 |
Al Seckel | |
|---|---|
 Seckel in 2009 | |
| Born | Alfred Paul Seckel September 3, 1958 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | 2015 (aged 56) France |
| Education | Cornell University, no degree |
| Occupation(s) | Writer, scientific skeptic |
| Known for | Popularizer of optical illusions |
| Spouses | Laura Mullen
(m. 1980, divorced)Alice Klarke
(until 2007) |
| Partners | Isabel Maxwell (2007–2015; his death) |
| Parents |
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Alfred Paul "Al" Seckel (September 3, 1958 – 2015) was an American collector and popularizer of visual and other types of sensory illusions, who wrote books about them. Active in the Freethought movement as a skeptic in the 1980s, he was the co-founder[1] and executive director of the Southern California Skeptics.[2] News coverage arising from his connection to Jeffrey Epstein has stressed Seckel's misrepresentation of his education and credentials.[3]
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
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Stewart_1986was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Armstrong, Stephen (December 30, 2021). "The stranger-than-fiction history of the Maxwell madhouse". The Telegraph. Retrieved April 16, 2022.
. . . Epstein's Mindshift conference – a TED Talk rival co-founded with Al Seckel. As befits a suitor for arguably the strangest family in the world, Seckel socialised with the likes of Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, Elon Musk and Dudley Moore, and convinced many people that he was a cognitive neuroscientist with ties to Cal Tech. In fact, he was a top-notch charlatan who had failed to graduate from college – but he delighted in delivering TED Talks and publishing books on the science of visual illusions.