---
aliases:
- Itzhak Bentov
born: 1923-08-09
category: Key Figures
died: 1979-05-25
location: Humenné, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia)
summary: Itzhak Bentov was an Israeli rocket scientist, biomedical engineer, and author
  known for his work on 'the mechanics of consciousness.' He designed Israel's first
  rocket for the War of Independence and invented the steerable cardiac catheter,
  which paved the way for many biomedical engineering invent
tags:
- Person
- Stargate
- CIA
- RemoteViewer
---

Itzhak Bentov was an Israeli rocket scientist, biomedical engineer, and author known for his work on "the mechanics of consciousness." He designed [Israel](/places/israel/)'s first rocket for the War of Independence and invented the steerable cardiac catheter, which paved the way for many biomedical engineering inventions[^1].

In the fall of 1970, Bentov attended a conference in Rye, New York, titled "Exploring the Energy Fields of Man," where he spoke of a twenty-three-year-old Israeli man with extraordinary powers of [psychokinesis](/concepts/psychokinesis/) and [mental telepathy](/concepts/telepathy/). During a demonstration at Israel's University of Technology, this man, [Uri Geller](/people/uri-geller/), had reportedly stopped and started broken watches, moved the needle on a stationary compass, and bent metal by thought alone[^1].

Bentov's lecture intrigued [Andrija Puharich](/people/andrija-puharich/), who was also present at the conference. Puharich, seeking to find a psychic who could be tested under laboratory conditions to secure a government research contract, asked Bentov for more information about Geller. This introduction ultimately led to Puharich bringing Geller to the United States for testing by the [Central Intelligence Agency](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/) at [Stanford Research Institute](/organizations/stanford-research-institute/) (SRI)[^1].

[^1]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.