Approved For Release 2000/08/10
New
Scientist
17 October 1974
Uri bends my key—and rips his trousers
Mv second chance to watch Uri work
was ' 19 June when
editor Dr
Bernard
Dixon and
I met with Uri
in the lobby
of
the
Montcalm
Hotel,
London,
tor
more than an hour.
We
sat
in
a
secluded
corner
or
the
lobby and chatted for a long time. Then
Uri
offered
to
try
some
of
his
skills
for
us. He
tried
to reproduce
pictures
which Dixon and
I drew but
eventually
“passed" (he said he saw nothing clear on
his
“mental
screen”)
each
time.
Next
he
suggested
he
try bending
metal.
I
gave Uri my housekey, which he worked
with unsuccessfully-
Dixon commented afterwards that he
was struck bv 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. The
effect,
of
course,
is
to make
everyone
around Geller
exceedingly
anxious
that
he should
succeed.
Geller suggested we move to the. next
room—an
empty
dining
room
with
a
few
soft chairs near the
door. He
con-
tinued
to
attempt
to
bend my
key.
Noting that
it was often easier to bend
an object when
it was near other metal,
he rubbed the key
against an upended
metal
floor
ashtray
and
other
metal
objects.
Even
with
just
the
three
of
us,
a high degree
of chaos prevailed
at
one
point
I
was
sent
looking
for
metal and at another looking for a pad.
Hotel
staff who
passed—who
by
now
seemed
used
to
the
events—added
comments.
But
still
nothing
unusual
happened.
Finally
Uri
suggested we move
into
the
comer
and
sit
down
on
a
sofa
behind
a
low
coffee
table.
Bernard
Dixon was sent to fetch Geller’s jacket.
Geller
sat
down
first
and
I
walked
around
the
table
and was
just
sitting
down; Bernard was walking across with
Geller’s jacket. Thus neither of us was
watching Geller closely. Suddenly Geller
lurched
forward,
spreading
his
legs
so
rapidly
that he
split
his
trousers.
His
hands were down
in
front
of
him.
After joking about the ripped trousers,
he
held
the
key
from
the
point
end,
enclosing most
of
it
in
his hand,
and
continued bis
efforts
to make
it
bend.
Geller’s hand was
slightly arched, how-
ever,
and
could
see
clearly
that
the
key
was
already
slightly
bent.
Suddenly
he
said
it was
bending, and
slowly moved
his
hand down
the
key
to
ex-pose the bend. The bend was not
. large and he put the key on the coffee
table to show the bend—carefully hold-
ing
it in a V position so that both ends
were
off the table and the bend touch-
ing. He
repeated
many
times
that
it
was
still bending and
to prove
this he
put
it back down on the
table, now in
an L
position,
with an
entire
flat
side
touching
so
that
the
other
end
was
higher
off
the
table than
it had been
the
first
time. As
far
as
JL could
see,
however,
thAp{KQ,Y£g orQFrR©l8*
than when
I
first saw
it
in his hand.
I cannot
actually say
that
I saw Uri
nr>\7 botr
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CIA-RDP96-00787R000200090024-7
177
But
I
can
offer
an
explanation
that
I
find more plausible than previously un-
identified mental forces.
First,
it should
be noted that keys are surprisingly
e.asy
to bend,
particularly
for
a
person
like
Geller
with
strong
hands. Few
of
us
ever try
it, however, and we assume
it
is
difficult.
But
anyone,
including me,
can bend
a key on the edge of a chair. Sitting in
a
chair
with your
legs
slightly
spread,
reach down to the bottom
of the chair
seat
and
you
will
feel
part
of
the
chair frame.
Holding
the head
of the
key in both hands, put the point on the
top
of the frame and press down. You
will be
surprised how
easily
the
key
bends. With
practice, you
can
do
this
with a quick, casual movement in which
you
pull
the' chair
forward
towards
a
table.
To me, the most plausible hypothesis
is
that knowing
neither Bernard nor
I
were concentrating at that moment, Uri
put
the key on
the metal
rail
at
the
front
of
the
sofa
(his hands
were
in
the right place) and then suddenly
slid
forward. Because the
coffee
table was
too close to the
sofa, be had to spread
his
legs
quickly,
splitting
his
trousers.
Faces and flowers
After
the key
bend,
Uri
again
tried
telepathy. After a couple
of unsuccess-
ful
attempts—as
before
he
always
passed, never showing
a
final
drawing^
despite attempts on his part—lie
finally
did one drawing. I drew a simple flower
(1), Uri made two attempts
(2 and 3)
which he
rejected,
and then
said that
I. had drawn
a. face
(4).
It
is,
_ as he
noted,
not
too
far
off because
it
does
have
a
basic
circle
with
lines coming
out from
it. The
final
drawing
(5)
is
his
explanation—that he drew
a
circle
with bumps
and
then
guessed
at
the
eyes and then the
rest
of the
face.
Uri’s relative lack of success, his own.
explanation of how he did the drawing,
and
some
observations
by
Bernard
Dixon
allowed
us
to
piece
together
afterwards a non-paranormal hypothesis
for
this
effort
as
well.
First,
it
should
be
noted
that
in
the
early
attempts
which Uri passed, we had time to think
and
were
drawing
relatively
unusual
figures such as a complex fork and an
integral
sign.
But by
the
time
Geller
tilt
5?,
/
Picture drawing test at Montcalm Hotel, London, 19 June 1974.
ise 2000/08/10
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madc^n
°
/
attempts (2 and 3) before settling on a face (4). He explained^
i
(5) that he had drawn the circle and hair and then guessed at
New
Scientist
17 October 1974
Approved For Release 2000/08/10
: CIA-RDP96-00787R0002Q0090024-7
.
-
, f„r»
wii-h
hair. And IM himself noted
demonstration
is
not
an
experiment
made
an
attempt,
we
had
little
time
left
with
him
and
I had
to
think
of
and
draw
objects
quickly—thus
the
simple
flower.
More
important,
however,
was
Bernard’s
observation
that
after
each
drawing, we
would
carefully
hide
the
drawing, but then
Geller would
ask us
to draw the picture again
in our mind.
“I
found
I
was
making
slight
head
movements,
tracing
the
shape
of
the
drawing.
I
tried
not
to,
but
found
it
difficult
if
I
was
really
concentrating
hard
and
tracing
the
shape
as
Uri
suggested. Watching Joe Hanlon
I noted
the same effect.”
Looking
at my drawing and
Geller’s
efforts and
explanations,
it seems
that
Bernard’s hypothesis holds up
well. The
head motions
for
a
flower would be
a
large
circle,
several
short
back
and
forth
motions
(petals)
and
one
long
curving
up
and
down
motion
(the
stem). This
is precisely what Uri drew
in
his
first
two
attempts
(2
and
3)
exhibiting
the
fact
that
it
is
difficult
to
tell
from
head
motions
precisely
where
on
the
circle
the
other
lines
should
go.
Dropping
the
long up
and
down
motion,
and
putting
the
short
motions all on the top, seems to suggest
a face with hair. And Uri himself noted
that he was
sure
about the
circle and
bumps
and
guessed
at
the
face.
Be-
cause
of the haste
with which
I drew
the
picture,
he
could
be
sure
that
it
was one of the common ones.
Not an experiment
My
investigation
of
Geller
has been
surprising to me in two important ways:
first, that every Geller event that I could
investigate
in
detail had
a normal
ex-
planation
that was more probable than
the
paranormal
one;
and
second,
the
really strong desire of people to suspend
disbelief and accept Geller. On the latter
point,
I
must
admit
that
I,
too,
was
strongly
taken with
Geller, and
that
I
•could
not help
liking
him
and
being
swept
up
by
his
enthusiasm—despite
the fact that
I was looking for
tricks.
Many
people
believe
implicitly
in
Geller—often
based
on
a
very
few
demonstrations of his powers, swept on
by
their own
desire
to
believe and by
the force of Geller’s personality. Indeed,
some supposedly objective scientists now
talk of the “Geller effect” as a fact.
But as Uri himself told me, “a stage
demonstration
is
not
an
experiment
because “what I do on the stage is under
my conditions”. Only controlled scientific
tests
will
tell
whether
Geller
actually
has paranormal powers.
But we can use our
experience with
Geller
the
performer
to
help
develop
and
evaluate
tests with
Geller the
ex-
perimental subject. And
if there
is any
lesson
to be learned,
it
is that Occam’s
Razor
must
be
our
guide—we
must
reject
all normal explanations before we
consider the paranormal
ones.
In
some
cases,
normal
explanations
would not mean that Geller
is cheating.
It
is
possible,
at
least,
for someone
to
reproduce drawings watching a nodding
head
without
realising
quite how
it
is
happening. But we must also accept the
fact—made
all
the
more
difficult
by
Geller’s
likeability—that
a
normal
ex-
planation
for key bending must imply
fraud. And
on
the
evidence
of
Uri’s
performances,
this
possibility
must be
seriously
considered.
So
far,
there
is
only
one
published
result
of
scientific tests with Geller.
In
the
next
section,
I have
tried
to
look
at
these
experiments
in
the
light
of
what
I
have
found
out
about
Geller
as a performer.
The Stanford Research Institute investigation
Did SRI “validate" Uri Geller? After months of experiments, in a paper this week in Nature SRI reports the
only two sets of tests
it considers successful—one of telepathy and the other of clairvoyance.
Although the authors state that Geller bent many pieces of metal, he never did so under experimental
conditions. The paper fails to show that many of the same difficulties of Geller’s public performances
occurred in the lab, too. Nor does the paper note that by using an ingenious device invented by his mentor
Dr Andrija Puharich, Geller could have done both successful tests by non-paranormal means
The investigators
Stanford
Research
Institute,
in
Menlo
Park,
California,
is the
site of the only
attempt
at
controlled
scientific
tests
of
Uri
Geller.
SRI
was
originally
estab-
lished
by
Stanford
University
to
do
military research. After student protests
in the 1960s,
it was nominally
split
off
from the university. Since then, military
funding has decreased and SRI has done
increasing amounts
of commercial
con-
tract research.
The
Geller
study
has
been
done by
Dr Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ. Both
are
laser
physicists
with
a
continuing
interest
in
psychic
phenomena
who
joined SRI
primarily
to do
psychic
re-
search
(although when funding
is short
they do return to
laser work). Puthoff
is 38 years
old and joined SRI
in
1971.
Me
is
the
author
of
a
laser
textbook,
Fundamentals
of
Quantum
Electronics
(John Wiley &
Sons,
1969),
and
holds
patents for
a tunable Raman laser and
other
optical devices.
Targ
is 40 years
old
and- joined SRI
in
1972
after
ten
vears
.at
Sylvania,
where
he
invented
a
tunable
plasma
oscillator.
'arg
has
been
president
of
the
Para-
sychology
Research
Group
of
Palo
tlto,
and
invented
an “ESP
Teaching
Jachine”.
In
a
paper
to
the
IEEE
Institute
of
Electrical
and
Electronic
Engineers)
International Symposium on
and biofeedback techniques,
it “may be
possible
to
teach
and
enhance
ESP
phenomena”
(Parapsychology
Review,
July-August
1972, p
9).
Together, Targ and
Puthoff have
in-
vestigated
several
subjects
in
addition
ported evidence
mail oil ell OympUMUUl
Vll
^
,
toteSiiisi
i...HSiSSS3E^^5^SS5SiSEy5ig7£x5
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ARTOy^T^or Release 2000/08/10
: CIA-RDP96-00787R000200090024-7
179
New Scientist
they bad an $S0 000 grant from NASA
(National
Aeronautics
and
Space
Ad-
ministration),
apparently
relating
to
Targ’s ESP teaching machine. But they
remain
chronically
short
of
money.
|
Trial
Funding for
the
Geller work has come
primarily
from
wealthy
individuals
particularly from Judith Skutch, a weal-
thy Geller supporter in New York, and Dr
Edgar
Mitchell.
Ex-astronaut
Mitchell
conducted an unauthorised ESP
experi-
ment in space in February 1971 and two
years ago
set up
his Institute of Noetic
Sciences
in
Palo
Alto
to
encourage
psychic research.
Geller has been
to SRI
several times
over
an
18-month
period beginning
in
November
1972.
Mitchell
and
another
Geller supporter, Dr Wilbur Franklin of
Kent
State
University,
assisted
in
the
first
series
of
tests.
The
clairvoyance
experiment
with
a
die reported
in
the
SRI paper, published this week in Nature
(vol
251,
p
602),
comes
from
this
set
of tests. (Copies of the IS October issue
of
Nature
are
available
for
45p
from
Macmillan Journals, 4 Little Essex Street,
London WC2.)
Geller picture drawing test at SRI
Geller
location
Target
location
Target
Outcome
SI
SI
SI
C
Picture from dictionary
A
Firecracker
A
Grapes
B
Devil
Si
Solar system
poor
good
poor
good
C
SI
SI
Picture prepared by outsider
SI
Rabbit
fa
Tree
fa
Envelope
pass
pass
pass
SI
SI
SI
Picture chosen from target pool
D
Camel
fa
Bridge
fa
Seagull
good
fair
good
S2
S2
S2
Picture drawn on
E
E
E
computer ert
Kite
Church
Arrow through heart
good
poor
fair
Locations:
-
'
The paper
The SRI paper reports on three
tests
with
Geller,
as
well
as
several
tests
with
other
subjects.
In
the
first
in
August 1973, Uri was asked to reproduce
target pictures drawn by experimenters
at other locations. “At the beginning of
the
experiment
either
Geller
or
the
experimenters entered
a
shielded room
so
that
from
that
time
forward
Geller was at
all times visually,
acousti-
cally,
and
electrically
shielded
from
personnel
and
material
at
the
target
location.
Only
following
Gelleris
isola-
tion
from
the
experimenters
was
a
target
chosen and drawn,
a
procedure
designed
to
eliminate
pre-experiment
cueing.
Furthermore,
to
eliminate
the
possibility
of
pre-experiment
target
forcing.
Geller was kept ignorant as to
the identity of the person selecting the
target and
as to
the method
of
target
selection,” Targ and Puthoff report in the
paper.
Altogether.
trials
were
conducted
(see
Table).
For
virtually
every
trial,
the
conditions
were
changed—often
several
conditions were changed
at
the
same
time—so
that
it
is
difficult
to
correlate his successes and failures with
different conditions.
In
four
cases
(1-4)
the
targets were
chosen
by
putting
an
index
card
into
a dictionary to pick a page, then open-
ing it and drawing the
first word on the
upper left that “could be drawn”. Three
targets
(8-10)
were
chosen
froui_
an
already
prepared
target
pool.
; Three
(5-7)
were
targets
"blind
to
experi-
menters and subject, prepared independ-
ently
by
SRI
scientists
outside
the
experimental
group
following
Geller’s
isolation”—Geller
declined
to
attempt
any of these three. Finally, three targets
(li-15)
were
chosen
by
computer
laboratory
personnel
and
drawn
on
a
|
cathode ra;Apbro
:ve
]€t;BwIReF&Sse
is
primarily
FVest
of
telepathy,
as m
all cases someone knew what the draw-
ing was. In three cases, however
(5,
12,
SI: double walled steel room
S2: double walled copper screen Faraday cage
A: adjacent room 4-1 m from SI
B: office 475 m from SI
.
C: room just .outside SI
D: room 6-75 m from SI
E: computer room 54 m from S2
Outcomes:
_
am not dn a drawing Other evaluations are by the author
rsa?fl&SSwR J-*-™££. jyysLS:
asms siss.sass
sSsrt: : .tsrjfss EtiJi :
s“.
two line drawings of a kite could be.
Fair
pictorial representation of some of the words which would desmbe
iSimS despite the fact that they describe the same word
arrow
.
Poor-
pictorial
representation
of
a few words which might be
used
to
deS/.he urget picture. In
trial 1
the
and
the drawing
is a
simple
firecracker with
a
lit
fuse. Gene
appears
to he to the word “noisemaker” and includes a drum and wor
like “noise” and “pow”.
Special notes:
5—target in shielded room with no one there to view
it
6. 7—attempted
to make EEG record of
Geller,
found it difficult to hold adequately still for good EEG recorns
11—picture displayed on front of cathode ray tube display screen
,
memory
7no picture.
aisafagtii.
New Scientist
17 October 1974
iu
•
:
Approved For Releas
No metal bending
"It
has
been
widely
reported
that
Geller
has
demonstrated
the
ability
to bend metal by paranormal means.
Although metal bending by Geller has
been observed
in our laboratory, we
have not been able to combine such
observations with adequately controlled
experiments
to
obtain data
sufficient
to
support
the
paranormal
hypo-
thesis,” Targ and
Puthoff declare
in
the
paper
published
this
week
in
Nature.
Indeed,
the SRI
team
spent most
of
its time on metal bending—by far
the
most
spectacular
Geller
feat
and considerably less time on the per-
ception tests finally published.
In one test which
I saw the video-
tape
of,
Uri
was
asked
to
bend
a
carefully checked
ruetal bar. He was
unsuccessful, and asked for something
else. The SRI team provided a special
checked
spoon.
Next
he
asked
for
more metal round him for inspiration,
and
that
was
supplied.
Finally
he
gave
up,
but
the spoon was
set up
for
the
next day
and_ all
the
other
metal, including the original bar, just
dumped in the corner of the room.
The
next
day,
he
started
on
the
spoon,
and
again
asked
for
more
metal. The
original bar was among
the extra collection, and Uri switched
quickly back to
that. But as only the
spoon had been
set up and checked,
there was no way
to see that Uri or
someone else had not taken the bar
or any of the other metal—out of the
room overnight, bent
it, and brought
it back in the morning.
I
'
'
'
'
t
.&****
Later
Uri moved on
to
still
other
pieces of metal in the pile. Finally he
selected a pair of tweezers which no
one had paid attention
to because of
the
concentration
on
the spoon
and
bar.
Finally, he broke
the
tweezers,
but
even
Targ
considered
it
all
so
suspicious that
it was not included in
the
paper. The
possibility
of
sleight
of hand—-in
this and
all other metal
tests
with Uri—was
too
great
even
for SRI.
and
13),
the
picture was
not
actually
being viewed by anyone
at the time of
the
test.
In
all
ten
cases
where
Uri
did
a
drawing,
it had some connection
to the
target and
in some
cases
Uri’s
picture
was extremely good—for example, when
the target drawing was
a bunch of 24
grapes,
Uri
also
drew
a bunch
of
grapes.
Perhaps the most striking factor which
runs through
all
pictures,
however,
•is that Uri seems to be drawing neither
the target word nor the target drawing.
He appears
to base his drawing on the
words which would be used to describe
the
target
drawing.
Clairvoyance
The
other two
tests
reported
in
the
SRI paper
are
of
clairvoyance—seeing
something
in
a
closed
container
v/hich
[ no
one
can know
by
normal
means.
Cfillgr succeeded
once and
failed
once.
Si# In
the
second
test
reported
in .the
jbRI
paper,
also
conducted
in August
1973,
an
SRI
artist
drew
100
target
pictures
of everyday
objects and
other
SRI
personnel
sealed them with
black
-
cardboard in envelopes and then sealed
the
envelopes
in
other
envelopes.
Five
^
targets were drawn from the pool each
day.
Each, day
Geller attempted
draw-
ings of everyday objects, hut only rarely
-
came
close
to the
target
picture. “The
drawings resulting from
this experiment
do
not
depart
significantly
from
what
would be expected by chance”.-J
conducted
November
or
December
1972,
Uri
succeeded spectacularly well. A 34 in dice
was placed in a steel
file card box
(3 in
X
4 in X
in). The box was shaken
and put on the
table,
and Uri drew a
picture of the uppermost dice face. Then
the
box
was
opened.
The
experiment
was performed 10 times, with Uri being
correct
eight
times and
passing
twice.
Unlike the telepathy test, the conditions
were
not varied—the
dice and the box
apparently remained the same.
Targ and Puthoff conclude: “A channel
exists whereby 'information
about a
re-
mote -location can be obtained by means
of
an
as
yet
unidentified
perceptual
modality.”
In
these
experiments,
they
write,
“we
concentrated
on
what
we
con-
sidered
to
be
our
primary
respon-
sibility—to
resolve under
conditions
as
unambiguous
as possible the basic issue
of whether a certain class of paranormal
perception phenomena exists.” They con-
tinue that “at all times we took measures
to prevent sensory leakage and
to
pre-
vent deception.”
But
were Targ
and
Puthoff
vigilant
enough,
and
have
they
really
shown
unambiguously that paranormal percep-
tion exists?
787J*QGP2QQ8aQfli34t,7
accidentally,
Geller manipulates
the
experiments
to
a degree
of chaos where he feels com-
fortable
and
we
feel
uncomfortable.
Then he bends something.”
SRI
has
filmed
or
videotaped many
Geller tests. The tapes show that Geller
constantly bounces up and down, touch-
ing everything in sight and running his
hands through his hair. In the middle of
a
test, he frequently jumps up and
flits
about the room, stopping the
test dead.
Just as suddenly, he will go back to the
test—or to a different one he abandoned
I
earlier. He frequently asks
for
objects,
often
from
outside
the
test
room,
to
give him moral support: press clippings
from
past
triumphs,
pieces
of
metal,
coins, etc. And he will discuss at length
what
objects
to
choose
and where
to
put
them. He
draws
technicians
and
other observers into the experiment by
asking them to help him concentrate, or
to get other objects, or to pick a number.
Geller
also
tries
to
convince
people
that
things
happened
differently
than
they
did.
In
one
tape
I
watched,
he
tried to say he had not “passed” when
he
had,
in
fact,
done
so.
In
another,
he
said that something was bent when
it
really wasn’t.
Also,
Geller constantly
needs
reinforcement.
He
frequently
stops and says “I can’t do
it”, thus put-
ting
the
experimenters
in the
position
of repeatedly telling him that he really
can, and thus possibly convincing them-
selves in the process.
Mitchell commented
that
“Hal
[Put-
hoff]
and Russ
[Targ]
were
so
eager
:i
to keep Geller around that they worked
e
themselves
into
a box by
meeting
his
n
every
whim.
If he threatened
to walk
n
off they would
relent and do what he
a
wanted. Of course, they
lost control
of
n
the situation and it got worse and worse
it
and worse.” Mitchell—a strong believer
g
in Geller’s
abilities who was present for
e.
many of the tests—admitted that during
is
the
tests
they
should have
demanded
>x
“that
he
curb
his
impulsiveness,
that
he should not touch equipment, that he
el
keep his hands properly
in view of the
e-
camera
at
all
times,
and
that he
cut
as
down
his
chatter when we were trying
al
to work.
It becomes
distracting and he
uses
it, not consciously
to
distract, hut
:e,
to
create a
climate
of
too much
noise
n-
and muss and bustle.”
n-
There are also long periods when he
as
does nothing but stand and concentrate,
ue
A single
test can take several hours
of
ial
alternating excitement and boredom. The
>n-
vigilance
of
the
experimenters
is
sure
es
' to
flag during
that time.
Welcome to the circus
A
dry
scientific
paper
can
never
capture
the
feeling
of
an
experiment.
In
this
case,
the
Targ-Puthoff
paper
totally
fails
to communicate
the
circus
Assume he will cheat
.The
experimenters
are
conscious
of
the
possibility
of
dishonesty.
‘‘I
feel
confident that Geller will cheat
if given
a chance,” Targ told me, and he seemed
highly
sceptical
of
some
of
Gciler’s
metal
bending
attempts.
But
whether
their
vigilance
against
cheating
was
rigorous enough
is open to dispute.
If Geller
is
cheating, he
is
probably
using
sophisticated
magic
and
psycho-
logical
trickery.
But
the SRI team has
^amateur