The Secret Life of Uri Geller (4 page)

The reality is that, and this really is not using over-emotive language, that quantum entanglement – which broadly speaking involves separate sub-atomic particles affecting one another more or less instantaneously whether they are centimetres or light years apart – is probably the most mysterious phenomenon we know of in the universe. We are talking here about separate, distant objects behaving like one entity, while remaining two separate objects. Additionally, although ‘non-locality’, as quantum entanglement is also often called, has been demonstrated regularly in laboratories since the 1990s and is already being exploited in real-life applications in electronics and other fields, not even the most knowledgeable scientist has much of a clue how it works.

One quantum theory pioneer, the Princeton physicist, John Wheeler, said if you are not completely confused by quantum mechanics, you do not understand it, while the great theoretical physicist Richard Feynman famously said that nobody understands quantum mechanics and that if anyone tells you they know how it works, they’re lying.

Even Einstein, who was partly responsible for describing quantum theory, was disturbed by aspects of it from the start. The non-locality in particular troubled him: he described it as ‘spooky action at a distance’. His issue was that if particles could act in concert almost instantaneously from one side of the Universe to the other, information (or whatever it is) would need to be travelling faster than light, which his own work argued was an impossibility. (How much faster than the speed of light quantum entanglement provably works might have spooked Einstein still further; in one recent experiment, physicist Nicolas Gisin of the University of Geneva measured photons – light particles –18 kilometres apart apparently sending information to one another at 10,000 times faster than the speed of light. ‘I want to be able to tell a story,’ Professor Gisin has said, ‘and I cannot tell you a story of how nature manages the trick.’)

So in quantum theory we have sub-atomic particles entangled, in the sense of being ‘tied together’, affecting one another and seemingly communicating at absurd speeds. We have the prospect, any year now, of quantum computers using quantum effects, even though these can’t be explained, to work millions of times faster than today’s electronic computers.

Entanglement is also the basis of teleportation, which is no longer ‘Beam-me-up-Scotty’ science fiction, since it has been demonstrable in the laboratory since 1997, four years after it was first seriously proposed. In teleportation, two quantum-entangled objects seem to act in concert as a link that moves information from one physical location to another. Chinese researchers currently hold the official record for teleportation distance, having teleported a piece of information via entangled photons across 16 kilometres of urban landscape and a lake.

But what does all this have to do with Uri Geller, mind reading, ESP, remote viewing and metal bending, not to forget ghosts, poltergeists, and even while we’re at it, the placebo effect, mind-over-matter, Jungian synchronicity, chanting, prayer, miracles and religion?

Obviously, broadly speaking, everything ‘paranormal’ from spoon bending to prayer power is in the same ballpark as thought transference. But there has been no experimental work on the mechanics of how any of this might be working. So far, photons are the main things to have been provably entangled, although the size of demonstrably entangled objects is slowly increasing; in various experiments, a blob of thousands of photons and even a centimetre-long crystal have reportedly been entangled with a photon. And nothing experimental has (yet) demonstrated anything remotely involving brain cells swapping information via quantum entanglement. Yet we have globally respected scientists like Dr Green in Detroit and other researchers who are not even notably ‘heretical’, explicitly stating that the explanation for the abilities of Uri Geller and his like is most likely quantum entanglement.

And there are tantalizing glimpses of what you might call Geller-like aspects within what is known about entanglement. One such hint is the puzzling fickleness and unreliability of entanglement. It is famously finicky, declining and even disappearing abruptly – something known as ‘entanglement sudden death’ – with even slight external disturbance. ‘Gellerism’, to coin a phrase, is similarly unpredictable and often weak and indeterminate. Sceptics love to hoot with laughter at Uri’s not-uncommon inability to ‘perform’, especially when he is surrounded by people who want him to fail. These sceptics, though, don’t appear to find it odd that people in the public eye, from comedians to athletes to politicians, seem to do better with an audience willing them on, and often flop with a crowd that’s against them, but we’ll let that pass.

In conventional science, however, effects are meant to be consistent on all occasions, in all conditions, regardless of the experimenter’s feelings. Yet amongst its oddities, a particularly peculiar part of quantum entanglement is that an observer can affect an entangled system; yes, merely
measuring
one object that is entangled with another can cause the state of the distant object to change to that of the one being measured. Indeed, even emotions can, in this field, affect outcomes. No wonder, perhaps, that sceptical scientists by and large shun this kind of research on the somewhat unscientific grounds that it just can’t be true!

There are other fragments of the work in progress that is the understanding of quantum entanglement, which hint at Gellerism and the whole gamut of weird science. Some research suggests that everyday objects are so made that their components are entangled not just with each other but also with almost everything with which they have interacted throughout their existence.

To those who like to think (woo woo) of the Universe in holistic terms, this is most interesting. There are also tantalizing, though unconfirmed, theories emerging that quantum entanglement may not be limited to physics, but might also appear in living systems. Some research suggests, for example, that migrating birds use quantum effects unwittingly (OK, it wouldn’t be wittingly) to increase their sensitivity to the Earth’s magnetic field, possibly by entangling the electrons of cryptochrome, a light-sensitive molecule believed to be involved in avian navigation.

It is all still some journey that starts from the basis of photons acting in cahoots across laboratories and finishes with a proposal that neurons in separate brains might be able to fire one another remotely. It is an even longer journey before you arrive at quantum entanglement as a theoretical framework for the reason why the molecules in a spoon should change in nature as a result of Uri Geller being in the vicinity and putting on his cross, concentrating face. Yet the fact that serious scientists protective of their reputations willingly associate themselves with the notion – indeed not just associate with it, but take it out for dinner and invite it to stay over – that the paranormal abilities of Uri Geller and others are down to quantum entanglement or something like it can surely not be ignored.

E
ven before it became known that Uri Geller had an intriguing and fascinating past – and an intriguing and fascinating present, too – as someone definitely involved in espionage on behalf of three nations (Israel, the United States, Mexico) and possibly a fourth (the United Kingdom) one of the most common questions asked about him by those curious to know more about this unusual media personality and fixture of British life, is usually expressed as something like, ‘Yes, but has he ever been tested by science?’

That Uri is in his 60s, yet looks to be in his 40s, has been friends with the likes of Michael Jackson and John Lennon and lives in a fine mansion on one of the most exclusive stretches of the River Thames in Berkshire, is still generally well known. That he is famous for being able to bend spoons and interfere with old-fashioned, mechanical watches by some disputed form of mental power is, these days, possibly a little less well known, his mind-reading ability, less so still.

Even less known, indeed practically
un
known, is the fact that he has been tested and validated by some of the most rigorous and protracted research ever unleashed on one individual. Even where this is known, it tends to be disbelieved, or its results reported falsely. This is only partly because the waters have been deliberately muddied by the orchestrated sneering of the ubiquitous, closed-minded – yet undeniably fashionable – lobby occupied by professional sceptics. A lot of ignorance about Uri Geller’s true scientific background is simply the result of his heyday dating back to another, monochrome, naïve era, to a feeling that we have ‘moved on’ and become less gullible and more sophisticated.

And yet the details of what happened around Uri back then more than stand up to the test of time. They actually amount to some of the more fascinating scientific history on record – along with, as we will see shortly, some of the spookiest accounts given by reliable witnesses of what can only be called X-Files-type events.

‘I’d never bought an ESP journal or ever subscribed to
Fate
magazine,’ says lead investigator Hall Puthoff, laughing, as he looks back on why he accepted the challenge of working with Uri Geller at the Electronics and Bioengineering unit of Stanford Research Institute in 1972. ‘No, I wasn’t interested at all. In fact, as it turns out, the only reason I got involved in this was that I was interested in what we now call quantum entanglement. I said at the time, “OK, here’s something that apparently occurs. So, there must be some physics here. So, let’s take a look at it.” To a physicist, if it moves, it’s physics.’

Puthoff had early indications, however, that he and his colleague Russell Targ would be examining someone who was rather more than a nightclub magician, as Uri had been when Targ’s doctor/physicist friend Andrija Puharich first saw him in Tel Aviv. ‘Behind the scenes,’ Puthoff explains today, ‘we were approached by Israeli Intelligence and they had been working with Geller in Israel.

‘But they had only been doing operational things; they had not had any chance to do anything scientific. So they asked us if we would be willing to share with them whatever we found out in a scientific venue. That wasn’t my call. So that was up to the CIA if they wanted to do that.’ (The programme, originally funded by the CIA, was later passed on to its military equivalent, the DIA. But, as Russell Targ says today, ‘The whole government was aware. We were supported by the CIA, Defence Intelligence Agency, Army Intelligence and NASA.’)

Kit Green, known officially to all as ‘Rick’, the CIA contract monitor, was concerned, as were Puthoff and Targ, that the young Israeli delivered to them could be a fraud. The Mossad had been candid with Green that their conclusion from their experience with him in Israel was that Geller was a potentially powerful military weapon who had proved himself useful in secret military tests, but at the same time, as a flamboyant show business personality, in terms of keeping a secret, he was likely to be about as discreet as a giant megaphone. Their recommendation to the Americans, therefore, was to test him and use him, with their compliments as it were, but to be careful. Israel, for its part, was letting the USA take a look at Geller in exchange for use of American spy satellites as they passed over the Arab countries.

Part of the preparation at SRI was to eliminate any chance that Uri might be using standard magician’s effects. The scientists were well aware that however qualified they were in their field, it was still possible to be fooled by magicians expert in theirs. To this end (and despite the fact that Targ was a keen amateur magician who was a regular in the magic shops on 42nd Street in New York and prided himself on knowing well the field of professional magic) several stage magicians were drafted in to SRI, both to pose as lab assistants and to review frame-by-frame video tapes of Geller at work. One such was an expert of the day in psychic magicianship called Christopher Evans and even he confessed on many occasions that he could not work out how Uri could be doing what he did.

None of this convinced the most devout sceptics, of course. Among their more implausible conspiracy theories was one that in the course of his own preparations for SRI, Uri had had a radio fitted in a tooth, by means of which Shipi, the Mossad or possibly the Tooth Fairy herself, could communicate with him; even though one of the most prominent anti-Geller magician activists, a Canadian-born performer called James Randi, conclusively trashed the tooth radio notion in an open letter to the British Magic Circle magazine
Abracadabra
, it is still occasionally touted on the Internet.

Physicist Russell Targ who carried out experiments with Uri Geller, Stanford Research Institute, California, USA.

It is an attractive but ultimately not-quite plausible idea. For one thing, SRI was alert to all sorts of possibilities for fraud, some kind of radio scam amongst them. Uri was duly shielded by a radioproof Faraday cage. In Britain,
New Scientist
magazine, possibly peeved that SRI had gone to its rival
Nature
with the Geller report, cleverly unearthed patents Andrija Puharich had filed back in the 1960s for a variety of tooth radios. The significant point, however, was that these projects were never built; the electronic components for anything workable simply didn’t exist. As a sensible precaution, however, Uri submitted himself for an examination with a prominent New York dentist, Dr John K. Lind, who was a full clinical professor at Columbia University, and in his private capacity looked after Greta Garbo’s, Errol Flynn’s, Arthur Miller’s and Marilyn Monroe’s teeth. ‘I can attest to the fact that clinical and radiographic examination of Geller’s mouth, teeth and jaws reveals no foreign objects implanted such as transistors, metal devices, etc.’ Dr Lind reported in a statement.