Uri Geller - What do you think?

Did you watch the Geller link?

Yes, I'd seen it already. I'm looking for the video that is persuasive, not video where he's obviously doing a trick.

Who was it who said, "if Geller bends spoons with divine powers, then he's doing it the hard way"?


Ah, so it was. Hmmm... that won't be popular.

[Laird]

Yes, I'd seen it already. I'm looking for the video that is persuasive, not video where he's obviously doing a trick.

I think this is the same video that I mentioned earlier in this thread having watched and finding persuasive. I say this after having watched (this time, and so far) only the first nine or so minutes out of over thirty:



Will be interested to know whether you find it as persuasive as I do, despite its low visual quality.

[Edit of 2019-01-06: Ian has just shared, in post #226, a higher-resolution version of this video, albeit one lacking the 1m58s introduction of this version - though whether that introduction adds anything substantive anyway is debatable.]

[Laird]

Responding to Leuders's post in another thread:

^^ I find it unlikely Uri Geller has or had genuine PK ability in the past. Here are some useful quotes on the matter:

Source: Samuel, Lawrence R. (2011). Supernatural America: A Cultural History. Praeger. p. 101.

Source: Nickell, Joe. (2005). Camera Clues: A Handbook for Photographic Investigation. University Press of Kentucky. pp. 198-200.

All of that which you posted was cheap, and sometimes demonstrably false. For example, you quoted (in bold) Lawrence R. Samuel as saying: "Over the course of his six-week stint at SRI (for which he was paid 100$ a day and all expenses), Geller had not even been searched for magnets".

Watch the video I posted above. They swept him with a magnetometer on several occasions.

Re Joe Nickell's claims: if you think that Uri is a mere magician, then, again, watch the video above and please explain how he evaded double-blind procedures to fool the researchers.

[Laird]

The whole point of being a good magician is for those watching not to know how the trick was done. That's the point, and magicians never reveal their secrets. I did a bit of magical stuff as a kid, and it was clever what you could do, with specially designed devices, but I wasn't very good at it.People work for ages developing these tricks.

But Max, that's just painting with a broad brush. We're talking about double-blind experiments here, in a scientific setting. If you have a specific criticism, then by all means let's consider it, but speaking in generalities doesn't get us anywhere other than to reveal our allegiances.

Some forty years ago, as a wee lad, I witnessed Geller live. The memory is unusually clear: spoon bending, clocks and watches starting that had been deemed long dead, telepathic sketching of an audience member's drawing.

The thing is the show really looked, felt and sounded like a rather eccentric magic act. My critical faculties were well south of credulous and I was deeply impressed. Subsequently, Geller moved to progressively more incredulous claims often buttressed by wild acts of self aggrandisement and gauche displays of wealth. My sensitive mature self blanches at that.

Then there was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqCJDpNnHNI

Some forty years ago, as a wee lad, I witnessed Geller live. The memory is unusually clear: spoon bending, clocks and watches starting that had been deemed long dead, telepathic sketching of an audience member's drawing.

The thing is the show really looked, felt and sounded like a rather eccentric magic act. My critical faculties were well south of credulous and I was deeply impressed. Subsequently, Geller moved to progressively more incredulous claims often buttressed by wild acts of self aggrandisement and gauche displays of wealth. My sensitive mature self blanches at that.

Then there was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqCJDpNnHNI

Nobody denies that Geller is both a conjurer and a showman. Probably less than honest to boot. But there are some things that need to be explained too. Such as how he could pass all those SRI tests - many of them double blind - with no preparation time. I remain sceptical that a stage magician could have done what we see in the video that Laird linked under similar conditions.

[Laird]

Exactly, Kamarling. I just finished watching the video that laborde posted, and all I can say is that it makes total sense to me. Anybody with any high-level skill will have off days: days when we feel too pressured to perform, for whatever reason. Uri is completely up-front about this. Good for him. The fact remains (and Max, this is directed as much to you as to laborde) that he passed with incredible results several double-blind trials by the SRI team, many of which were videotaped. That these scientists were being appropriately rigorous is evidenced by their rejecting several experiments with Uri for which they thought they didn't have sufficient controls (e.g. the bending of spoons).

Turning to Max_B's post, in which he said "in any properly controlled experiment Geller will be as effective as everybody else". Uh, no, there's no way I could perform anywhere close to the way Uri did in the controlled experiments at SRI. He successfully picked the number of every randomly shaken die with which he was presented other than the ones that he passed on. Odds of a million to one against. And the odds with picking the right cylinder containing an object were in the realm of a trillion to one against. So, no, Uri was not "as effective as everybody else", he performed exceptionally well.

If you think magic defeated these double-blind experimental protocols, then the onus is on you to prove it.