would not be in that category any longer. Since the year 1964, Randi's Challenge to offer to pay $10,000 to any person who can demonstrate that she has any kind of paranormal power under fraud proof conditions still remains open. In chapter 13 Randi gives the details of this challenge and the conditions. The conditions can be obtained from him by sending a self addressed stamped envelope. To quote Randi "In response to that challenge, over 650 persons have applied as claimant. Only 54 (as of this writing) ever made it past the preliminaries, and none of them ever got a nickel.
Rating: 
Summary: He calls a spade a spade
Review: He's not the most eloquent writer on the planet, but he certainly doesn't waste words telling it like it is. He's a straight guy exposing the tricks that people play on themselves and others in the name of parapsychology. It makes you wonder why people keep falling for this crap. READ THIS BOOK!
Rating: 
Summary: Well, it was hard to believe
Review: I am trying to forget an event that happened to me: I predicted my mother breaking her arm. I read it all through, thinkin I'd find something else to prove myself wrong, but with all I have read about 'why girls have ESP', etc, this only made me believe more. I now respect myself for it, though.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent book, give it to a friend.
Review: I'm giving this book a 9 only because I think it needs to be upgraded. The recent movie "Fairy Tales" was about one of the central cases in this book. I don't see how anyone could understand the movie without this book. This book (or at least part of it) should be in every school curriculum. Someday when I become an adult (I'm only 46 now) I want to grow up to be like James Randi.
Rating:
Summary: As entertaining as it is important.
Review: Just to add one note to the other reviews, make no mistake: this book is superb bathroom reading. You can open it to any page and start reading, and you'll be totally entertained, if not laughing out loud. I had real trouble getting enough sleep while reading this book, because I just couldn't put it down! And yes, it should be required reading for high school freshmen (so they have to read it before they're old enough to quit school).
Rating:
Summary: This book should be required reading
Review: This book is an uncompromising, thorough debunking of many pseudosciences and parapsychology. If it were required reading for every high school and college student, much of the time, effort, and money wasted on such nonsense would be much better spent! If you had any lingering doubts or inclination toward UFOs, ESP, magical healing, astrology, etc., you won't after reading this. Randi has done us all a tremedous service.
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Summary: An excellant one book over-view of popular skepticism
Review: I read this book early in my college career and have to say it had a profound influence on me. Randi is not a trained scientist, he is a magician, and so he knows about fooling people. From this unique vantage point, he demolishes many of the hoaxes and frauds perpetrated on intelligent people and scientists. Randi pulls no punches, and has even been sued (by Uri Geller) for things he has written and said. The book is thourough, you will probably encounter frauds and scams you never heard of before, but if it leaves you wanting more. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of anything else that covers this subject this well.
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Summary: It was so long ago....
Review: Way back when I was in high school, I eagerly ate through most of the parapsychology section of my school library. I couldn't get enough of the stuff. I had a deep loathing of those darn "skeptics," ever-villianized in the UFO and ESP books, who always wanted to take the magic from the world. I decided to read _Flim-Flam_ as a bit of a challenge to myself, though I felt internally kinda ... I dunno ... *naughty* doing it. At first, I thought the book was bunkum. However, when I read further, I began to realize it was all that other crud that was the real bunkum. This was probably the most important book I've ever read, though I can barely remember it. It was the first skeptical book I familiarized myself with, and I've been thankful ever since. I give it a 10, even though I can't remember much, because of this ultimate importance. Much like Sagan's _The Demon-Haunted World_ I think _Flim-Flam!_ should be required reading for any class about science.
Rating:
Summary: This book brought knowledge and truth
Review: This book rescued me from entering the paranormal world of deception and illusion. James Randi cuts through the deception and reveals that in the world of the paranormal, the emperor has no clothes. It is filled with stories of people deceiving others, deceiving themselves, and deceived by others. People are desperate to believe in fantasies and so they turn to the world of the paranormal. They crave excitement, mystery, and special powers...the easy way. In the end, it is all in their heads
Rating:
Summary: James Randi Doesn't Play Games
Review: Do not read this book if you want to be amazed. Instead, read it if you are at all willing to listen to common sense. Read it if you search for truth through the hard facts, and not through what you desire to be the facts. In this book, James Randi plays no games, and allows for no question as to what is what. He puts forth the facts, and the answers are obvious, with no explanation required. A great read for anyone with an even semi-rational mind
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