EPILOGUE
WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN -both Geller's apparent ability to duplicate
drawings and bend metals, and the evidence that certain individuals
can muster enough "psychic energy," after seeing Geller
perform, to reproduce many of his feats?
One editorial summed up the situation: A "challenge to scientists
will arise if investigations continue to turn up signs of psychokinetic
powers . . . It would then be urgently necessary for the scientific
community to come to terms with something totally beyond its powers
of explanation." That statement appeared in the traditionally
conservative journal Nature in December 1973. Since then more
evidence on paranormal phenomena - involving Geller and other
individuals - has surfaced, and the scientific community has begun
to turn its attention to research of the paranormal. Where the
field of parapsychology once was the exclusive province of psychologists,
today it has become an active arena for physical scientists as
well: In August 1974, a group of physicists met in Geneva, Switzerland,
to discuss how such arcane concepts of quantum physics as "time
reversal" and "acausality" might be relevant to
an understanding of psychical events; and in February 1975, a
group of physicists and engineers met in Tarrytown, New York,
at a conference entitled "The Physics of Paranormal Phenomena."
It would have been impossible to convene such meetings just a
decade ago, for reputable physical scientists were not interested
in the field of parapsychology - or if they were, they
kept it a well-guarded secret.
Why the turnabout? What has suddenly drawn so many physicists,
chemists, and engineers into psychical research?
Certainly one reason has to do with the sophisticated electronic
equipment used by modem psychical researchers. Devices such as
electroencephalographs, temperature sensors, galvanic skin detectors,
and others permit scientists to monitor a subject's brain waves,
heart and respiration rates, and electrical skin conductivity
during a test of paranormality, and to observe physiological correlations
that accompany psychical happenings. Thus, in appearance, modem
psychical research more closely parallels conventional scientific
inquiry. And appearance is important. Another reason has to
do with the willingness of scientists in the last decade to study
humans in such altered states of consciousness as hypnosis, dreaming,
and conditions of sensory deprivation and bombardment; paranormal
perceptions are often found to spring naturally from such "twilight"
levels of the mind. [ For an overview of parapsychological research
conducted in the last decade see: The Roots of Coincidence,
Arthur Koestler (New York: Random House, 1972); Dream Telepathy,
Montague, et al. (New York: Macmillan, 1973); Supersenses:
Our Potential for Parasensory Experience, Charles Panati (New
York: Quadrangle, 1974).
Unlike other psychics and ordinary individuals who have been
studied for parasensory abilities, Geller claims that he experiences
no shift in consciousness when he performs his feats. However,
many scientists believe that Geller does undergo consciousness
changes, but that, for some reason presently unknown, they are
so slight that Geller himself is not aware of them. All attempts
to measure alterations in Geller's brain-wave pattern during paranormal
tests have yielded negative results.] But there is another
factor that accounts for the recent influx of physical scientists
to psychical research: Uri Geller. Regardless of one's personal
attitude toward Geller, no one can deny the fact that in a mere
four years Geller has focused more scientific attention on the
field of parapsychology than it has seen in its entire ninety-year
history. Further, research conducted with Geller has constituted
the first parapsychological evidence to be published in an "establishments'
scientific journal. To a large degree all of this attention has
had positive effects on the quality of the work being done. But
it has also raised a question that is being asked with great concern
these days: Is the Geller-aroused interest in parapsychology really
good for the field as a whole?
Some parapsychologists think it is not. "Many people think
Uri Geller is all that there is to parapsychology today,"
says Charles Honorton, President of the Parapsychological Association
and a leading psychical researcher at the Maimonides Medical Center
in Brooklyn. Honorton feels that because of all the publicity
Geller has generated, too strong, and unfounded, associations
have been made in the minds of the public between Uri Geller and
the entire field of psychical research. Honorton speaks for many
other parapsychologists when he expresses one fear. "If
Geller should ever be proved a fraud, or if it should ever be
found that he uses magic when his paranormal talents fail him,
the setback for the field of parapsychology could be the greatest
in its history."
Other researchers, however, take a different view of Geller:
they see him as a long-needed " superattraction" who
is bringing attention to a field where research activity has always
been minimal and results scarce. "The questions posed by
paranormal phenomena are far too complex for psychologists alone
to tackle," says physicist Wilbur Franklin. "It was
important that physical scientists enter the field and conduct
their own kind of research. Geller, I believe, has been one major
factor for this happening."
Franklin and Honorton typify two different views, and figuratively
speaking, at least, they head two opposing camps on the issue
of Uri Geller and psychical research. But there is one point
on which both sides agree: more research on Geller is necessary;
first, to establish beyond any reasonable doubt the true nature
of Geller's talents, then, assuming this is affirmatively established,
to determine the exact extent of his abilities - not only what
Geller can do, but what he cannot do. For this
information is also of value in trying to understand the nature
and origins of psychic abilities.
Geller himself is willing to participate in further scientific
investigations. He has already undergone perceptual and PK experiments
in Japan, Switzerland, and France. (They were conducted too late
for the results to be included in this book.) Beyond this, there
are the experiments proposed by Ronald Hawke, who, by using sound
waves in metals, and light waves in plastics, hopes to understand
the nature of the deformations in these materials, which Geller
will attempt to bend. Eldon Byrd at the Naval Surface Weapons
Center has suggested a series of experiments that would investigate
whether there is a magnetic component to the energy that Geller
uses in accomplishing his feats.. Charles Honorton has designed
a rigorous series of perceptual experiments to establish the extent
of Geller's telepathic and clairvoyant ability. And shortly before
this manuscript was completed, William Cox, at the Institute for
Parapsychology in Durham, North Carolina, submitted to Geller
an outline of the experiments he would like to conduct on both
Geller's perceptual and psychokinetic abilities. These represent
only a small fraction of the tests that have been proposed by
qualified researchers- in various scientific fields.
Another Geller-related area of study is the apparent PK abilities
in adolescents and adults that develop spontaneously after some
form of contact with Geller. Physicists Dr. John Hasted
and Dr. John Taylor in England and medical psychologist Dr. Thelma
Moss in the U.S. are just three of the researchers who are continuing
to investigate this phenomenon. It has been suggested that the
design of future research in the paranormal, with Geller
and other psychics, can be greatly improved, and the protocols
greatly tightened, by consultation with a skilled magician, who
can impose experimental safeguards to prevent the possibility
of fraud. An increasing number of psychical investigators are
following this suggestion. And in the next few years it might
become standard procedure to have a magician's name, and his
recommendations, as an integral part of parapsychological research
papers.
The plans for continued research with Geller and other individuals
are exciting, but the efforts will be futile if the scientific
community at large does not keep an open mind toward research
on paranormal phenomena and if respected scientific journals do
not publish the results of well-conducted psychical investigations.
The appearance of the SRI paper in Nature overturned a
century-old publishing hurdle; it can be hoped only that
other journals will follow Nature's lead.
What will it mean if further psychical research yields uneqivocally
positive results? Parapsychologists have been saying for years
that there exist human senses beyond the five ordinary ones parasenses,
or perceptual modalities that transcend our present understanding
of space and time. Western science has really just begun to research
the subject of human consciousness. Already it has determined
that there are such things as parasenses, and that the parasenses
of ordinary individuals can be aroused if changes in levels of
consciousness are induced. Crudely now; feebly. But that's just
for the present. Further research will refine our knowledge of
our parasenses, and our ability to develop them - for the betterment
of humankind and a clearer understanding of our place in the universe.
Research on Uri Geller could greatly add to that knowledge, and
lessen the time, by decades, before we have answers to the paranormal
workings of the mind.
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