The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 9

TOE SATURDAY REVIEW THE AGE, DECEMBER 8, 1973 Is this man an illusionist or does he have powers unknown to science Two weeks ago on BBC TV, Uri Geller (below) riveted Britain by his feats of psychokinesis. Reporter Bryan Silcock remained sceptical until Geller bent his own key at London Airport, without touching it. Is he, Silcock asks, an illusionist of prodigious talent or does he have powers unknown to science rm I URI for reporter Silcock at London Airport MIND VER A GROUP OF CHILDREN appeared on the Blue Peter TV show two weeks ago with' spoons and forks which they had apparently bent by mind power. Another child with similar claims, eight-year-old Mark Shelley, of Ipswich, acquired an agent, and (he Daily Mirror sponsored a spoon-bending lunch at the London Hilton. Metal-bending by mind power seemed to be rapidly turning into an eccentric branch of showbiz.

For many it would be a profound relief if it did, for it could then be ignored as just another stunt. Bui (he subject Is far too important to be dematerialised in this way. If people really can bend metal by mind power it will mean a revolution in science and our whole way of thinking about the world more profound than anything since Newton turned Ihe universe into a piece of clockwork three centuries ago. For it is difficult to see how the "Geller Effect" (it is time it had a name) can ever be incorporated into orthodox science. It violates too many basic principles.

If some kind of field analogous to magnetism is involved why does it pick on some objects and not others? Where does the energy come from? Why does it not die away at a distance? How can it be transmitted by radio or television, for some experiments last week seemed to work hundreds of miles away? And, Geller claims, experiments have shown that objects he bends actually lose mass. It is in fact a deadly heresy threatening the true faith of science, and because it is so subversive, the evidence must be examined in a spirit of almost fanatical criticism. Just how good is it? Last week in the Sunday Times, I described some experiments which changed my attitude to Uri Geller from extreme scepticism to almost total acceptance. 1 am still convinced he is genuine, but after thinking carefully about what happened I am forced to admit to myself that some kind of trickery would have been possible in theory. To recapitulate brieflv: in a taxi on the way to London Airport, Geller bent the steel key to my office desk apparently without touching it.

It is too tough for me to bend with my bare hands though somebody with very strong fingers might manage it. It is definitely still the same key since it still opens my desk. And it is still bent. Trying to recall the sequence of events as precisely as possible, what happened was this. Geller examined the key, then passed it to Sunday Times photographer Bryan Wharton, who held it between the palms of his hands.

Geller held his hands over Wharton's for a few seconds and asked Bryan Wharton whether he felt anything. He reported a slight sensation of warmth, then suddenly exclaimed: "My God, I can feel something now." Later he described it to me as a kind of slow pulsing. Geller immediately said "It's working," and sure enough the key turned out to be bent through an angle of about 10 degrees. I have been able to think of two ways in which trickery might have been used. I am convinced neither was employed, but I could not prove it to anybody else.

First, Geller might have distracted our attention when he first had the key, bent it, and put it into Bryan Wharton's hand already bent. But how could he have done it without our noticing, since it would have required two hands and considerable effort or else some kind of tool? And could he really have counted on neither of us noticing that the key was bent in advance? Second, he might have substituted a similar key when first handed it, bent it, presumably with some sort of tool, while he was applying his "power," and then, when Bryan Wharton opened his hand, leaned forward to pick up the key there a perfectly natural thing for him to do and substituted mine again. But does he then carry pocketfuls of substitute keys, on any one ol which he can lay his hands instantly, and does he run the most appalling risk of being exposed every time? Our next experiment involved telepathy. It is well known that professional magicians can give very convincing demonstrations of telepathy which they do not pretend are due to psychic powers. But Geller did something 1 found very impressive.

First (before the key bending) I tried without success to transmit to him a shape 1 had drawn. After the key incident, Bryan Wharton tried. He drew a circle with another wavy circle round it, while Geller turned away, hiding his eyes, and Geller then described it exactly. First, though, he -said he would" try to pass the shape on to me, so I made my mind a blank. While Geller was concentrating, two shapes floated into my mind, an equilateral triangle and a square with a semi-circle on one of its sides.

I said nothing about them, but Geller after describing Bryan Wharton's circles said: "Oh, I also got these" and proceeded to draw an equilateral triangle and a square with a triangle on one side of it. Since I never committed my shapes to paper he could not have watched my arm or used any magician's tricks. When we got to the airport Bryan Wharton bought a paper knife in the shape of a sword, which Geller proceeded to bend by stroking it while an airport employee held one end. He then took it himself and stroked it some more. It continued to bend.

The blade could certainly be distorted by hand but we have a whole series of pictures (two are shown here) to show that it bent gradually, over a period of several minutes. Quite a crowd was watching. Did Geller repeatedly distract everybody's attention, on each occasion bending the blade a tiny bit more? Geller's performance on the Dimbleby Talk-In seemed utterly convincing with its close-ups of a breaking fork. But even here trickery is possible. Last week Dr.

Cliris Evans, a psychologist who works at the National Physical set of carefully controlled experiments by people who have no prior commitment to psychical research, with filmed or video-taped records to show that there was no sleight of hand. In fact Geller has already cooperated in an investigation which very nearly meets the bill. A year ago he spent six weeks at the Stanford Research Institute, a reputable organisation which carries out sponsored research in California, working with two physicists; Dr. Harold E. Puthoff and Russell Targ.

At a meeting in New York this year they presented some of their results. In an experiment in which Geller has to guess the uppermost face of a disc shaken in a metal box he "passed" twice because he was uncertain (as he was allowed to do under the rules of the experiment) and was right the other eight times. The odds against this happening by chance are a million to one. Ten times he successfully guessed which of ten identical aluminium film" cans contained an object such as a ball bearing or a sugar cube. He passed twice, but made no mistakes.

Geller made almost exact reproductions of seven simple pictures in sealed envelopes. There were no errors. Most remarkable of all were two experiments in which Geller physically disturbed laboratory instruments, without touching them. In one he made the pan of a precision balance under a big glass jar move several limes by amounts of ten to a hundred times greater than could be produced by striking the bell jar or the table or jumping on the floor. In the other he was able to move the needle of a magnetometer without touching it.

Puthoff and Targ took great care in designing their experiments to exclude ail possibility of trickery. In the picture-guessing series, for example, the pictures were drawn when Geller was not ai the institute, and placed in the envelopes in a safe by an assistant not associated with the experiment. Everything was filmed, and all experiments in which the experimenters could even think of a way of cheating were discounted. Nevertherless the experiments are not entirely satisfactory in several respects. SRI has been very tight-lipped about them and has refused to say a word apart from the report to the New York meeting.

There are rumors of even stranger incidents during the experiments objects materialising and dematerialising. Another series is clearly called for, conducted more openly and not quite so restricted in its scope. SRI, for example, did not report on Geller's metal-bending ability at all, though this is in some ways the easiest to study. At least there is something physical there to examine. Two weeks ago, the New Scientist, in a sceptical editorial, issued a challenge to Geller which he can hardly refuse and continue to maintain that he is prepared to co-operate in serious investigations of his powers.

The magazine has set up an informal committee including two members of its staff, a psychologist, a professional magician, and an indepen dent journalist, and invites Geller to demonstrate his powers in front of it. Everything, the New Scientist says, will be recorded on video-lape and all results published in the magazine. There is probably a lot more to be said for this kind of informal investigation than for more semi-secret experiments by scientists terrified of making fools of themselves. Geller has promised to come back in the new year to do some experiments with Professor John Taylor, a theoretical physicist in the mathematics department of King's College, London, who appeared on the programme with him, so perhaps he will be able to take up the New Scientist's challenge then; but since other claimants are coming forward there is no need for research on the Geller Effect to stand still. There are plenty of obvious lines to pursue.

How common is the ability to bend metal by mind power? Can it be developed? Is it always associated with clairvoyance and the like? Are there any measurable effects on the metal? Can the effects be reproduced by other means? Does the power to bend metal obey any laws at all wilh regard to distance, size, shape, material, thickness and so on? There are some scientists who, while not totally disbelieving in-telepathy and the like, cannot see any way of getting to grips with it. Uri Geller has given them some leverage on the para-normal. The whether they are bent by trickery or by mysterious forces, are there to inspect. This has already caused a marked changed in attitudes among conventional scientists. British Government laboratories, for example, are beginning to show a glimmer of interest in the subject.

Suppose the Geller Effect does become sufficiently well established for the Science Research Council to start giving grants for investigating it, and the Royal Society to discuss, whal is it all likely to lead to? The answer to that question is quite literally closer to science fiction than to conventional science. A vivid imagination more useful than a knowledge of the laws of physics. Uri Geller claims he could, given time, stop Big Ben. He is alleged to have already stopped an escalator in He claims that nothing unpleasant ever happens because of his powers. He certainly has no qualms about flying.

But if he can stop an escalator, why not an aeroplane? As soon as one starts to think about the implications of the Geller Effect outside tile TV studio and research laboratory, it becomes terrifying or ludicrous depending on whether you believe in it or not. At one extreme. Uri Geller could simply he exposed as a fraud. At the other, missiles could be knocked out of the sky by mind power alone. But these are not the only ways in which the affair can develop.

There is a third altogether more boring possibility. The Geller Effect could turn out to be real, but rare and useless, except for doing tricks. It could become a kind of scientific backwater, useless in practical terms, and incomprehensible theoretically, and therefore disliked. I have a nasty feeling that is the way it is going' to turn out. MATTER Laboratory and takes a highly sceptical extra-curricular interest in the para-normal, amazed his colleagues in the NPL canteen by apparently reproducing this dramatic manifestation of the Geller Effect.

He did it by repeatedly bending the fork to weaken it before appearing, so that gentle stroking was enough to break off the head. He points out that the forks were on the table in the studio for eight minutes (he timed it) before Geller bent one. Of course there is a great deal that nobody has even begun to explain in terms of trickery, such as the watch hand bent under the glass, but even so nagging doubts remain. Even if you are convinced that the Geller Effect is genuine, as I am, the evidence is not good enough to convince a really determined sceptic. He can usually find some alternative explanation involving trickery.

In more than a thousand public written a book about Geller, due out early next year, which by all accounts is not likely to increase Geller's chances of being taken seriously by sceptical scientists. In an interview with an American magazine called Psychic, Puharich gave some hints of the book's tone. He described an incident in which he and Geller had driven into the desert and found an unidentified flying object "a disc-shaped metal object with a blue light flashing on top." Geller, according to Puharich, entered the UFO while Puharich filmed him. He also filmed him emerging ten minutes later. Unfortunately, Puharich explained, the record was lost, as the film cartridge dematerialised a few minutes later.

With friends like this Geller has no need of detractors. What his detractors require to remove the suspicion that he is merely a magician of genius is a A crusade for pleasure GELLER with the paper knife he bent performances and private demonstrations, Geller has never been caught cheating in any way, a truly remarkable record if he is a magician. But in an extremely hostile article on him last spring Time magazine made some allegations that came pretty close to an accusation of fraud. At one stage, according to Time, Geller's powers were investigated by the U.S. Department of Defence.

One of these investigators claimed to have seen Geller peeping, when he should have been hiding his eyes. And a demonstration of his ability to move the needle of a magnetometer (an instrument very like a compass) was discredited when one of the investigators noticed Geller apparently vibrating the floor. By doing the same thing the investigator was able to move the needle further than Geller, At a demonstration in Time's offices Geller was watched in ac By DENNIS "I know, I concede the point, that's completely true," she says, and accepts that perhaps sexologists have created as many problems as they have solved, by awakening in Australian women an expectation of performance that their husbands can't fulfill. "The men get terrified. 1 get so many cases of women who know their men stay up late watching television, have another drink, make any excuse to avoid getting in the cot where they know thev can't perform to ideals.

"And the women, as often as not, continue to fake their orgasm, anything to avoid bruising his ego. It's tragic." Tina, as bright and bubbling as if talking of romance newly blossomed, plunges deeper into her subject, discarding for a minute' food and wine, and presents, the more she talks, the image of a crusader alone. Banned from broadcasting live, shunned by radio and television executives even when recorded, painted and accepted by herself as a scarlet woman, she survives. The Broadcasting Control Board banned her bared-to-the-knuckles talk-back programme apparently because she advocates female masturbation. It is a cross she bears, as a sexologist must.

"Men I go out with think they're going to be rated on a one to ten score, or if I'm hesitant they think I'm playing hard to get. People expect things of you," she says, and those bastions of stock exchange society swallow hard. Over coffee, black and strong, talk again of ignorance better left alone. "Perhaps half the people shouldn't be awakened. I know that's an awful thing to say.

"But what I do, counsel people, talk, lecture, the lot, is about making sex unimportant, not. important. Sex is important only when there is a problem. "For many of those people out in the great grey western suburbs there is an acceptance of present roles. Sex, in a lot of cases is not about high aspirations, hut about acceptable compromise.

Don't is- Lindemarts CONSULTANT CO NATIONAL TRUST OF AUSTRALIA (VICTORIA) Sea our advertisement. Senior Appointments, this issue. tion by a professional magician called James Randi masquerading as a reporter. Afterwards Randi duplicated all Geller's feats and claimed that the fork-bending was done by hand when the attention of the audience was distracted. If this is the case, it is difficult to see how Geller could possibly perform on television.

If the picture is showing a close-up of hands and fork there would be no way of distracting the audience's attention open to him. While Geller's critics have had virtually no success in showing that he is really a magician, not having para-normal powers, he has made himself extremely vulnerable to ridicule and is likely to become more so. Geller's friend and mentor in the United States is a New York doctor called Andrija Puharich. It was Puharich who "discovered" Geller in Israel and brought him to America two years ago. He has MINOGUE Bettina Arndt sexologist turb that which is already happy, and that is most of the population whether the woman is having orgasms or not, but help where there is a problem." The problems, she says, and the coll'ee needs relilling, are about Australian mythologies, never exploded.

About Friday nights at the pub where bragging about five "screws" the night before equates with full-blown virility, and the magic masculinity complex prevails. "It's hard to get the men to accept there is a problem. They still want to brush it off, saying the women are frigid so it isn't their fault. They don't like to talk about it." More difficult still is getting those supposed leaders of our society, the doctors, to talk about sex. "It's where I'm headed.

I get Ihe greatest thrill of all talking to medical students, opening them up to the problems of advising people on sex problems. Most GPs are appalling. They still tell women that most women weren't born to have orgasms. They treat them as neurotics." More Australian universities, Monash, NSW, Melbourne, ANU, are accepting Miss Arndt as the professional she is. Even she took some time to accept her role.

I Wow we turn books into fool-proof gifts VINTAGE TABLE WINES BIN 23 RIESLING 1972 VINTAGE AWARDED GOLD MEDAL AT 1972 BRISBANE SHOW ORDINATOR IHIUIt JOHN R. WAITE is easy at Collins tell us Northland Shopping Centre 40 Australia Arcade 13 Dcgraves St. Subway Ooncastcr Shoppingtown Telephone 662 2711 EfflLWr' Over pate, with a fine South Australian white and Danish beer, dark-suited waiters hovering, businessmen eavesdropping, the talk is of female orgasm, its difficulties, its delights, its dilemmas. Tina Arndt, sexologist, oblivious to the hotel surroundings, big murky-hazel eyes sparkling, mind exploding with enthusiasm, a Joan of Arc sense of crusading, devours course and conversation. The crusade is an utter devotion to pleasure, its acceptance, its attainment, and Tina's striving is to carry it beyond the bar room sniggers, the self-conscious giggles.

Over steak for one, with mushroom sauce, wine flowing, waiters still alert, not quite hovering, and scallops for the other, talk of impotence, premature ejaculation, the profound acting ability of women who fake their lives away. The frustration of it all, the repetitive boredom of "close your eyes and think of of ignorance better left alone, of women as the spitoons of men, at least of men burdened by an expectation of performance they cannot fulfil. The fears and terror of that which doesn't, despite all legend, come naturally. Sex and supping, an incompatible duo to the conservative mind. Waiters, of wine and food variety, visit and overhear talk and glide away bemused, to snigger and thus expose the problem, or gabble to their peers in disbelief.

"I went through all that' business, when younger," she says, 'Of 'now you'll think I'm awful', and feeling that I had to play hard to get, be coy." The stock exchange men nearby raise eyebrows and pour another glass. They talk of referendums, of market plunges, of building booms gone bust, of commissions earned and some lost, next week's party, the office "do" at Christmas, shortage of juniors, the time they had in Sydney, women loose and frigid, apparently to their minds the only varieties. Bettina Arndt, 24, although age is an absurd "irrelevancy, and pretty again irrelevant talks of and simple, and mixes it with tastes of steak and riesling. "I used to get embarrassed talking, counselling, people and saying penis and vagina and orgasm and such things." The conservative gentlemen choke, carry on the pretence of discussing share quotes, but strain ears and senses. "Now I'm used to it, but people still don't really accept what I do.

One woman asked whether I was so interested in sex because I was frigid. That's the sort of response I get." Tina operates a clinic in Sydney, talking mostly to women who, through magazines and conversation with friends, have discovered there is an undiscovered world. And talking with young men who can't make it, and can't understand why. There is, she says, a tendency for most clients to be middle and upper income. Others, the torturable, and forgettable, classes, haven't had the awakening, and perhaps never will.

Tina also writes for Forum magazine, a publication some could describe as a portable receptacle for graffiti, but whose aims, profit apart, are said to be belter sex information for the community. Miss Arndt will soon leave for the United States, on a Forum-sponsored tour of sex clinics, including the famous Masters and Johnson clinic. "For me this is a dream. I know I get sick of talking about sex, but I really love this life. It is marvellous to help.

"People doubt me because of my age, and because I'm not married. But overall, 1 get a tremendous kick out of helping people with this particular problem they just don't understand. "I don't think sex is really the most important thing in a relationship. But if there is a problem it becomes the most important thing. That's wrong.

"What I really want is for men and women to educate themselves women whose expectations have been awakened are the best educators of their husbands and talk about sex in the open." Again, the men in the pin-stripe suits boggle. Buying a book as a gift Book Depot, rirst, wc give you the buying a book or a gift book token. If you give a token, then there problem. Your friend cart make his choice. (Tokens arc valid in every ten ff li 23 RIESLIN6 ntJ'" ltt He with w- -huh my be ir taile pW hf H1.

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