davet@oakhill.UUCP (Dave Trissel) (06/04/85)
In article <27500079@ISM780B.UUCP> jim@ISM780B.UUCP writes: > >There are many anecdotes about Geller doing things that could not possibly >have been done by a magician. There is no reason to believe any of them. > ... >Geller does not make spoons or keys bend in plain sight during public >demonstrations. ... False. You should have said "during most public demonstrations." Many things Uri does can be faked I'm sure. But I have frame-by-frame pictures of a movie taken of Uri bending a spoon given to him by an investigator. Uri is indeed holding one end of the spoon. He stroked it several times with the other hand. When the spoon started bending he stopped touching it with that hand. The spoon started bending slightly at first, then gradually faster. All right in front of the investigator and quite visible on the film. I also have a lenthy narrative from the invest- igator of his impressions. His eyes were within a foot of all this. If Uri can be given a spoon and do this why can't Randi? Note the difference here than that with my friends. Here Uri is touching the fork. BTW the investigator was of the pro-paranormal type so we can't rule out collusion in this espisode. Also, the film in and of itself would not be hard to fake at all if all involved were in cahoots. However, if the investigator was honest, then I find it hard to believe any magician could do the same. The bending started out very slow and then increased in pace much like my friends claim to observe. >with people who refused to believe that the mentalist did not have ESP, >even though he stated so. Since they could not imagine how a man with coins >taped to his eyes and then heavily bandaged could read a blackboard or the >serial numbers off dollar bills, their egos drove them to believe it must >be real magic. ... In the hands of a good magician we all can easily be fooled. No disagreement here. >Just consider the fact that Geller was a second-rate stage magician before >he became a psychic, and that he has been shown to be faking many times, >and that he refuses to do his work with professional magicians around; >this should lead you to search *very hard* for alternate explanations >for anything he has been claimed to do, and to not accept mere failure >to come up with an explanation as a reason to believe he is real. Agree completely. >P.S. It is possible that your friends saw something bend while Geller was > not handling it, although it could not have been a slowly bending > fork which could be taken as a souvenir without Geller first > resubstituting it. The alloy Nitinol, with which Geller is certainly > familiar, can resume a previous shape when reaching a certain temperature > range, although the resumption is normally with speed and force. The problem is Uri and two friends with him (which of course are also suspect if fraud is in question) could not have switched the silverware. The forks were right in front of my friends. Once the bending was noticed all eyes (there were at least eight people there) were rivited on the forks. Uri or his other friends did not ask to look at them or handle them in any way. Since I wasn't there myself I cannot vouch for the accuracy of all this. It is always possible that when something exciting 'seems' to be occuring that slight-of-hand is easier to do. But mis-direction would have been extremely difficult due to the position of the seating and the number of people watching all of this transpiring. Your statement about Nitinol is interesting. Uri was once requested to bend a Nitonol bar (this is shortly after the alloy's discovery if I remember correctly.) Nitonol can be bent but will resume its shape once heated to a certain temperature. Uri bent the metal allright, but when heated instead of reverting to its normal straight shape it actually contorted into a far more complicated shape instead - something the investigators could not duplicate. (I may be able to look this up in my files if there is more interest in this experiment.) Thus Nitonol seemed to indicate something unusual indeed was going on. Again, this is a test you won't see a magician pass. The bar was specially marked so Randi would be helpless to replace the it with a surrogate (as was Uri.) Dave Trissel {ihnp4,seismo}!ut-sally!oakhill!davet "close your eyes and mind but it won't go away"
ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig) (06/07/85)
> Your statement about Nitinol is interesting. Uri was once requested to bend > a Nitonol bar (this is shortly after the alloy's discovery if I remember > correctly.) Nitonol can be bent but will resume its shape once heated to a > certain temperature. Uri bent the metal allright, but when heated instead of > reverting to its normal straight shape it actually contorted into a far > more complicated shape instead - something the investigators could not > duplicate. (I may be able to look this up in my files if there is more > interest in this experiment.) Thus Nitonol seemed to indicate something > unusual indeed was going on. Again, this is a test you won't see a magician > pass. The bar was specially marked so Randi would be helpless to replace the > it with a surrogate (as was Uri.) Since Randi has a standing offer of $10,000 to anyone who can demonstrate anything like that that he cannot reproduce, I am inclined to believe that Geller has a good reason for not letting Randi try.