On October 4 of this year Basava Premanand died.
You may never have heard of Premanand, but in addition to physically reminding me a bit of James Randi, Premanand also had his own paranormal challenge and dedicated his life to debunking “godmen” of India. Just days before he died, according to a special release of the e-zine Bangalore Skeptic, he drafted and signed a statement attesting he was of sound mind and still as skeptical as ever. He didn’t want any tales of death-bed confessions to haunt his reputation, after his death.
If you haven’t ever heard of Premanand, I urge you to look him up and read about him and the sorts of problems Indian skeptics are addressing.
3 comments
rrpostal
October 8, 2009 at 7:13 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
I'll cheer anyone who goes out of his way to point out he has not had a death bed conversion. "Oh and by the way, I still don't believe…grrp". Classic.
JJR
October 10, 2009 at 6:45 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
I created an Xtranormal.com animation based on B. Premanand's deathbed testimonial (as transcribed on Pharyngula) and posted it to my YouTube channel here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_nH6_pzVDgEnjoy!
Rajesh
June 16, 2013 at 4:31 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Hi,`
Today only I came know about James Randi and Basava Premamand by surfing. They are awesome people.
Both have taken lots of steps to eradicate the fake magicians.
Thank you for the article.