*
Approved For Release 2001/03/07
. vi,
The Metal-Bendin
Controversy
in Literature and Lab
Actually, the first observable thing that ever happer
'
me wasn't cracking or bending an object,
it was movir
CIA-RDP96-00,7S3RQ02iQ>OOit8001s1 Opened by coinciden
school, when
I was about seven years old.
In class
I noticed that my watch would show a dif
hour than what
it really was, which began to happen
frequently.
I complained to my mother about the wrist1
being broken; she examined
it and said that
it kept gooc
for her. But
it continued to happen, so one day in class
I
i
off and held
it in my hands, watching
it very closely.
I be;
notice that the hands would change
their positions
£
instantaneously - very fast - likedematerializing from onr
to another. When
1 tried the same thing alone, outside of c
by SAT B1R SINGH KHALSA
wouldn’t happen; so
I realized
I had to be in class
- a
people - for
it to happen.
Not long after that, the wristband bent and broke. Th
actually the
first time
I became aware of something be
I. INTRODUCTION
II. THE DATA ON PKMB
I) Uri Geiler
a) Anecdotal Observations
.
b) Controlled Observations
ii) Other Individuals Manifesting PKMB
a) Anecdotal Observations
b) Controlled Observations
III. THE DISCUSSION OF THE DATA ON PKMB
i) The Criticisms
ii) The Defense
IV. THE DEEPER ISSUES
i) PKMB In Perspective
ii) Directions For The Future
|. INTRODUCTION
Since a large segment of the published literature on psycho-
kinetic metal-bending (PKMB) concerns itself with Uri Geiler, the
first to "demonstrate" it,
it is convenient to consider his material
separately in section
II
- The Data on PKMB. The majority of the
PKMB data has been reported in non-technical journals and is of
an anecdotal nature; the attempts at controlled observations are
therefore considered separately. Discussion of the data involves
issues which, for the most part, are common to both Geiler and
the other individuals manifesting PKMB and are considered as a
whole, with presentation of the pro and con approaches respect-
ively. The final section will examine the overall approach to the
PKMB phenomenon, the controversy generated, and some of the
conclusions arrived at.
The goal of this review
is to acquaint the reader with the
literature and so consists largely of extracts taken directly from it;
it is hoped that this will allow the reader to come away with more
of a first-hand experience of the issue.
II. THE DATA ON PKMB
i) URI GEILER
a) Anecdotal Material
.
PKMB
first came to attention
via
Uri Geiler whose stage
and breaking near me.
(1)
And then from his autobiography, MY STORY:
I soon began to notice other things besides the ha
watches moving and bending, which made me feel more
freak. One time my mother had made some mushroom
There was good white bread with the soup, and
I dipp
bread into
it and ate. Then
I started eating the soup w
spoon. I'm left-handed, so
I held the spoon in my left har
took several sips of the soup.
.My mother was standing
kitchen stove.
I was lifting a full spoonful up to my mouth,
suddenly the bowl of the spoon bent down and spilled he
into my lap. Then the bowl of the spoon itself fell off.
I v,
there holding on to the handle. (2)
Geiler has had a passion to perform his talents and his pe
ances soon drew atten tion of the local media, of which h
As far as my performances in Israel are concerned,
I
hundred shows and got nearly all positive reaction
fre
press, although
I was never checked in the laboratorie
scientists.
Israel
is
a
small
place and by
that time
everyone had seen me. But then a very negative article
out accusing me of using laser beams to bend and break
that
I
had
pliers,
mirrors,
and
springs hidden
on
n
However, the material on Geiler from his time in
I
fragmentary
at
best, and
it was
not
until parapsych
Andrija Puharich met
Geiler and brought him
to the
States
that the published literature on Geiler became
<
inous.
«
Now a celebrity, he demonstrated off stage for scienti
journalists which effort has resulted in a large number o
dotal reports.
The classical anecdote ofPKMB is one wherein Celle ,
strokes a key or spoon and it then
is observed to bene
occasion to fracture. More convincing are those instance
<
PKMB was reported without physical contact, and exam
this will be presented. Alan Vaughan writes of his exp
with Geiler and the editor of "PSYCHIC" magazine:
Taking a hotel room key, Bolen first attempted to be
manual means. He succeeded only in raising a blood
He handed
it to Geiler who, holding
it by the handle, ha
to me.
I grasped the key by the large end and put my othi
on top. Geiler put his hand lightly on top of mine. He ask
my hands felt any sensation, but they did not. Then he as
to look at
it.
It was bent about 30 degrees and was still
bending as
I watched. The whole procedure was witi
Bolen. (45)
performances of his ability in Israel began his rise to worldwide
Even more extraordinary was a filmed (movie) exp
•ABfiFftvedeFors Releras/&> 2OOiifc/0t3/0 Js?cGtA&RBP96 -0O788R0O200W3©O'l1 *S,en h
f
vl5,tinf’ G
n chiding clairvoyance and precognition, but
it was the novelty
Ossining, New York. Bolen first tested a fork to see
..
>f PKMB which drew attention.
In a 1973 interview he tells us:
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bend easily manually, but
it did nqt. Thdn Geiler took
and Bolen town to film Collet's actions. "Uri was moving'!*
boy. with a new toy. He played
it like an aocotdian for a few
<uao(jitr. ot^inuimiiu
.
- moAnJc
then tm.vm
it nn and down
four or
five times
left th^rtfgvgK
fork as
I was filmingnim,
says Bolen,
He
>f til
hen-sal
four or
five times
coil dropped off
'as becoming soft and that
it was beginning to bend.
I zoomed
, on his hands and the fork.
I asked him to open his fingers to
reveal the area. As he did, the prong part began falling away
slowly, as though the metal had become plastic where he had
held
it.
It then came completely apart, with the prong part
falling down, but as it fell
it drew away a short threadlike piece
of metal.
I examined both pieces of the fork at the break, which
looked as though
it had melted apart. Uri did not seem to feel
any heat. He was excited and
1 was excited at having captured
this on
film,
apparently
for
the
first
time.
It was
a heady
experience." In another experiment, Bolen filmed Geller bend-
ing a key
.
.
.
(46)
Physicist Wilbur Franklin reported:
Dr. Edgar Mitchell and
I
first observed Geller fracture a
ring,
after which
the
ring continued
to bend by
itself as
I
observed
it lying on the table beside me, on August 25, 1972, in
the home of the venerable psi researcher, Dr. Andrija Puharich.
Parapsychologist Stanley Krippner obsen'ed Geller in one of his
performances and wrote:
'
-
While a member of the audience grasped the earpiece of a
pair of glasses loaned to Geller by another spectator, Geller
held the volunteer's hand.
I was sitting in the front of the room;
as far as
I could see, Geller did not touch the earpiece
itself.
Soon, the other earpiece began to bend as
if tremendous heat
was being applied. The volunteer removed her hand from the
earpiece and the bending continued over the next few minutes,
even though neither Geller nor the volunteer was touching the
pair of glasses. (48)
In IT 'ENCE NEWS " we have the report:
During the
interview,
I
held a heavy key between my
thumb and forefinger. The key began to bend-too slightly to be
perceptible - after Geller rubbed
it lightly with one finger. The
key was then placed on the desk and
if continued to bend
slowly for several minutes until
it reached about a 20-degree
angle. There was no obvious way the key
I supplied could have
been switched. Geller had no chance (by slight of hand or other
trickery) to bend the key by force. And he didn't have a laser up
his sleeve, as some have suggested. (49)
Occasionally, Geller has also been the apparent cause of
"teleportation " or "dematerialization" phenomena, However
we
shall confine ourselves
to PKMB, save for
this
report by
physicist Thomas Coohill in the company of 2 other physicists,
among others:
We did not ask Geller to bend anything for us at lunch, nor
did he suggest that he do so. However,
after we had easten
Geller and
I went into my living room and began talking about
caving (spelunking). After about a minute we both heard a
metallic "clink";
it sounded as though something metallic was
dropped on a solid floor. Looking around,
I saw a spoon lying
behind my desk.
It was bent.
As
I held
it in my hand and called the other people into the
room, the spoon suddenly began to bend in another plane (at a
right angle to the handle
...
).
It seemed as
if the spoon were
observed by
all present. (50)
Another report reads:
Geller doesn't necessarily do what you ask him to do, but
:,c* can handle curve
balls
nicely
- he
likes the challenge.
Among other things,
I took him a slinky (a spring steel coil
that kids walk down steps) with the idea that he should try to
"seconds then
yo-voed
it up and down
fou
pA-Rd^^mmotzomnom^
onto the floor-all this right before my (and a friend's) eyes. Did
Geller have a chance to get at this ahead of time? No, that's the
point of bringing a "curveball" device. He doesn't know what
you've brought; can't prepare duplicates, or otherwise tamper
with the "props" as Johnny Carson calls them.
I showed Charlie Reynolds (a Geller critic) another of the
curve balls
I had thrown Geller
- a set of ceramic magnets.
Geller had made a crack through one of them and then made
half of the broken magnet disappear. Reynolds broke one of
the other magnets by hand.
It took two distinct movements and
made a less jagged break; this had also been my experience.
Reynolds' response was that he'd like me to arrange a meeting
with
Geller.
Unfortunately,
Reynolds had already accused
Geller of fraud at the TIME demonstration upon which TIME
partly based
its
scathing March
12,
1973
story. So Geller
wanted nothing to do with Reynolds. (51)
A common characteristic of Geller's attempts at PKMB is that
he
is often unsuccessful, although
it
is difficult to judge how
often from the literature, since the media prefers to report only
successes. A brief reference to this is given by Dr. Joseph Hanlon,
after a sitting with Geller and Dr. Bernard Dixon:
I gave Uri my housekey, which he worked with unsuccess-
fully.
Dixon commented afterwards that he was struck by the
extent to which Geller stressed his failures - constantly saying
he did not think he could do
it and telling us stories about his
failures on TV and elsewhere. Indeed, he talked far more about
failures than successes. (52)
A typical failure of PKMB was reported by Dr. Eldon Byrd:
The
first thing
I had Geller do was handle the block. (A
metal alloy called nitinol).
I told him that
I wanted to see
if he
could alter the block's hardness. Also,
I asked him
if he would
try to alter the magnetic properties of the material. He said he
would try to do both.
He handled the block for some time. Finally, he said he
thought he would not be able to do anything to
it because he
somehow did
not have
a
"feel"
for the material.
In a
last
attempt to influence the block, he asked for a piece of metal of
any kind, and a brass plate was given to him. Fie placed the
block on the plate and held his hand over
it. Several times he
pressed dowfi on the block, but gave up, saying that he did not
think he would be able to affect the material. (53)
Claims that Geller cheats (uses non-psychic abilities) are not
restricted to his time in Israel.
At
least five people claim to have seen Geller actually
cheat. This
is a
difficult area, because
if we cannot trust the
reports of observers who say Geller does miracles, why should
we give any more credence to those who say he cheated? (56)
b) Controlled Observations
^ There are indeed critics who would argue that there have
been no properly controlled experiments run with Uri Geller, but
for the purposes of this review we shall consider those
tests
where investigators made serious attempts at controlled obser-
vation orwhere they have claimed them to be controlled. One of
aeminsion-see
rviarun
v.uiiumw
j
.
,
_
..
UNIVERSE). Of course, Geller did not such thing. He was like a
NATURE the results of ESP tests with Geller
I having published in
One of their tests involved Uri's efforts to affect the weight
covered by an aluminum can, also on the scale, and then the
entire scale with weight was covered by a glass
bell
jar to
eliminate the possiblity of deflection by air currents. The entire
experiment was filmed. The first part of our protocol involved
tapping the
bell
jar;
next tapping the
table on which
the
apparatus rested; then kicking the table; and finally jumping on
the
floor, with
a
record made on
strip chart of what these
artifacts looked like.
In this experiment Geller's efforts resulted in deflections
correponding to weight gains and losses on the order of one
gram, well out of the noise level. The signals he produced were
single-sided pulses of about one-fifth-second duration, unlike
the
artifacts, which
resulted
in
two-sided
ocsillations
that
slowly died out.
In
tests following this experimental
run,
a
magnet was brought near the apparatus, static electricity was
discharged against the apparatus, and controlled runs of day-
long operation were obtained.
In no case were artifacts ob-
tained that resembled the effects that occurred during Geller's
efforts, nor could anyone else dupl icate the effects. We have no
ready
hypothesis on how
these
signals
might
have been
produced. (74)
Dr. John Taylor in England has reported a
test which
al-
though he feels cannot be regarded as
",absolutely fraud proof",
avoids a number of possible fraudulent techniques available to
Celler.
...Geller
stroked the upper surface of a
strip of metal
which was screwed down to the top of a
letter balance. The
pressure he was applying could be monitored directly by the
balance
dial
(accurate
to
grams)
as
well
as
measured
automatically by a shielded metal plate placed vertically above
the metal top of the balance and connected
to
a quadrant
electrometer (sensitive to 5 oz.). A bending of 10°occurred in
one
session, which
I
closely
observed,
during which
no
pressure greater than 10 grams was applied. In any case the
bend was upwards. This experiment is presently being repeated
with videotape. (75)
Parapsychologist and magician William Cox is confident of
his test for PKMB with Celler. He reported in the JOURNAL OF
PARAPSYCHOLOGY:
My hope was to witness static PK under what could be
considered adequate safeguards.
Being
a magician
myself,
unknown
to Geller,
I
also wished
to allow opportunity
for
trickery in the event Geller intended to employ such means...
For the first test we used a flat steel key of the safety-deposit
box type, untoothed and much too hard to bend by hand.
I
intentionally allowed Geller to handly
it, whereupon he asked
if
I did not have an ordinary key instead.
I said "No," and he
replied, "Well,
i'll try to do something with this one." He laid
my key on a glass coffee table in front of the couch on which he
was sitting, and we both noted
its absolute flatness upon the
glass.
I was seated at one end of the coffee table.
I placed my
right forefinger lightly on the larger end of the key, and Geller
gently stroked the remainder with his right forefinger. The key
began to bend slowly at a point just beyond my finger, stopping
at above 6°. Any pressure he might have applied would have
been against the direction of bend.
I removed my finger and l^t
him rock the bent key upon the glass table.
! then placed a small mirror in the palm of my left hand and
held
it under the glass of the table so that
I could have a clear
a c
view of the under side of the key.
I then returned the key to
its
sheet of steed was laid on the table
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mately a minute. The key was about 15 inches from my e
'.tr^kery. (76)
. HtTnoTis a'metal'alfoy \vh7cft "haPa physical memory foi
shape in which it formed at the time of manufacture. " Celler
tested for PKMB with nitinol wire by Eldon Byrd and he writi
his second session with Geller:
The diameter of the wire was about 0.5 mm. One r
was used as a control and was not taken to Connecticut. A
tape recordings were made during all observations.
I held one of the other pieces by both ends
as
I
previously done and Geller stroked
it as before. A kink four
took a second piece of wire, held
it by one end, and C
stroked
it unilaterally.
It, too, developed a kink. The third r
of wire was given to Geller to do with as he pleased. He rol
between
his thumb and forefinger and
it kinked
sharp
Geller had clearly influenced the alloy nitinol
in a
unusual way:
it was as
if the kinks he produced had act
been manufactured into the wires, even though
it had
conclusively determined before any experimentation
tfr;
permanent configuration of the wires was that of straight
I
No explanation has been given by nitinol experts, who
been
consulted
as
to how
kinks could have been
fo
without using high temperatures and mechanical
stress,
chanically produced kinks in nitinol leave obvious man
the surface of the wire. Geller-formed kiriks do not.
Byrd concludes:
All of the bends that Geller had produced thus for a n
wire have been permanent deformation
- the wires cr
crumpled or twisted
into any shape by hand, but on
I
heated to a temperature of about 21 0°F.
all the wires reti
the shape Geller had imposed upon them.
How did Geller achieve such results? At the pre
have no scientific explanation for what happened during
testing periods.
I can say that the possibility of fraud on G t
part can be virtually ruled out. (77)
A team of scientists in England consisting of John Ha
David Bohm, Edward Bastin and Brendan O'Regan observe
following phenomenon:
The plasticization, by handling, of about 2 cm of the
of a stainles steel teaspoon (phenomenon 7) took place
course of informal conversation around a desk. The teas
which had previously been handled and bent through
thirty degrees by a child who also displays PK ability, wa:
by Mr. Geller
for a few seconds, when the center be
floppy. A witness was able to take from Mr. Geller the twe
of thb spoon in either hand while the center was still pla
was then handled very much as a heated glass tube is whi
bent
to a desired angle
in
the
laboratory.
In
this wr
plasticity could be clearly verified by movement of the ha
the witness. The witness attempted to set the spoon at an
angle, and to put
it down on the table;
it retained
itself
piece on the table for a few minutes, but due, presuma!
thinning of the neck by the flow of metal,
its strength \
small that a slight disturbance fractured
it. The weight
the fractured spoon was almost within the estimated
c
mental error. Electron micrographs of this fracture are
preparation; the procedures used are similar to those i
another study of a similar fracture obtained in the experi
of Professor J.G. Taylor. (70)
John Hasted reported a PKMB test attended by physici.
Sarfatti:
Geller likes to have such specimens on a metal plat
sheet of steel was laid on the table, and the following sc
on
it:
to a total of 1214°. His stroking was light, since
it did not cause
the kev to rock beneath my forefinger. All of this took approxi-
1. Two key rings with keys attached to them.
2. Four loose latchkeys.
T
3 A thin steel tube containing a thermocouple.
NEW SCIENTIST, and his overall evasiveness, Joseph Hanlon
&
'
.
...
„ „ «
.i-i
I
. t
k ir» * (rrirk irift Ll^
/m it nrk o \r»i
fitment to work with
6. A single crystal disc of molybdenum, 0.22 mm thick and
1 cm in diameter.
7. A single crystal bar of silicon.
8. A length of steel rod, one inch
in diameter.
9. An annealed copper disc with a hole
in the middle.
None of these objects had been in Geller's hands, and he
did
not touch them while they were
laid out. Jack
Sarfatti
stretched his hand out above the objects, and Geller then put
his hand on top of Sarfatti's. After a few seconds, Jack reported
feeling a sharp tingle in his hand, and when both hands were
withdrawn we examined the objects. The only one showing an
obvious change was
the molybdenum
single
crystal
disc,
which had been perfectly flat beforehand, but was now bent
sUghtiy.
,
,
...
This single crystal, and some others we have used, had
been given to us by Dr. Tony Lee, of the Cavendish Laboratory,
Cambridge.
It was of high purity, better than 0.99999. Some
weeks later, when
I showed the crystal to David Rooks, who
was going to photograph
it, we noticed that it was very slightly
attracted to the tweezers he was using. Of course molybdenum
should not be ferromagnetic, so
I suspended the crystal be-
tween the poles of an electromagnet and found
it to be quite as
ferromagnetic
as commercial molybdenum, which contains
eighty parts per million of iron.
I therefore sent the single crystal
for
neutron
activation
analysis
to the
Scottish
Universities
Reactor Centre. How this impurity got into pure crystal is still a
puzzle. (79)
Finally we have a report by physicist Wilber Franklin using a
strajp gauge apparatus.
The experiment was videotaped, using three TV cameras
at different angles.
A steel specimen, %" thick by W wide by 8" long, was
clamped to a tripod
in the set-up shown
in
Fig.
1. After 29
minutes
of unsuccessful
effort by
Uri,
a
highly-structured
strain-gauge
reading was
recorded, shown
in
Fig.
2.
This
occurred just as the scientists and Uri stepped back a few feet
•from the apparatus, when the strain-gauge recorded the psi-
effect. Meanwhile, another probe (see Fig.
1) attached to the
end ofthebeam—which was sensitive only to vertical displace-
ments—recorded no bending.
Geller had
little or no knowledge of the experiments
I
would conduct,
or of the one
I would choose
for him
to
concentrate on doing.
When the
results of this highly controlled
test are con-
sidered—along with
the
large number of
repetitive
results
observed by Hasted arid by at least four other laboratories—the
influence of the volition of human subjects on metallic strain,
and/or
the
associated equipment, seems
to have met
the
requirements of scientific validity. In other words, the force of
will can and does, in my opinion, affect matter. (80)
As in the anecdotal literature, Geller is not able to reproduce
PKMB
totally at wilt in every controlled situations. This was a
problem that the Stanford Research investigation Targ and Put -
hoff ran into:
We spent the next several weeks attempting to film or
videotape any
sort of metal-bending under controlled labo-
C
-glory conditions. One of Geller's main attributes that had been
i,
. eported
to us was
that he was able to bend metal from
a
distance without touching
it. In the laboratory we did not find
him able to do sp. When he was permitted to touch the meta
In
a
the NEW SCIENTIST. He backed outon a verbal commitmentto
work with the Maimonides Medical Centre Division of Para-
psychology and
Paraphysics
in
Brooklyn, New
York.
(83)
letter,
Charles
Flonorton
of Maimonides
confirms:
Dr. Hanlon correctly states that Geller backed out of a
verbal commitment to work in our laboratory.
Geller,
of
course,
did
not show up and
after
several
repeated inquires, we learned from his staff that there had been
a "miscommunication" regarding our commitment; that while-
he very much wanted to work with us, Uri was too busy to do
so. He has continued to be too busy to do so. (84)
Geller's personality has indeed been in the way of invest-
igators and the PKMB phenomoma, so much so that a number of
parapsychologists feel that Geller is not a viable subject for study
even though they may be confident that he can exhibit PKMB .
Stanley Krippner writes:
.
Geller has been of
little help in the field of psychoen-
ergetic research; however,
if he has drawn enough attention to
the paranormal to interest some capable scientists in studying
PK
effects,
his
career
will
have served
a
useful
purpose.
Researchers may have learned lessons from the Geller affair
and do better when a similar subject comes along. Researchers
should think twice before spending their time and lending their
prestige to an entertainer. (85)
(ii) Other Individuals Manifesting PKMB.
a) Anecdotal Data.
Uri Geller who is not only the most well known agent for
PKMB, also has served as the catalyst for the other individuals
found to have the ability. However, there is one historical case
reported by D. Scott Rogoin an article by Mrs. I.K. Reno in 1905:
The Reno article concerned a rather conventional polter-
geist outbreak centering on 3 family who lived
in southern
Georgia. The
first manifestations noted by the family were
spontaneous object-throwings. However, shortly after the
in-
ception of the poltergeist, the family witnessed a series of events
which seem identical to what we have now labeled the “Gel ler
effect." The -article reports: “Frequently during the meal hour,
milk, tea, coffee, and soup were flung into the faces of those at
the table,
sfeveral times
inflicting painful scalds and burns.
Spoons were broken, or suddenly twisted out of shape in their
hands." (86)
Otherwise the manifestation of PKMB by an individual has
begun after learning of Geller's ability, especially after exposure
to
a media program where Geller has performed.
This phe-
nomena has perhaps been most widely documented in Britain. A
second hand report of a youth named Matthew Manning reads:
One night, being then seventeen, he was watching a TV
special, "Uri Geller:
Is Seeing Believing?" in which the Israeli
psychic was
demonstrating
his
metal-bending
techniques
when suddenly his mother exhorted him to see
if he could
match Geller. He didn't expect anything to happen, but to
please his mother he grasped a stainless steel spoon and, while
Geller was on the tube, started to rub
it.
For a good ten minutes, not a thing happened. Then the
boy's father walked into the room, and as happens in so many
cases of this kind, the sudden distraction, the break in concen-
n he was permitted to touch the metal,
cases or inis *mu, me mjuuc. u,M,oeu»,r,
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Geller. Concerning a planned experiment with
hairpin. (103)
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