Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions - James Randi [88]
But he did speak of the theater chair armrest, made of vinyl plastic. That, too, had been retained by Katz as a sort of holy relic. As I listened once more to the story of the rainy evening when the miracle occurred, I heard details that had not been in the original and somewhat thin story. Now, it seemed, Katz was able to remember a further, very startling fact that upped the fantastic nature of the event. The armrest, when he picked it up from the puddle into which it had fallen, was bone dry! Wow! Remember, the credibility of the story was weakened by Katz's admission to me that he himself had accomplished several "teleportations" for Geller by tossing objects, unnoticed, into the air. Now here was the big clincher on this miracle—a bone-dry armrest! Without a word, I placed the object on a saucer, poured a glass of water over it, and picked it up to show Katz. It was bone dry. The vinyl had shed water quite easily. This subject was also quickly dropped.
I was fascinated to learn that Katz had been visited by a reporter from the National Enquirer, Donna Rosenthal. During her several hours with him in Tel Aviv she had not taken any notes, and when Katz asked her why, she replied that what he was telling her—very negative information about Geller—was not the kind of thing her editor had sent her to get. In the Journal of Occult Studies, Winter-Spring 1977-78, we read the following:
Donna Rosenthal, a writer from the National Enquirer... and a group of people went to lunch later and heard an interesting story of her investigations of Geller's Israeli background. She had interviewed close relatives and friends of Geller and concluded quite straightforwardly that there was no doubt as to the validity of his experiences, which were easily verified by many occurrences that dated back to high school and before.
I told Katz of a story I'd heard (perhaps apocryphal) concerning the Enquirer. It seems that they had to fire their top reporter. He'd allowed a fact to creep into one of his stories.
But the question arises, Why did Katz go along with Geller's cheating despite his feeling that it was wrong? Easily answered. As Katz himself said, he believes in Geller's powers in spite of everything—and just because it's not all real doesn't mean the rest isn't. It's that simple. He has chosen to believe in a chimera, and he accepts whatever he cannot explain as the real thing and as proof of his preferred belief. This was thoroughly demonstrated to me while I was in Tel Aviv, when Yasha revealed to me that he had discovered a genuine one-hundred-percent psychic young fellow who was obviously the real thing, since he denied that he wanted to become another Geller. Katz offered to put me in touch with him and warned me that now I was in real danger of losing my $10,000 to this chap. I was willing, as usual, to take that chance.
The next day I got a call at my hotel. It was from a young man named Yoram Nachman, and he was most anxious to see me, not to take my prize money but to explain a few things to me. I taxied off to his home, and to a most refreshing surprise. Yoram (The Great Yorini) turned out to be a master of spoon-bending and "telepathy." Katz had given me a long description of his performance, and of course it was all wrong. Katz had specified conditions that just did not exist, and was convinced by his faulty interpretation of the performance that Yoram had real powers. But, explained the young man, he didn't want Katz to believe these things, he didn't want to become another Geller, and he didn't want to go on the world