edgar-mitchell

Down and In 105
were precious few who took the field of study seriously, as a number of
eminent men of science had blunted their swords on these issues during the
past century. But again synchronicity would arise in my own exploration.
In that same year, 1972, I was introduced to another psychic, a 25-yearold
Israeli by the name of Uri Geller. At the time, Uri was unknown, lived
in Israel, and had been brought to the attention of Dr. Andrija Puharich,
an American physician with a quixotic turn of mind and several medical
inventions to his credit. Similar to myself, he was looking for answers to
puzzling human phenomena. After months of observing Uri in Israel and
witnessing his extraordinary ability in realms of telepathy and psychokinesis,
Puharich called to see if I would be interested in arranging some controlled
studies in an American laboratory. 3 I told him I was, provided I
could personally do some preliminary studies to assure myself it was worthwhile.
Here again was my own skepticism asserting itself.
Puharich claimed that he had witnessed some positively amazing demonstrations
of telepathy, clairvoyance, and psychokinesis—in fact, a very
broad range of events labeled as parapsychological phenomena. He insisted
they were the most convincing he had ever seen, and that Uri’s incredible
abilities demanded our attention. In later years Uri would work
with many scientists and then go on to make a modest fortune working for
oil, gas, and mineral companies, successfully dowsing for deposits that lay
deep within the earth. The fact that such companies don’t pay good money
for failure is strong testimony to Uri’s psychic prowess at least as a dowser.
But in 1972 he was just a young, impecunious Israeli, finishing his obligatory
service in the army and claiming he had been doing these feats since
childhood, not initially recognizing they were bizarre—a characteristic I
later encountered frequently. After our first meeting, which lasted several
days, I was adequately convinced (in fact overwhelmed) that his abilities
were real and not simply showmanship or a magician’s tricks, that I
promptly began to arrange for financial sponsorship through Judith Skutch
and Henry Rolfs, who would later serve on the board of directors of the
institute, and to arrange for laboratory tests to be conducted. Uri agreed
and came to the Stanford Research Institute near San Francisco in the late
fall to participate in several experiments that would demonstrate his parapsychological
abilities under our auspices. A team of scientists would direct
the work and observe the results. This, I thought, would help prompt
real interest among established scientists, provided Uri could deliver on
his claims. But it wasn’t Uri who would disappoint us.
The key to good science in this field is always to keep the experiment
totally under the control of the investigators and to use blind and doubleblind
testing procedures wherever possible. Because one is dealing basically
with subjective events, it’s generally more efficient to let the subject
demonstrate what he or she does best, then design rigorous protocols that