Uri Geller - What do you think?

[Laird]

So in fact the elaborate "script" concocted by Marks and Kammann relies heavily on a hypothetical "peephole" cut by Geller in a bulletin board which they had been told wasn't even there at the time of the experiment (or was perhaps covered by an additional shield). Or else on Geller having pushed that billboard to one side. Of course, the information about the bulletin board being screwed to the wall, the bulletin board having been absent at the time of the experiments, and the shield having been present, is omitted from the preamble to this script. They even go so far as to suggest the window may only have been covered by curtains.

I don't consider that to be an honest presentation of the facts by any means. And of course, we wouldn't have known anything was wrong if the fact hadn't been given away by that footnote in the earlier paper. On that basis I'm not inclined to waste time on the speculative script presented by these authors. But I did photograph the chapter and the Zetetic paper (mainly about some non-SRI informal experiments on Geller), and if anyone is interested to see them I'll be happy to send them a copy.

Vindicated:

I have no doubt that the claims which Linda references are at the same level of fantasy.

Thanks, Chris, for taking the trouble to investigate claims that were bound to be nonsense - it's good that you dot Is and cross Ts when others of us lose patience.

Thanks, Laird.

Another point, along the same lines, struck me when comparing the chapter by Marks and Kammann with the footnote in their earlier article.

Admittedly the cable conduit doesn't play a prominent role in their "Plausible Script", but I think they are less than candid in their description of it in the book chapter. It's described there just as "a hole of 3-4 inches in diameter used for running cables into the steel room". They explain that Puthoff told them it had a metal cover, which was no longer around, and that it was "supposedly" stuffed with cotton, but that that could be removed from the inside. That's as much as they say in their 21-page chapter. But the 14-line footnote in Zetetic includes more information: that the hole was tubular and "at least one foot in length" and about three feet above the floor, and that it would provide a cone (disc?) of visible area against the opposite wall of the anteroom perhaps 3-5 feet in diameter. (Given their vagueness about the length of the conduit, surely that can only be an educated guess.)

Obviously that's much more restrictive than the reader would guess from the bare fact that there was a hole in the wall 3-4 inches wide. But taking the figures at face value, the disc of visibility would extend to a height of 4.5-5.5 feet from the floor, so if it happened to be in exactly the right place it might include the position of a drawing stuck on the wall at eye-level. But even then, we have to bear in mind Scott Rogo's claim that the conduit was not three feet above the floor, but only a little above floor level. That would restrict the disc of visibility to knee-level and below. It's hardly likely the picture would be stuck on the wall at knee-level!

But you could possibly hear the discussions of what they were to draw, by putting ones ear against the hole.

Yes, but my point really was the extent to which Marks and Kammann suppressed information - even information they had earlier published themselves - in order to make their case seem more plausible. So I don't think their work is to be relied on, except where it can independently checked.

Yeah, I accept that, I'm still waiting for my copy of "The Psychology of the Psychic" to arrive... as I intended to do something similar... But you seem to have discovered something which in the Zetetic? which is concerning to me?

Actually, the Zetetic footnote is easy enough to post (the rest of the article is about some informal experiments in New Zealand):

[Image: ZeteticFootnote.jpg]

If anyone wants copies of the rest of that article or the chapter in the book, the offer still stands (though I now realise I omitted to photograph the figures in the book).

In their book chapter, Marks and Kammann refer to a "Fact Sheet" written by Targ and Puthoff (a response to criticisms by Randi and others). That is available here:
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/...0021-0.pdf

[Laird]

In their book chapter, Marks and Kammann refer to a "Fact Sheet" written by Targ and Puthoff (a response to criticisms by Randi and others). That is available here:
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/...0021-0.pdf

This is gold, Chris.

This is gold, Chris.

There's an archived copy of another version of this document with responses by Randi added and some additional comments (by Steve Knights?):
https://web.archive.org/web/200312111508...k/fact.htm

I think it's fair to say that neither side comes out of the exchange unscathed, though Randi comes out worse, despite usually having the last word.

As is often the way, we're left with a situation of trying to assess two opposing and equally self-serving accounts. Trying to pick out some kind of truth is almost impossible.

Chris kindly sent me the link to read Marks and Kammann's capter, and it's sometimes very hard to tell what they're basing their statements on: documents, testimony or their own suppositions. They have some theories that sound plausible, but could be entirely fictional.

Targ & Puthoff's paper in Nature seems to deviate from what actually happened in a number of important points. There's the issue of the target word being changed, some sessions were actually passed but included in the results as a "hit" and that Geller was allowed to communicate with the experimenters during the session.

These we can be sure of, since Targ & Puthoff wrote these down themselves in the original report of Geller's work.

As for the other claims of Geller’s confederates somehow helping him, Geller apparently leaving the room during one session, or the issues with the wall are too difficult to pinpoint with any accuracy at this late date. I strongly suspect that they’re irrelevant, however.