Dr Mishlove,
I still haven't gotten a copy of the
PK man, but I figure this Geller
thing has to be discussed in greater
detail because I can't prevent the
bias that it creates in my mind,
simply because what I know about it
makes it perfectly clear to me
that it was a case of outright fraud.
But I'm stuck having to admit
that my view is based entirely on what
I've read by the age of 23, whereas
you're much older and have actually
met the people who wrote the books my
view is based on. The
conversation is greatly unbalanced in your
favour and I'm trying to
avoid sounding like the know it all/know nothing I
am. But I'm also
stuck wondering how it's possible to continue
believing it despite what
I see as obvious evidence to the contrary.
First, there's his pre-American history, where he was charged with
fraud
in Israel.
Caught once doesn't mean guilty forever
but...
His early official bio left alot open to question. The
URI version of
the Time incident differs so much from the version
signed by the others
involved that it makes it perfectly clear that
one of the two is lying.
Then there was the main plot...I was left asking
why the Egyptian God
Horus would bestow such powers on this individual
so that he could bend
spoons on t.v.. Did he have an argument
with the spoon god or what? If
he was capable of transporting from
place to place, healing the dying,
etc., why would he do these
things only once each? What could be
gained, from Horus' point of
view, from Geller having such powers and
using them for entertainment
only?
The evidence that he used fraud for his public performances,
both on
stage and on television, DOES outweigh the anecdotes of
non-public
performances such as the plant moving incident, the astral
projection to
Brazil, the lenscap photograph, the apparent psychic
healing of an anonymous girl and, of course, the mung bean incident.
Why would Geller cheat on the little parlour tricks on stage and in
front of cameras, and save the less easily explained miracles for
private parties for the few?
Has Geller ever been asked to
"Make the movie run backwards?" while on stage or on camera? In front of
scientific observers? Did the person in question mention the idea to
anyone else prior to giving the sprout to Geller? You say it was an experiment,
but I've been involved in many "experiments" around a bong and bottle of rye and
the results, though fascinating, had to be written off because they couldn't be
repeated in more formal conditions.
How much was the incident
discussed between the participants/observers
prior to your hearing about
it? I myself have observed the transition
many anecdotes go through
before becoming cemented. Often, he people
who were there refuse to
bend on what happened once the conclusion is
reached on what the incident
meant, even when faced with a tape
recording of the initial discussion,
where initial observations are
often different from the final version.
The fact that this person was described by you as a friend, I can
understand your unwillingness to question his side of the story.
Randi's Santa Clause analogy applies here, when 9 out of ten cases
show
that no Santa Clause was involved in the distribution of gifts,
why
should we forever leave the 10th case open to debate simply
because no
one would own up to it?
Also, I can understand
the reason why James Randi would lose face in
scientific circles for
calling someone a liar. In parliament, members
are not permitted
to call each other liars and must say the person is
"mistaken", even
when it is obvious that the person is lying. In
addition, in
Canada, police can lie in court because the rules call for
3 witnesses
to refute an officer's testimony. It's considered wrong for
someone to
say that this allows police to lie, because, after all, we
must
respect police because they have taken oaths never to abuse their
powers. We should trust this oath because...we have to.
That's what it
comes down to.
I understand that there are
similar rules, although unwritten, in
scientific circles,
particularily fields such as yours, and it is also
pretty standard
among unofficial occultnik circles I've been acquainted
with.
It's pretty hard to work one's way around this, and one faces
accusations of bias and closed mindedness if one looks at what is
obviously a case of fraud and says so.
Someone like Randi
wouldn't balk at calling a spade a spade, however,
and the whole SRI
thing was pretty stupid to begin with. One does not
call upon a
physicist to study the mating habits of kangaroos, unless
there was a
particular facet of it which applied directly to his field
of
expertise. The SRI researchers were mathemeticians, and allowed
Geller a whole bunch of leway that he shouldn't have had, but they did
so because they took Geller at his word to begin with. After
all, much
like Jesus, he wouldn't perform in front of skeptics.
From what I've read, the scientists weren't assisting him in any
other
way than not knowing what they were doing. They seemed honest in
their
efforts, but it shouldn't have been their efforts.
The Bill
Clinton analogy doesn't stand, because Bill Clinton didn't do anything wrong in
direct relation to his office, in direct relation to his job of running the
country, the reason for his being worth discussion. Geller was proven to
be a cheat on several incidences that WERE related to his "office".
The Geller scenario IS extremely important, because the continued
acceptance of many of his claims in spite of the evidence tarnishes
your
work in a great way.
Is the PK man another Geller? It's
a bias I can't prevent myself from
taking into the book, simply
because the Geller incident stands so
boldly in mind. In all
fairness, the same question that applies to Geller, if he's been caught cheating
before is it likely that he cheats all the time, applies to you, if you as a
researcher have either been snowed, or needed to believe it so much that you
allowed yourself to be snowed, in this way by Geller, how careful could this
later research be?
By the way, on a totally different topic, I
recently read Torr
Norretrander's "The User Illusion", which theorizes
that consciousness
is not real. I'm sure you've already read it,
and would like to know
what you thought of it. I'm having a hard
time deciding, and since your
original letter reminded me I had it in
my library, I've been referring
to Roots Of Consciousness for a
different perspective on some of the
concepts he discusses, and have
found that some parts in User Illusion
make Roots Of Consciousness
easier to understand.
His analyzis of the Maxwell's Demon dilemna was
similar to the one in
Roots Of Consciousness, but was used to
illustrate a totally different
point. The "Physiological Mechanisms Of
Consciousness" section of your book was the one I referred to most.
Both books are seemingly on the same subject, though your book
should
be called "History Of What People Have Thought About Consciousness".
Daniel Johnson
