Marcello Truzzi, 67; Professor Studied the Far-Out From Witchcraft to Psychic Powers

Marcello Truzzi, a sociologist, skeptic and scholar with an open mind who was willing to investigate anything from witchcraft to flying saucers to the Abominable Snowman or whether psychics could help cops find crooks, has died. He was 67.

Truzzi, a professor and author based at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, died of colon cancer Feb. 2 at home in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Often at odds with both debunkers and proponents of unexplained phenomena, Truzzi headed the Center for Scientific Anomalies Research for more than two decades and edited its academic journal, Zetetic Scholar.

Truzzi studied, he said, “things that go bump in the night.”

That, coupled with his mesmerizing ability as a storyteller, made him popular on campus and a frequent guest on radio and TV talk shows.

Truzzi became interested in unexplained happenings, he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.’s “Nature of Things” audience last year, as a child growing up in the circus.

“I was always very impressed by extraordinary people doing extraordinary things,” Truzzi said.

“In a way, I have a baseline idea of human potentiality and capacity which makes a lot of things normal to me that I think a lot of people, you know, they don’t believe a person can really swallow a sword or eat fire or whatever, when I know that that’s exactly what they did.”

Born in 1935 in Copenhagen, where his family’s Circus Truzzi was performing, he came to the U.S. in 1940 with his parents, Italian juggler Massimiliano Truzzi and Russian juggler’s assistant Sonya Truzzi. The move occurred after his father was hired to work in the center ring of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

The younger Truzzi, who grew up performing magic, working as a clown and selling tickets, earned sociology degrees -- a bachelor’s from Florida State University, master’s from the University of Florida and a doctorate from Cornell -- and served in the Army from 1958 to 1960.

One of his first academic papers was titled “Decline of the American Circus.”

Truzzi taught at Cornell, the University of South Florida and the University of Michigan before settling at Eastern Michigan University, where he chaired the sociology department from 1974 to 1985. His 1968 textbook, “Sociology in Every Day Life,” was a best-seller.

Truzzi also was the co-author of “Caldron Cookery: An Authentic Guide for Coven Connoisseurs,” published at Halloween 1969, which included dishes with ingredients such as wintergreen, coffin nails and eye of newt. A Times reviewer noted: “Gourmet cooking it’s not, but if you’d like to make a witch sick ... “

Truzzi also co-wrote “The Blue Sense: Psychic Detectives and Crime” and “UFO Encounters,” both in 1992, and “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Extraterrestrial Intelligence” in 1999.

The book about the use of psychics by police to find suspects was of special interest to the public because of the large number of law officers resorting to such tactics.

A Times reviewer wrote: “The authors cannot be sure, even after their research, that such psychic powers exist. Neither can they prove they don’t. So they settle for a reminder of what Thomas Edison once said: ‘We do not know one millionth of 1% about anything.’ ”

In 1976, Truzzi co-founded and co-chaired the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal with Paul Kurtz, who initiated the group after 186 scientists signed his 1975 statement declaring astrology bogus. Truzzi also edited the new group’s journal, Skeptical Inquirer.

But he soon resigned and broke with Kurtz and the others, claiming they sought to debunk rather than scientifically examine. He may have been right. Shortly after Truzzi left, the organization’s executive director issued the statement: “We feel it is the duty of the scientific community to show that these beliefs are utterly screwball.”

Truzzi in 1981 founded the Center for Scientific Anomalies Research, and his journal Zetetic Scholar. (The word zetetic means “investigating” or “the art of seeking.”)

He never revised his opinion of the group or its journal. In 1991, he told The Times: “The key problem is that the journal is far more interested in discrediting and debunking than in inquiring. It tries to appear to be the voice of objectivity and rationality and fair play, but really it’s very much an advocacy journal for the Establishment.”

Intimates said Truzzi found only one paranormal phenomenon he thought might have scientific merit: Duke University experiments in psychic communication. But he remained open-minded to possibilities and often quoted Edison about how little we really know.

In addition to his mother, Truzzi is survived by his wife of 44 years, Patricia; two sons, Kristofer of Ann Arbor and Gianni of Seattle; and one granddaughter.