Now Scientist
17 October 1974
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Is Uri Geiler the world's most gifted psychic, capable of bending metal without
‘
touching
it and discovering the contents of closed boxes with incredible accuracy?
Or is 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 Geiler—a report on tests at the Stanford Research
Institute. And in this special Issue of New Scientist, Dr Joseph Hanlon reports
on both our own investigation and the SRI paper
r-**** 'V'*»-* »»*;?
Geiler and
New Scientist
Uri Geiler 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
Geiler 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). Geiler
first came
to
national
attention
in
Britain on
23 Nevember 1973
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.
Geiler
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.
Geiler 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 Geiler had simply appeared as a magician, he
would have attracted much less attention. Yet Geiler had
indeed baffled 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
Geiler
to
participate
in
experiments. (New
Scientist, vol 60, ,p 603). We told Geiler 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.
Geiler
accepted
our
invitation
quicklv,
in
a
letter on 3 December. Although our initial letter to Geiler
did not actually name the members of the committee, they
had already been chosen and were Denvs Parsons of the
SPR, psychologist Dr .Christopher Evans of the National
Physical Laboratory (who was
responsible
for
the New
Scientist parnsychologv Questionnaire, vol 57
r> 2691
f-p
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
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17 ’October 1974
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York
But we met several times with an associate, Yasha
Katz
in December and set up a meeting with Geller for
3 February to discuss the experiments. And on “Seeing is
bMAving”,
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.”
"
.
But only a few days after they arrived back in Britain,
Kata reported that Geller had received a bomb threat and
cancelled the New Scientist meeting and some, but not
all. of Ge'ler’s remaining performances. Time passed, and
Ge’.’.er’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.
Yfhat 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
Geller.
Because this
is largely a report of my personal invest! ga- 7,
tion of the Geller phenomenon,
it
is important
to make Am
clear my own attitude and biases. 1 feel strongly that the A v
'
next interesting breakthrough in science may well come
not from
expensive
research by huge
teams
in
physics Y
and biology, but from research by individuals and small
'S-
teams into the interaction of people and themselves and .'AA
:
.
their surroundings.
. M&b
Through
biofeedback, we now have
control over our
bodies of a sort that not so long ago was almost univer-
sally agreed co be impossible. Negative ions in the air seem’V,’
to affect our attitudes. And so on. In the past few years,
A
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 AA
science, particularly my own field of high energy physics,
,
has become corporate and unimaginative. Finally, the con-, ’/A
tinuing
squeeze
on
science
funding
puts
the
attention
••
;
-
more on the scientist who can work on a shoestring rather A. A
. than
the one who
cannot get
the money
to
go
to
still
•
higher energies looking for the quark.
V'
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.
•
.
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 V.
of their videotapes, and watched many tapes of Uri’s tele-
;
t
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
j
proposed New Scientist investigation,
I think it important
to present this material to put the SRI report in context.
. A
Joseph Hanlon M
i hs New Scientist investigation
;•
V-
\
Like witnesses to a motor accident, people who have seen Uri bend a spoon or do a drawing by telepathy
tell widely differing stories about the same event. And explanations range from the obvious to the impossible, To-
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 am.'zins younrr
Israeli
is claimed
to
Lave
the
most
phenomenal
psychic
powers
the
world has
ever
seen. Even
some
scientists say he can break spoons
by
mental
powers
without
touching
them,
read
minds,
and
make
objects
appear
and
disappear.
The
inan
who
brought
rum
to
the
US.
ajiu UK
.and
wrote
the
tA|»ptwQflbi7®fdRel-ease
this year by
\V.
II.
Allen;,
Dr
Andrija
Puharicb,
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
Gellcr’s own
personality. He
exudes
sincerity and a
childlike innocence and
desire
to
please
which
makes
people
really want
to
like
nr.d
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-
man,
having been
a
male model and
a
admit
that
his
main
goals
in
life
are
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 cr.e of the most
,
important psychics of our time.
v
Another
aspect
of
the Geller
person-'
,
aiity
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
time and suddenly
returning
to
it
later
it}Qi^d^
0n
^
a
;
rC
happening and Geller reads the contents
iW
: Approved For Release 2000/08/07
: CIA-RDP96-00787R0007001®%
e3
tist
17 0c , ober
-
Uri Gcller attempts to
bend a journalist's key
held by David Dimbleby
at a press conference a
the BBC Lime Grove
(London) studios on
22 November 1973, the
day before Geller's
appearance on the
.
Dimbleby Talk-In broug
him to the attention of.
the British public
v
-
( ,
;
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
wi.th
special
coatings which
P ve *_?
s ‘Snal in proportion to any bend-
ing. me 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
cnf.erer.tly. According
to
Puthoi:, Geller
ban ~ied
to bond the bar unsuccessfully
on
cne
day
and
then
returned
to
try
a^ain the next. Early in tne
test, a piece
of
the
bar
suddenly
appeared
on
the
table, although
the
signal from
the bar
&
possible for someone
to have broken
off
a
piece
between
tests
and
it
not
h*
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
lving
flat
in
the palm
of photographer
Urvnn V/hfirtorrs
hr.rid at tbe
ti**.-*^
But
the
next
Sunday,
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 supnosed
20©Q1Qm?ni GlA4?0R86^ti7St7iR
convinced he
is genuine, but after think-
ing carefully about what happened
I am
frwr-ntl
f r* n.lrnh
r «1f
* t. _ *
.
t
_ J
of trickery would have been possible
.
.
Geller examined the key, then passed
:
to
...
. Wharton who held
it between
tfc
palms
oF
his
hands.
Geller
held
h;
hands over Wharton’s for a few second
.
.
. and sure enough the key turned or
to be bent through an angle of about
degrees.
.
.
. Geller might have distracte
our attention when he
first had the ke;
bent
it, and put
it into Bryan Wharton
hands already bent.”
Journalists
are
not
alone
in
havin
this
problem—trained
scientists
do
a
well. Geller and Puharich gave a demoi
stration at Bell Laboratories, NewJerse;
one of the world’s top research centre:
on 8 June,
1973.
Geller
did one
of
h:
favourite
tests:
reproducing
a
drawin
in an envelope. He always stresses
th:
the envelope
is sealed and that he ha
never seen the drawing before. The Be
report, by
Charles Davidson, says “tw
sealed envelopes were brought'' and goe
on
to report
Geller’s accurate reproduc
tion
of the
drawing. But the man wh
actually
brought
the
envelopes,
Richard Moore, told me
in January the
in fact the drawings were put into larg
clasp
envelopes which were
not
seale
Further, Moore
admitted,
the drawinr
were
done
at
short
notice,
at
Geller
request, while Geller supposedly was
o
the
telephone
in
the
next
office. Thu
Geller
could have
used
any
of
sever;
magicians’
tricks—including
surrept
looking
at
the
drawings.
But
the
Be
report implies that neither was possibV
17 October 1974
.
V
‘
'
Mike 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
cn
a table
in front of Geller. He picked
cr.e up with his right hand and gave it to
Mike
Douglas,
who
examined
it
and
showed on close-up
that
it was,
indeed,
straight. Next, Geller picked np 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 both. 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
holding
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
began, by non-paranormal means.
wmm
c '*-RDp*s-°o7S7mmmm,<
Gellcr’s
supporters argue
that
he
is
their own description.
\
young and simply not yet in
full control
One
example
is
the
case
of
of
his
173
,
contained
in’;
Magic sour grapes?
Is the
diversion and confusion
of
ob-
servers
accidental?
Many
magicians
argue that
it
is quite intentional, and
is
ggg
precisely what they do all the time when
they perform. Magician James Randi, a
persistent Geller
critic, said he talked to
stagehands 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
notice.
But
the magic
community,
with
few
exceptions, is strongly opposed to Geller,
arguing that he
is a magician
too, hut
is
earning
far more money by claiming
to
be something
more.
Professional
magi-
cians
have
a
vested
interest,
however,
end 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, cr 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
(VHEV/-TV,
New
York,
3 May,
1974),
"everything
could
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 Geller, 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 paranormal 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.
Hut
I
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
Geller
teleporting Puharich’s camera case from
New
York
to
Israel,
which
Pcbarich
quotes in his book Uri and which
is often
cited
by
Geller
supporters.
When
I’uharich 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
hii
:
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 seme
of
the
inside’ and
sure enough
it was my
camera
case.”
Puharich
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
Biid-Miinchen.
Reporters
took
Geller
to
a
cable
car which
runs
\
up the Chiemgau mountains, and asked
him
to
stop
the
car. “At noon
the
un-
.
canny one
[Geller] boarded
a cable
car.
gondola
for
the
first
time
in
ins
life,
‘I 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
cut, 1
think
I can bring
it o5!’
’’. 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 A
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
an
alcove
outside
the
control
room
and
Geller
said
'Let’s
get
out
of
here'. He
held
the key
up
so
I
could
see
it.
then
he
turned
his
back
and
as
he
opened
a
;
door the key went
in
front of
his bccy
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
be
duplicate
doesn’t have
Release
•
tcTfiean
that
I
did
it
the M
And It
only
showing
one
corner
of
the
key.’
event
did
not
even
realise
that
the