Obituary Marcello Truzzi: 1935-2003

Marcello Truzzi, associate member of the Parapsychological Association, died of cancer on February 2, 2003. He was 67. Truzzi, known as a "balanced" skeptic, advocated considering evidence regarding all points of view. He encouraged discourse between skeptics and believers and, as a result, had important impacts on the methods used by parapsychologists.

Truzzi was a sociology professor at Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, and had been on medical leave from teaching. He served as department head of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology from 1974 to 1985. He was known among sociologists as the author of various textbooks. His 1968 text Sociology in Every Day Life was a best-seller. Other books included Sociology: The Classic Statements (1971), The Humanities as Sociology: An Introductory Reader (1973), Sociology for Pleasure (1974), and Verstehen: Subjective Understanding in the Social Sciences (1975).

Truzzi also authored an eclectic collection of books for the general public: Caldron Cookery: An Authentic Guide for Coven Connoisseurs (with illustrations by Victoria Chess; 1969), The Blue Sense: Psychic Detectives and Crime (with Arthur Lyons; 1992), UFO Encounters (with Jerome Clark; 1992), and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Extraterrestrial Intelligence (with Michael Kurland; 1999).

Truzzi was born in 1935 in Copenhagen, Denmark, where his parents were on tour, a part of a famous Russian Italian circus family, Circus Truzzi. His family moved to the United States in 1940. As a result, Truzzi was intrigued by magic, juggling, sideshows, carnivals, and circuses. This interest led to publications pertaining to the sociology, antropology, and psychology of the occult as a part of folk culture.

During the early 1970s, Truzzi published a privately circulating newsletter, the Zetetic. In 1976, he was the cofounder, with Paul Kurtz, of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP). Later he left CSICOP, after he decided that the organization advocated a biased stance against paranormal claims. He created the Center for Scientific Anomalous Research and, in 1978, he began publishing the Zetetic Scholar, a journal designed to allow full discussion of anomalous and unorthodox theories. This journal published articles and discourse pertaining to parapsychology, psychic phenomena, UFOs, astrology, and unorthodox zoology and anthropology.

The Zetetic Scholar made important contributions to the field of parapsychology. It provided an arena for dialogues between professional parapsychologists and their critics. All manner of opinions were expressed, and some discussions resulted in methodological improvements in parapsychological research. Truzzi's efforts led some parapsychologists to take extra precautions against fraud within their research designs. Truzzi urged parapsychologists to consult magicians and helped various researchers to increase their knowledge regarding sleight-of-hand and other performance methods.

Truzzi was a remarkable man-a clever, brilliant individual with a good sense of humor and an intense curiosity. His general position was that of a Zetetic, a person who does not advocate a particular position but who evaluates evidence without prejudgment. He advocated doing science the way it should be done: generating, evaluating, and discussing evidence rather than shaping discourse to fit a particular theory.

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