Uri Geller is telling all about how I put Michael into a trance: it was unethical, but I had to know the truth about Jordie . . . the report makes clear a few things . . . Geller is willing to perform unethical hypnotic procedures, Geller is not a very good hypnotist in that he makes obvious mistakes regarding the nature of hypnosis and what is possible, Geller is not good at running a question-and-answer session in hypnosis as he does what is called "leading" rather than more appropriate "guiding" and asks questions that can create false memories or impressions, Geller is a bit more than naive in that he seems to think that a simple suggestive session precludes the ability of the subject to confabulate or fall victim to phantasy or . . . as in this case . . . just plain lie.  Cursory study of even the most basic material on forensic hypnosis will show you that one does NOT hypnotize the accused or suspect for evidence or testimony but goes to witnesses and that one has to be very very careful about wording (Geller’s quotes of his wording make it very clear that he is not careful and that he is very poor at this sort of session).  Jackson may have been telling the truth under hypnosis but he could also have been lying . . . or, if he is indeed a natural somnambule as Geller implies, his recollections of the events could have been changed due to the way Geller structured his questions and their sequence throughout the session.

Of course, I’m not a big Uri Geller fan . . . see the excellent material on Geller and his so-called spoon-bending and other psychic feats on the sites run by Steve Shaw (Banachek) and The Amazing Randi.  The guy is a magician pretending to be a genuine psychic and now he’s evendently an amateur hypnotist pretending to be a world-class forensic trance specialist.

If he actually cared about the truth and if he actually knew even the most basic procedures regarding forensic hypnosis then he would NOT have done what he did.  His session description very clearly demonstrates both incompetence and unethical behavior . . . regardless of Jackson’s guilt or innocence (which is an entirely different matter, albeit I tend not to buy the whole pure as undriven snow the Jackson sycophants are pushing).  Even if Jackson were actually innocent of the child molestation charges, he is still certainly responsible for some very unusual and extremely creepy behavior with these young boys.

Sheesh.