by James Randi
When I first saw the SRI drawings, one thing above all bothered me no end. The bunch of grapes was too good. (Here, too, the chosen word was different. It was “bunch.”) No performer in his right mind would reproduce a target that well—but Uri’s ego was too much for him. But am I ahead of myself? Perhaps. Let’s look over the experimental setup at SRI again.
Unfortunately, it seems I’ll never have the opportunity of really doing that. The folks at SRI just refuse to have anything at all to do with me. To get in there would solve a lot of puzzles, but I won’t be able to, so I’ll have to be content to theorize and relate all the little clues that have passed my way. Joseph Hanlon, in conversation with one of the persons who was present at the SRI tests of Geller, was told that several people there talked openly about a small but important defect of the highly touted “double-steel walled room” used in the experiments. It seems that this room was not designed or built with Geller tests in mind, but had served SRI as an electrophysical recording chamber. It shielded out most electromagnetic radiation and was used for the ESP tests since it was already there.
The room had double refrigerator-type doors all right, but with a rather serious leak. In order to get cables in there for the electroencephalograph (EEG) tests, a square hole was cut in the steel wall and the space around it was stuffed up with gauze! There were reports of gauze being found about the floor after the “grapes” drawing was received! My theory? That Shipi made a small drawing of the target—an exact drawing—and pushed it through the hole to Geller. Unwisely, Geller chose not to make a lot of other “tries” (after all, he later made thirty responses to another one of these targets!), but made a very suspicious direct “hit” on this one.
Hanlon’s informant also told him, “It’s the feeling of a lot of people here that they are throwing away a lot of data.” I believe they were quite correct.
In Figure 4 (solar system), Geller was right on—not pictorially, but in the spirit of the words. But verbal cueing is indicated here strongly.
The next three, a rabbit, a tree, and an envelope, were “passed” over by Uri though they seem to be very simple, basic objects for a renowned psychic to “pick up.” Number 5 was a sealed drawing unknown to any of the experimenters, locked in the steel room with no one viewing it. Numbers 6 and 7 were tried while EEG equipment was attached to Geller with outsiders attending him closely. Remember, though, that these three were performed in such a way that either there was no person who could be a confederate who knew the answer, or Uri under close surveillance and could not resort to his confederate without detection. And in the case of the one hundred envelopes, as with the one hundred that were to be presented upon another occasion by SRI psychologists UNDER TEST—REAL TEST—CONDITIONS (see page 65), Geller was unable to perform. Here, too. no person could signal the answer to him! ONLY IN THE TESTS WHERE THERE WAS NO POSSIBILITY OF TRANSMISSION OF DATA FROM A CONFEDERATE DID GELLER REFUSE TO TRY THE TEST OR JUST FAIL IT!
But on to the remainder of the thirteen tests. In Figure 8 (camel) I will guess that Shipi saw the drawing fleetingly and mistook it for a horse. I think I would, if shown it briefly. SRI has no claim on the art world. The next, Figure 9, was the word “bridge,” drawn as an American would think of a bridge; but if received as that word, it would have been thought of by Uri as any kind of bridge—perhaps a simple stone puddle-jumper. The seagull (Figure 10) is another in which direct auditory information would transmit a large white bird in any convenient configuration.
The last three drawings were done with Geller in the Faraday Cage. I think the response in Figure 11 (kite) is excellent! It lacks only a string and a tail. And Figure 12 has an overturned champagne glass that, upon examination, resembles the church outline very closely—he even got a bunch of dots as well. That’s a remarkable “hit,” in my estimation. And Figure 13 (arrow-through heart) has an arrow in the response. I’ll buy that! But these three are hardly what Uri would get from a verbal cue. We would need something much stronger than that if we were to explain the kite and the church, as well as the arrow. You have probably made the assumption that Geller could not see out of the Faraday Cage in which he found himself for those last three experiments. BUT HE COULD SEE, EASILY! HE COULD EVEN REACH HIS ARM OUT OF THE CAGE! What is to prevent Shipi from signaling these three to Geller? Nothing. And we are not told how long Geller took to perform these tests; so we do not know that important factor either. It would have been simple for Shipi to signal with hand gestures.
Do the SRI tests still look as good as they did when first reported? I think not. But we still have the all-important test with the metal box to consider. I think that any of us who would design such a test would insist that at least there should be a catch on the metal box. Was there? No. There was no catch or lock. The simple metal file box was just that. Of course, since the SRI men were sure that with Geller there was no chicanery involved, they did not need to equip it with a catch.
I digress here to chide Dr. Hanlon, who describes in his New Scientist account a “radio die” that was briefly on the market for magicians to purchase. He says that it might have been the one used in the experiment, rung in by Uri at an opportune moment. Hardly. The prop die in this case looks like a gigantic parody of a regular die. It is not transparent, as further information shows the SRI die was, and it is huge. Not even Puthoff and Targ would have been deceived by that one. I hope to presume that Hanlon had not seen the actual die that is sold for this trick, or he’d not have reported its possible use here.
As for the SRI die experiment, I will beg off an explanation until Chapter 11, where we will discuss a most interesting parallel between Geller and his tricks and another long-gone conjuror from the past.
The conclusion to all this is rather obvious. The SRI did not report exactly what happened. It could not have, because there were seemingly unimportant occurrences that escaped their attention, and lapses in their accuracy. They assumed perfect shielding of Geller, so they did not report whether he was searched for the presence of electronic equipment. (Some readers of the New Scientist wrongly assumed that Hanlon meant to imply that Geller had an implanted “tooth receiver” for which none other than Andrija Puharich holds the patent, but I know that such was not Hanlon’s intention, though Puharich could easily have been the man who constructed the electronic device that Geller perhaps used.) Besides, Geller does not allow a search—such procedures are “negative vibrations.” (See Rule 4 in Chapter 1.)
Hanlon has an interesting conclusion to make in New Scientist. Commenting on a prominent scientist’s remark that it was necessary to deal with “psychics” in a special manner and that “you must feed them information bit by bit in a controlled way,” Hanlon says: “If this is in fact so, and if this is to be acceptable to science, then it means we must be prepared to accept the paranormal on faith—and tolerate wholesale fraud along with it. I, at least, am not prepared to do so.” Amen.
Before we leave the SRI matter, one more peek behind the curtain. The “SRI Report” specifies that in the case of the thirteen drawings there were no tests performed with these that were not reported. But it fails to say the same about the one-hundred envelopes that Geller failed to try. Why? Because the following account is not to Geller’s credit, and therefore not important enough to be mentioned!
There were further tests with these envelopes. After the end of the formal test, on the last day, the experimenters loosened the conditions, and suddenly miracles started to occur. Six drawings were tried, and Geller got one of them perfectly—by clairvoyance of course. One of the experimenters (we’re not told which) commented that he was sure Geller had cheated. When the facts are studied, that conclusion is quite possibly true.
The facts are these: The six drawings were left lying about the room unguarded, and no one bothered to determine if all six were at times left on the table. Geller was allowed to do his wonted wandering about, even leaving the room, which he did at least three times. Upon his return, he was able to “get�
� one of the drawings.
In New Scientist, Hanlon concludes: “If he [Geller] could do this test under loose conditions but not under tight conditions, is this not worth a mention in the paper?” Charles Rebert, a psychologist working at SRI at the time, had no doubts about this phase of the tests. He told Joseph Hanlon, “I was there, and I’m convinced that he cheated.”
I leave my reader to his or her conclusions.
I consulted with Dr. Hanlon at length on the Geller matter when he visited the United States, and later I traveled to England at my own expense twice to show him videotapes of Geller in action on several American television shows. Much of the information contained in his account came from my tapes of Geller in action, and from my discussions with him in England.
There are places where I disagree with Hanlon in his conclusions, and some of these have been noted. Further, I must say that I have to agree in some small way with some of the persons who objected to his New Scientist article, in that he does seem to have departed in some measure from a strictly scientific approach in his investigation. But any person who had been through the strange ritual that both Hanlon and I went through in trying to fathom the mysteries of parapsychological double-think and devious methodology would certainly, too, have tended to lose his objectivity. The reasoning—or lack thereof—is enough to strain anyone’s patience. Rules that do not apply to any other discipline are expounded as being absolutely necessary to investigation of the “psychics.” And no reasonable person can accept such loopholes in procedure while attempting to work within a scientific framework.
The New Scientist article gave rise to a huge volume of reader correspondence that the magazine ran for a full two months after. Reading these letters now, I am struck by the fact that they all carry on at length about the philosophical involvement of the investigators and take Hanlon to task for not having a wider view of the matter. The letters cover in great detail the possibility of psi phenomena but fail to deal with the fact that the “SRI Report” was a totally inadequate document prepared by improperly qualified persons under anything but scientific conditions. It proved nothing except that nothing has yet been proved. Meanwhile, the Stanford Research Institute had by this time come under a great deal of fire, and in a way I must accept some of the blame. I had been cheerfully repeating Geller’s claim that SRI had tested him under flawless laboratory conditions and declared him to be genuine. This was far from the truth, and both Geller and I knew it. My reason for repeating the falsehood was this: I knew that surely not all the specialists working at the institute had been taken in by Geller, although the director and the two laser physicists obviously had been. I reasoned that, if all the SRI scientists were branded as Geller devotees, some of them would rebel eventually and that psychologists—who should have conducted the tests in the first place, if any were to be done at all—might demand that they be allowed to test the Chosen One. And that’s exactly what happened.
I quote from the organ of the American Psychological Association, Monitor (vol. 5, no. 2), of February 1974. Titled “Uri Geller: Is He a Medicine Show Hype or a Challenge to Science?” the article, by Jules Asher, says:
The psychologists at SRI had, according to Geller, originally opposed the Institute’s studies of his powers. After the “Time” article, internal politics gave SRI psychologists an opportunity to run their own tests of his alleged paranormal perceptual ability.
They devised an elaborate, double blind experiment employing 100 envelopes with drawings in them. It was to have run over a 5-day period. According to Dr. Charles Rebert of the Life Sciences Division, Geller tried for three days to reproduce the psychologists’ drawings but was unable to function clairvoyantly.
“He passed on every envelope,” said Rebert.
On the third day the psychologists reluctantly yielded to the physicists’ request that the experimental procedures be loosened up. Geller then achieved one “hit,” but by that time there were suspicions of foul play and the experiment was abandoned, said Rebert.
“I’m convinced that he [Geller] swapped envelopes on us,” remarked Rebert. “He flunked our test.”
Targ admits that Geller cannot always function paranormally and he places some of the blame for failures on “non-believers.”
“Even the secret introduction of a skeptic who ‘knows there’s no such thing as parapsychology’ can quench his [Geller’s] ability,” said Targ.
The last statement makes me wonder a bit. (It’s Rule 4, remember?) How is it that with Charles Reynolds and myself in the room with him at the Time magazine office in New York, Geller was able to perform what he swore were genuine wonders with a fork, a key, and some “telepathic” drawings, whereas he could not have possibly done so because of our quite negative attitudes toward him? He performed as well as he has ever performed, yet we were giving out all the negative “vibes” we could muster! And is it not curious that this Geller test series was never reprinted or mentioned by any of his SRI disciples? And that the press—so very interested in the Geller matter, we’re told—never ran a story on his spectacular failure and suspected cheating? Remember what I said earlier about a nonstory? Here’s a perfect example. Editors all over the world turned down that story!
Nature held the “SRI Report” for more than eight months before they printed it. This is an abnormally long time with 35 issues of the magazine published in the interval. Even editor David Davies, of Nature, referred to the report as “a ragbag of a paper,” and he realized, along with the referees, that to reject a paper submitted by reputable scientists with the apparent backing of a recognized organization like the Stanford Research Institute would be quite difficult without his having a very positive reason. The world of science works that way: Refusal would have impugned the integrity or competence of the scientists involved, and this is just not done. Perhaps it is a weakness of the system. Scientists, moreover, feel that they must “publish or perish.” But editor Davies was astute enough to realize that the Nature editorial (written by Dr. Christopher Evans, one of the referees of the journal) should direct his readers to the New Scientist article, which put the whole thing in the proper perspective.
Fortunately, New Scientist editor Bernard Dixon and Nature editor Davies are long-time good friends, so such cooperation was possible. The Geller fans had brought pressure to bear on Nature by making it widely known that the SRI paper had been submitted to them; the actual copy had also been widely “leaked” to the scientific world. So Nature had little choice. But both editors had the good sense to see that a balanced story would emerge if the SRI paper and the Hanlon story broke together. They arranged it that way. Said Davies, who is a Ph.D. in physics, “You set a scientist to catch a scientist, and you set a magician to catch a magician—or at least you would if Uri Geller would allow it. Perhaps a journalist is the right person in this case. Only a science writer could describe the chaos that exists in some of these labs.”
Of course the publication in Nature of the “SRI Report” has been touted as a great victory for Geller supporters. The overall picture escapes them. They ignore the New Scientist coverage carefully and will refuse to believe that Hanlon is sane in bringing serious doubt into their hero’s profile.
Some people never learn. Will we ever know just what happened at the Stanford Research Institute in the last months of 1972 and in August 1973, when Uri Geller and Shipi Shtrang performed there? I very much doubt it. Recognized men of science, as well as myself, have been asking questions of Targ and Puthoff about the hole in the wall of the steel room, about the dictionary used in the “telepathy” tests, about the time taken for each test, about why Shipi was allowed in the test area, and about many other details that these two men have simply refused to answer. A distressed member of the SRI staff has reported that Russell Targ tears up letters requesting such information. And we all continue to wonder about the prestigious Stanford Research Institute and the strange policy it follows in investigating Things That Go Bump in the Night.
> The Geller tests at SRI were utterly useless, except as examples of inept and biased research. They proved nothing at all about the purported powers of the Israeli conjuror, but they proved much about the men behind the research.
Does it not begin to appear as if Uri Geller has feats of clay? I include here not the entire New Scientist article, but only that portion which deals with Joseph Hanlon’s own personal experiences with Geller. He was a good observer and managed most of the time—though not all—to keep his eyes on the performer. But even he was misdirected long enough for miracles to take place. Here you will see how easily someone like Professor Ellison can be talked into giving more information than one realizes and how helpful subjects tend to be in making the experiment a success—though they are often not aware of this at the time.
Transatlantic Telepathy
Investigating the Geller phenomenon second-hand is all well and good, but the strongest impressions necessarily come from personal contact with Uri. I have seen Uri work twice, once as part of a transatlantic telepathy experiment conducted by the Sunday Mirror (10 December, 1973) and the other in the Montcalm Hotel, London (19 June, 1974).
In the Mirror test, Geller was in New York, connected to the Mirror office in London by transatlantic telephone. In the Mirror office were Clifford Davis, the Mirror TV editor who arranged the test; Professor Arthur Ellison of City University and chairman of the executive committee of the Society for Psychical Research; Dr. Christopher Evans of the New Scientist panel; Ronnie Bedford, Mirror science editor; Patricia O’Flanagan and myself from New Scientist; the Thames television crew; and about a dozen spectators. Yasha Katz of Geller’s staff, and Sidney Young, from the Mirror, were with Geller in New York. The attempt lasted nearly two hours, and covered a variety of tests. Katz listened on the New York end of the telephone and later told New Scientist (during one of his meetings to discuss our experiments) that Geller’s biggest success was seeing a photograph of a car.