Uri Geller - What do you think?

The spoon does indeed look slightly bent beforehand.

I think rather than accusing Geller of a conjuring trick or accusing Ricardo Montalban of bending the spoon for him, the appropriate accusation is one of extreme incompetence against whoever provided the props, under Randi's direction!

The lab testing was also unreliable, he had a fellow inside the lab the whole time and was allowed to get close to the equipment more than once. He could have tampered it with some sleight of hand.

Going back to this point - could you tell us which lab testing you're talking about, and give us a source for the information about the person inside the lab and the equipment that may have been tampered with?

[Ninshub]

Re: the Carson spoon demonstration. Given Geller's expertise and experience with doing these kinds of things, I tend to think he must have noticed the spoon being already bent (if it was) and then am wondering if he chose it on purpose. I'm just going on this one demonstration and it's just a question I'm raising. I wouldn't conclude anything going in this direction, but the question does raise itself. On Geller as a topic in general, I'm not informed enough to have one opinion one way or another about him.

The spoon does indeed look slightly bent beforehand.

I think rather than accusing Geller of a conjuring trick or accusing Ricardo Montalban of bending the spoon for him, the appropriate accusation is one of extreme incompetence against whoever provided the props, under Randi's direction!

Probably, the fact is that Uri has been caught exploiting this to fake the spoon bending. Look at the coincidences:

He picks the middle spoon, the one that looks bend at 6:00.
He instructs the other man to put his finger in a way that covers the previous bending to the close up of the camera.
The other man is, willingly or not, applying pressure to the spoon shaft.

It's too much to not look like a trick, and surely enough to say that, in any case, this demonstration can't be taken as real. This is summed to his obvious kicks to the table looking for the water canister.

I know it hurts when a psi case gets debunked, but that is truth with Uri. I would really like Psi to be real, but right now there is no confirmed TK and while Randi surely isn't friendly he sometimes is right. And something close to this happened to ninel kulagina too, it is clear that researchers can be tricked by magicians (mostly because they don't want to take the needed precautions), and I think that was the case with her too. 

There is also, after all, a reason why Randi's prize was never claimed, or TK ever demonstrated. Because they can't really do it. Unlike NDEs and a few mediumship cases, which look credible, TK and remote viewing are, as far as we know, fake or delusions.

Re: the Carson spoon demonstration. Given Geller's expertise and experience with doing these kinds of things, I tend to think he must have noticed the spoon being already bent (if it was) and then am wondering if he chose it on purpose. I'm just going on this one demonstration and it's just a question I'm raising. I wouldn't conclude anything going in this direction, but the question does raise itself. On Geller as a topic in general, I'm not informed enough to have one opinion one way or another about him.

On this occasion some of the YouTube comments are actually quite helpful (I think that's where Raf999 picked up the information about the spoon appearing bent in the earlier shot).

One comment suggests that Geller got Ricardo Montalban to lay his finger along the length of the spoon (at 16.05) in order to conceal from the camera the fact that it was already bent. That seems plausible, but that would actually have made it harder for Montalban to bend it further if he had been trying to do that - which I don't believe.

Probably, the fact is that Uri has been caught exploiting this to fake the spoon bending. Look at the coincidences:

He picks the middle spoon, the one that looks bend at 6:00.
He instructs the other man to put his finger in a way that covers the previous bending to the close up of the camera.
The other man is, willingly or not, applying pressure to the spoon shaft.

It's too much to not look like a trick, and surely enough to say that, in any case, this demonstration can't be taken as real. This is summed to his obvious kicks to the table looking for the water canister.

I know it hurts when a psi case gets debunked, but that is truth with Uri. I would really like Psi to be real, but right now there is no confirmed TK and while Randi surely isn't friendly he sometimes is right. And something close to this happened to ninel kulagina too, it is clear that researchers can be tricked by magicians (mostly because they don't want to take the needed precautions), and I think that was the case with her too. 

There is also, after all, a reason why Randi's prize was never claimed, or TK ever demonstrated. Because they can't really do it. Unlike NDEs and a few mediumship cases, which look credible, TK and remote viewing are, as far as we know, fake or delusions.

Sacrilegious words

There is also, after all, a reason why Randi's prize was never claimed, or TK ever demonstrated. Because they can't really do it. Unlike NDEs and a few mediumship cases, which look credible, TK and remote viewing are, as far as we know, fake or delusions.

You seem to be addicted to sweeping statements.

[Ninshub]

I don't see any reason either to believe Montalban's "pressure" did anything to the spoon. It was either already bent (most likely), or something anomalous occurred (less likely).

I don't see any reason either to believe Montalban's "pressure" did anything to the spoon. It was either already bent (most likely), or something anomalous occurred (less likely).

I agree. As for Geller telling him to press it, when he said that he was clearly trying to get him to lay his finger flat along it, which is the last thing he would want to do if he'd been trying to bend it.

You seem to be addicted to sweeping statements.

I asked on a different thread for verifiable, tested TK (macro TK). There was none.

No videos, no proofs, not even well made tests (Kulagina was even tested at her home, I mean no serious researcher would take that in consideration).
It's the exact same thing with remote viewing, the only case with some decent effects has been spoiled by how sloppy the researcher was, being sleeping while the subject could have just stood up and read the numbers instead of having an OBE.

Also, Para-Researchers like to make things overly complicated because they need results. You wanna prove remote viewing? Fine, get the claimant in a room and you throw a 10, or a 100 sided dice in another one inside a box. Then, on the phone, ask for the number to the claimant. Repeat the test until you have a huge sample to test it with statistical relevance.

So far, nobody did this. Because nobody can do remote viewing. Parapsychological testing is made in a way that will always give positive results because, just like pseudo skeptics, the researchers are biased and follow an agenda.