Short and sweet:
In the comments to my post about the last Uri Geller show, Aaron wrote a report from a mentalist show (thanks again!) that would be a pity to see being relatively unnoticed, so I reply in this separate post.
My translation of what Aaron wrote:
So…. how should I start….
basically I’d start by saying that I somehow pity all those who have been so blocked that they don’t allow anything anymore.I could tell an extensive story now, but don’t feel like using so much time for that.
who believes, ok
who doesn’t, also ok
Basically, I agree. And I’d like to add: Some want to believe, others want to understand rationally. (And others still might just want to be entertained.)
For my burthday, my girlfriend gave me an evening entertainment (mental show, hypnosis). The performance took place in a small hall intended for 100 people. Luckily for me, we were an audience of exactly 6. Luckily for me because we automatically were integrated quite often.
We really experienced considerable things… but the absolutely most exciting moment for me was this.
The experiment went like that. The hypnotized woman sitting blindfolded (personally checked the blindfold) on a chair about 5 m ahead on stage recognized personal objects which we put out (at that moment). I put my business card from the chest pocket directly under my leg, since HE had started two chairs next to me! He said to her only few sentences: – what am I holding in the hand
– no, wrong …. (name)
– what do you see here …. (name)
– (name)maybe two, three more short sentences.
the sentence: – no, wrong was said only very rarely.
I can’t imagine that there’s a hypnotic programming behind that! there are too many variables with personal objects.
I don’t believe in a “hypnotic programming”, either…
This is about a pre-show for the first German season of “The Next Uri Geller” from early 2008. You can also:
» Show all my reports from the first season.
» Show everything about the second season 2009.
» Show really all articles about Uri Geller.
ProSieben has just shown the commercial disguised as a documentary “The phenomenon Uri Geller” – as “preparation” for the first edition of the casting show “The next Uri Geller – Incredible phenomena live” on Tuesday at 20:15 to find a “successor” of the “world’s most famous mystifier”, as ProSieben titles (and I translated).
Successor in which regard, anyway? Making a fool of himself when the conditions differ from the preparations? Speaking about pretended real supernatural powers without even rudimentarily trying to prove them in a respectable, reliable way? Instead suing critics in most ridiculous ways? Stefan Niggemeier has a nice list (in German) in his comment for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, and also the topic page of the GWUP (German; cf. CSI (ex-CSICOP)) has extensive information including descriptions of tricks as well as several (English) videos including James Randi’s “classic”.
Stefan Niggemeier ends with (in my translation):
“That ProSieben has bought the format regardless, drivels about “extrasensory, supernatural, inexplicable” phenomena, calls the ten contestants “chosen ones” and, like so many others, attends to this icky impostor: That is the only inexplicable phenomenon of Uri Geller.”
Well – that’s ProSieben, private TV, and the hunt for ratings…
Speaking of “Mystifier”: The GWUP Blog (German), too, wondered about this choice of words, since “mystify” means doch bewilder, dumbfound, flummox, baffle, blot out, obliterate, veil, hide, obscure etc. (TheFreeDictionary) – more in the GWUP Blog and via OneLook.
Now back to this about 45 minutes long “documentary”: No-one expected that it came even close to the extensive German article about this “media reality satire” at Telepolis, anyway. Rather that you get what was actually shown…
Geller himself said at the beginning (my re-translation): “Some believe it’s a trick. Some believe it’s a gift. I always want to stay mysterious.” Sure. No wonder. He’s surprised himself how long the hype around him is lasting…
You get to know something about his beginnings, his vita – childhood stuff like a “strange light” or clock changing tricks, together with statements from one-time companions; family; first appearance on German TV in 1974; things like that. His “ego trip”, the addiction to fame especially in the 70s, bulimia – oooh, the poor guy. Knowing other celebrities. Dowsing-rod search for treasures of the soil. Millionaire. Work for secret service and police, about which he’d rather remain silent. Juwelry designer. Author of 16 books. A great guy, ain’t he?
Sarcasm aside. Added to that, by the way, many short clips of several show hosts and the like who probably just didn’t have anything better to do at the time, which seems to be a must everywhere today. And, of course, basically only positive, non-skeptical, admiring statements.
About his debacle in Johnny Carson’s show? Just briefly showing the un-bent spoon and basically using it as basis to explain his following publicity and the realization “There is no such thing as bad PR”. Other critical voices? Very scarce, just some doubtful, inadequately reliable tests, one of which (with a pig?) alledgedly scared him off so much that he doesn’t want anything to do with science anymore. How useful…
Comparison with magic tricks? None. Only a few times, the words “mentalist” (who in the target audience knows what this means?) or “magician”, but rather without connection or with regard to the casting show. Scientific explanations as e.g. the GWUP or CSI offer? Zero. On the contrary, alledgedly scientists have been arguing for 40 years whether these are tricks or not.
Had I expected anything different? Certainly not.
“Marvel instead of understanding”, the ProSieben trailer said (my translation). Probably mandatory for the show – preferrably not even trying to understand, it seems to me. Should I really watch that show?
Addendum: Ratings of this “documentary”: 0,79 million (6,0% market share) of all viewers aged 3 or older, 0,59 million (9,5%) aged 14-49. (source: ProSieben teletext)
Quote from the children’s page(!) of today’s Donaukurier weekend supplement (with above title, translation and emphasis mine):
„[The ladybug] is supposed to protect the children and heal the sick when it comes flying to them. Who brushes it off or even kills it will have bad luck. It’s not clear if this is always correct. But when it comes to turn of the year traditions, who really thinks about investigating everything seriously?“
Wrong! Especially when such superstitions and similar things are booming, it is a good time to investigate and scrutinize them – and not, on the contrary, uncritically downright endorse them, directly or indirectly!
(In the rest of the article about fireworks, pig and more, they managed to do it better, more explanatory.)
It surely would be hard to investigate that properly in a scientific way – on the one hand, the test person or observer would not always notice such small things as ladybugs, on the other hand, they might know about this superstition, which would bring effects like self-fulfilling prophecies, placebo effects (and its opposite) and selective perception into play.
Apart from the fact that science as well as common sense would not suspect any “real” causal connection, i.e. beyond the psychological effects mentioned above, anyway – not to say likely consider it completely absurd…
Update early Feb.: No reaction ever arrived to my mail to the editors.
I’m looking for information about the so-called “Global Scaling Event of the year” that took place on 1 Dec in Berlin, alledgedly presenting a new invention for secure data transmission (GSPIN) – and about which there’s hardly anything to find. (Which doesn’t have to be bad, actually…) The general Głobal Scaling site still shows the announcement; the dubious company’s site on morint.com = GSDI Cyprus Ltd. reports in the News from 6 Dec (German; the beginning seems to have been lost somehow) the following (my translation):
“The over 300 participants positively felt the crackling excitement when they witnessed the experiment. On a big screen, everybody could see that in Berlin and Nicosia the same security code was generated.”
I, personally, think that you can project a lot onto a screen… As long as it hasn’t been reliably verified and approved by independent scientists that indeed this technology created these codes as has been claimed, I got my doubts. And I think folks who offer a lotto prognosis deserve no trust in advance whatsoever, anyway.
Other than that, Google finds with GSPIN Berlin and GSDI Cyprus Berlin – thanks to the company’s location and aforementioned partcipation in Northern Cyprus – only several Turkish reports, e.g. Kibris Gazetesı, Mercek TV, TurkEkip, who look as like as two peas in a pod, which leads to the suspicion that they are just press releases from the GSDI company (from 1 Dec) which, of course, praise their own technology to the skies. (Another, not identical article: BRT.)
Since neither Google nor Altavista can translate Türkisch, and the attempt to translate word by word with online dictionaries is both cumbersome and error-prone as well as seems to confirm the praise to the skies, I’m asking, as the title shows, if you know Turkish and can have a look at the links above and tell me (in the comments here) what exactly they say – if it’s more than the typical press release blah-blah… (you don’t need to make a full translation, of course 
).
And does anyone maybe know actual eye-witness reports, preferrably critical ones?
Update 3.2.2010: » Ermittlungen gegen zyprische Global-Scaling-Vermarkter
more content in German | mehr Inhalt auf deutsch