The Truth About Uri Geller

by James Randi

  Fact: Captain Mitchell was not at SRI for any of the experimentation reported in Nature, but rather only during early efforts to find whether it was possible to introduce strict protocols as was finally done successfully.

  My response: Mitchell was there during the filming but he was such a stickler for protocol that Geller preferred he leave during other sessions. Remember, these tests were done Geller’s way or they were not done at all, or else they were done but not reported because they failed. Mitchell’s comment is not less interesting just because he was subsequently shut out.

  (13) Randi (p. 61): 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. (Referring to Experiments 5-7)

  Fact: Two of the three experiments (6 and 7) were carried out under the same conditions as all of the others—no potential confederates in the target area. The third experiment (Exp. 5) was a special clairvoyance experiment—again with no potential confederate in the target area.

  My response: So what? When there was no way of doing the trick (and it was most often done through a confederate) Geller “passed”—or, as in the “devil” episode, resorted to tried-and-true desperation measures and succeeded. Remember, there were many “experiments” with Geller—and others at SRI—that failed and were never reported.

  (14) Randi (p. 62): [With regard to the Faraday cage experiments.] He could even reach his arm out of the cage. What is to prevent Shipi from signaling these three to Geller? Nothing.

  Fact: The Faraday cage is entirely sealed and guarded. Only by opening the door can one reach out. With regard to Shipi acting as a confederate to signal to Geller, again, as in all experiments, neither Shipi nor any other potential confederate was permitted into the target area or knew of the target, a precaution insisted upon and followed as a result of advice from consulting magicians.

  My response: I was told that the large mesh of the “cage” allowed one to reach out. I was never able to see the cage, or a photo of it, though opening the screen door is obviously not difficult. Hannah Shtrang was in the target area this time and was a general “gopher,” thus being provided with an excellent opportunity to act as a confederate. Many people wandering by asked to see the target and were shown it. The control on this test was ridiculous

  (15) Randi (p. 65): And is it not curious that this Geller test series was never reprinted or mentioned by any of his SRI disciples? [Referring to the 100-envelope double-blind clairvoyance test that Geller failed.]

  Fact: This test, with its negative results, is also in the Nature paper, fourth paragraph from the end of the section on Geller.

  My response: There is no way that anyone could identify the 100=envelope test reported in Nature with the Rebert/Otis test. T and P say, in Nature, “On each day he made approximately 12 recognizable drawings, which he felt were associated with the entire target pool of 100. On each of the three days, two of his drawings could reasonably be associated with two of the 20 daily targets. On the third day, two of his drawings were very close replications of two of that day’s target pictures.” Fact: There was never any provision for “associating” drawings with the entire pool. He was to tell the contents of one envelope at a time. T and P are attempting to salvage something from these failed tests, which they had to report since they were designed by others at SRI.

  Fact: The episode on the third day took place after the test was officially terminated and involved a special set of six envelopes not in the original target pool. Geller left the room several times during the tests and scored direct hits on two envelopes. Rebert solved that one; anyone could.

  (16) Randi (p. 73): . . . agreed to examine Geller’s claims, with the arrangement that if the results were not positive no report would be issued . . . Did Geller have the same arrangement with the boys at SRI before he agreed to be tested there? I’ll bet he did!

  Fact: Negative results on compass deflection and metal bending are reported in the SRI film “Experiments with Uri Geller,” Columbia Physics Coloquium, March 6, 1973, and negative results on metal bending and 100-envelope clairvoyance test are reported in Nature, October, 1974.

  My response: T and P refuse to answer direct questions! Note that here they skirt the implication, never saying that they did not have any such arrangement with Geller. To have no negative tests—a 100 percent success—would be too good. (I’ll still bet that Geller had the boys over a barrel with such an arrangement!)

  (17) Randi (p. 100): Now, SRI, in its great wisdom, has called in a magician briefly as consultant. Not before Geller’s tests, mind you, but after. With them, the alarm system is installed after the robbery. It is interesting to note that when Geller did a subsequent series of tests there (p. 65), he failed. Any connection?

  Fact: SRI called in a magician as consultant before any of the tests with Geller, not after. (A magician who specializes in exposing poltergeist cases as frauds.) If Randi is referring only to Milbourne Christopher, no tests, including those of page 65, were done after Christopher’s consultancy, all work with Geller having been completed before Christopher’s arrival.

  My response: See my response to point 3.

  (18) Randi (p. 115): And the SRI public relations man (who his since quit the organization) called Wilhelm of Time to see what could be done about the story.

  Fact: SRI’s public relations man, Ron Deutsch, did not quit the organization over this or any other issue, and is still there.

  My response: Fellows, I never said that Ron Deutsch quit “over this . . . issue”! I merely reported what I had been told, that he had left SRI. T and P are partly correct: Deutsch, at the time T and P wrote, was still at SRI; he left shortly afterward.

  (19) Ray Hyman quoted by Randi (p. 135): “So I asked them [Puthoff and Targ] if he could bend them without touching them (metal rings). They told me he could do it either way. I asked Puthoff if he or anyone else at SRI had seen Uri do it without touching the ring. They never did answer me. They simply assured me that he could do it either way.”

  Fact: The above is false reporting. It is well known that Puthoff and Targ of SRI have been agnostic on the subject of metal bending since the beginning, and reported thus both in the SRI film and in the Nature paper.

  My response: Here we either accept Hyman’s word, or call him a liar (see my point 1). He is a reputable investigator, with no reason at all to fabricate his story. He prepared a report in writing, for Washington, immediately upon his return from SRI. His visit predated the Nature paper by almost two years, well before T and P had abandoned all efforts to get metal-bending evidence from Geller and were forced to fall back on their poorly controlled “ESP” tests to submit as a report on what they’d done with the money.

  (20) Randi (p. 142): First of all, Taylor’s statement about the magician is not true. Where he got that idea, I cannot tell. There was no magician present.

  Fact: Taylor’s statement is true; he got it from SRI researchers. A magician was present.

  My response: Taylor’s actual words, reported in the book (page 142) are, “Some experiments were scrutinized by a magician on television monitors...” The account implies strongly that the magician (Christopher) watched the experiments in progress, not months afterwards! There was no magician there watching those experiments. Hastings had been forbidden to watch, remember? See my response to point 3.

  (21) Randi (p. 154): You might recall, professor, that your counterparts in America—Targ and Puthoff—obtained single-sided pulses when Uri tried to hex a sensitive weighing device. And no one thought to try testing the chart recorder then, either.Fact: As is apparent from the SRI film: (a) the chart recorder was remote from Geller in the experiment, and (b) the chart recorder was continuously monitored by film and videotape, specifically as a guard against chicanery.

  My response: T and P make my point for me! The recorder was remote from Geller, and they were watching Geller. The recorder could not have been monitored while Geller was monit
ored!Q.E.D.

  (22) Randi (p. 167): And, finally, as if there were not enough doubts about the procedure used to conduct this “test,” Time’s Wilhelm has reported that the set of tries with the die actually consisted of many hundreds of throws, the object being to get a run of consecutive wins.

  Fact: There was no selection of a good run out of “hundreds of throws.” There were ten throws only, as reported in the Nature paper, eight of which were correctly guessed by Geller, two of which were passed. All the throws were reported.

  My response: (a) The throws were made, a few at a time, over a period of days. This is not “an experiment.” It is a series of sporadic demonstrations. (b) There were die tests made before and after the SRI “official” tests, (c) Tests were also made at Psychic magazine. (Puthoff recently admitted these, and excepted them from the “real” tests.) (d) The tests were done at irregular times, when Geller felt “inspired” to do them. As usual, he was running the tests. Pressman, the SRI photographer, reported to a scientist there that the successful tests were not done while he was present but were reported to him by Puthoff the next day. If that is the case, the filmed tests were re-enactments, in direct contradiction to the official text of the SRI film. Pressman now denies that he told anyone that. See my book Flim-Flam! for details.

  (23) Randi (p. 167): An elaborate hypothesis is put forward as to how Geller might have handled the dice box and cheated.

  Fact: Film and videotape show otherwise, and magicians examining this material have failed to detect a conjuring trick.

  My response: “Film and videotape show otherwise”? I have asked to see this evidence, and have been denied. The only film we may see is of a pass! Why, if there is other film and videotape available that proves their point, did T and P choose to show a pass?

  (24) Randi (p. 250): Targ and Puthoff say, in a letter to Communications Society magazine, that, “In lengthy consultation with professional magicians, no viable conjuring explanation for these or other experiments reported in Nature has emerged.” What magicians? If these gentlemen have examined this book carefully, they may now have another conclusion.

  Fact: Having examined this book carefully, we find that in every instance Randi, in his efforts to fault the SRI experiments, was driven to hypothesize the existence of a loophole condition that did not, in fact, exist. If Randi believes that the conditions he hypothesized were responsible for the results of those SRI experiments with Geller that were successful, then, by their negation, Randi has provided further evidence for the genuineness of the phenomena as observed and reported.

  My response: I am pleased to see that whatever was presented in The Magic of Uri Geller as speculation has been validated in the years since. In this “Fact Sheet” Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff not only failed to rebut my book; they got themselves in deeper than ever before. All the semantic trickery and verbal obfuscation employed by T and P (and I admit they are fairly good at it) will not serve to excuse their attempt to jam the Geller “phenomenon” down the unwilling throats of science and the public. There are those who will continue to believe that in the 1970s science validated the powers of an Israeli psychic; those who read this book and Flim-Flam! will know otherwise. The public can be deceived for a while, but truth is annoyingly persistent.

  APPENDIX

  GLOSSARY

  Apport: to transfer from one place to another by “psychic” means; an object so transferred. Very rare.

  Clairvoyance: purported ability to see or know a fact without normal sense perception, and without the fact being known to another person.

  Conjuring: art of trickery, sleight of hand, admitted jugglery.

  Control: in lab tests, the system for obviating trickery or false interpretation of results from poor data-gathering. Two kinds: good and bad.

  ESP: see Extrasensory perception.

  Extrasensory perception: apparent perceiving of facts without use of normal senses: includes clairvoyance and woman’s intuition.

  Kirilian photography: process of registering high-voltage discharges on film or photographic paper. Harmless diversion.

  Levitation: raising or suspension of an object without apparent means of physical support. Common conjuror’s mise en scene.

  Magic: attempt to control nature by spells or incantation or by invoking supernatural help. Often also used to denote conjuring.

  Materialization: causing an object or person to assume real form or visible shape; calling up ghosts and spirits.

  Medium: person purporting to have the power or nature necessary to call up spirits or to cause supernatural events: fortune-teller.

  Paranormal: term used by modern researchers to define supernatural or extrasensory abilities or events. New, fancy term.

  Parapsychology: the study of paranormal events or abilities. Not a science, but an art.

  PK: see Psychokinesis.

  Plant communication: purported process whereby vegetables speak with one another and with humans, and react to human emotions.

  Poltergeist: “mischievous spirit” that throws objects about. Not surprisingly, often found in households where neglected teenager is also found.

  Precognition: purported ability to see the future.

  Psi: (letter of Greek alphabet) used to designate any supposed paranormal event or process.

  Psychic: person said to have paranormal abilities. These days, not as rare as previously.

  Psychokinesis: purported ability to move objects at a distance without physical means. (Not as much fun as levitation.)

  Second sight: see Clairvoyance.

  Sensitive: person said to be sensitive to ESP. (Also, I find, sensitive to skepticism.)

  Spiritualism: religious cult devoted to calling up and communicating with dead people. Very depressing matter, with much singing.

  Target: in research, the object or word decided upon to test ESP.

  Telepathy: supposed process whereby thoughts are transferred from mind to mind, directly. Popular premise with conjurors.

  Teleportation: claimed process whereby objects are moved instantly over any distance without physical means. Interesting, but unlikely.

  UFO: Unidentified Flying Objects; flying saucer; alien spaceship; anything seen in the sky and not understood instantly.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  A Magician Among the Spirits, by Harry Houdini. Harper & Row, New York, 1924.

  Arigo: Surgeon of the Rusty Knife, by John Fuller, Thomas Y. Crowell, New York, 1974.

  Cults of Unreason, by Christopher Evans, Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, New York, 1973.

  ESP: A Scientific Evaluation, by Dr. C. E. M. Hansel, New York. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1966. (Revised and expanded edition: ESP and Parapsychology, Prometheus Books, Amherst, N.Y., 1980.)

  ESP: The Search Beyond the Senses, by Daniel Cohen, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1973.

  Mediums, Mystics and the Occult, by Milbourne Christopher. Thomas Y. Crowell, New York, 1975.

  My Story, by Uri Geller, Praeger, New York, 1975.

  Psychic Exploration, by Edgar Mitchell, G. P. Putnam’s, New York. 1974.

  Science: Good Bad and Bogus, by Martin Gardner, Prometheus Books, Amherst, N.Y., 1981.

  Superminds, by John Taylor, Macmillan, London, 1975.

  The Supernatural? by Lionel A. Weatherly and J.N. Maskelyne, J.W. Arrowsmith, 1891.

  Test Your ESP Potential, by James Randi, Dover, New York, 1982.

  Transcendental Physics, by J. C. F. Zollner, Ballantyne Press. London, 1880.

  Uri: The Journal of the Mystery of Uri Geller, by A. Puharich, Anchor Press, New York, 1974.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  James Randi first achieved international recognition as a professional stage magician, beginning as a mentalist and later identified as one of the best escape artists in the history of magic. During his long and successful career, he performed as “The Amazing Randi” to international audiences in theaters, cabaret, and on TV.

  Today, James Randi is best k
nown as a tireless investigator of paranormal, supernatural, and pseudoscientific claims. His devotion to the rigorous examination of such claims has led to the exposure of faith healers, psychics, medical frauds, and cult leaders. He is considered by many to be the most important figure in modern skepticism for these contributions, as well as for his work in raising public awareness about the dangers of uncritical belief.

  He lectures regularly at leading colleges and universities, academic meetings and events like The Amaz!ng Meeting, the world’s largest critical thinking conference, which he helped to found in 2003. He is the author of hundreds of articles and numerous books, including, The Truth About Uri Geller, The Faith Healers, and An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural.