Skeptical Inquirer: U.K. broadcast commission rejects Geller's 'Secrets of the Psychics' complaint - Uri Geller's complaint against skeptical television program

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U.K. broadcast commission rejects Geller's 'Secrets of the Psychics' complaint - Uri Geller's complaint against skeptical television program

Susan Blackmore

Did you see that television program last summer with Victorian mediums faking ectoplasm and magicians showing how they could duplicate the kind of psychic feats that Uri Geller is known for? If not, you missed a treat, but not to worry, for now you may be able to see Secrets of the Psychics again. And why? Because Geller has had his complaint against the program rejected.

After the program aired in the U.K., Geller complained of unfair treatment to the Broadcasting Standards Commission, and I, along with a team from Channel 4, went to give evidence. It's been a long wait, but the commission has just announced its complete rejection of Geller's complaint (see text of decision, page 14). So it wasn't unfair to have magicians showing how they duplicate those "psychic feats," and experts saying there is no reliable scientific evidence for his psychic powers whatsoever.

If I'm sounding jubilant about this little victory it is not because I personally have anything against Geller. He has always been charming and kind to me, invited me and my children to tea at his flashy mansion on the bank of the Thames, showed us his boat (aptly named "Paranormal"), and let us swim in his pool. No - it is because this is a matter of scientific truth and freedom.

Although millions of people believe in extrasensory perception, ghosts, UFOs, crystal powers and the tenets of astrology, the evidence for ESP is controversial (at best) and the claims of astrology demonstrably false. However, people don't want to see endless meticulous experiments with nothing but negative results. Viewers, and the producers who are their slaves, seem to prefer conspiracy theories, beings from outer space, scientists who cover up the truth about our mental powers, and Russians who can move trains with their teeth or bamboozle television presenters with children's party tricks.

There was a classic, if mild, example of this genre last week. In The Secrets of Sleep, we saw an experiment from the 1970s in which U.S. psychologist Charlie Tart tested a young woman who had out-of-body experiences during sleep. We were not told that the woman was a mental patient who disappeared right after the tests and could not be retested, nor that the EEG record showed possible mains interference at the time of her success, nor that another claimant was tested by Tart and failed. The impression given was that this wonderful experiment has been ignored for decades by closed-minded scientists who want to suppress the truth about the psychic powers of our sleeping minds. This is ridiculous. The truth (and how that word is abused when psychic issues are at stake!) is that many other scientists tried to repeat Tart's finding and failed. I was one of them. Why should we scientists ignore such a potentially exciting discovery? If I had succeeded in repeating it I might have uncovered something absolutely new and shocking about reality. But it just isn't so. As Richard Dawkins said, if Geller's powers could be proved to be real they would open up a new field of physics, scientists would flock to be involved, and someone would get a Nobel prize. But they haven't been.

That's why it is so refreshing to see Secrets of the Psychics - to see the "mysterious" Ouija board explained, to see the mediums' tricks exposed, and to learn why all those experts doubt that psychic phenomena exist at all. And to all those producers pandering to popular belief, I say: Wake up! It is possible to make an enjoyable anti-paranormal program. It is possible to be skeptical and still please the viewers. Even my local grocer liked it. "You know," she said (lowering her voice) "I don't think Uri Geller's really psychic, do you?"

No, I do not. I was glad to give evidence at the hearing. I was glad to explain why the evidence is not good enough. And above all I was glad that Geller lost his complaint. I may be wrong about his psychic powers, in which case he will be able to prove it to me, and then I will gladly change my mind. Meanwhile, it's good to know that programmers can make challenging and skeptical programs in the knowledge that, if they do so fairly and honestly, the broadcast complaints procedure will stand by them.

And if Secrets of the Psychics comes on in America - do watch.

Susan Blackmore is a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of the West of England. She wrote this piece originally for The Independent (U.K.).