Paranonsense | Martin Gardner | The New York Review of Books

You suspect someone of habitually cheating at cards. Whom would you hire as a secret observer to settle the matter? A physicist? A self-proclaimed psychic goes about performing miracles exactly like the feats of magicians who specialize in what the trade calls "mentalism." You suspect the psychic of cheating. Whom do you call upon as an expert witness? A physicist? One of the saddest, most persistent aspects of the history of alleged psychic phenomena is that there always has been a small, noisy group of scientists who, combining enormous egotism with even greater gullibility, actually imagine that they are competent to detect psychic fraud. Let's take a quick look at a prize specimen: Johann Zöllner, an Austrian professor of astrophysics. In the 1870s Zöllner was bowled over by the miracles of an American medium, Henry Slade. Slade was a handsome scoundrel whose most unusual flimflam was causing knots to appear on closed loops of cord. He also was a virtuoso in producing, on blank slates, insipid chalked messages from discarnates in the "other world." He could wave his hand over a compass and make the needle gyrate. Small objects, sometimes water, had a way of falling out of the air near him. Not once was Zöllner capable of seriously entertaining the hypothesis that so charming a gentleman as Slade could be a fraud. Indeed, Zöllner rushed into print an entire book about Slade, Transcendental Physics, in which he argued that physical space has four dimensions, and Slade had a supermind capable of moving test materials in and out of four-space. The book is a classic case, written by an honest but stupid pedagogue. Magicians read it today with hilarity because Slade's methods are well known, and by reading between the lines they can reconstruct what Slade was doing. I myself, a lifelong student of conjuring, never expected to see a later volume that would demonstrate, with so much unconscious humor, how easily a scientist can be hornswoggled by the simplest of deceptions. Until I read Superminds. This big, glossy book, plastered with sensational photographs of levitated tables and mediums, and forks twisted by the superminds of grinning children and pretty ladies, must be seen to be believed. That it should be written at all, by a man who now runs the risk of being remembered only as the British boob of the century, is more improbable than any "miracle" it describes. The book is subtitled, "A scientist looks at the paranormal." It should have been subtitled, "A scientist gapes at Uri Geller," because Geller, the young and handsome Israeli prestidigitator who insists he never prestidigitates, is both the book's immediate cause as well as its superstar. It all began in November, 1973, when John Taylor, then forty-two, appeared on a BBC television show with Uri. Taylor, a respected mathematical physicist at Kings College, London, had expected to be unimpressed. Instead, he became bug-eyed with astonishment. Uri performed his now familiar, increasingly tiresome, little bag of tricks. He made a fork bend. He started a stopped watch. He duplicated a drawing inside sealed envelopes. Magicians watching the show were singularly unimpressed. But Dr. Taylor and his friends, who sometimes call themselves "counterculture physicists," suffer from a peculiar syndrome which I call PPE or "premature psi ejaculation." Instead of waiting for a psychic to be tested by skeptical psychologists, aided by competent magicians, whenever a CCP sees a self-dubbed psychic do a few magic tricks he instantly pronounces the feats genuine and fires off a press release, article, or book. This is how Taylor describes his emotions after testing Uri in his laboratory: One clear observation of Geller in action had an overpowering effect on me. I felt as if the whole framework with which I viewed the world had suddenly been destroyed. I seemed very naked and vulnerable, surrounded by a hostile, incomprehensible universe. It was many days before I was able to come to terms with this sensation. After Taylor regained his composure, he discovered that he had become a true Gellerite. Not only does Uri possess a supermind (the best), but hundreds of British children (Taylor believes) also can produce the "Geller effect"—making objects bend and break by a power of the mind. Like his CCP friends, Taylor is less interested in proving the Geller effect exists (after all, has he not personally witnessed it?) than in measuring it and developing a theory. What force of nature is responsible? Gravity? The weak force? Neutrinos? Conjectured particles such as tachyons, intermediate bosons, magnetic monopoles, quarks? He finally settles on electromagnetism as the most likely candidate. Taylor's ignorance of conjuring is almost total. Describing Uri's reproduction of a drawing inside envelopes, he writes, "No methods known to science can explain his revelation of that drawing…." Well, what about methods not known to science? I can assure Professor Taylor that there are more than thirty distinct techniques by which a mentalist can accomplish just such a feat, the methods varying with conditions under which the performer is restrained.[^1] After watching Geller make a compass needle rotate by waving his hand above it, Taylor attempted to imitate Uri's movements. He even tried stamping on the ground. Nothing happened. "Nor could Geller have been using a magnet," he writes with incredible presumption, "unless he could palm it with consummate skill…." It never occurred to Taylor—why should it?—that a magnet need not be palmed to make a compass needle move. When Slade performed this old trick he had the magnet in the tip of a shoe. He crossed his legs, and when he wanted the needle to turn he simply raised the tip of his shoe to the table's underside.[^2] Another handy spot for a magnet is under the trousers on the knee. Today one can obtain powerful, flexible little magnets that are wafer-thin and easily concealed in the mouth between lower teeth and cheek. When Uri moved the compass needle on Tom Snyder's Tomorrow Show (August 14, 1975) he had the magnet either in his mouth or sewn in his shirt collar. This was evident from the fact that, each time the needle deflected, Uri's head darted close to the compass. By vigorously milking his left fist over the compass, Uri misdirected attention from his head. Then he put the compass on the floor, the camera glided in for a close up, and no viewer could see where Uri's head was. But I'm already in trouble with some of my magic friends for revealing too much. On page 52 Taylor describes a closely related miracle. Geller produced bursts of noise in a Geiger counter. Did Taylor or any of the other brilliant CCPs present think of inspecting Geller afterward to see if he had a bit of harmless radioactive substance concealed on his person? It never occurred to them! Magicians are understandably reluctant to expose Geller's methods. There is even a small group of mentalists who regard Uri as "one of the boys," no different from Kreskin and other pros except that by acting the role of a psychic more convincingly, and introducing innovations such as bending car keys and silverware, Uri is making more money than they are. I disagree. There is, in my opinion, a qualitative difference between Uri's career and the careers of the great mentalists of the past. Uri is not in the tradition of such entertainers as Anna Eva Fay and Joseph Dunninger. Uri is in the tradition of the great physical mediums of the nineteenth century. True, the spirits of the departed have departed from most of today's psi laboratories, but in their places are those mysterious energies "unknown to science," possibly emanating from superminds in outer space. There is the same damage to science and to individual lives. Consider some of the effects of Uri's ruthless pursuit of money and adulation. Andrija Puharich, at one time respected by his colleagues in parapsychology, has had his career reduced to shambles. Prominent journalists and scientists, and one brave astronaut who walked on the moon, have been made to appear almost feeble-minded. Thousands of others, especially among the young, have been so dazzled by Uri that they believe him to be in the vanguard of a new revolution in human consciousness. For these and other reasons I cannot agree with those magicians who snipe at James Randi, professional conjuror, for his just published paperback, The Magic of Uri Geller. It is an excellent book, sensible, well-informed, witty, compassionate, and utterly devastating. Uri has often hinted that anyone who attacks him is in danger of being whammied by his great powers. Indeed, in Puharich's addlepated book, Uri, Geller professes to be dismayed over an occasion on which he became angry at someone, wished him harm, and the poor man obediently died. But Randi doesn't scare easy. The Magic of Uri Geller is a collection of eye-opening articles by skeptics, mixed with amusing and acid commentary by the Amazing Randi. Joe Hanlon, who wrote the New Scientist’s excellent special issue on Geller (October 17, 1974), gives his reasons for believing Uri to be a mountebank. Andrew Weil's two-part article in Psychology Today is here: Part 1 telling how Uri bamboozled him, Part 2 recording his disenchantment after seeing Randi bend keys faster and under better controls. The inside details of Uri's failure to impress Leon Jaroff and other editors of Time is faithfully told in contrast to Puharich's muddied account. Did Uri once teleport himself from a sofa in Puharich's home in Ossining to the streets of Rio, then return with a thousand cruzeiro note? Uri says yes, but read Randi's chapter 8! Yale Joel, a Life photographer, discloses how Uri was caught faking a photo supposedly taken of himself without removing the camera's lens cap. How does Uri repair "broken" watches? See chapter 12. Why did Uri bomb on the Johnny Carson show? Was it because Uri was nervous, or because Johnny, an ex-magician, never allowed Uri or his friends access to the test materials before the show began? How did Uri manage to "melt" a spoon so convincingly for Barbara Walters that for a year her outlook on life was changed? One of Uri's most sensational achievements in clairvoyance, when he was tested at the Stanford Research Institute, was guessing eight times in a row the top face of a die that had been shaken in a metal file box by "one of the experimenters." Is there a simple way Uri could have cheated? There is indeed. Joaquin Argamasilla, a young Spanish magician, convinced many CCPs that his "X-ray eyes" could see through steel and silver boxes. Houdini exposed the Spaniard's technique in a rare pamphlet that Randi reprints; then Randi makes a shrewd guess about how Uri could have used the same basic method. Perhaps the most damaging chapter in Randi's explosive book is the translation of an article about Uri that appeared last year in a Tel Aviv weekly paper. Itzhaak Saban, a former friend of Uri who served as his chauffeur in Israel, told the reporter how he once "stooged" for Uri by secretly signaling information from a front seat during Uri's stage performances. Hannah Shtrang, older sister of Uri's inseparable companion, Shipi, tells how Uri and Shipi first became interested in conjuring, how they developed Uri's stage show, and how Shipi became Uri's number one confederate. In those days Uri introduced Shipi as his brother. He would refuse to perform unless "little brother" had a front row seat. Hannah herself sometimes took over signaling chores. "Uri and Shipi used to train for long hours together," said Hannah, "even after he was already famous, drilling together on the drawing and reproduction of certain objects after they cast only a quick glance at them." Saban showed the reporter how Uri uses sleight of hand to change the hands on a watch, apparently "without touching it in any way." When anyone mentions the scientists who have certified Geller, the reporter writes, Saban "reacts with a wide know-it-all grin." The most hilarious sections in Randi's book are those in which he tells of his adventures in England early this year while gathering material for his book. Disguised as James Zwinge (his real name), a supermind from Canada, Randi visited the offices of Psychic News, London's leading psychic periodical. The office was soon in an uproar as Zwinge leaped about "Gellerizing" object after object. The result: a picture of Zwinge on the front page of the July 26 issue, and a big story about the awesome powers of this strange man "with a gray beard and intense eyes" who "seemed to radiate a magnetic aura." A spoon bent and broke. A cabinet key twisted. A paper knife bent 45 degrees. "All could vouch Zwinge had not been near it," said Psychic News. A clock on the wall suddenly gained two hours. Another office clock gained two and a half hours. "Certainly Zwinge had no opportunity to interfere with them. He had been under constant surveillance…. I was fully alerted to any suspicious moves. But Zwinge made none." Randi telephoned Taylor. The professor cut him off with "I have all the evidence I need" and hung up. But Taylor didn't know what Randi looked like, and Zwinge's face had not yet graced the London newsstands. Posing as a reporter from Time, Randi had no difficulty getting the interview he wanted. What happened in Taylor's office is one of the book's funniest highlights. Take a look at the photograph on page 159 of Superminds. It shows Taylor's holiest relic—a plastic tube, corked and sealed at both ends. Inside is an originally straight strip of aluminum, now bent into an S shape by the supermind of a teen-age boy. Did Taylor actually see it bend? Well, no. There is, you see, what the professor calls (so help me) the "shyness effect." Things bend only when one is not looking at them. Superboy took the tube home, came back with the strip bent. Now, students, let's turn to Randi's account of what happened when he surreptitiously examined this tube. While pretending to admire the sacred relic, Randi tugged on one of the rubber corks. It came right out in his hand! Taylor didn't notice, so Randi quickly jammed the cork back in. "The screw-and-sealing wax precaution hadn't mattered a bit," comments Randi. "It was a very poor piece of preparation…." Since Randi wrote his book, two psychologists at Bath University had no difficulty designing a simple test for six young superminds. The observer was instructed to relax vigilance after twenty minutes. Rods and spoons Gellerized beautifully while the unsuspecting children were secretly videotaped through one-way mirrors. "A put the rod under her feet to bend it; B, E and F used two hands to bend a spoon…. We can assert that in no case did we observe a rod or spoon bent other than by palpably normal means" (Nature, September 4, 1975, page 8). Taylor is only the latest of the many casualties that psychic hustlers leave in their luminous wakes. Will Randi's book result in fewer future casualties? I doubt it. The mind sets of true believers go so deep that, even if Uri were to confess all, they wouldn't believe him. Remember Margaret Fox, who started modern Spiritualism by cracking her toes? (Her facial features, by the way, resembled Uri's so closely as to suggest a reincarnation.) None of Margaret's supporters believed her when she confessed. Uri once said to Stefan Kanfer, of Time: "Randi is jealous of me because I'm young and good-looking, and have nice wavy hair." "Well," Randi concludes his book, "I'm no longer as young as I'd prefer to be, and most of the hair has departed during the years, that's true. But I sleep well, Uri."