Uri Geller and Stanford Research Institute
Magician Jerry Andrus and Hyman appeared in 1975 on a TV station in Portland, Oregon, where they explained and duplicated the "paranormal" tricks Geller had preformed for host Dick Klinger the week prior. Klinger asked, "Does Uri Geller have any supernatural powers?" Andrus gave the short answer "No". Hyman stated, "(Geller) is an opportunist... which is why it is difficult to duplicate him, he himself cannot duplicate himself. He's always ready to do something... he is going to do something when you think he is doing something else... misdirection... he's excellent at it, he's superb".
In 1972 Hyman was asked by The Department of Defense to investigate psychic Uri Geller. Hyman was intrigued by a story that Geller had taken a ring from one of the scientists, set it on a table, and without touching it, the ring stood on end, broke in half and formed itself into a S-shape. Upon questioning all the scientists at the lab, Hyman discovered that no one had actually seen this happen, but had heard stories from others (who could not be tracked down) that it had happened." Hyman continued to question the scientists and discovered that no one had ever seen Geller bend anything without touching it. In fact "Geller was allowed to take the object into the bathroom... and then come back with the bent object, they took his word for it." "The parapsychologist (also sent to investigate) 'saw a psychic', and I reported back that I saw only a charismatic fraud".
When asked to explain further why people believe in Geller when a magician can do the same thing without paranormal powers, Hyman states, "He's a fraud, but you can't blame people for believing him. Geller is a product of a wonderful public relations campaign... What the audience gets is only one side of the story... He has been caught cheating many times" but people still believe. Speaking as a psychologist Hyman says "If you get people in the right frame of mind and they are cooperating with you... and even give them a poor reading... they will fit it to themselves and believe you are telling them about their unique personality."
Read more about this topic: Ray Hyman
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