About the Author

Gordon Stein (1941 - 1996) was an American freethought bibliographer, librarian, historian, and editor. His life's work was the celebration of secular humanism and the exposure of hoaxes of all kinds--religious, paranormal, and otherwise. He was senior editor at Free Inquiry and a technical consultant of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. Stein was almost universally recognized as the foremost collector and historian of freethought materials of his generation, contributing an estimated six hundred book reviews to various publications. As such, he was the ideal person to build the library of atheism, humanism, and skepticism at the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, NY. He was the editor of The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal, The Encyclopedia of Hoaxes, The Encyclopedia of Unbelief, An Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism, A Second Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism, and God Pro and Con: A Bibliography of Atheism, among other works.