The following is reproduced from the skeptic society newsletter:

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GELLER ON TONIGHT SHOW
On New Years day I had this momentary flash of insight that with the new year
perhaps things were going to change and that the nonsense and silliness that
passes for serious claims in our culture might actually begin to attenuate
and we at the Skeptics Society could concentrate our efforts on more
mainstream scientific controversies.

Alas, I was hallucinating. Just days into the new year I was jolted back into
reality when none other than the 1970's spoon-bending sensation Uri Geller
appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the number one late night talk
show with something on the order of 10 million viewers. We were tipped off
that he was appearing, and for two days we did everything we could to warn
Leno to apply some basic controls to prevent Geller from using standard magic
tricks that he could pass off as psychic powers. To no avail. Even our
videographer who works at NBC, who spent hours trying to get to the right
people, kept hitting brick walls. No one at NBC cared or wanted to hear from
us. This is an entertainment show, Geller was going to entertain the public,
so what difference does it make what he claims and what is true? Leno opened
the segment with the usual disclaimer: "Some say he is just a magician,
others say he has special powers. You be the judge."

"You be the judge." Those four simple words have become the ultimate
statement of irresponsibility. Here is what that phrase means: "We hereby
disclaim any and all responsibility for what the next guest claims. It is our
purpose to get viewers to watch our show between and through commercials and
nothing else. If our guests hoodwink us and bamboozle you that's tough luck
for you. Buyer beware. That's entertainment so enjoy the show!"

What was truly amazing about Geller's "performance" was how unoriginal it
was. He did the same act he's been doing for a quarter of a century--starting
broken watches and reproducing a hidden drawing. That says a lot about
American audiences, doesn't it? Americans can be fooled over and over again
by the same tricks. You don't even need to be creative. (Eumenides note: one
of the greatest things to come out of that Fox TV series revealing magician
secrets was that magicians now had to find new tricks to entertain audiences).
Professionalmagicians work hard to come up with new routines and original presentations
so as not to bore audiences. Apparently you don't have to do this when you
are claiming to have special powers.

To the undying credit of Leno's predecessor, Johnny Carson, when he had
Geller on he first consulted with James Randi, who prepped Carson and the
producers on how to prevent Geller from using magic tricks to perform his
"psychic" power demonstrations. Lo and behold, wouldn't you know it?--no
magic tricks allowed and Geller's psychic powers mysteriously disappeared.
Apparently Leno would have none of that.

I will grant Geller credit for being an entertaining guest. He is light and
funny, laughs a lot, has a big toothy smile--all the stuff TV talkshows like.
And I will confess to laughing out loud with his little story about how he
got a letter from a woman who said she got pregnant because Uri psychically
bent her IUD. I even suspect Uri may be telling the truth about getting such
a letter since, although it is possible he made it up, there are enough goofy
people out there that someone might just have written him such a letter.

First Geller demonstration: reproduce a drawing made by a guest of the show
(the original drawing was made backstage of course). We were told that actor
Tim Robbins had made a drawing and carefully folded it and put it in his back
pocket. Geller made it clear that he and Robbins were not working together.
What is not disclosed, of course, is what the circumstances were of the
making of the original drawing. (In the next issue of Skeptic magazine Pat
Linse will present James Randi's greatest moment on television when he
duplicates a drawing made by Barbara Walters right there live on stage, just
as well as Geller had just done moments before.)

After the show I was surprised by the number of e-mails and calls I received
from skeptics and scientists who don't know how this simple trick is done.
One of my board members told me "I have to admit what Geller did was really
spooky." Another reader speculated that perhaps Geller can watch the eye
movements of his subject, and that when the subject is thinking about the
drawing his eyes trace out the drawing! Alas, explanations of magic generally
follow Occam's razor: no need to multiply beyond necessity the complexity of
the explanation, AKA parsimony.The drawing duplication is one of the
simplest, and there are numerous ways to do it:

1. Use psychic powers to read your subject's mind. Geller may do it this way,
but he might have also chosen to . . .
2. Have the subject make a drawing on a pad of paper. Instruct him to tear
off the top sheet and fold it and hide it so you can't see it. When he gives
you back the pad the impression of the drawing is on the sheet below. You can
say something like "be sure to make it clear so everyone can see it" to get
them to press hard on the pad. Or . . .
3. We all have checks chemically treated so that they leave an impression on
the next sheet below. You can get special pads of paper like this. Or . . .
4. Get a special clipboard with a carbon sheet beneath the top layer that you
peel back after your subject makes his drawing on top of it. Or . . .
5. Peek when the drawing is being made. Or . . .
6. Watch the top of the pen as it traces out the drawing. Or . . .
7. Use a confederate to help you get the drawing. Or . . .
8. The psychology of people: most will draw a house or a happy face.

These are all in magic books, as well as others, but since so many people out
there were wondering how Geller can do such "spooky" things I thought it
would be instructive to share just a few of these with you.

Second Geller demonstration: Start broken watches. Jay presents Geller with a
tray of watches. We do not know where the watches came from or if they are
truly all "broken." Geller grabs a handful of them and commands them to
"work," then commands the audience to yell "work," then tells the viewing
audience to get their broken watches, hold them in their hands, and yell
"work." Geller then exclaims that one of the watches he has is working. Was
it one of the original watches or did he just have a watch of his own that he
added to the bunch when he grabbed them? Jay exclaims when he looks at the
watch that it is indeed working. But did Jay check before to make sure that
all the watches were marked so that Geller could not add his own to the
batch? There appeared to be no controls. But, frankly, it isn't even
necessary to cheat on this one. When shaken lots of old watches will start
ticking again for a few seconds or minutes--long enough to get a TV talkshow
host very excited.

Overall Leno seemed genuinely impressed with Geller's performance and, if I
am correct in my interpretation of television ethics and integrity, that made
for a successful show.

NOTE TO MARCELLO TRUZZI: Truzzi, when you forward this posting to Uri with
your suggestion that he consult with his attorneys, be sure to tell him that
I welcome his feedback and that I would be happy to post his reply to this
group. I guarantee they would be most interested in what he has to say for
himself. Perhaps Uri would even be willing to tell us which technique he used
to duplicate the drawing: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, or 8. Which technique do you think
he used Truzzi?

Had I been there I would have insisted that Tim make a drawing right there on
stage out of Uri's sight, and then have Geller try to "see" the drawing on
his mental "TV screen." My hypothesis is that under controlled conditions
Geller's "psychic" powers would have suddenly disappeared. Of course, I could
be wrong. Since Geller apparently has no interest in Randi's million dollar
challenge, I'll offer him my $3,000 titanium racing bicycle. If Geller takes
up my challenge and passes the test under controlled conditions, I'll have to
go back to my old rusty steel bike. Uri, I'll even throw in my heart-rate
monitor. If you pass the test I won't be needing it.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER FOR GELLER AND HIS ATTORNEYS: This analysis does not prove,
of course, that Geller used one of these techniques of magic. He may very
well have used number one and applied psychic power to read the mind of Tim
Robbins. Yes sir, technically speaking, there is a chance that this is how he
did it. But if he did, as Randi says, he is doing it the hard way.

The best disclaimer ever written in this regard comes from Penn and Teller's
book HOW TO PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD, in their section on spoon bending:

"In these descriptions, any particular bumbling spoon-bending has-been may
pop into your mind. I guess it might be possible that the example you happen
to be thinking of might-could-maybe-possibly be the
one-in-a-kachillion-outside-chance-of-a-snowball-lasting-a-month-of-Sundays-in
side-a-burning-gas-kiln-in-hell be real. We haven't seen every spoonbender on
every second of his or her life. We just haven't seen or heard of one of them
doing anything that seemed to us like anything other than bush-league sleight
of hand. We have to be careful though. When these twerps lose their ability
to support themselves with public and private 'experiments' (they never call
them 'shows,' we guess because they're not entertaining enough), they can
decide to turn to litigation. So, let us say right here, Penn and Tell
haven't seen or heard about any real psychic spoon-bending, but if we do,
we'll happily change our collective mind. We'll want to see it done in front
of a panel that is educated in magic, and it should be on videotape and we'd
love to see it under oath in a court of law. Maybe by the time this book
comes out some of these swine will have had their days in court and proven
they have supernatural powers. We'll be red-faced but we'll admit we were
wrong. You may not notice our embarrassment, however, because everyone will
be too busy throwing out all scientific knowledge and starting over. Our
lawyer says we need to make it clear that spoon-bending COULD be proved to be
a real power. And maybe that same day Porky Pig will appear incarnate and fly
around the courtroom. Hey man, it could happen."

Hey man, amen!


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