from the unexplained to the mundane. Come join
us on a Journey to the Fringe. Hello and welcome
to Journey to the Fringe. We're following up
on our Uri Geller saga. When we left off the
wee lad with the exotic accent, he was living
high on the world, having failed miserably on
Johnny Carson, and stumbled upon all... Talk
shows actually wanted him still, and succeeding
very well at the SRI studies. So Chelsea, this
is where the episode picks up. He's sitting high
on life, Project Stargate's looking at him because
he did quite well. at the SRI studies and they
said, Hey, Ray Hyman, you need to come look at
this guy right off the bat. There are a lot of
critics of how put off and why do I always forget
the other guy's name? Russell Targ, Billy Meyer,
Billy Meyer study. They were too big. I'm skeptical
of their study too. I'm gonna be honest. Critics
of this experiment included many people, but
the first ones we're gonna talk about are David
Marks and Richard Kamen, who published a description
how Geller could have cheated in the informal
test of his so -called psychic powers. Their
1978 article in Nature and 1980 book The Psychology
of a Psychic, they described how a normal explanation
was possible for Geller's alleged psychic powers.
Marks and Kamen found evidence that while at
SRI, Geller was allowed to peek through a hole
in the lab - wall separating him from the drawings
he was being invited to reproduce. What? These
drawings were placed on a wall opposite the people,
which the investigators, Tark, and Pudoff had
stuffed with cotton gauze. In addition to this
error, the investigators had also allowed Geller
access to a two -way intercom, enabling him to
listen to the investigators' conversation during
the time when they were choosing and or displaying
the target drawings. These basic errors Marks,
after evaluating the experiments, wrote that
none of Geller's paranormal claims have been
demonstrated in scientifically controlled conditions,
concluding that Geller has no psychic ability
whatsoever. However, he did believe him to have
a very clear well -practiced magic act. Marx
and Kamen tested Geller's ability to mentally
repair watches and found that, quote, many supposedly
broken watches had merely been stuffed by gummy
oil and simply holding them in his hand would
warm the oil enough to soften it and allow watches
to return to ticking. Now to get to Reheimann.
This is how Ray Hyman got involved in the skeptic
movement, which is how he ends up being put in
charge of this question of Yuri Geller. It was
by one person alone, Alice Cooper. James Randi,
whose name came up early with Johnny Carson,
we're gonna talk about him later, was touring
with Alice Cooper as part of a stage show, and
Alice Cooper asked James Randi to invite Hyman
to a show in order to ask his advice about the
audience. While there, quote, Randi pulled me
aside and said, really ought to do something
about this orieller business. Let's form an organization
called the SIR, the Sanity in Research. And in
1972, he joined with Martin Gardner and they
had their first meeting and the three of them
felt they had no administration experience. Quote,
we just had good ideas, end quote. And we're
soon joined by Marcello Truzi, who provided structure
for the group. Truzi involved Paul Kurtz and
then they formed the CSICOP in 1976. In an interview
in 2009 with Derek Colandano for the Skepticality
podcast, Hyman was asked his opinion of the modern
skeptical movement. Sorry, Uri Geller's coming.
I just want to set up Ray Hyman, because he is
a cool guy. I was almost gonna say, do we need
like, what would we call it, like, bad boys?
Anti -Abyssal episodes? Yeah. Anti -asshole,
like, bad boys of the skeptic societies. I'm
interested in his work. I think that'd be really
cool. Not that I'm, like, pro -skeptic, because
I love fleets of fancy. The right skeptic, yeah.
Not one who wants to shit over everything. I
want one who wants to see the real shit. Yeah,
like us like I want to believe in Serpo, but
I just don't because I'm familiar with Richard
Doty I still like it, but I'm not gonna shoot
down everything like I do want to hear more about
this You know what I mean? Yeah, so anyhow Hyman
responded that skeptics need to have goals and
a way to measure them They need to become a resource
for the public and focus on educating journalists
and teachers quote that way we will get more
Bing for our buck," end quote. On the current
state of the skeptical movement, Hyman stated,
quote, the media unfortunately has made it so
we have many more believers, end quote. Less
science teachers in the classrooms, major newspapers
are firing their science writing staff, 24 -hour
news channels are trying to fill all that time
and compete with Fox News, quote, things aren't
good. That was 2009. Back to where we were, Hyman
was asked by DARPA to investigate Uri Geller
and then Hyman was intrigued by the story and
Chelsea, I think this story came up in the Edgar
Mitchell story where Uri Geller had been around
NASA and he had taken a ring and he mentally
manipulated it so it was in an S shape. I don't
remember it. Okay, that's fine. That's as much
as we need to know. Basically, he had broken
a ring like with his mind. What a dick. Hyman
had heard the story and he's like, I need to
look into it. Uri Geller had set it on a table
and without touching it, the ring stood on end,
broke in half, and formed itself into an 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
that it had happened. Weird how these stories
come up, Chelsea, about all these things happening
around Uri Geller, but it's not attributed to
him, it's people are talking about it. Yeah,
that's how people gossip. That's just like human
nature. You ever play - But I feel that's apt
from how you finished off the end of the last
episode, how people are saying these things.
Oh yeah, George and Uri saying that watches just
stop - what? Yeah, true. The watches just stop
working if you need a reminder. There's no way
that - happened to a ring. I've seen rings and
they don't do that. Hymen continued to question
the scientists and discover that no one had ever
seen Geller bend anything without touching it.
In fact, quote, Geller was allowed to take the
object into the bathroom and then come back with
the bent object they took his word for it. End
quote. Kate, I do think he has powers. If you
give me four hours and a spoon and nobody around
for accountability, I have powers too, dammit.
Like how how is that not powerful to be able
to like have all manipulate people? Yeah, this
is insane Then quote, the parapsychologist also
sent to investigate saw a psychic and I reported
back that I saw a charismatic fraud. End quote.
So Hyman reports back to the government that
Geller was a complete fraud and as a consequence
Targ and Putoff lost their government contract.
The result is they go on a publicity tour. All
of them. Geller, Targ and Putoff to seek private
funding for further research work on Geller.
I love that. There's a happy ending to that.
And he doesn't actually get involved with Project
Stargate. Look, that's where it gets cut off.
Did we know that? We did Project Stargate. Yeah,
I know! I can't remember. We did it a while ago.
He doesn't actually end up getting involved with
it. He's just low to those names that's really
attached to it. Maybe we knew that, but I'm glad
that we're going over it more thoroughly now.
And in an encyclopedia of claims, frauds, and
hoaxes of the occult and supernatural, James
Randi writes, quote, How put off in Russell Targ,
who studied Mr. Geller at the Stanford Research
Institute, were aware in one instance at least
that they were being shown a magician's trick
by Geller. Their protocol for this series investigation
of the powers claimed by Geller were described
by Ray Hyman as Sorry, continue on because that's
a quote within a quote. Critics have pointed
out that both Putoff and Targ were already believers
in paranormal powers and Geller was not adequately
searched before the experiments. Psychologist
C .E .M. Hansel and skeptic Paul Kurtz have noted
that the experiments were poorly designed and
open trickery. This is amazing on so many levels.
Do you think that Uri Geller could exist today?
Yes, he still does. I mean, like for him to have
come to being during this day. Yes. Because RFK
Jr. exists. That's true. Second point I have
to make is I just pulled up this book because
this book sounds fantastic. Is there a picture
of James Randi on there? Wow, those eyebrows.
Oh, that's James Randi, isn't it? Oh yeah. He
is a wizard. Yep, those are wizard eyebrows for
sure. Don't take that picture away because we're
about to talk about James Randi now. Good, I
want to look at him in the eye like this. James
Randi begins his career as a magician under the
stage name The Amazing Randi, and later chose
to devote most of his time to investigating paranormal,
occult, and supernatural claims. But during Alice
Cooper's 1973 -74 billion dollar babies tour,
Randi performed on stage as a mad dentist and
as Alice Cooper's executioner. He also built
several of the stage props, including the guillotine.
And that's where Everybody met each other for
the debunkers group Alice Cooper on James Randy's
death had this quote I am so proud to say that
for a brief time the greatest of them all the
Amazing Randy was part of our traveling troupe.
He was our illusion guru and taught me everything
I know about how magic could meet rock and roll
his genius helped the billion dollar babies show
become the spectacle No one had ever seen he
was rock and roll's Gandalf end quote. I love
this It just keeps getting better. I want to
read this book. James Randi out at everybody
is Geller's biggest opponent. He claims once
that Geller was a fraud who took advantage of
helpless people. This seemed to be true according
to Ori's first autobiography where he stated
that sometimes he would dupe the audience to
think that he knew their vehicles plates when
it was his manager who had earlier provided them
to him. Randy even made a habit of performing
Gellar's so -called paranormal displays on stage
to prove that they were all an illusion. Like
he would word for word redo a magic show just
to show that this was not magic. I can't love
this. This guy just like wants to see his downfall.
And this is hilarious. So Randy would actually
get accused of having psychic powers to perform
acts such as the spoon bedding. And according
to James Alcock, at a meeting where Randy was
duplicating the performance of Ory Gellar, a
professor from The University of Buffalo shouted
out that Randy was a fraud Randy said yes indeed.
I'm a trickster. I'm a cheat I'm a charlatan.
That's what I do for a living everything I've
done here was for trickery And the professor
shouts back, quote, that's not what I mean. You're
a fraud because you're pretending to do these
things through trickery. But you're actually
using psychic powers and misleading us by not
admitting it. End quote. I love the heavy use
of the word trickery. A similar event involved
Senator Clare Bourne Pell, a confirmed believer
in psychic phenomenon, where Randy personally
demonstrated to Pell that he could reveal by
simple trickery a concealed drawing that had
been secretly made by the senator. Hell refused
to believe that it was a trick, saying quote,
I think Randy may be a psychic and doesn't realize
it. Randy consistently denied having any paranormal
powers or abilities. And according to Higginbotham,
this result caused Randy to realize that much
more must be done to stop Geller and those like
him. So in 1976, Randy approached Ray Hyman,
a psychologist who had observed the tests of
Geller's abilities at Stanford and thought them
to be a slip shot, and suggested that they create
an organization to combat pseudoscience, which
we talked about, the Committee for Scientific
Investigations of Claims of Paranormal, CSICOP.
And using donations and sales of their magazine,
The Skeptical Enquirer, they and secular humanist
philosopher Paul Kurtz took seats on the executive
board and they also included Isaac Asimov and
Carl Sagan as members of the board. And Randy
traveled the world on behalf of CSICOP, becoming
its public face according to Hyman, the face
of the skeptical movement. I love James Randy.
What a cool guy. I know. I really like him. I
feel like he deserves his own episode. No kidding.
Yeah, it turns out it's an Urgellar episode and
again We have so many more people like you're
not expecting to come up, but they are I love
him and Chelsea Do you know who was working at
SRI at the time of Urgellar being there? Yes?
You don't, so I should just tell you. It's Jacques
Vallée. Oh! So weirdly enough, he's around and
Uri Geller's there. Vallée does not endorse Geller's
claims, but he did not dismiss them either. He
instead treats Geller as a data point within
a broader pattern of anomalous cognition, and
Vallée notes, "...describe Geller as a complex
subject whose performance were difficult to categorize,
and he acknowledged that some of the SRI results
were ambiguous and that the experimental conditions
were not always I - deal, but he also noted that
certain sessions produced outcomes that were
not easily explained by conventional means. Velay's
interest in Geller was less about spoon -bending
itself and more about what Geller represented,
the possible overlap between psychic phenomena
and altered states of consciousness. That was
something. Are you making this whole thing up?
You would think! It's just gonna keep getting
weirder because Chelsea, we're gonna talk about
he's on top of the world, he got onto all the
talk shows, he had that SRI study that is absolutely
destroyed, but what do you think he does from
here? I'm gonna stop you right there. He becomes
a mineral dowser. But why? After the 70s in the
80s, he shifts his work from the televised and
towards private consulting and he describes himself
as a mineral dowser. He claims he's able to locate
oil, gold, and other resources including diamonds
in the ground. According to his own account,
he charges a standard fee of 1 million pounds
during this time. What? In 1986, an Australian
skeptic reports that the mining company Xanax
paid Geller $250 ,000 and granted him an option
for 1 ,250 ,000 shares at 20 cents each. The
contract was tied specifically to the identification
of a potential diamond deposit, but the place
he identified never finds a single fucking diamond.
And he still got paid. I apparently still got
paid. I don't know if he got to take advantage
of the stock option. What the fuck? But that's
where he actually ends up making like all his
money apparently because i can't find much about
it but he says it too makes all his money in
mineral dousing during this time good for him
Is it? I mean, yeah, he's taken it from pretty
terrible people, but I don't know. I don't know,
but he seems doing pretty good for himself for
this. I don't know. He says he performed this
for many mining and oil companies over this time,
and he's been way described as remote sensing
or map dousing rather than traditional tools.
He claims he can detect underground structures
by holding a pendulum over geological maps or
by focusing on areas mentally. None of these
results are ever independently verified. Funny
enough, you can I don't know if it's on Amazon,
but you can finally get a regular mineral dousing
set that you can buy yourself. Oh, I'm not even
interested. If you ever want to get into it.
And during this time, he expands his consulting
into other categories and into other sectors.
He worked with Readings FC. Oh, fuck, sorry.
This is where it gets into sports. So he works
with a football club called Reading, and he says,
we're going to get positive energy into your
group to avoid being sent down to the lower level.
So he places crystals behind the goals at Exeter
City before a critical match. That Reader FC
ends up losing 5 -1. He advises cyclist Bruce
Burrisford. on mental preparation for speed record
attempts. Geller occasionally offered assistance
in criminal investigations. One of his cases,
he predicts that a kidnapped woman would be found
alive. She is never located. What? How was he?
Despite the lack of confirmed success, Geller
continues to work the services for corporations
and private clients. He described controversy
as beneficial to his career, maintains that skepticism
increases his demand for his abilities. So is
it just the legend around him? By this point?
Like, how is this happening? I don't know, because
failing seems to help him. Legends shouldn't
be helped by that. I don't feel like I've heard
a success of his. I'm not even gonna let you
guess what happens here in the year 2000. Okay.
He sues Nintendo. Do you know why? I remember
this. I can't remember why. There's a Pokemon
that he thinks kind of looks like him. Oh, yeah.
Named Kadavra, because it's bending a spoon.
Yep. I remember this. He says this was an unauthorized
use of his name and spoon bending persona, and
he argues the character's design, which included
a bent spoon and psychic abilities, damaged his
reputation. Geller sought substantial damage
and attempted to block the character's use in
trading card and merchandise. And for 20 years,
Kadabra is not allowed in the trading card game.
What? He won? No, the lawsuit's unsuccessful.
But they voluntarily just stopped printing this
card because they're like, who fucking cares?
But you know what? It is who cares because it
probably just makes it more valuable because
they stopped printing it. That's probably what
Nintendo thought. Like, if we can't print this,
these things are worth so much. Yeah. I don't
know why in 2020, he decided that like, no, you
can just print them. So he'd like that's the
lawsuit's over in 2020. And this is the last
thing we're going to talk about in this episode,
Chelsea. In 2009, he buys an island off the coast
of Scotland. And by off the coast, I mean like
100 meters off the coast of Scotland. It's called
the Isle of Lamb. It is uninhabited. It is 100
meters by 50 meters. And Chelsea, I want you
to just Google Lamb Island and tell me what you
see. What the fuck is that? That's a dock. Is
that not a dock? Lamb Island, Scotland. It does
not even have a dock. Oh, that's a shitty island.
Yeah, you can't live on it. Is this? No, this
is Isle of Ewe. Oh, here, I will share my screen,
Chelsea. There's one sheep on Isle of Ewe. Lamb
Island is located right here. So Google Maps.
Here's Edinburgh. Here's Glasgow. Here is the
Isle of Lamb. south dog this one this one here
oh this is the island he bought that's a real
shitty island how big you can't live on this
island very big no nobody can live on this island
it's 100 meters long nope it's not that big there's
not even a tree he apparently's been to it but
like i don't know how you could actually like
even dock to do that What would you do on that
island? Oh man, Chelsea, I'm just gonna read
this part and then I'm gonna read his story on
his island, on his website. He buys in 2009,
Lamb Island, off the eastern coast of Scotland,
and they say it's previously known for its witch
trials. It can't be. You can't do witch trials
on that island. No, just looking at it, no way.
Is this him saying that or is this actually Doug?
This is off of Wikipedia, so probably him saying
it. And apparently beaches that Robert Louis
Stevenson is said to have described in his novel
Treasure Island. No, I don't believe it. I realize
it's still staring my screen, but like again,
there's no beaches on this island. No, I don't
believe this. This is made up. Furry Geller's
making it up. Why would he do such a thing? Geller
claims that buried on the island is Egyptian
treasure brought there by Skoda, the mythological
half -sister of Tutankhamun in Irish mythology
3 ,500 years ago, and he claims that he will
find the treasure there through dousing. Geller
also claimed to have strengthened the mystical
powers of the island by burying in a crystal
orb once belonging to Albert Einstein. In 2022,
Geller sought to declare Lamb as the Republic
of Lamb, a micronation. this is fucking made
up oh boy has he done that like so hard okay
can i just read you the description on google
map yeah go ahead uninhabited offshore island
flanked by several smaller islands reachable
by boat there's reviews oh yeah what's the one
star Now owned by Uri Geller, who wants to make
it an independent country and part of the EU
lol, well buddy it's part of the UK. Additionally,
Sturgeon and her nasty party SNP followers will
never let you take it from her clutches. That
was nice. Oh, this guy has a five -star review.
Colin Jones says, had a mind -bending experience
here or maybe it was a spoon. And yeah, like
that's what he's been up to. There's a origeller
museum which he owns in Tel Aviv which you can
go visit but like outside of that those are all
the things he's got going on and in the next
episode we're gonna talk about like all the people
he's associated with and all the predictions
he's making because apparently he's also a psychic
which hasn't come up until this point. I'm having
troubles wrapping my head about around what the
fuck is going on with this guy and why is he
who he is. Yeah, and I don't know if I'm gonna
make it make more sense later on either Chelsea
I can absolutely understand how you're not gonna
bring any logic to this you know what this is
pretty standard for stuff like this in this community
it seems like the legend is preceding him somehow
and with each fail the legend becomes stronger
and people become more enthralled with him maybe
this is super crazy he doesn't even seem to be
putting out anything good no I I can't think
of one thing that he's actually done where you'd
say like, oh yeah, this contributed to the community
or like moved anything forward was even like
something tangible to work with. It's not like
he's writing books or like doing anything other
than just saying that he can bend spoons. Well,
I shouldn't say I'm pretty sure during this time
he is writing books as well, but nothing important.
No, it doesn't seem like it's so, so weird. I
don't know. I can't wrap my head around it. Because
yeah, on his website itself he has a page called
Books. I can't tell if he's written these books
or they're books about him, but there's a ton
of books in there. Or books he recommends, maybe.
Mmm, could be. But yeah, it's hard to say. That's
enough for this episode. I have been Taylor,
here with Chelsea. We are Journey to the Fringe.
Thank you all for listening. I'll see you next
week. Bye. Thank you for listening to Journey
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