The Truth About Uri Geller

by James Randi

  For many days, the experiment was tried. At the end of each session, the cords were left in a drawer nearby, and brought out again the next day. Zollner kept no record of how many cords were prepared, nor were they counted again at the close of the experiments. But after a number of days of fruitless experiment, Slade finally sat at the table with the loop hanging into his lap, the seal under his thumbs And when he again showed the loop, there were several knots tied in it! Zollner marveled, and declared the case proved.

  Several critics of Zollner have pointed out that Slade had ample opportunity to steal one of the loops, then either open the seal or duplicate it by familiar means after tying the knots. It would have then been simple to substitute the loop while seated at the table for the test. The important point, however, is that the time of performance is of Slade’s choosing.

  As for Geller, his propensity for the same procedure is becoming legend. Almost all his supporters note that he seldom does the test at the time it is expected, hurrying away to other matters and causing great chaos and distraction by so doing. At SRI and at Birkbeck, reports tell of experiments being discontinued, and then resumed the next day—with great success. The delay enabled him to familiarize himself with the equipment and with the protocol to be applied.

  I must mention that I performed the string business while at King’s College in London, but did so only at the suggestion of the experimenters, after

  they found a tiny glass tube and a scrap of string for me in the lab. They themselves jammed the string into the tube, marked the tube with a special symbol, and only allowed me to place my empty palm over the tube. Within five seconds, they picked the string from the narrow tube, and discovered a knot in the center! There was no chance for me to take the tube home or duplicate it. So there are other ways, as well . . .

  FIGURE 1. The arrangement of the sealed loop of string as Slade attempted the “4th dimension” demonstration.

  2. THE PERFORMER DISTRACTS ATTENTION AWAY FROM THE REQUESTED OR INTENDED TEST WTH ACTIONS OR SUGGESTIONS INTENDED TO RELAX OBSERVATION OF THE ORIGINAL INTENDED ACTION. Both Slade and Geller developed a dodge that magicians down through the ages have used. Slade was forever distracting the sitters at his slate-writing séances by upsetting things from the table, opening the sealed slates repeatedly to examine them for results when there were no results, and otherwise had his victims looking all over the room—except where the tricks were taking place. Geller achieves what has been described by observers as “sheer disorder” when being tested, and he is allowed to get away with it because he threatens to leave if annoyed by objections. Geller almost consistently will pass up a key offered for bending, turning to another one or an entirely different test, allowing attention to be taken from the original intent. Then when the first key is examined, if it is miraculously found to be bent. The action has taken place during the distraction.

  3. THE ORIGINAL GOAL IS SWITCHED AND THE NEW GOAL IS ACCEPTED. Slade frequently managed to switch the goal intended, and gained acceptance of the experiment as modified. For example, when Zollner had two wooden rings prepared, each of different woods, he intended that Slade—through his obviously good connections in higher levels of existence—should cause the two to link. He gave the rings to Slade, who sat at a small pedestal table and held them below the top. To the surprise of the experimenters, the rings ended up around the pedestal of the table! (See Figure 2.) Says Zollner, in Transcendental Physics:

  From the foregoing it will be seen that my prepared experiments did not succeed in the manner “expected” by me. For example, the two wooden rings were not linked together, but instead were transferred within five minutes from the sealed catgut to the leg of the round birchen table. Since the seal was not loosened, and the top of the table was “not at any time” removed—it is still tightly fastened—it follows, from the standpoint of our present conception of space, that each of the two wooden rings penetrated, first the catgut, and then the birch wood of the leg of the table. If however, I ask whether, in the eyes of a sceptic, the experiment desired by me, or that which actually succeeded, is most fitted to make a great and convincing impression, on closer consideration every one will decide in favour of the latter.

  This last statement is, of course, pure drivel!

  Uri, too, has discovered this useful gimmick.

  FIGURE 4. The wooden-ring test that fooled Zollner.

  Often he will select a key from among many on a that ring, and though the chosen object does not respond to his psychic urging, another key on the ring does. When he tries to “project” a number or word to a person in the audience, that person may not “get” it, but anyone else who agrees with Uri’s choice is declared “psychic” and credited with a “hit.” And of course Geller takes credit for another “win.”

  4. THE PERSON TESTED IS ALLOWED TO SUGGEST TESTS AND CONDITIONS FOR TESTS, THUS SETTING LIMITS WITHIN WHICH HE CAN OPERATE. “Dr.” Slade suggested experiments, as well as procedures during these experiments. He would get messages in his head from the “higher planes,” which said it would be preferable to have the slates across the room while the messages were developing. Often he would feel that the very room they were in was not suitable, and he’d have to leave, slates in hand, to try elsewhere. These distractions were necessary so he could work his tricks, and the suggestions were later looked upon as quite legitimate and ingenious. Geller as well has made very useful innovations in scientific procedure and can be counted on to come up with wonderful ideas for new tests, all of which work, of course.

  5. PROPS ARE NOT ACCOUNTED FOR AFER THE TESTS. When Slade was tested by Zollner, many duplicates of props (like the sealed string loops) were left about unused. After the test had apparently succeeded, no accounting was made of the unused props. In similar fashion, when Uri was tested at SRI, the dozens of unused envelopes in the clairvoyance test were not opened and checked afterward to see if they were the same ones that were sealed up. No one bothered, because the tests were over with! But therein might have been the solution to the Geller performance. We will never know, for sure. Science has seen to it that the case is closed.

  6. ACCOUNTS OF THE TIME INVOLVED TO COMPLETE TEST ARE NOT GIVEN, WHEN THAT FACTOR COULD ACTUALLY BE VERY IMPORTANT IN ANALYZING THE TESTS. Similarly, for both the Slade and Geller tests, the time element is very difficult to determine. At SRI, we are told only that the tests varied “from a few minutes to a half-hour.” With Zollner, even less information is available. Of course, I do not expect to obtain Zollner’s information. He is very much deceased. But from SRI, which spent so much money and time on the Geller tests just recently, we might expect an answer. We have none; at least they will not in any way communicate with me on the subject. Perhaps they have excellent reasons for not giving me that information.

  7. PARTICIPANTS ARE CREDITED WITH PARANORMAL POWERS AND ARE SAID TO HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO THE SUCCESS OR FAILURE OF THE DEMONSTRATION. The lay participants in the performances are often given the notion that they, too, can perform the miracles. Shade many times remarked upon the wonderful powers possessed by the sitters, and gave them credit for the results. Bear in mind that people so flattered are apt to get a bit gushy and relax just a mite more than ordinarily. Blame for a failure can be assigned to them by the same token.

  Geller has a great trick when he appears before an audience on stage. He says he will “project” an image to a person; if the person fails to “get” the correct image, Geller is faultless. The receiver is the dope; he wasn’t concentrating enough. On the other hand, if the test works, both Geller and the goof are happy.

  8. OTHER SUPERNATURAL FORCES DICTATE CONDITIONS AND INSTRUCTIONS; THUS THE PERFORMERS ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ERRORS OF INTERPRETATION. I have already mentioned that Slade claimed that spirits suggested many of the conditions for tests through their almost constant communication with him. Geller has the equivalent in the voices from Hoova, a fictitious planet from which come flying saucers, untold wisdom, and voices recording themselves on tap
e cassettes that then either erase themselves or dematerialize. How convenient! Seems the Watergate evidence did the same thing. Who’s copying whom?

  9. IF AMATEURS, WHO ARE NOT TRAINED CONJURORS, CAN DO THE TRICKS, THEY ARE THE REAL THING, AND THE REALITY OF THE PHENOMENON ITSELF IS ESTABLISHED. Slade’s efforts at spirit slate-writing were deemed the real thing by Zollner because he discovered that two innocent ladies could also do it! As Sir Oliver Lodge, the prominent British scientist, was to say some years later about these matters, “As regards collusion and trickery, no one who has witnessed the absolutely genuine and artless manner in which the impressions are described, but has been perfectly convinced of the transparent honesty of all concerned.”

  Apparently, the idea is that if amateurs can do it, it must be genuine! The same philosophy is reflected today by Professor John Taylor of King’s College, London, who wrote the book, already mentioned, on the subject of children who bend spoons and strips of metal a la Geller. He says he trusts them even to take home a spoon, then bring it back bent—and he believes them when they say they did it by some supernatural force! Why? Because they are not professional conjurors, so could not deceive? On this premise rests much of Taylor’s belief in Geller, aside from the fact that he is a very bad observer when Geller is working with him.

  10. CHEATING BY THE PERFORMERS IS EXPECTED AND EXCUSABLE. THEY CANT HELP IT. (This is our old friend, Rule for Psychics 2!) If the performers have been convicted of, or caught at, fraud, does it make any difference to their believability? Of course not! Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, prominent dupe of spiritualists, stated: “That mediums I have recommended have been convicted of fraud; any medium may be convicted, because the mere fact of being a medium is illegal by our benighted laws, but no medium I have ever recommended has been shown to be fraudulent in a sense that would be accepted by any real psychic student. This same applies I believe to mediums recommended by Sir Oliver Lodge.” Well, Sir Oliver wasn’t too bright on the subject either!

  Slade was caught cheating in England. He was taken to court on a charge of fraud, convicted, and sentenced to three months at hard labor. On a technicality in the wording of the charge, he was freed again, and before new warrants could be issued he and his assistant fled to France, never to return to England. Though this was not the only time he was caught, it was certainly the most serious fall he took. Was Zollner fazed by this? Not at all. In fact, it bolstered his belief in the man Slade:

  It has been alleged as a characteristic of “all” such mediums, that notwithstanding the most wonderful occurrences in their proximity, they have yet the inclination to deceive, that is, when opportunity offers, to produce the desired effect by such operations as they consciously endeavor to hide from observation. Having regard to the great danger of such attempts to the medium, and to the entire disproportion between the effects which can be so produced by an inexperienced trickster and those resulting from genuine mediumship, the question arises whether, when this is the case with a medium who has been proved with certainty to be really such, the same consideration does not apply as with persons suffering under so-called kleptomania? It is asserted that a well-known and highly-gifted lady in distinguished circles of Berlin society suffers from this disease. For example, after making large purchases at a jeweler’s shop, she will secretly abstract an ornament, which, when she had got home, she will return by her servants to the proprietor. Sometimes a similar perversion of the moral instinct appears with women in the state of pregnancy. In all these cases we do not hold the persons in question morally accountable for these proceedings, since the end attained thereby is out of all proportion, considering the innocent and suitable means at hand. Although I never, during my thirty sittings and other intercourse with Mr. Slade, perceived anything of such perverse methods, yet I ask every unprejudiced person whether, if this has been the case elsewhere, the above morally and legally admissible judgment in relation to kleptomaniacs is not here also exculpatory, considering the certainly anomalous physiological constitution of such mediums.

  And Geller? In Israel, as we have seen earlier, he was also charged through the courts, and a settlement was made in favor of the plaintiff. He has been caught many times cheating, yet believers just smile and sigh that he is compelled to cheat in order to convince the ignorant of the reality of his powers! Geller himself gave a good insight into this angle when he said, after a technician for Thames TV in London saw him bending a large spoon (while the film was being changed, as we might suspect) that, “Oh, sure, there’s always someone who says they saw me cheating!” That’s right from the horse’s mouth folks.

  11. FAILURE IS PROOF OF GENUINE PARANORMAL POWERS, WHICH ONLY WORK IN A SPORADIC AND UNPREDICTABLE FASHION. Re Slade, Zollner says, in Transcendental Physics:

  The question will moreover be asked, why just here in Leipzig the experiments with Mr. Slade have been crowned with such splendid success, and yet the knot experiment, for example, has not once succeeded in Russia, notwithstanding so many wishes. If it is considered how great an interest Mr. Slade must have in seeing so simple and striking an experiment everywhere and always successful, every rightly judging and unprejudiced person must see just in this circumstance the most striking proof that Mr. Slade is no trickster who by clever manipulations makes these knots himself. For such an one would evidently be at trouble so to increase his expert- ness, by frequent repetition of the experiment, as to be able to rely with certainty on his art to deceive other “men of science.”

  It seems that (see Rule for Psychics 1) consistency in performance is a sin. Slade was certainly judged by this rule, which allowed him many failures. Geller? Of course the same rule applies. The experts have already been quoted here as saying that his many misses prove his reality. If he were always successful, he’d be suspect!

  12. THE FEATS AND COMMUNICATIONS OF HIGHER POWERS APPEAR TRIVIAL TO US MORTALS BECAUSE THEY ARE TOO DEEP FOR OUR PRIMITIVE INTELLECTS. Many complaints came to Zollner about the trivial nature of the messages that Slade was able to cause to appear on the slates. They were inspiring things like, “Be of good heart. Better lies ahead,” and, “The roses of spring wither only to grow again.” But Zollner had seen through that mystery, too. Replied this great thinker:

  It has further been asked, why the communications which are written for Mr. Slade on his slates, as is supposed by invisible spirits, are for the most part so commonplace, and so completely within the compass of human knowledge; high spirits must yet necessarily write with more genius, and also spell properly. A private teacher of philosophy at Berlin having made this objection to me personally, on his visit to Leipzig, I observed to him that any communication transcending the present horizon of our understanding must necessarily appear to us absurd and incomprehensible, and I quoted to him the following words of Lichtenberg: “If an angel were to discourse to us of his philosophy, I believe that many propositions would sound to us like ‘2 and 2 makes 13’.” Far from understanding me, that young philosopher asked me quite seriously, and with an expression of the highest curiosity, whether such propositions, then, ever appeared on Mr. Slade’s slates to attest their angelic origin. Completely unprepared for such a naive question, I was silent, and looked with some astonishment at my young philosopher, who had even already published a book on the new theory of space. Without replying, I thought, “Only wait; soon thou also wilt be at rest’ (“Warte nur, bald ruhest auch du”), as regular professor of philosophy in the bosom of some famous German university, and then will it be with thy students just as with us “if an angel discoursed to us of his philosophy”; for Lichtenberg says, “We live in a world where one fool makes many fools, but one wise man only a few wise men.”

  When some have objected to the trivial things Geller does, such as key-bending and other infantile pranks, Puharich is not at all unable to explain. Even the words of “M,” who speaks from a medium’s mouth, are drivel: “M calling. We are Nine Principles and Forces... working in complete mutual implication... Peace is not warl
essness. Peace is the integral fruitage of warlessness... now that the increment in the mass is exactly to the range of seven by an approximation of ninety-nine percent to the velocity of light, that is a kind of indicator...” and so on. Puharich tells us that we are not yet ready to have the deep knowledge that is contained in these pronouncements. Even a rapt believer like Professor John Taylor was left out of the race when he examined these messages from beyond. He was particularly shocked at the equations given Geller from the flying saucers. Says Taylor: “... they were simply wrong!” Here, I believe him. Because he is a mathematician.

  13. VOICES COME FROM BEYOND TO COMFORT THE RIDICULED PROPHETS OF THE NEW TRUTHS. Zollner received a message from the spirits via Slade which said:

  Persevere firmly and courageously untroubled about thy opponents, whose daggers drawn upon thee will turn back upon themselves. The scattered seed will find a good soil: the minds of good men, although lower natures are not able to value it. In what you have witnessed, others later on will discover new beauties which escape you at the time. For science it will be an event of unprecedented significance. We rejoice that the atmospheric conditions have been favourable to us, for the conditions must be present, and, in part, prepared. They cannot be explained any more than those, for example, which must immediately precede the falling asleep. Neither in the one case nor in the other can they be compelled. Many enemies of the movement will be its friends, as one of the most important—Carpenter, whose antagonistic disposition has been already now, through thy labours, somewhat shaken, and who later will be thy fellow labourer in the same field . . .