He passed away a little less than a year ago I believe. He had been ill for sometime, with cancer, though it was not widely reported. I had corresponded with him near the end of his life, and had planned on keeping it up. I was shocked to hear that he passed away. I am in correspondence with a good friend of his, George Hansen, who has been putting together a website in his honor which contains some of his works.
Truzzi on Randi & Geller
- Thread starter Steve Knight
- Start date
SteveGrenard
Philosopher
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2002
- Messages
- 5,528
Marcello Truzzi died rather suddenly around three o'clock, local time, on the afternoon of February 2, 2003, in Michigan. As recently as a week before his death, he was talking with his friend Jerome Clark about his excitement in working on his planned personal autobiography. Truzzi's swift passing, thus, is a surprise to his friends and his family. He had been suffering from colon rectal cancer during the last seven years, but would go in and out of remission. His Michigan friends note that he fought his cancer so diligently that he actually bought about four extra years of life For more, see:
www.lorencoleman.com/marcello_truzzi_obituary.html
The index page of George Hansen's collection of tributes to Truzzi can be found at:
http://tricksterbook.com/truzzi/Tributes/
http://tricksterbook.com/truzzi/ZeteticScholarCartoons.html
www.lorencoleman.com/marcello_truzzi_obituary.html
The index page of George Hansen's collection of tributes to Truzzi can be found at:
http://tricksterbook.com/truzzi/Tributes/
http://tricksterbook.com/truzzi/ZeteticScholarCartoons.html
Lucianarchy
Banned
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2001
- Messages
- 2,105
CFLarsen said:
On these cases. I use my judgement based on the liklihood of fraud and credibility of the observer
Far, far less than most when it comes to the observation of supposed trickery. In this case Allan Slaight is an expert in magic and ranks alongside James Randi in the literature of magic, so the liklihood in this case is significantly low.
Slaight says the spoon came from the hotel and he inspected it with his own hands and eyes. He is an expert in spotting trickery.
Margolis supplied his own, distinctive " oversized, [...]chosen because it was thicker and heavier than most" tea spoon.
Lucianarchy said:
The "likelihood"? How do you determine the statistical data??
Lucianarchy said:
Let's check how many books on magic Slaight and Randi have written.
Slaight: 1 (not available on Amazon, though)
Randi: 4 (at least)
The Magic World of the Amazing Randi
Conjuring
Houdini, His Life and Art
The Magic of Uri Geller
I don't really think we can say that Slaight "ranks alongside" Randi in the literature of magic.
Lucianarchy said:
No, no, you are being very careless now:
So, Slaight never saw the spoon in the hotel. Geller claimed that it was from the hotel. Geller brought it!
Oops. Not good, Lucianarchy.
Lucianarchy said:
Did Geller hold the spoon before it was bended? Was it ever out of sight?
thaiboxerken
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2001
- Messages
- 34,587
Luci's claim of "no one can do exactly what Uri does" begs the question. It assumes that Uri has superpowers and that all other people that can do the trick are simply using magician's tricks. Luci has made his position unfalsifiable with this statement. I will illustrate the absurdity of the position:
I can pull a quarter out of thin air. While magicians use sleight-of-hand to emulate my ability, they are not really materialising quarters out of thin air like I am. I will not allow myself to be tested, so you must believe it.
This is the absurdity of Luci's position.
I can pull a quarter out of thin air. While magicians use sleight-of-hand to emulate my ability, they are not really materialising quarters out of thin air like I am. I will not allow myself to be tested, so you must believe it.
This is the absurdity of Luci's position.
thaiboxerken
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2001
- Messages
- 34,587
Re: Boy Luci
I have given it. Slaight is a skeptic and expert in magic. He examined the spoon. It was not a trick spoon.
LOL. Slaight was either tricked himself OR he is a liar. Geller must submit himself to testing, until then, his claim of having superpowers is worthless.
I have given it. Slaight is a skeptic and expert in magic. He examined the spoon. It was not a trick spoon.
LOL. Slaight was either tricked himself OR he is a liar. Geller must submit himself to testing, until then, his claim of having superpowers is worthless.
Lucianarchy
Banned
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2001
- Messages
- 2,105
Professor Victor Weisskopf physicist who studied under Niels Bohrr
worked on the A bomb and over saw the development of European atom
smashers.
"I was shocked and amazed how Mr Uri Geller bent my office key at MIT
while I was holding it. The sturdy key kept bending in my hand; I can
not explain this phenomenon I can only assume that it could relate
could relate to quantum chromo dynamics".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ruth Montgomery
"There is no question in my mind that Uri's talents are for real".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ON 19/9/01 I tuned into the Spanish television programme "Tiempo al
Tiempo" and had the marvellous experience of placing a teaspoon on the
television set. Following your instructions the spoon jumped from the
set and remained in the direction of the screen. I was surprised and
after this experience no doubts about your mental powers remained to
me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I have spent my life in neuropsychiatry and have been interested in
strange mental states and odd phenomena for a number of years. I first
met Uri three years ago and was able to watch him bend a spoon on a
colleagues's outstretched hand. I took a spoon from the table. Uri did
not touch it, I put it on my colleagues's hand and asked Uri to bend
it. Uri ran his finger above the spoon and stood back. Nothing
happened. We expressed some dissapointment, still watching the spoon.
He said, Wait and Watch. Slowly, as we watched, with Uri standing well
away, the spoon started to curl in front of us, and within four
minutes the tail of the spoon had risen up like a scorpions sting. I
then took the spoon, the first time I had handled it since I put it
there, and sure enough, it remained a normal spoon with a marked bend.
"
Dr. Peter Fenwick. MB, BChir, DPM, FIRCPsych
Dr. Fenwick is a senior lecturer at the institute of psychiatry,
London, Consultant Neuropsychiatrist at John Radcliffe infirmary in
Oxford, and Honorary consultant in Neurophysiology to Broadmoor
Special Hospital. He has published numerous scientific papers on brain
function and also several papers on meditation and altered states of
consciousness. His most recent book is "The Truth of Light". Dr.
Fenwick is also chairman of ths scientific and Medical network, a
group of doctors and scientists seeking to deepen understanding in
science and medicine by fostering intuitive as well as rational
insights.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I was in Scientific laboratories at Stanford Research Institute
investigating a rather amazing individual Uri Geller. Uri's ability to
perform amazing feats of mental wizardry is known the world over. We
in Science are just now catching up and understanding what you can do
with exercise and proper practise. Uri is Not a magician. He is using
capabilities that we all have and can develop with exercise and
practise."
"After the Geller work, I was asked to brief the director of the CIA,
Ambassador George Bush (Later to become President of the United
States), on our activities and the results. In later years during the
Brezhnev period, I met with several Russian scientists who not only
had documented results similar to ours, but were actively using
"psychic" techniques against the U.S. and its allies."
Dr Edgar D. Mitchell S.C.D. (Apollo 14 Astronaut and 6th man to walk
on the moon)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I can attest to the same type of incident, but in a different venue. I
was with Uri when he held a session in the US Capitol. With few
exceptions, only Congressional members and their staff were there. Uri
wanted to talk about how the Soviets were exploiting Jews with psychic
ability. This was based on his interviews with many people who had
left the Soviet Union and gone to Israel.
The group asked him to bend something. While he wanted to address the
problem, he did agree and ask for a spoon. One was finally found in a
guard's coffee cup. Uri bent the spoon with minimal contact. He then
laid it down on a chair about three feet in front of me and went back
to talking. As he talked, the spoon continued to bend and fell on the
floor. I still have the spoon.
Col. John Alexander
Former Staff Officer
National Security Agency
and Part of the Army's Intelligence
and Security Command (INSCOM)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Geller has bent my ring in the palm of my hand without ever touching
it. Personally, I have no scientific explanation for the phenomena."
Dr. Wernher von Braun (NASA scientist & father of the Rocket - U.S.A.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Professor Gerald Schroeder, who earned his doctorate at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T) in two fields, the
planetary sciences and nuclear physics and served as advisor to the
Atomic Energy Commission and to countries such as the People's
Republic of China. He earned his BSc, MSc and PhD all at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Following that he was seven years on the staff of the M.I.T. physics
department, continuing his research at the Weizmann Institute of
Science in Israel and the Volcani Research Institute with labs at the
Hebrew University.
He is the Author of Genesis And The Big Bang (Bantam Doubleday) The
Science of God (Free Press of Simon & Schuster; and Broadway Books of
Bantam Doubleday)
"Uri Geller appears to have concentrated energy. What makes me accept
Geller at face value is that unlike a magician, he does not have a bag
of tricks. He bends spoons. The one he bent with me peering over his
shoulder continued to bend even after he placed it on the ground and
stepped away.
The Talmud claims there are two types of "magic." One is the "catching
of the eye," an optical illusion. The other is the real thing, a
mustering of the forces of nature. With Uri, I opt for the latter,
though he claims he has no idea how these are mustered".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Geller altered the lattice structure of a metal alloy in a way that
cannot be duplicated. There is no present scientific explanation as to
how he did this." (This is the first research related to
parapsychology conducted at a US Government facility to have been
released for publication by the US Department of Defence).
Eldon Byrd (US Naval Surface Weapons Centre, Maryland - U.S.A.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We feel that if similar tests are made later, enough instances of
this kind will probably accumulate, so that there will be no room for
reasonable doubt that some new process is involved here, which cannot
be accounted for or explained in terms of the present known laws of
physics. Indeed, we already feel that we have gone some distance
toward this point."
Prof. David Bohm and Prof. John Hasted(Professors of Physics, Birkbeck
College, University of London, England)
David Bohm is the author of Wholeness and the Implicate Order and
worked with Albert Einstein.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"In an interesting interview for Free Inquiry magazine, April 2000,
Arthur C. Clarke surprisingly stated that he has his own door key that
was bent by Uri Geller. Furthermore, he indicated that he does not
rule out the possibility of all sorts of remarkable mental powers. He
went on to say that there are even things like telekinesis etc,
summing up by proclaiming that there are many things we do not know
about."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Late Anthropologist Margaret Mead suggests Geller may be real
"psychic"
From a filmed interview at the Museum of Natural History
New York, February 18, 1974
"...Then there is another problem, that I think is very important to
realise, and that is that everywhere in the world almost, where one
has sensitives that are put in a public position, that is, they may be
diviners, they may be seers, they may be theatrical performers - but
whenever an individual with particular powers is put into a
conspicuous position, we have a tendency to find trickery also. Now
this does not mean that the sensitive is only a trickster, but it does
mean that sensitives are very doubtful of their own powers, of the
reliability of their own powers.
For instance, Uri Geller will not perform if he feels hostility from
the audience. If he were a performer who was being paid, he might feel
that he needed a few appurtenances (props) to make it work so this
curious association between various forms of magicianship with
sensitive behaviour occurs in many parts of the world. It doesn't mean
that the sensitive does not believe in his powers. It does mean he
doesn't trust them very thoroughly, and he feels that certain
conditions could disrupt them."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The evidence based on metallurgical analysis of fractured surfaces
(produced by Geller) indicates that a paranormal influence must have
been operative in the formation of the fractures."
Dr Wilbur Franklin (Physics Department, Kent State University -
U.S.A.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We have observed certain phenomena with the subjects [including Uri
Geller] for which we have no scientific explanation. "
"As a result of Geller's success in this experimental period, we
consider that he has demonstrated his paranormal, perceptual ability
in a convincing and unambiguous manner." (The results of these
experiments were published in the respected British journal Nature,
Vol. 251, No. 5).
Dr Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ (Stanford Research Institute -
California, U.S.A.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Laser physicists Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff of Menlo Park's
Stanford Research Institute admit their kind of research invites
chicanery and trickery. They have taken special precautions, they
said, to conduct the Stanford Research experiments under doubly strict
laboratory conditions."
"Under these conditions, they said, no magician has been able to
duplicate through trickery the psychic feat performed by Uri Geller
and others. Some won't even try."
Los Angeles Times, Monday July 28, 1975
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Based on preliminary investigations of Uri Geller, I cannot establish
fraud. The powers of this man are a phenomenon which theoretical
physics cannot yet explain."
Dr Friedbert Karger (Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, Munich,
Germany)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Geller asked me to put my hand over a spoon supplied by me, we could
allsee the spoon clearly. Geller then put his own hand over mine and
began concentrating. It was just ashe stopped that we all saw the
handle of the spoon begin to distort."
Dr Edward W Bastin (Holds doctorate degrees in both physics and
mathematics. He won an Isaac Newton studentship to Cambridge
University, and for a time was visiting fellow at Stanford University,
California)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The bends in metal objects (made by Geller) could not have been made
by ordinary manual means."
Dr Albert Ducrocq (Telemetry Laboratory, Foch Hospital Suren, France)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The Geller method of breaking is unlike anything described in the
(metallurgical) literature, from fatigue fractures at -195 degrees to
brittle fractures at +600 degrees C. Why is metal bending important?
Simply because we do not understand it."
Prof. John Hasted (Professor of Physics Birkbeck College, University
of London, England)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I have failed to conceive of any means of deception in the static PK
tests with Geller, nor have magicians I have consulted."
William E. Cox (Institute of Parapsychology, Durham, North Carolina -
U.S.A.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Metal objects were bent or divided (by Geller) in circumstances such
as to prove conclusively ... that the phenomena were genuine and
paranormal."
Dr A. R. G. Owen (New Horizons Research Foundation, Toronto, Ontario -
Canada)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"There is no logical explanation for what Geller did here. But I don't
think logic is what necessarily makes new inroads in science."
Dr Thomas Coohill (Western Kentucky University, Physics Dept., Bowling
Green, Kentucky - U.S.A.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The Geller Effect is one of those "para" phenomena which changed the
world of physics. What the most outstanding physicists of the last
decades of this century could grasp only as theoretical implication,
Uri brought as fact into everyday life.."
Dr. Walter A. Frank (Bonn University - Germany)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I have conducted research on Mr. Uri Geller at Freiburg University's
laboratory. The results substantiated and proved my conviction and
belief in his powers of metal bending. I have written extensively
about his psychokinetic powers in my book Our Sixth Sense 1982 "
Prof. Dr. Hans Bender (Freiburg University - Germany)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I tested Uri Geller myself under laboratory-controlled conditions and
saw with my own eyes the bending of a key which was not touched by
Geller at any time. There was a group of people present during the
experiment who all witnessed the key bending in eleven seconds to an
angle of thirty degrees. Afterwards we tested the key in a scientific
laboratory using devices such as electron microscopes and X-rays and
found that there was no chemical, manual or mechanical forces involved
in the bending of the key."
Professor Helmut Hoffmann (Department of Electrical Engineering,
Technical University of Vienna, Austria)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Through intense concentration, Uri was able to bend a 3/8" cold
rolled steel bar under controlled conditions, as he rubbed the top of
it with his forefinger. I was sitting very close to him during this
experiment. On another occasion, a radish seed sprouted and grew 1/2"
as he held it in his hand. I watched this very closely as well. "
Jean Millay PhD. (Saybrook Institute U.S.A.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Uri Geller is extraordinarily gifted in telepathy."
Professor Erich Mittennecker (Professor of Psychology, University of
Graz, Austria)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Uri Geller was tested in my laboratory at UCLA. During the
experiments in Kirlian photography and after hundreds of trials, he
produced three extraordinary photographs in which flashes of energy
were clearly visible. What wonderfully welcome sights they were! I
have also tested Uri's watch-fixing and metal-bending abilities. He
has demonstrated these to me under controlled scientific conditions,
in a most convincing manner".
Dr. Thelma Moss (Professor of psychology at UCLA and one of the first
U.S. researchers to experiment with Kirlian photography - U.S.A.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Uri bent a strong heat-treated alloy bar held by myself and my
assistant at each end. There was absolutely no pressure exerted by Uri
while the bar was bending. All the controlled experiments I conducted
with Uri Geller have been described in Sciences et Avenir, No. 345,
pp. 1108-1113."
Professor Charles Crussard (Professor of Metallurgy, School of Mines,
Paris, and Scientific Director of Pecheney, France)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I put the spoon that Uri bent into my pocket and kept checking it
every 3-4 minutes. It gradually bent to about 90 degrees in 15 minutes
while in my own possession with no-one around me. The spoon was later
examined by electron beam scattering. In my opinion, shared by my
physicist colleagues, the phenomenon cannot be induced by our present
laboratory means. It cannot be explained with our present knowledge."
Professor George Egeyly (Physicist, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Central Research Institute for Physics, Budapest - Hungary)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Your coming to the University of California, Berkeley and conducting
your demonstrations was instrumental in setting up the conditions for
me to bring together the group of forty physicists to start and
conduct the Fundamental 'Fysiks' Laboratory that met weekly from 1974
to 1979. The purpose of the FFL was to explore the nature of reality
and the use of physical models to explain the space-time attributes of
consciousness and remote connection models of Bell's Theorem. The key
is that psychokinesis and psi in general, related powers of the mind,
can be studied with the scientific method and you have had a key
influence on scientists in their research and knowledge of PK and you
have been instrumental in getting people to explore the power of the
mind. The purpose of life, and scientific exploration is to learn what
is."
Dr Elizabeth A. Rauscher (Theoretical physicist, Lawrence Berkeley
Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley - U.S.A.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Science is at last recognising that quantum mechanics and relativity
do predict some form of information laws, which may go a long way
towards explaining the effects surrounding Uri Geller, one of the most
powerful men alive today."
D. Robertson BSc. (Physicist and metal bending researcher -England)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Professor Victor Weisskopf physicist who studied under Niels Bohrr
worked on the A bomb and over saw the development of European atom
smashers.
"I was shocked and amazed how Mr Uri Geller bent my office key at MIT
while I was holding it. The sturdy key kept bending in my hand; I can
not explain this phenomenon I can only assume that it could relate
could relate to quantum chromo dynamics".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Uri Geller, as a psychic genius, has been able to demonstrate the
repeatability of controlled scientific psychic experiments. Thereby he
has proved the reality of psychic phenomena (such as telekinesis,
clairvoyance and telepathy)."
Professor P. Plum, MD (Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics, University of
Copenhagen, former chairman of the Danish Medical Research Council -
Denmark)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"In our presence and in the presence of numerous eye-witnesses, Uri
Geller demonstrated the following telekinetic effects: he bent at our
request metal keys and teaspoons, the spoons bending to an angle of 90
degrees over a period of five minutes after his influence had been
exerted on them. Before the eyes of those present he germinated a
radish seed to a small sprout in 8 minutes. He reproduced target
pictures exactly to the nearest millimetre (square, triangle with a
dot in the centre, etc.) and also wiped the information from an IBM
cassette. He also correctly described a dome-shaped building that
formerly stood in the Moscow river basin, the destruction of which was
linked to the name of Stalin."
Professor V. G. Lukes (Director of the Ministry of Health Protection
of the Russian Federation, Institute of Traditional Medicine, Moscow -
Russia)
A. A. Karpeyev (Deputy Director)
R. Yu. Volkov (Department Head)
A. P. Dubrov (Chief Scientific Collaborator)
WHAT MAGICIANS SAY ABOUT URI GELLER
"You know, I like Uri Geller. He is a good guy. I think he made many
things with his abilities. I think some of the things he shows are
illusion. But I cannot claim for sure, that this applies to
everything."
David Copperfield
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Uri,
May I say what a pleasure it was to meet you last week and how
impressed I was by your exceptional and frankly unexplainable
abilities. I have been a prominent member of the magic circle for many
years and performed as a professional magician and am therefore aware
of most 'illusions' and what I witnessed as you bent the spoon was not
in my opinion an 'illusion' more a phenomenon which I found quite
remarkable. You have my respect and awe for your abilities which I am
sure has its skeptics but I am certainly not one of them.Yours
sincerely,
James Youngson
Papion
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Geller is perhaps the world's most successful psychic entertainer but
why?"
by Andy Fisher
Drew McAdam
"I will say only this: I have seen Uri do things that, even as a
mentalist and amateur conjuror of some 30 years, I cannot explain. I
know how mind-magicians obtain the effects they do... I know the
illusionist's mechanics of producing so-called psychic effects that
look incredibly convincing to the layman. However, I can categorically
say that Uri Geller uses none of these methods. Quite simply, the man
is a phenomenon."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
:"Geller has shown us that the limits of our understanding are not the
limits of all there is to understand" and "Geller has demonstrated
that the power of belief is greater than the power of skepticism" by
Lee Earle, one of America's leading lights in the mentalism field.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I HAD A MOST amazing experience at a private party in London a few
weeks ago. Uri Geller asked if I had ever seen him bend a spoon and I
said only on television. He picked up a large spoon form the table and
asked me to join him at the bar. He placed the spoon down and began to
stroke it.
A small bend appeared. He held it up for me to see and then placed it
down again.
I looked at it closely and the bend was more pronounced. I was
astonished since this happened without any misdirection. He asked if I
would like the spoon as a souvenir and I said "sure". He took out a
felt tipped pen and signed it. As I walked back to the room I was
really taken by surprise.
The spoon was now bent at a 75-degree angle. When I tried to bend the
spoon, it was too strong for me to move in my bare hands. The bend was
not at the weak spot near the spoon but a few inches up from that
spot. Uri is 54 and looks 35. He is clearly a man apart.."
Barrie Richardson
Barrie Richardson is a professor of management and Dean of The Frost
School of Business at Centenary College, USA. He is also one of the
most prominent magicians in the world - his speciality being Mind
Magic, or Mentalism, in which he excels and is one of the most highly
respected and influential practitioners. His top-selling book Theatre
of the Mind (Hermetic Press, 1999) is crammed with ingenious ideas and
presentations and has become a source of learning for magicians &
mentalists world-wide.
worked on the A bomb and over saw the development of European atom
smashers.
"I was shocked and amazed how Mr Uri Geller bent my office key at MIT
while I was holding it. The sturdy key kept bending in my hand; I can
not explain this phenomenon I can only assume that it could relate
could relate to quantum chromo dynamics".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ruth Montgomery
"There is no question in my mind that Uri's talents are for real".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ON 19/9/01 I tuned into the Spanish television programme "Tiempo al
Tiempo" and had the marvellous experience of placing a teaspoon on the
television set. Following your instructions the spoon jumped from the
set and remained in the direction of the screen. I was surprised and
after this experience no doubts about your mental powers remained to
me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I have spent my life in neuropsychiatry and have been interested in
strange mental states and odd phenomena for a number of years. I first
met Uri three years ago and was able to watch him bend a spoon on a
colleagues's outstretched hand. I took a spoon from the table. Uri did
not touch it, I put it on my colleagues's hand and asked Uri to bend
it. Uri ran his finger above the spoon and stood back. Nothing
happened. We expressed some dissapointment, still watching the spoon.
He said, Wait and Watch. Slowly, as we watched, with Uri standing well
away, the spoon started to curl in front of us, and within four
minutes the tail of the spoon had risen up like a scorpions sting. I
then took the spoon, the first time I had handled it since I put it
there, and sure enough, it remained a normal spoon with a marked bend.
"
Dr. Peter Fenwick. MB, BChir, DPM, FIRCPsych
Dr. Fenwick is a senior lecturer at the institute of psychiatry,
London, Consultant Neuropsychiatrist at John Radcliffe infirmary in
Oxford, and Honorary consultant in Neurophysiology to Broadmoor
Special Hospital. He has published numerous scientific papers on brain
function and also several papers on meditation and altered states of
consciousness. His most recent book is "The Truth of Light". Dr.
Fenwick is also chairman of ths scientific and Medical network, a
group of doctors and scientists seeking to deepen understanding in
science and medicine by fostering intuitive as well as rational
insights.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I was in Scientific laboratories at Stanford Research Institute
investigating a rather amazing individual Uri Geller. Uri's ability to
perform amazing feats of mental wizardry is known the world over. We
in Science are just now catching up and understanding what you can do
with exercise and proper practise. Uri is Not a magician. He is using
capabilities that we all have and can develop with exercise and
practise."
"After the Geller work, I was asked to brief the director of the CIA,
Ambassador George Bush (Later to become President of the United
States), on our activities and the results. In later years during the
Brezhnev period, I met with several Russian scientists who not only
had documented results similar to ours, but were actively using
"psychic" techniques against the U.S. and its allies."
Dr Edgar D. Mitchell S.C.D. (Apollo 14 Astronaut and 6th man to walk
on the moon)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I can attest to the same type of incident, but in a different venue. I
was with Uri when he held a session in the US Capitol. With few
exceptions, only Congressional members and their staff were there. Uri
wanted to talk about how the Soviets were exploiting Jews with psychic
ability. This was based on his interviews with many people who had
left the Soviet Union and gone to Israel.
The group asked him to bend something. While he wanted to address the
problem, he did agree and ask for a spoon. One was finally found in a
guard's coffee cup. Uri bent the spoon with minimal contact. He then
laid it down on a chair about three feet in front of me and went back
to talking. As he talked, the spoon continued to bend and fell on the
floor. I still have the spoon.
Col. John Alexander
Former Staff Officer
National Security Agency
and Part of the Army's Intelligence
and Security Command (INSCOM)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Geller has bent my ring in the palm of my hand without ever touching
it. Personally, I have no scientific explanation for the phenomena."
Dr. Wernher von Braun (NASA scientist & father of the Rocket - U.S.A.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Professor Gerald Schroeder, who earned his doctorate at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T) in two fields, the
planetary sciences and nuclear physics and served as advisor to the
Atomic Energy Commission and to countries such as the People's
Republic of China. He earned his BSc, MSc and PhD all at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Following that he was seven years on the staff of the M.I.T. physics
department, continuing his research at the Weizmann Institute of
Science in Israel and the Volcani Research Institute with labs at the
Hebrew University.
He is the Author of Genesis And The Big Bang (Bantam Doubleday) The
Science of God (Free Press of Simon & Schuster; and Broadway Books of
Bantam Doubleday)
"Uri Geller appears to have concentrated energy. What makes me accept
Geller at face value is that unlike a magician, he does not have a bag
of tricks. He bends spoons. The one he bent with me peering over his
shoulder continued to bend even after he placed it on the ground and
stepped away.
The Talmud claims there are two types of "magic." One is the "catching
of the eye," an optical illusion. The other is the real thing, a
mustering of the forces of nature. With Uri, I opt for the latter,
though he claims he has no idea how these are mustered".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Geller altered the lattice structure of a metal alloy in a way that
cannot be duplicated. There is no present scientific explanation as to
how he did this." (This is the first research related to
parapsychology conducted at a US Government facility to have been
released for publication by the US Department of Defence).
Eldon Byrd (US Naval Surface Weapons Centre, Maryland - U.S.A.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We feel that if similar tests are made later, enough instances of
this kind will probably accumulate, so that there will be no room for
reasonable doubt that some new process is involved here, which cannot
be accounted for or explained in terms of the present known laws of
physics. Indeed, we already feel that we have gone some distance
toward this point."
Prof. David Bohm and Prof. John Hasted(Professors of Physics, Birkbeck
College, University of London, England)
David Bohm is the author of Wholeness and the Implicate Order and
worked with Albert Einstein.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"In an interesting interview for Free Inquiry magazine, April 2000,
Arthur C. Clarke surprisingly stated that he has his own door key that
was bent by Uri Geller. Furthermore, he indicated that he does not
rule out the possibility of all sorts of remarkable mental powers. He
went on to say that there are even things like telekinesis etc,
summing up by proclaiming that there are many things we do not know
about."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Late Anthropologist Margaret Mead suggests Geller may be real
"psychic"
From a filmed interview at the Museum of Natural History
New York, February 18, 1974
"...Then there is another problem, that I think is very important to
realise, and that is that everywhere in the world almost, where one
has sensitives that are put in a public position, that is, they may be
diviners, they may be seers, they may be theatrical performers - but
whenever an individual with particular powers is put into a
conspicuous position, we have a tendency to find trickery also. Now
this does not mean that the sensitive is only a trickster, but it does
mean that sensitives are very doubtful of their own powers, of the
reliability of their own powers.
For instance, Uri Geller will not perform if he feels hostility from
the audience. If he were a performer who was being paid, he might feel
that he needed a few appurtenances (props) to make it work so this
curious association between various forms of magicianship with
sensitive behaviour occurs in many parts of the world. It doesn't mean
that the sensitive does not believe in his powers. It does mean he
doesn't trust them very thoroughly, and he feels that certain
conditions could disrupt them."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The evidence based on metallurgical analysis of fractured surfaces
(produced by Geller) indicates that a paranormal influence must have
been operative in the formation of the fractures."
Dr Wilbur Franklin (Physics Department, Kent State University -
U.S.A.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We have observed certain phenomena with the subjects [including Uri
Geller] for which we have no scientific explanation. "
"As a result of Geller's success in this experimental period, we
consider that he has demonstrated his paranormal, perceptual ability
in a convincing and unambiguous manner." (The results of these
experiments were published in the respected British journal Nature,
Vol. 251, No. 5).
Dr Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ (Stanford Research Institute -
California, U.S.A.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Laser physicists Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff of Menlo Park's
Stanford Research Institute admit their kind of research invites
chicanery and trickery. They have taken special precautions, they
said, to conduct the Stanford Research experiments under doubly strict
laboratory conditions."
"Under these conditions, they said, no magician has been able to
duplicate through trickery the psychic feat performed by Uri Geller
and others. Some won't even try."
Los Angeles Times, Monday July 28, 1975
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Based on preliminary investigations of Uri Geller, I cannot establish
fraud. The powers of this man are a phenomenon which theoretical
physics cannot yet explain."
Dr Friedbert Karger (Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, Munich,
Germany)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Geller asked me to put my hand over a spoon supplied by me, we could
allsee the spoon clearly. Geller then put his own hand over mine and
began concentrating. It was just ashe stopped that we all saw the
handle of the spoon begin to distort."
Dr Edward W Bastin (Holds doctorate degrees in both physics and
mathematics. He won an Isaac Newton studentship to Cambridge
University, and for a time was visiting fellow at Stanford University,
California)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The bends in metal objects (made by Geller) could not have been made
by ordinary manual means."
Dr Albert Ducrocq (Telemetry Laboratory, Foch Hospital Suren, France)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The Geller method of breaking is unlike anything described in the
(metallurgical) literature, from fatigue fractures at -195 degrees to
brittle fractures at +600 degrees C. Why is metal bending important?
Simply because we do not understand it."
Prof. John Hasted (Professor of Physics Birkbeck College, University
of London, England)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I have failed to conceive of any means of deception in the static PK
tests with Geller, nor have magicians I have consulted."
William E. Cox (Institute of Parapsychology, Durham, North Carolina -
U.S.A.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Metal objects were bent or divided (by Geller) in circumstances such
as to prove conclusively ... that the phenomena were genuine and
paranormal."
Dr A. R. G. Owen (New Horizons Research Foundation, Toronto, Ontario -
Canada)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"There is no logical explanation for what Geller did here. But I don't
think logic is what necessarily makes new inroads in science."
Dr Thomas Coohill (Western Kentucky University, Physics Dept., Bowling
Green, Kentucky - U.S.A.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The Geller Effect is one of those "para" phenomena which changed the
world of physics. What the most outstanding physicists of the last
decades of this century could grasp only as theoretical implication,
Uri brought as fact into everyday life.."
Dr. Walter A. Frank (Bonn University - Germany)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I have conducted research on Mr. Uri Geller at Freiburg University's
laboratory. The results substantiated and proved my conviction and
belief in his powers of metal bending. I have written extensively
about his psychokinetic powers in my book Our Sixth Sense 1982 "
Prof. Dr. Hans Bender (Freiburg University - Germany)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I tested Uri Geller myself under laboratory-controlled conditions and
saw with my own eyes the bending of a key which was not touched by
Geller at any time. There was a group of people present during the
experiment who all witnessed the key bending in eleven seconds to an
angle of thirty degrees. Afterwards we tested the key in a scientific
laboratory using devices such as electron microscopes and X-rays and
found that there was no chemical, manual or mechanical forces involved
in the bending of the key."
Professor Helmut Hoffmann (Department of Electrical Engineering,
Technical University of Vienna, Austria)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Through intense concentration, Uri was able to bend a 3/8" cold
rolled steel bar under controlled conditions, as he rubbed the top of
it with his forefinger. I was sitting very close to him during this
experiment. On another occasion, a radish seed sprouted and grew 1/2"
as he held it in his hand. I watched this very closely as well. "
Jean Millay PhD. (Saybrook Institute U.S.A.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Uri Geller is extraordinarily gifted in telepathy."
Professor Erich Mittennecker (Professor of Psychology, University of
Graz, Austria)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Uri Geller was tested in my laboratory at UCLA. During the
experiments in Kirlian photography and after hundreds of trials, he
produced three extraordinary photographs in which flashes of energy
were clearly visible. What wonderfully welcome sights they were! I
have also tested Uri's watch-fixing and metal-bending abilities. He
has demonstrated these to me under controlled scientific conditions,
in a most convincing manner".
Dr. Thelma Moss (Professor of psychology at UCLA and one of the first
U.S. researchers to experiment with Kirlian photography - U.S.A.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Uri bent a strong heat-treated alloy bar held by myself and my
assistant at each end. There was absolutely no pressure exerted by Uri
while the bar was bending. All the controlled experiments I conducted
with Uri Geller have been described in Sciences et Avenir, No. 345,
pp. 1108-1113."
Professor Charles Crussard (Professor of Metallurgy, School of Mines,
Paris, and Scientific Director of Pecheney, France)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I put the spoon that Uri bent into my pocket and kept checking it
every 3-4 minutes. It gradually bent to about 90 degrees in 15 minutes
while in my own possession with no-one around me. The spoon was later
examined by electron beam scattering. In my opinion, shared by my
physicist colleagues, the phenomenon cannot be induced by our present
laboratory means. It cannot be explained with our present knowledge."
Professor George Egeyly (Physicist, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Central Research Institute for Physics, Budapest - Hungary)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Your coming to the University of California, Berkeley and conducting
your demonstrations was instrumental in setting up the conditions for
me to bring together the group of forty physicists to start and
conduct the Fundamental 'Fysiks' Laboratory that met weekly from 1974
to 1979. The purpose of the FFL was to explore the nature of reality
and the use of physical models to explain the space-time attributes of
consciousness and remote connection models of Bell's Theorem. The key
is that psychokinesis and psi in general, related powers of the mind,
can be studied with the scientific method and you have had a key
influence on scientists in their research and knowledge of PK and you
have been instrumental in getting people to explore the power of the
mind. The purpose of life, and scientific exploration is to learn what
is."
Dr Elizabeth A. Rauscher (Theoretical physicist, Lawrence Berkeley
Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley - U.S.A.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Science is at last recognising that quantum mechanics and relativity
do predict some form of information laws, which may go a long way
towards explaining the effects surrounding Uri Geller, one of the most
powerful men alive today."
D. Robertson BSc. (Physicist and metal bending researcher -England)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Professor Victor Weisskopf physicist who studied under Niels Bohrr
worked on the A bomb and over saw the development of European atom
smashers.
"I was shocked and amazed how Mr Uri Geller bent my office key at MIT
while I was holding it. The sturdy key kept bending in my hand; I can
not explain this phenomenon I can only assume that it could relate
could relate to quantum chromo dynamics".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Uri Geller, as a psychic genius, has been able to demonstrate the
repeatability of controlled scientific psychic experiments. Thereby he
has proved the reality of psychic phenomena (such as telekinesis,
clairvoyance and telepathy)."
Professor P. Plum, MD (Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics, University of
Copenhagen, former chairman of the Danish Medical Research Council -
Denmark)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"In our presence and in the presence of numerous eye-witnesses, Uri
Geller demonstrated the following telekinetic effects: he bent at our
request metal keys and teaspoons, the spoons bending to an angle of 90
degrees over a period of five minutes after his influence had been
exerted on them. Before the eyes of those present he germinated a
radish seed to a small sprout in 8 minutes. He reproduced target
pictures exactly to the nearest millimetre (square, triangle with a
dot in the centre, etc.) and also wiped the information from an IBM
cassette. He also correctly described a dome-shaped building that
formerly stood in the Moscow river basin, the destruction of which was
linked to the name of Stalin."
Professor V. G. Lukes (Director of the Ministry of Health Protection
of the Russian Federation, Institute of Traditional Medicine, Moscow -
Russia)
A. A. Karpeyev (Deputy Director)
R. Yu. Volkov (Department Head)
A. P. Dubrov (Chief Scientific Collaborator)
WHAT MAGICIANS SAY ABOUT URI GELLER
"You know, I like Uri Geller. He is a good guy. I think he made many
things with his abilities. I think some of the things he shows are
illusion. But I cannot claim for sure, that this applies to
everything."
David Copperfield
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Uri,
May I say what a pleasure it was to meet you last week and how
impressed I was by your exceptional and frankly unexplainable
abilities. I have been a prominent member of the magic circle for many
years and performed as a professional magician and am therefore aware
of most 'illusions' and what I witnessed as you bent the spoon was not
in my opinion an 'illusion' more a phenomenon which I found quite
remarkable. You have my respect and awe for your abilities which I am
sure has its skeptics but I am certainly not one of them.Yours
sincerely,
James Youngson
Papion
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Geller is perhaps the world's most successful psychic entertainer but
why?"
by Andy Fisher
Drew McAdam
"I will say only this: I have seen Uri do things that, even as a
mentalist and amateur conjuror of some 30 years, I cannot explain. I
know how mind-magicians obtain the effects they do... I know the
illusionist's mechanics of producing so-called psychic effects that
look incredibly convincing to the layman. However, I can categorically
say that Uri Geller uses none of these methods. Quite simply, the man
is a phenomenon."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
:"Geller has shown us that the limits of our understanding are not the
limits of all there is to understand" and "Geller has demonstrated
that the power of belief is greater than the power of skepticism" by
Lee Earle, one of America's leading lights in the mentalism field.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I HAD A MOST amazing experience at a private party in London a few
weeks ago. Uri Geller asked if I had ever seen him bend a spoon and I
said only on television. He picked up a large spoon form the table and
asked me to join him at the bar. He placed the spoon down and began to
stroke it.
A small bend appeared. He held it up for me to see and then placed it
down again.
I looked at it closely and the bend was more pronounced. I was
astonished since this happened without any misdirection. He asked if I
would like the spoon as a souvenir and I said "sure". He took out a
felt tipped pen and signed it. As I walked back to the room I was
really taken by surprise.
The spoon was now bent at a 75-degree angle. When I tried to bend the
spoon, it was too strong for me to move in my bare hands. The bend was
not at the weak spot near the spoon but a few inches up from that
spot. Uri is 54 and looks 35. He is clearly a man apart.."
Barrie Richardson
Barrie Richardson is a professor of management and Dean of The Frost
School of Business at Centenary College, USA. He is also one of the
most prominent magicians in the world - his speciality being Mind
Magic, or Mentalism, in which he excels and is one of the most highly
respected and influential practitioners. His top-selling book Theatre
of the Mind (Hermetic Press, 1999) is crammed with ingenious ideas and
presentations and has become a source of learning for magicians &
mentalists world-wide.
I tried to locate several of the people on you list Lucianarchy but either they don't seem to exist on the web apart from on the Uri Geller website where you took it from, they were dead or working on free energy machines themselves. Is any of them alive and able to answer a simple question whether their quote is real or made up?
Paladin
Unregistered
P
Anecdotal evidence is crap. There exists no credible evidence that Uri Geller can deform metal with the power of his mind. There is, however, credible evidence that he can do it with his fingers.
Darwin'sGoat
Thinker
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2003
- Messages
- 235
Lucianarchy said:
I like the idea of them comparing the bending spoon to a creature that doesn't exist.
I don't believe anecdotal evidence is crap, it can be collected scientifically. If any of these stories can be corraborated by interviewing the persons again, do they still stand by them 20 years later? Do they still think it's impossible they could have been tricked?
This kind of confirmation can lend anecdotal evidence more weight although they might not be enough to convince a sceptic.
This kind of confirmation can lend anecdotal evidence more weight although they might not be enough to convince a sceptic.
NoZed Avenger
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2002
- Messages
- 11,286
Vitnir said:
What they think they remember 20 years later makes the story -stronger- as evidence?
I have seen audience members relate what happened during magic effects relate what happened after the effect, and a large number of them -- even just a few minutes after the effect -- simply get things wrong. I have had people announce that I 'never went near' objects that I handled, and even handed to them, in fact. The speed at which things happened and the order in which it occurred are often changed materially.
If people are not aware of the techniques involved and do not know specifically what to look for, their accounts of what happened may be interesting, but they are never going to be strong evidence of anything.
Their memories 20 years later (and whether they -think- that they could have been fooled) are even less reliable.
Lucianarchy
Banned
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2001
- Messages
- 2,105
Vitnir said:
"I am a true skeptic and had also read books and viewed videos on how magicians bend keys.
Uri got in my car, pulled a spoon from the hotel from his pocket and asked me to examine it. It was solid and hard to bend by force. He held it between one finger and thumb by the bowl and g-e-n-t-l-y rubbed it with a finger of his other hand. It began to bend!
Then he placed it on the dashboard near the windshield and as I watched, the spoon bent by itself until it was at a ninety degree angle. I was later told that this is referred as "after bending" although I had not heard of it or had it described before. "- Allan Slaight
"Uri bent a spoon for me. The first time he did it, you know, I thought there must be a trick. The second time, I was stunned, completely, completely stunned and amazed. It just bent in my hand. I've never seen anything like it. It takes a lot to impress me. Uri Geller is for real and anyone who doesn't recognise that is either deluding himself, or is a very sad person." - David Blaine
Lucianarchy said:
Yes, yes, we've been through this before.
Blaine did not provide the spoon.
Geller provided the spoon.
It is possible for a spoon to bend this way.
I have seen it, both on TV and less than 1 m. away.
The cutlery is sold on the Internet.
Lucianarchy, please explain what happens here:
http://hanklee.org/hankievision/
(Click on "Spoon bend")
Please explain what this is:
http://www.hanklee.net/extras/extra0201/extra0201.html
Lucianarchy
Banned
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2001
- Messages
- 2,105
CFLarsen said:
Back of a matchbox type of trick, not the same thing at all. Both Blaine and Slaight are experts in the world of magic, trickery, illusion and deception and are quite capable of detecting such props. Morgolis even brought along his own distinctive spoon.
Disbeliever
Student
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2003
- Messages
- 40
Thank you. The point is that if Uri makes a supernatural claim, he must prove, scientifically, that it is the real thing. No one's testimonial under non-scientific grounds is valid, and it is not the responsibility of anyone to prove it incorrect. It is his responsibility to prove it is the real thing, and he has not done this, despite all of the secondhand witnesses and vouching for reputations that Luci is supplying.
The fact remains, if you make a supernatural claim, it is your responsibility to prove it right, not everyone else's to prove it wrong.
SteveGrenard
Philosopher
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2002
- Messages
- 5,528
I agree.
-----------------------------------------------
FRACTURE SURFACE PHYSICS INDICATING TELENEURAL INTERACTION
(The word teleneural stems from the Greek prefix tele, meaning "far" or "distant", and the Greek word neuron which has to do with the nervous system in the broadest sense.)
by Wilbur M. Franklin, Ph.D., Department of Physics, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio.
Wilbur M. Franklin is Chairman of the Department of Physics, Graduate Division, at Kent State University. He holds degrees in biology, metallurgical engineering, and solid state science and technology. His publications include articles on such subjects as diffusion theory, the properties of liquid crystals, and the nature of fractures in metals; and many papers on teleneural physics. His interest in this last area began in 1972, when he first met and worked with Uri Geller. Since then he has initiated a course in teleneural physics at Kent State, the course is funded in part by a grant from the Ford Foundation. Dr. Franklin is a member of the American Physical Society and is listed in American Men of Science.
Many of the metallic objects bent or broken by Uri Geller have been subjected to analysis under the scanning electron microscope - a device of extremely high magnifying power that gives fine resolution of detail. Almost all of the fractures Geller has induced in metals resemble "fatigue fractures" - ruptures that result from excessive wear and tear. This is true even when the metal object Geller has affected was brand new. However, Dr. Franklin has discovered a remarkable exception. A platinum ring spontaneously developed a fissure in its surface in Geller's presence, but without his having touched the ring. Two breaks, only a hundredth of an inch apart, seem to have been produced by two very different conditions. One of the breaks resembles a cleavage that typically occurs at the temperature of liquid nitrogen, -195 degrees C; the other fissure is typical of platinum melting at a temperature of 1773 degrees C. Dr. Franklin concludes that it would be difficult, even under the best laboratory conditions, to produce such totally different fractures at sites so close to one another.
In the first of the two papers printed here, Dr. Franklin gives an easily readable and abbreviated account of Geller's influence on the platinum ring and other metallic objects. His second paper is a rigorous treatment of his analysis of the surfaces fractured by Geller, and it presents a theoretical model to account for the observed events.
(truncated - visit URL for rest of study:
http://www.uri-geller.com/books/geller-papers/g7.htm
Lucianarchy said:
Not the same thing?? Lucianarchy, we have a trick where a spoon bends without people touching it!! Exactly what Geller claims to be doing, only by paranormal means!
And you said that Geller's spoon bending act could not be replicated. Well, it can. By anyone, for $700.
Are you saying, that it is impossible for Slaight not to have known about this trick?
Can you find a reference, where Slaight specifically states that he knew about this trick? If you cannot (and I am using your own logic here), then you cannot prove that Slaight could not have been fooled.
Disbeliever
Student
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2003
- Messages
- 40
^ Thank you. This is the reason Lucian has been getting to me, because he always clearly states that no one can prove him/Uri/ anyone doing something supernatural wrong, when it is their responsibility to prove themselves right. This is why Mr. Randi has this website, offering his million dollars. And this is also why vaious deluded people will not accept his offer, because they think the same exact way.
Talk your way out of that, my friend.
EDIT: About Steve's post, to Lucianarchy.
Talk your way out of that, my friend.
EDIT: About Steve's post, to Lucianarchy.