1985 states that the Southern California Skeptics were "the fastest growing chapter of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP)". Author George P. Hansen, in an article published in 1992, stated that incidents involving Seckel had embarrassed CSICOP because "he did not hold the academic credentials he claimed." The Southern California Skeptics dissolved after the late 1980s. In 1991, Michael Shermer and Pat Linse co-founded a new Los Angeles-area skeptical group called The Skeptics Society after the Southern California Skeptics had disbanded. Visual illusions Seckel was "a leading collector and popularizer" of optical illusions. In 1994, he created an interactive website on illusions. He also developed visual illusion installations for museums. Seckel's books about optical illusions include several picture books for children such as Ambiguous Illusions (2005), Action Optical Illusions (2005) and Stereo Optical Illusions (2006). His book, Masters of Deception: Escher, Dali, and the Artists of Optical Illusion (2004), collects the work of many visual illusion artists, including among others Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527–1593), Salvador Dalí (1904–1989), M. C. Escher (1898–1972), and Rex Whistler (1905–1944). His book The Art of Optical Illusions placed first on the American Library Association's "Top 10 Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers" list for 2001. He gave many lectures about such illusions, including an early TED talk (2004) and a talk at the World Economic Forum, Davos in 2011. Other activities Rare book investment and sales During the late 1990s, Seckel collected the papers of a number of early molecular biologists (including Rosalind Franklin, Aaron Klug, Max Perutz, Rollin Hotchkiss, and Sven Furberg) for rare-book dealer Jeremy Norman. At the time they were collected, the market value of the archive was unknown as many institutions did not have an interest in keeping the archives of scientists. After the Wellcome Trust purchased the papers of Francis Crick in 2001 for $2.4 million, Norman pursued individual sale of the items in his collection through Christie's. A lawsuit prevented the individual sale of the items by Norman. Seckel and Norman had a falling out. According to Seckel, the sale was canceled due to his extensive documentation that was brought to the attention of Christie's. Although former colleagues and associates of James Watson and Crick attempted to raise the asking price of $3.2 million in an effort to have the collection donated to the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the collection was eventually acquired