Randi generated laughs and raised eyebrows in his lecture, "In Search of the Chimera," which attacked everything from faith healers to the U.S. Patent Office, all in an effort to promote critical thinking.

The lecture was followed by a question and answer session.

"I travel all over the world telling people things they should already know," Randi said. "I know how people are fooled and more importantly, how they fool themselves."

People sometimes need to believe in things that can not be proved, such as religion, Randi said, "because sometimes fiction is more attractive than reality."

Randi said there is emotional, physical and financial harm in being taken in by trickery. As an example, Randi showed a video of audience members throwing their medication at the feet of a faith healer on belief alone.

Randi heads the James Randi Educational Foundation. He is a lecturer and the author of numerous books disproving paranormal claims across the world.

The foundation is famous for its standing offer of a $1 million prize to anyone who can show, "under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural or occult power or event."

"To date, no one has ever passed the preliminary tests, making it pretty obvious that they are all fakes," Randi said.

The foundation also sponsors scholarships and seminars and funds paranormal research.

Fresh from a tour of China, Randi Tuesday night provided a rational perspective on the paranormal and the unexplained, criticizing everything from homeopathy and touch therapy, to financial gurus and 900-number psychics.

Victims of the "scam artists" are deceived and taken for millions every year, he said.

"On average they cost 70 percent more than medicines that work," he said of homeopathic remedies. "This stuff is useless."

It is the people making money off of their false claims, using the media to dupe vulnerable audiences, that really gets under his skin, Randi said.

He is extremely critical of the popular cable television star John Edwards of "Crossing Over." Edwards claims to speak with the dead. But according to Randi, 87 percent of his guesses are wrong, but are edited from the programs.

Even The Learning Channel and Discovery Channel are fair game for Randi, who said they "neither teach, nor discover."

"The media is largely irresponsible," Randi said. "Stories not supported by fact are reported by people with no academic credentials. There is no evidence that supports it, because there is no evidence."

A common trend among psychics like Edwards or Miss Cleo, queen of the late night infomercials, is that they make general statements and sort through clues that stick. "They will never admit they really can't do it," he said.

At 73, Randi has spent decades lecturing around the world and trying to get others to see what he calls the real truths.

He has appeared on numerous talk shows and was named Esquire magazine's "Hundred Best People in the World," in 1997.

Randi is the author of The Truth About Uri Geller, The Faith Healers, Flim-Flam!, and An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural.

The James Randi Educational Foundation may be reached at www.randi.org.

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