Z Seance oie na a te np eusubamensmnine ih meth vo betes Ain nodtent nce, kr eputeere-r “ sbaWTS MAE ep te mhnP RS mS man ined hee i a nat tana emmoes ae gems chad roman EN is ceecaaec i tinimiens Cee opin cnc Rh 3M AIS ha sade neh vee bates 79. a, - , New oclentist 17 October 1974 : Approved For Release 2000/08/10; CIA-RDP? ls Uri Geller the world’s most gifted psychic, capable of bending metal without = touching it and discovering the contents of closed boxes with incredibie accuracy ? ? Oris he the biggest hoaxer of our time, able to convince trained scientists that they saw things which never actually happened ? This week, Nature publishes the first scientific paper on Geller—a report on tests at the Stanford Research Institute. And in this special issue of New Scientist, Dr Joseph Hanion reports on both our own investigation and the SRI paper Geller and New Scientist Uri Geller was first brought from Israel by a scientist— Dr Andrija Puharich—and has given demonstrations at the Bell Laboratories, New Jersey; the Goddard Space Flight Center, California; Birkbeck College, London; and other research centres. New Scientist first reported on Geller two years ago (vol 56, p 360) and more than a year ago (vol 59, p 95) reported on early results from the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). Geller first came to national attention in Britain on 23 Nevember 11973 when he appeared on the Dimbleby Talk-In on BBC tele- vision, where he reproduced a drawing in a sealed envelope, bent a fork,.and apparently started a dud watch. Two scientists, Professor John Taylor and Dr Lyall Watson, appeared on the programme with him. Geller stressed that he baffled the scientists—a point supported by both Taylor and Watson—and said he was anxious to participate in research with British scientists. Geller was a sensation on British television, generating far more interest than he had in appearances on national television in the US. And science was an important part of this—if Geller had simply appeared as a magician, he would have attracted much less attention. Yet Geller had indeed baffied the scientists, and it was at least possible that he had powers previously unknown to science. For this reason, New Scientist took the unusual step of setting up its own small research panel and on 26 Novem- ber invited Geller to participate in experiments. (New Scientist, vol 60, p 603). We told Geller that the committee would consist of a member of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), a research psychologist, the editor and one other representative of New Scientist, an independent journalist with a major newspaper, and a professional magician. Geller accepted our invitation quickly, in a letter on 3 December. Although our initial letter to Geller did not actually name the members of the committee, they had already been chosen and were Denys Parsons of the SPR, psychologist Dr Christopher Evans of the National Physical Laboratory (who was responsible for the New Scientist parasychology questionnaire, vol 57, p 209), the editor of New Scientist Dr Bernard Dixon (a biologist), Dr Joseph Hanlon (a physicist), international magician David Berglas, and Alan Brien of the Sunday Times. We later added a statistician, Professor D. J. Finney of the University of Edinburgh, and a forensic scientist, Dr Approved For Release 2000/08/10 : CIA-RDP 9600787 ROO Bra Seen -7 ler’s interest m ish science remained high. By
Nee Sdentist Appreved’For Release 2000/08/10 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000200090024-7 the time Geller accepted our. offer, he was back in New York. But we met several times with an associate, Yasha Katz, in December and set up a meeting with Geller for 8 February to discuss the experiments. And on “Seeing is believing’, a documentary on Thames Television in London on 15 January, Geller declared “when I am doing enough experiments with scientists, this disbelief will drop off.” . i. But only a few days after they arrived back in Britain, Katz reported that Geller had received a bomb threat and cancelled the New. Scientist meeting and some, but not all. of Geller’s remaining performances. Time passed, and Geller’s attitude clearly changed. Katz said the New Scientist tests would have to be delayed, although he assured us that Geller had not dropped out. By then, how- ever, Geller had already backed out of several other sets of tests. And on 3 May 1974, on the New York television show Mid-Day Live on WNEW-TV, his view of scientists had changed to:. “the Stanford Research Institute has validated the work I have done with them for a year.” Finally, in June Geller told us on the telephone from New York that “I have changed my mind,... Right now I don’t have the feeling to work with your people.” In preparation for the New Scientist experiments we studied the Geller phenomenon extensively. Dr Joseph Hanlon went to the US for three weeks in January to talk to the SRI researchers and a large number of other people who had dealt with Geller, in an effort to design effective experiments. This report is based primarily on his investi- gation, but we have not published it until now because it was felt that in fairness to both SRI and Geller, the SRI team should have a chance first to report on their research in a formal journal. Nature publishes the SRI report this week despite strong misgivings about both the experimental technique and the results, and that journal is certain to be criticised by some scientists who will argue that publication gives Nature’s stamp of approval to the results. But publication does not imply agreement, and Nature should indeed be con- gratulated for exposing the paper.to intelligent discussion by the scientific community. What follows here is New Scientist’s attempt, based on its own investigation and on the only scientific evidence available so far, to draw its own conclusions about Uri eller. The author comments Because this is largely a report of my personal investiga- tion of the Geller phenomenon, it is important to make clear my own attitude and biases. I feel strongly that the next interesting breakthrough in science may well come not from expensive research by huge teams in physics and biology, but from research by individuals and small teams into the interaction of people and themselves and their surroundings. Through biofeedback, we now have control over our bodies of a sort that not so long ago was almost univer- sally agreed io be impossible. Negative ions in the air seem to affect cur attitudes. And so on. In the past few years, these areas and others such as parapsychology have become less the province of hopeful amateurs and more the area of trained scientists. At the same time. big science, particularly my own field of high energy physics, has become corporate and unimaginative. Finally, the con- tinuing squeeze on science funding puts the attention more on the scientist who can work on a shoestring rather . than the one who cannot get the money to go to still higher energies looking for the quark. Thus the appearance of Uri Geller and the interest of two scientists at a primarily military research organisa- tion, SRI, sparked my own interest. I was responsible for securing our first (highly favourable) report on the SRI research on Geller more than a year ago. And I was particularly pleased that New Scientist agreed to conduct tests, and that Geller agreed. a I began to collect material relevant to experiments with Uri, and in January I went to the US so that I would have a background picture before we talked to him in February. I spoke with critics and believers, talked with many scientists and other trained observers who had seen Geller work, spoke with the SRI scientists and saw some of their videotapes, and watched many tapes of Uri’s tele- vision appearances, Most of the people talked to me as a researcher and not a journalist. But what I found greatly surprised me, and now that Uri has withdrawn from the proposed New Scientist investigation, I think it important to present this material to put the SRI report in context. . Joseph Hanlon The New Scientist investigation Like witnesses to a motor accident, people who have seen Uri bend a spoon or doa drawing by telepathy tell widely differing stories about the same event. And explanations range from the obvious to the impossible, depending on just what the observers thought they saw ; The believers Heirloom spoons, expensive jewellery, fancy watches, and even a piece of a meteorite—often among their owners’ ™most prized possessions~are now irreparably broken. But their owners point to them with pride, not anger, because they were destroyed by Uri Geller. This amazing young Israeli is claimed to have the most phenomenal psychic powers the world has ever seen. Even some scientists say he can break spoons. by mental them, powers read minds, without touching and make objects Puharich, says Geller has accomplished the task which eluded the alchemists— turned lead to gold—and that he com- municates with flying saucers and tele- ports objects thousands of miles by the power of his mind. . The whole phenomenon is dominated by Geller’s own personality. He exudes sincerity and a childlike innocence and desire to please which makes people really want to Hike and believe in him. This is reinforced by a high failure rate, what seems to be a constant fear that he will not be able to do what he is trying, and genuine pleasure when he does suc- ceed. And he is a consummate show- fame, money, and women and that he can be childish, petulant, and extremely difficult to work with. It is these latter characteristics that caused ex-astronaut Dr Edgar Mitchell, who was Geller’s original funding source and a co-experi- menter on Geller at SRI, to fall out with Geller last year. Nevertheless, Mitchell and others who have experienced his whims still believe he is one of the mast important psychics of our time. Another aspect of the Geller person- ality is his hyperactivity and constant motion. In small groups, either of the press or friends, he flits from one task to another, usually giving up the first brooght him ‘Approvedibur Releases? G0G/08i1a +.G1A AURGEG0787RGHO AUUOBD UAT, 3 fee wrote the book Uri (published earlier this year by W. H, Allen), Dr Andrija hand, even his supporters like Puharich admit that his main goals in life are bent before anyone realises just what is happening and Geller reads the contents
anne isdn howls ls de SEA es MPR eR a MA ERE wee era aiesieeeemetienteeismeidueeaseda aatiaci na Lae, AB ta thie aie S - art ___ Approved For Release 200 ag cc, 7 eT mY > Beue - *, ; a of sealed envelopes which, after he failed to read them before, were left lying around unguarded. This means that people often disagree on just what they have seen, and no ~ demonstration is totally convincing. The belief of most of Geller’s supporters is built on a long series of demonstrations, none of which is watertight, but which together they find give a convincing picture. For most people, there are one or two clinching events, although the clincher for one person may be totally unacceptable to another. John White, Ed Mitchell’s assistant at his Institute of Noetic Sciences, in Palo Alto, California, told me in January of a Geller test at SRI using a bimorph—a brass strip with special coatings which gives a signal in proportion to any bend- ing. The strip was clamped in a vice and Geller was to bend it without touching it. According to White, suddenly one end of the bar began to disappear and re- appear on.a lower level. Geller had clearly dematerialised part of the bar and rematerialised it elsewhere, White said. But Dr Hal Puthoff, one of the experimenters, found it not particularly convincing and described it somewhat Gifferently. According to Putholf, Geller had tried to bend the bar unsuccessfully on one day and then returned to try again the next. Early in the test, a piece of the bar suddenly: appeared on the table, although the signal from the bar id not nge. Putho es not take it too serio BekoNed fon melaace possible for someone to have broken off a piece between tests and it not be = poke eee noticed—the equipment was rezeroed in the morning and the film resolution was not good enough to measure the length of the bar. And there is no evidence of it actually disappearing and reappearing —on the film, it is just suddenly ‘there, he said. Yet Puthoff believes implicitly in Geller. One of the events which con- vinced him occurred when he was driving down a motorway with Geller in the car. Puthoff said he queried Geller about flying saucers, and Geller said he would prove he got his power from them and promptly stopped the car without touch- ing anything. : Reporting what you see Another problem is that even experi- ’ enced reporters tend to misreport just what has happened. Bryan Silcock, the science correspondent of the Sunday Times, reported on Sunday 25 November last year: “In a taxi on the way to London airport yesterday Uri Geller bent the very tough key to my office desk without even touching it. The key was lying flat in the palm of photographer Bryan Wharton’s hand at the time.” But the next Sunday, 2 December, Silcock admitted error on the two most critical points: Geller had handled the key, and it was in fact concealed in Wharton’s hands when it was supposed odbdRS He SAtGRDSe9.60787 RO ing carefully about what happened I am forced to admit to myself that some kind .Uri Geller attempts to bend a journalist’s key held by David Dimbleby ata press conference at the BBC Lime Grove (London) studios on 92 November 1973, the day before Geller's appearance on the Dimbleby Talk-In brought him to the attention of the British public of trickery would have been possible... Geller examined the key, then passed it to ..... Wharton who held it between the palms of his hands. Geller held his hands over Wharton’s for a few seconds ...and sure enough the key turned out to be bent through an angle of about 10 degrees... . Geller might have distracted our attention when he first had the key, bent it, and put it into Bryan Wharton’s hands already bent.” Journalists are not alone in having this problem—trained scientists do as well. Geller and Puharich gave a demon- stration at Bell Laboratories, New Jersey, one of the world’s top research centres, on & June, 1973. Geller did one of his favourite tests: reproducing a drawing in an envelope. He always stresses that the envelope is sealed and that he has never seen the drawing before. The Bell report, by Charles Davidson, says “two sealed envelopes were brought” and goes on to report Geller’s accurate reproduc- tion of the drawing. But the man who actually brought the envelopes, F. Richard Moore, told me in January that in fact the drawings were put into large clasp envelopes which were not sealed Further, Moore admitted, the drawings were done at shart notice, at Geller’s request, while Geller supposedly was on the telephone in the next office. Thus, Geller could have used any of several magicians’ tricks—including surrepti- tiously watching the drawings being made, or opening the envelopes and avings. But the Bell 062606960 at Pether was possible. For me, the most dramatic example
tc i st a ba w= Bhatia ncn la: Sle + began, by non-paranormal means. Magic sour grapes? Is the diversion and confusion of ob- Many magicians argue that it is quite intentional, and is precisely what they do all the time when they perform. Magician James Randi, a persistent Geller critic, said he talked to stagebands after the Mike Douglas show and that they told him that Geller speci- fied that they should buy a box of ten- penny nails and that he also asked them to wrap some in a bundle with tape an hour before the show. Geller walks around the studio a lot before the show, Randi said, and it would have been easy for Geller to take his own pre-bent ten- penny nail out of his pocket and put it into the bundle when no one would servers accidental? notice. : But the magic community, with few exceptions, is strongly opposed to Geller, arguing that he is a magician too, but is earning far more money by claiming to be something more. Professional magi- cians have a vested interest, however, and have earned considerable publicity and money in their own attempts to demonstrate—apparently highly success- fully in some cases—that they can do what Geller does. Finally, the magicians note that Geller has failed to perform when large numbers of magicians are watching, or on TV when magicians help set the conditions, and has consistently refused to participate in any scientific experiment (such as New Scientist's) that involves a magician. Nevertheless, as Geller himself said on Mid-Day Live (WNEW-TV, New sii, OA SARE a oS Sake aA Ail A El ad See New Scientist “ARRAGVER "For Rele of a magiciao’s technique was on the Nfike Douglas show on the CBS TV net- work in the US on 29 October last year, in which the participants and probably millions of viewers were convinced they saw Geller bend a nail on television. I . watched a videotape of the show, and this is what I saw: There were several nails on a table in front of Geller. He picked one up with his right hand and gave it to Mike Douglas, who examined it and snowed on close-up that it was, indeed, straight. Next, Geller picked up another nail with his left hand and held it by the bottom. With his right hand he took the nail back from Douglas and held it, as well, by the bottom. Then he turned to guest Tony Curtis and asked him to hold the top of doth. Still holding both by the bottom, Geller rubbed the nails. Finally he told Curtis to take the nail from his (Geller’s) right hand—the one we saw to be straight on close up—and put it: down. Still bolding the bottom of the left hand nail, Geller continued to stroke, never showing the bottom. Slowly he lowered his finger to expose a slight bend very close to the tip. Despite all of the show of checking to see that a nail was straight, the audience, Curtis, and Douglas never saw the tip of the nail - until Geller said it was bent. Thus, we have no evidence that the nail was not already bent, perhaps before the show ase 2000/08/10 : CIA-RDP96-00787R way they did.” Geller’s supporters argue that he is young and simply not yet in full control of his powers, and thus cannot make events happen on command or precisely where he wants. And they point to his high failure rate as being proof of this— if he were a magician, they say, he would always succeed on cue. Further, they argue that if one believes that the power of the mind can do such things, then the power of other minds should be able to block these events. Thus ‘magicians and others who are working strongly against Geller will always make it impossible for him to perform simply by blocking him. Mitchell is “convinced that the negative thought energies of severe sceptics and critics do interfere with the process you are trying to measure” and thus such people should be banned from the room during scien- tific tests. Why assume the paranormal ? One of the early choices someone studying Geller must make is whether to assume a normal or paranormal hypo- thesis. Geller is extremely personable - and most people, including myself, can- not help liking him. And when he per- forms, he really makes you want to believe in him. Combined with the ram- pant confusion that surrounds the Geller tornado wherever he works (which can mean no one ever sees an entire event), it is extremely easy to slip without realising it into the acceptance of para- normal explanations. One of my many surprises was how easily some trained scientists are drawn into acceptance, and then how each event adds to what becomes a strong belief in Geller. But scientists should be guided, at least in formal experiments, by Occam’s Razor: that one should not assume a more complex hypothesis until it is absolutely necessary, simpler explana- tions having failed, _ With Gelier, this means that scientists must first convince themselves that events cannot be explained by a com- bination of magic and psychology before they postulate a paranornial explanation... This need not imply fraud—people communicate far more than they realise by subtle looks, gestures, tone of voice, and so on. In the case of recent reports in Britain of children bending forks and _ spoons, they may exert more pressure than they realise while stroking the object. I investigated a large number of _Geller events with Occam in mind. I found it extremely difficult to go back and find out just what happened in a Geller event, because of the previously mentioned problem of getting accurate descriptions of the event. But T have been able to gain an approximate picture of what happened in many of them. In a surprising number, the normal ex- planation was actually more plausible than the paranormal, and the paranormal was accepted only because the witness Tor at AB BrQUBEL PBR HBleast 2dtBIBBAUS SIRO RSE 6 doesn’t have to mean that I did it the DaGiAeRDPS-8078 AROOD20GOSOOR Al? And he was event did not even realise that the 175 000200090024-7 . . normal explanation was contained in their own description. One example is the case of Geller teleporting Puharich’s camera case from New York to Israel, which Puharich _ quotes in his book Uri and which is often cited by Geller supporters. When Puharich explained it to me in January, despite his own belief, a normal explana- tion became obvious. “I had about 120 kg of equipment that I was taking to Israel so I left all of the excess baggage behind. And one of the things I didn’t bring was my camera case for my super 8 camera with which I document a lot of my work. One day Uri and I were at the Dead Sea and I complained to him that one of the dumb things I did was leave this camera case, which is brown, locked in a special closet I have in my house for my equipment. About five hours later he called me up—we’d come back to Tel Aviv and he’d gone to his apartment and I’d gone to my hotel. And he said ‘You know you were talking about a camera case—there is something on my bed here—you think it’s yours?’ So I described it to him and I said ‘Look inside, ’cause I’ve ripped out some of the inside’ and sure enough it was my camera case.” Pubarich then went to Geller’s apartment and identified the case as his. “To my knowledge, there is no way it could have gotten there except by teleportation 6000 miles.” A sceptic might think it more plausible that Geller simply went to a camera shop, bought a case, and then marked it according to Puharich’s own description on the phone. Another similar description appeared in the 12 June, 1972 issue of the German newspaper  Bild-Miinchen. Reporters took Geller to a cable car which runs up the Chiemgau mountains, and asked him to stop the car. “At moon the un- canny one [Geller] boarded a cable car gondola for the first time in his life, ‘| don’t think it can be done’, he repeated. The gondola was suspended in the air. Uri Geller noticed a control panel on the door which governed the steering mechanism. Suddenly, he cried out, T think I can bring it off!’ ". Then Geller bounded around the car doing various tricks, and periodically changed the direction of the cable car. Bending keys by hand? Some people, however, have seen and accepted a normal rather than para- normal explanation. Bob McAlister, who produces the programme Wonderama for WNEW-TV in New York, told about one incident when Geller was there. Geller asked for a key, and McAlister gave him one. “We were in aa aleove outside the control room and Geller said ‘Lets get out of here’. He held the key up so I could see it, then he turned his back and as he osened a door the key went in front of his body * right down by the groin and the other hand came to that position as he was walking through the door. He _ im- mediately said ‘Do you want to hold the key, that’s all right, TP) hold it— 0 Showing one corner of the key.” = Sw Mh OEE REE Rp ME CERERII