Barry Beyerstein - Personal Life

Personal Life

The scientific community, Beyerstein felt, had an obligation to reach out and explain. “If we want the public to pay taxes to support research, we owe them understandable explanations of what we do and the significance it has for them.” He called the skeptical movement a “watchdog” and used the phrase, “a sort of Consumer Reports of the mind” when explaining CSICOP to the unknowing.

In an interview with James Underdown, Barry's daughter Lindsay talks about her life growing up in the skeptical movement. ""I was always involved with my Dad in skeptical meetings... "It's sorta funny, the skeptic movement is now finally old enough, it's like Scientology, we have second gen." She recounts how, "We would have family newsletter-stuffing nights (for the BC Skeptics)." Instead of hiring babysitters, her father would take Lindsay to his media interviews. "Does Satanic music cause suicide, out-of-body experiences... it was always something new and different."

James Alcock and Ray Hyman discussed their friendship with Beyerstein and explained how high energy and helpful he was. Alcock stated that when he knew Barry was going to be staying at his house, he made a mental note of all the things that needed fixing around the house. "All I would have to do is look at what needed to be done and Barry would insist on fixing it right then." Hyman stated that Beyerstein was a polymath, he knew everything. Lindsay broke in and said, "Sports, he knew nothing about sports." "I didn't know that" stated Hyman, "Good to know he didn't know everything." He was a do-it-yourself kind of man; he and his wife Suzi built their home from the ground up together, and when he accidentally cut off the tip of his finger, "he sewed it back on."

He died suddenly at age 60 in his office on Burnaby Mountain, of an apparent heart attack.