1. Alfred Paul "Al" Seckel was an American collector and popularizer of visual and other types of sensory illusions, who wrote books about them.
18 Facts About Al Seckel
1. 2.
Al Seckel was born September 3,1958, in New York City, New York to Paul Bernard Al Seckel, a German-born painter and graphic artist, and Ruth Schonthal, a German-born pianist and classical composer.
3.
Al Seckel grew up in New Rochelle, NY with his two brothers.
4.
Al Seckel attended Cornell University from 1976 to 1978 but left without receiving a degree.
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In 1981, Al Seckel moved to the Los Angeles metropolitan area, where he lived for nearly thirty years.
6.
Al Seckel edited two books on the English rationalist philosopher Bertrand Russell.
7.
In 1984, Al Seckel started the Southern California Skeptics and became a spokesperson for science and its relationship to the paranormal.
8.
Al Seckel was "a leading collector and popularizer" of optical illusions.
9.
Al Seckel gave many lectures about such illusions, including an early TED talk and a talk at the World Economic Forum, Davos in 2011.
10.
Al Seckel was sued on several occasions after disputes over rare-book investment and sales.
11.
Al Seckel later sued McIver for libel over edits to his Wikipedia page.
12.
Oppenheimer reported that Al Seckel cultivated a false image, both with personal contacts and within the media, of himself as a graduate from Cornell with degrees in physics and math, as an affiliate of and candidate for doctoral degrees at Caltech, and as a scientist conducting research in conjunction with colleagues at Harvard University.
13.
Some inaccuracies were published in media coverage of Al Seckel, including in the Los Angeles Times in 1985 and 1987.
14.
An interview between Jeffrey Epstein and Al Seckel discussing perception appeared on Epstein's science website on October 17,2010.
15.
Al Seckel married Laura Mullen in 1980; their daughter Elizabeth was born in 1987.
16.
Al Seckel married for a third time to Alice Klarke; the union was dissolved in 2007.
17.
Al Seckel became involved with Isabel Maxwell from 2007 until his death in France in 2015.
18.
Al Seckel's body was reportedly found at the bottom of a cliff in July 2015 in France.