The Truth About Uri Geller

by James Randi

  Did you solve it? If not, you’ve flunked the course. It was “pencil- reading.” Geller made two guesses, based upon the technique we’ve learned about, and failed to guess the right configuration. But Abend declared it was “good,” so everyone was happy. Now mind you, it would have been good, if there were no such thing as pencil-reading. But there is, Virginia. By this technique, two circles are just two circles. Uri was trying all the possibilities.

  I’ve got to go,” Abend said, “I have to get back to the station.” The television people took their leave, telling us the show would be on at 10 o’clock that night.

  Tete-a-Tete

  Uri and I were now alone, sitting together on a couch. I told him I hated to ask him to perform again, but I had never seen him bend anything that belonged to me.

  “Let’s try the key again,” he suggested. We did, but with no luck. “What else do you have?” he asked. I brought out two other keys on a small chain attached to a little knife. “I used to have a knife like that,” he said and put it into my hand. He covered it with my other hand, then put his hands on mine. He concentrated intently. Then he looked at the other keys and asked which one I was most attached to. I wasn’t sure. He piled all the keys into my hand and put the knife on top. Then he repeated the operation. I felt a pulsation and told him so, but there was no change.

  “Damn it!” he said, “Why can’t I do anything?”

  “Don’t be disappointed,” I told him. “I’m very patient, and if nothing works now, we can try some other time.”

  Uri seemed agitated. “Don’t you have anything else metal?” he asked. “Maybe in your boots.” He pointed to my boots that I had left across the room.

  “No, all I’ve got is a belt buckle, and you told me once you never worked with belt buckles.”

  “Let’s try it,” he said. I took off my belt and put the large brass buckle in my palm on top of the three keys and the knife and chain. I covered the pile with my other hand. Uri put his hand on top. More intense concentration. Suddenly, I felt a distinct throb inside my hands, like a small frog kicking. I told him so. “You did?” he asked excitedly and opened my hands. I could see no change in the buckle. He pulled out a long steel key and cried out: “It’s bent, yes, it’s bent! Do you see?” I did not see at first. But then I noticed a slight bend. It was very exciting. Uri put the key on the table to check it. Yes, it was definitely bent.

  The Making of a Convert

  Uri was almost jumping up and down for joy, and I shared his emotion. “Let’s see if we can bend it more,” he said. He touched the key to the other keys and stroked it again. After a few minutes the bend was about 25 degrees. Uri patted me on the back, making me feel that I had participated in the miracle. “It’s good you felt it jump, man,” he told me. “Not many people can feel that.” I was elated.

  Well, now, let’s examine that last statement of Uri’s. After a bit of experimentation, I was able to discover that if you hold a key in your palm with the length of the key across the width of the hand, then close your hand firmly with the fingers straight—that is, the first two joints of the fingers not curled under—after a moment you will feel a distinct and rather startling throb. It’s your own pulse, but it sure feels weird. It was so effective when I did the key trick for a secretary at WNEW Channel 5 in New York that she screamed and threw the key into the air when it “jumped” vigorously in her closed hand. I was as much startled as she was! The phenomenon varies greatly for different persons but try different orientations of the key, and different pressures. It will work.

  He ran into the other room to tell Jascha Katz of the success, then hugged me warmly. I gathered up my things, thanking him profusely and telling him I had seen exactly what I wanted. He walked me to the elevator. As we were saying goodbye, I heard a “plink!” and the long steel bolt bounced off his left arm onto the floor. “Is this something of yours?” he asked, picking it up.

  “Yes,” I said, “I brought it along but must have left it inside.”

  His eyes widened. “My God! Just like their ring. You have just seen a materialization!”

  I wasn’t sure about that materializing bolt, since he could have pocketed it and made it appear by sleight-of-hand; but the other powers I had seen that day seemed extraordinary and impossible to deny.

  I was a convert.

  Thus endeth Part 1 of Andy Weil in Wonderland. Stay tuned for Part 2, wherein Weil gets a surprise or two.

  During the conversation quoted in Part 1, between Weil and myself on the telephone, I invited him to come out to visit me at my home, where I would give him the Geller Treatment—but without any of the divine or supernatural pretensions. You must realize that I went into this project without the protection of the “humble act” that Geller professes. I had admitted, in advance, that I was an out-and-out fake, merely an actor pretending to accomplish miracles by using trickery. I could therefore not prevail upon Andrew Weil to allow me failures for over an hour or so and then suddenly come up with a winner; I could not ask him to excuse me from the room for long periods of time; not could I feign surprise if an already bent or broken fork suddenly were discovered on my table, as happened with Don Singleton in his meeting with Geller. I was very vulnerable.

  When I answered the door to Weil, I was immediately impressed by him. Not only did he sport a huge lumberjack-type beard, which I consider a mark of good breeding, but he was the huge, affable, open type of person that Geller must have rejoiced over. I don’t think Andy could tell a lie or steal an apple if he had to. I liked him immediately, and he liked me. But he would brook no nonsense about his subject, and with a few exceptions he believed in Geller very firmly.

  I almost felt sorry for what I had to do. I knew that in the next hour or so Andy was going to be badly shaken up, and I wanted very much to preserve his faith in his own powers of observation while convincing him that he had been only one of hundreds of competent people who had been “taken in” by Geller’s skill and reputation. That they are fooled is only testimony to their humanity; it does not reflect on their mentality. I wanted Andy spared any undeserved embarrassment.

  Here is the second episode in the education of Andrew Weil. It was preceded by an editorial back-view of the previous Part, the month before, and as Part 2 it was subtitled “The Letdown.”

  Part 2

  If a man deceive me once, shame on him. If twice, shame on me.—Proverb

  Later that night I watched the Channel Five news. There was Uri again, in a long segment, bending a key, receiving drawings, locating pieces of metal hidden in cans. The reporters presented him as unquestionably real—there was “no possibility” of deception.

  Then came a round-table discussion between the reporters and a professional magician who wanted to discredit Uri. The magician came off badly. He didn’t believe in psychic phenomena and said Geller had to be a phony. Martin Abend, the political commentator, defended Geller by recounting his own experience earlier that evening.

  “I drew two intersecting circles,” Abend told the magician, “and tried to send them to Geller. Now I think that’s an unusual sort of figure. Geller first drew two circles tangent to one another. Then he drew two intersecting circles. It was an amazing thing.”I noted with interest that Abend had not reported this incident correctly. In fact, Uri had come closest with the tangent circles. Uri’s second attempt to reproduce the hidden figure had been one circle “inside” another. Initially a skeptic, Abend had remembered what happened in a way that made Uri look even better than he was.

  Ten points for Weil here. He has correctly noted that in recalling the event, Abend made an error in Geller’s favor. The errors are seldom made the opposite way. I know from experience that persons who are under pressure to convince their listeners are apt to do just this process in order to (subconsciously) further convince themselves as well.

  Several years back, I was confronted by a man with the description of a magician performing an apparent miracle that I knew had not happene
d. He grew more and more eloquent, and hyperbole filled the air as he recounted how this wonderful gentleman had been wrapped in a straitjacket and then handcuffed, stuffed into a steel box, and thrown into a swimming pool after the box was soldered shut! When I pointed out to him that his description had to be at fault, since such a box would not sink as he had averred it had, he got very testy and began getting disagreeable. And as I explained that a man cannot be handcuffed and straitjacketed at the same time, since the hands are encased in the sleeves of the jacket and wrapped about the body, he became so belligerent that I feared for my safety. He began ranting about how we magicians wouldn’t believe it if we saw it with our own eyes. I was able to deflate his enthusiasm when I told him that he was describing the stunt / had done in New York for television about a year before. I felt I was in a position to know more about it than he was. He has never spoken to me since that time.

  The Amazing Randi

  Nevertheless, I called several friends to tell them about my evening with Uri and about my new faith in him. By then, I was sorry I had made an appointment for the next day to see James (the Amazing) Randi, a of magician who wanted to expose Geller as a trickster and who had once raised a few weak doubts in my own mind. After all, what could Randi possibly show me?

  The Amazing Randi lives in New Jersey, in a house guarded by two beautiful macaws. On the door is a Peruvian mask, which sends forth martial music when you ring the bell. The door opens from the side opposite the doorknob. Inside are mummy cases, clocks that run backwards and other strange and incongruous objects that advertise the inhabitant as a creator of illusions.Randi turned out to be a delightful host, talkative and funny, with a twinkle in his eye and a roguish look that always let you know he might be up to some trick. I told Randi what I had seen Uri undo. He listened attentively but made no comments. When I finished, he invited me over to a table covered with envelopes, paper, nails, nuts, bolts, and aluminum film canisters.

  “What shall we try first?” he said. “Some telepathy?” He invited me to take a piece of paper and three envelopes. “Go to the other end of the room or out of the room,” he instructed. “Draw any figure you like on the paper, fold it up, seal it in an envelope, seal that envelope in another envelope, and that in the third.”

  I followed his instructions and brought the sealed envelope back. Deep inside was a drawing of two intersecting circles.

  “We’ll put that aside now,” Randi said, setting it down on the table. He handed me a carton of sturdy four-inch nails. “Pick any six that you think are perfectly straight.” I did. I also looked to make sure they were all real nails. “Now put a rubber band around that bunch and set them aside.” I did so.

  “Meanwhile, let’s try one of Mr. Geller’s favorite tricks.” He picked 10 film canisters and told me to stuff one of them full of nuts and bolts”—so tightly that it won’t rattle if moved.” He went out of the room while I did what he told me. “Now mix them all up,” he shouted from the kitchen. When I had done so, Randi came back and sat down at the table.

  He studied the canisters and moved his hand over them without touching them. “I’m going to eliminate the empty ones,” he told me. “When I point to one and say it’s empty, you remove it. And set it down quietly, so I can’t tell anything from the sound.” He made passes over the canisters, just as I had seen Uri Geller do on television. “That one’s empty,” he said confidently, pointing to a canister in the middle. I removed it and set it aside. “Don’t tell me if I’m wrong,” he said. “That one’s empty.” He pointed to another. Randi had a great sense of drama; I felt involved in his performance. He eliminated another canister, and another. Finally, there were just two left. He passed his hand over each one as if feeling for emanations from the metal inside. ‘That’s empty,” he said at last, indicating the one on the left. I removed it. It was empty. The remaining can was full of nuts and bolts. He had neither touched the canisters nor jarred the table. I was amazed.

  You will read later that Geller stomped about on the floor during the break in the Carson show, since that is one method of determining which can is “different” from the others. Since Andy and I had discussed that method,

  I allowed him to believe that it was the only method, and he was watching me very carefully with this maneuver in mind. Thus, when no jarring of the cans or table was evident, he was doubly amazed. And I had set him up purposely in this way. At that moment, he was completely in the dark as to how I’d done the trick.

  “Now,” Randi told me, “that was a trick. And I’m going to show you how to do it. But I want you to promise you won’t reveal the method, because we magicians aren’t supposed to reveal secrets. This is a special case.”

  I gave my promise and Randi taught me how he did it. It was simple—so simple a child could master it. In fact, Randi said he had taught the trick to several children. It is based on a subtle but easily perceptible difference between the full can and the empty ones, a difference that can be seen by anybody who knows what to look for.

  “What if the canister is filled with water?” I asked. “It’s the same idea—you just look for different things. Do you remember when Mr. Geller tried to do that on the Tonight Show?” Randi asked. I thought I did. “Let’s look at it,” he said.

  Studying the Tapes

  Randi had a video tape machine in his house, together with recordings of most of Geller’s television appearances. “I learned how he does most of his tricks by studying these tapes,” he explained.

  We relived the famous “Tonight Show,” where Uri had failed, according to Randi, because Randi and Carson (a former magician himself) had safeguarded the props. There was Johnny Carson telling Uri to go ahead and do something. Uri stalled. There were the film canisters, one full of water. “Carson and I handled those cans in a way that eliminated the difference,” Randi said. Uri was moving his hand over the canisters. “No, I’m not getting it,” he said, and gave up. So ended one of Uri’s most famous disasters.

  But, as we have already discovered, it was not the “disaster” that Andy says it was. It served to convince the believers of the wisdom of their belief in Geller. Remember: If it were a trick, it would work every time. That’s Rule 1.

  “Now look at this,” Randi said. He turned on a video tape of the “Merv Griffin Show,” where Uri had appeared a few nights later. I heard Griffin tell his audience that Uri’s failures with Johnny Carson had convinced him Uri was real, since a trickster would never have failed. The high point of the show was the bending of a nail.

  “All right, back to the table,” Randi said. He picked up the bunch of six nails. “Let’s find one that’s absolutely straight.” He rolled each one back and forth on the table, keeping up a constant patter while eliminating any nails that had “little woggily-woggilies,” as Randi called them—slight irregularities which kept them from rolling smoothly. He ended up with one nail he liked, holding it between thumb and forefinger, midway along the shaft. “Now, keep your eye on it,” he said, “I’m going to try to bend it.” He moved it back and forth slowly and gently between his thumb and forefinger. I hardly knew what to expect.

  Suddenly the nail began to bend before my eyes. “Look at that,” Randi chuckled. Sure enough, it was bent about 30 degrees, and by a stage magician.

  I shook my head in astonishment. “Not bad, huh?” Randi asked. I allowed that it wasn’t bad at all. “That’s incredible!” I said. I took the nail. It wasn’t warm or unusual in any other way. Just bent.

  I reiterate: Weil is no dummy. He wasn’t chewing the mushroom or imbibing the grape when he saw this happen. He was merely watching a magician doing his thing. And please recall that he expected trickery.

  Then, before my eyes, Randi showed me in slow motion how he had substituted a bent nail for one of the straight ones, how he had concealed the bend from me until the proper moment and how he had then revealed it while rubbing the nail between his fingers. But I had “seen” it bend. Suddenly, I experienced a sense of how str
ongly the mind can impose its own interpretation on perceptions: how it can see what it expects to see, but not see the unexpected.

  “Now, let’s watch that tape of the ‘Merv Griffin Show’ again and see how Uri does it,” Randi suggested. Sure enough, there was Uri Geller manipulating three nails just as Randi had. And under Randi’s tutelage, I could see that one nail was never really shown in its entirety to the closeup camera, even though Uri was claiming to hold up each nail, one at a time, to prove its straightness.

  I must admit that without the facility of a video recorder, I’d have been hard-pressed to prove Geller’s methods as convincingly as I did. And, by means of tape, the proof is right there to be witnessed again and again. The “moves” cannot be denied.But do you recall the sealed envelopes? After all this carrying-on, with trips to and from the video machine, and coffee with cookies, what has happened to the envelopes?

  Andy will fail to recall one event here. I “accidentally” spilled a cup of coffee on the table and there was a moderate flap over the cleanup. (You’ll note he doesn’t even report the coffee! It seemed not to be a part of the proceedings.) I daresay the envelope went out of his sight for a few seconds. It’s possible, but I couldn’t swear to it.