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From: jim@ISM780B.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Inquiry on Reincarnation (no
Message-ID: <27500079@ISM780B.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 29-May-85 23:42:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ISM780B.27500079
Posted: Wed May 29 23:42:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Jun-85 13:58:00 EDT
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Nf-From: ISM780B!jim    May 29 23:42:00 1985


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.
For some reason, everyone wants to get into the act.  Many otherwise honest
people have been caught cheating when observed through one-way mirrors
when asked to participate in "experiments" to determine whether they could
do Geller-like feats.  Your friends could certainly be lying or exaggerating.
Geller does not make spoons or keys bend in plain sight during public
demonstrations.  He may claim he is going to do so, and then do
something somewhat different, or claim "bad vibes" or the like.  There is
a strong tendency for an audience predisposed toward belief to wish to
experience something more exciting than the reality, and therefore
exaggerate it.  There are people who insist that The Amazing Randi,
who can produce effects far more perplexing than anything Geller has ever
done publicly (I use that limitation because nothing else can be trusted to
have actually happened), actually has supernatural powers but debunks Geller
because he is trying to keep them secret.  I have been to the Magic Castle
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.  (Actually, anyone can do it; tape a couple of half-dollars to
your eyes, have someone blindfold you, then stand on a stage or a chair and
have them walk up to you with a dollar bill and touch it with your fingers;
then READ the $%#% serial number!).

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.

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.

-- Jim Balter (ima!jim)