Uri Geller

Uri Geller (Hebrew: אורי גלר), (born December 20, 1946 in Tel Aviv) is an Israeli-British performer and celebrity who has drawn both fame and criticism with his claims to have psychic powers.

Uri Geller bending a spoon in public

Geller rose to fame after performing a series of televised demonstrations which he said were paranormal performances of psychokinesis, dowsing and telepathy. His demonstrations included bending spoons, describing hidden drawings, and making watches stop or run faster. Geller says that he did these feats through willpower and the strength of his mind, but many of the effects that Geller attributes to psychic abilities are easily imitated by stage magic tricks.

In the 1970s, Geller persuaded some scientists that his demonstrations were genuine. However, since that time many magicians have come forward to demonstrate how these demonstrations could have fooled the scientists using misdirection tecniques. Geller has not submitted to any recent examination of his claims. sceptics and professional magicians deny that he has paranormal abilities. These critics, who include Richard Feynman, James Randi and Martin Gardner, have accused him of using his demonstrations fraudulently outside of the entertainment business.

Biography

Born to Jewish parents from Hungary and Austria, Geller was named after a cousin who had been killed in a bus accident. According to Geller, he first became aware of his paranormal abilities when he was four, claiming that after a light from the sky knocked him to the ground, his spoon bent and broke.

He served as a paratrooper in the Israeli Army, and was wounded in action during the 1967 Six-Day War. He worked as a photographic model in 1968 and 1969, and in the same year, he began to perform for small audiences as a nightclub entertainer, becoming well-known in Israel.

Geller also became popular in the early 70's in the United States. He also received attention from the scientific community who were interested in examining his claims of psychic abilities. At the peak of his career in the 1970s he worked full-time, performing for television audiences worldwide. Geller semi-retired from public life in the 1980s, although he returned to the screens for the current affairs show Uri Nation in the early nineties, which could be seen then on satellite TV.

He claims that he has accumulated wealth in part by performing dowsing services to find commodities such as oil, gold, and minerals, but that the companies he has worked for are reluctant to admit it. In recent years, he has performed demonstrations such as spoon-bending much less frequently in public. He has also written sixteen fiction and nonfiction books.

Geller currently lives in Sonning-on-Thames, Berkshire, England. He makes various personal appearances, is involved with art and design projects, and contributes articles to newspapers, magazines, and an Internet web column. He is a vegan and speaks four languages: English, Hebrew, Hungarian and German.

He might be called something of a bon vivant, and he maintains many ties with celebrity society. He owns a 1976 Cadillac adorned with thousands of pieces of bent tableware given to him by celebrities or otherwise having historical or other significance. It includes spoons from celebrities such as John Lennon and the Spice Girls, and those with which Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy ate. Geller designed the logo for popular music group *NSYNC and contributed artwork to Michael Jackson's CD, "Invincible;" Jackson was best man when Geller renewed his wedding vows in 2001. He also negotiated the famous TV interview between Jackson with the journalist Martin Bashir: "Living with Michael Jackson". In BBC television interviews, Geller has since admitted that he has not been in contact with Jackson since this time. Geller says that he has split with Jackson because of anti-Semitic statements he had purportedly made.

Geller is the president of International Friends of Magen David Adom, a group that lobbied the International Committee of the Red Cross to recognize Magen David Adom ("Red Star of David") as a humanitarian relief organization. In an appearance on Esther Rantzen's 1996 television talk show Esther, Geller claimed to have suffered from Anorexia nervosa for several years. In 2002, he became honorary co-chairman of the English Nationwide Conference football club Exeter City, which was relegated to the Nationwide Conference in May 2003. He has since severed formal ties with the club. The same year, he appeared as a contestant on the first series of the British reality TV show, I'm a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here!

Currently, Geller hosts a reality show in Israel called "The Successor" ("היורש"), where he challenges the contestants to amaze himself and the audience with displays of their supernatural abilities.

Controversy and criticism

Geller's claims of paranormal powers receive little support within the mainstream scientific community and his critics see him as a very successful con artist.

Parallels to stage magic

Geller admits "Sure, there are magicians who can duplicate it [his performances] through trickery." He claims that even though his demonstrations could have been done using trickery, he happens to use psychic powers to achieve his results. Sceptic James Randi has stated that if Geller is truly using his mind to perform these feats, "he is doing it the hard way". Stage magicians note several methods of creating the illusion of a spoon spontaneously bending. Most common is the practice of misdirection, an underlying principle of many stage magic tricks.

There are many ways in which a spoon be presented to an audience as to give the appearance it was done with supernatural powers. One way is through one or several brief moments of distraction in which a magician can physically bend a spoon unseen by the audience. Then the bend is gradually revealed creating the illusion that the spoon is bending before the viewers' eyes. Another way, if a performer does not bend the spoon with force during the performance is by pre-bending them and thus reducing the amount of force later needed to be applied.

Geller claims in "telepathic drawing" demonstrations that he is able to read subjects' minds as they draw a picture. Although in these demonstrations he cannot see the picture being drawn, he is sometimes present in the room and on those occasions can see the subjects as they draw. Critics argue this may allow Geller to infer common shapes from pencil movement and sound, with the power of suggestion doing the rest.

Disagreements over measuring success

Critics note Geller's demonstrations are not always successful. For example, he is not always able during his "telepathic" drawing demonstrations to define the shape or image drawn. [1] Geller has also at times canceled performances or failed to produce the expected results, sometimes blaming his apparent lack of psychic power on some interference, exhaustion, or lack of cooperation by the subjects. He was paid to investigate the kidnapping of Hungarian model Helga Farkas, and, although he predicted she would be found alive and in good health, she was murdered by her kidnappers [2]. He was reportedly unable to bend a spoon for Richard Feynman, as mentioned in the Nobel-prize winning physicist's book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!.

Geller was unable to bend any cutlery during a 1973 appearance on The Tonight Show where the spoons he was to bend had been preselected by Johnny Carson. Earlier in his career, Carson had been an amateur stage magician, as had James Randi who advised Carson on how to thwart potential trickery. Randi explained in a 1993 episode of the television show NOVA: "I was asked to prevent any trickery. I told them to provide their own props and not to let Geller or his people anywhere near them."

Geller's critics often disagree with him about the degree of success actually achieved during demonstrations. For instance, his television appearances have frequently involved viewer interaction, and among the viewers there are very often callers who claim to have located bent spoons or restarted clocks after Geller appeared on TV. Sceptics maintain this does not necessarily indicate paranormal success, and speculate that about half of all stopped mechanical clocks can be at least temporarily restarted simply by moving them around.

In his telepathy demonstrations, Geller reveals his answer slowly while asking whether he is on the right track. This approach is consistent with a stage magic technique known as cold reading, in which a magician tricks a subject into revealing information by suggesting that he already knows it. Geller's approach is apparent in an interview on the Gerry Ryan radio show on February 20, 2002:

Testing

Geller's performances of drawing duplication and cutlery bending usually take place under informal conditions such as television interviews. During his early career he did allow some scientists to investigate his claims. A study by Stanford Research Institute researchers Harold E. Puthoff and Russell Targ concluded that he had clearly performed successfully enough to warrant further serious study, and the "Geller-effect", was coined to refer to the particular type of abilities they felt had been demonstrated.

In An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural Randi wrote "Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ, who studied Mr. Geller at the Stanford Research Institute (now known as Stanford Research International) were aware, in one instance at least, that they were being shown a magician's trick by Geller." Moreover, Randi explained, "Their protocols for this 'serious' investigation of the powers claimed by Geller were described by Dr. Ray Hyman, who investigated the project on behalf of a U.S. funding agency, as "sloppy and inadequate'."

Other critics of this "testing" includes David Marks and Richard Kammann article in Nature in 1978 and in full detail in their 1980 book, The Psychology of the Psychic (2nd ed. 2000).

Noel Edmonds footage

Noel Edmonds was a television prankster who often used hidden cameras to record celebrities in Candid Camera-like situations for his television programme, Noel's House Party. In 1996, Edmonds planned a stunt in which shelves would fall from the walls of a room while Geller was in it. The cameras recorded footage of Geller from angles he wasn't expecting, and they showed Geller grasping a spoon firmly with both hands as he stood up to display a bend in it.[3] Geller later claimed that he knew that Edmonds' crew had been filming, and that he made the shelves fall off the wall with his psychic powers.

Litigation

Geller has litigated or threatened legal action against some of his critics with mixed success. These included libel allegations against Randi and illusionist Gérard Majax. His lawsuits against Prometheus Books, a publisher of sceptical books, which had falsely asserted that Geller had been arrested and convicted in Israel for misrepresenting himself as a psychic, were dismissed in the U.S. as they were filed after the statute of limitations had expired, and Geller was obliged to pay more than $20,000 in costs to the defendant. Upon the final resolution of the Prometheus suit, the chairman of the publishing house, Paul Kurtz, stated, "It seems Mr. Geller's alleged psychic powers weren't working correctly when he decided to file this suit." Kurtz did, however, provide Geller with a written apology and acknowledgement of error on behalf of Prometheus Books after Geller agreed to drop an identical suit filed in London.

In an interview with a Japanese newspaper reporter, James Randi was reported as saying that Uri Geller had driven a scientist to "shoot himself in the head," which Randi claimed was a metaphor lost in translation. However, in an English-language interview with newspaper reporter Patricia Orwen, Randi said, "One scientist, a metallurgist, wrote a paper backing Geller's claims that he could bend metal. The scientist shot himself after I showed him how the key bending trick was done." (August 23, 1986, Toronto Star)[4]. Since the supposed suicide victim died of natural causes, Geller sued both the newspaper and Randi in the Japanese courts. Randi could not participate in the trial due to high expenses of travelling to Japan. The Japanese judge reduced Geller's action from "libel" to "insult", and awarded Geller $2,000. Geller, as part of a later settlement with Randi, agreed not to pursue Randi for collection of the judgement.

In November 2000, Geller unsuccessfully sued Nintendo in U.S. federal court, claiming use of his likeness for a Pokémon character, "Yungerer" (also transliterated "Ungeller"), translated into English as "Kadabra". He also unsuccessfully sued IKEA over a furniture line featuring bent legs that was called the "Uri" line.

Copyright claims

In March 2007 videos showing Geller "cheating" were removed from youtube due to copyright claims by Explorologist Limited. Explorologist Limited is operated by Geller who owns 75% of the company and his long time manager/brother in law Shimshon [Shipi] Shtrang who owns 25%. James Randi noted Geller does not own the copyright to these clips, which includes Geller's appearance on The Tonight Show.

Bibliography

Books About Geller

• Ebon, Martin The Amazing Uri Geller Signet 1975
• Gardner, Martin, Confessions of a Psychic and Further Confessions of a Psychic. Two booklets by the American philosopher, recreational mathematician, and sceptic under the pseudonym "Uriah Fuller" (an allusion to Geller) that purport to explain "how fake psychics perform seemingly incredible paranormal feats".
• Gardner, Martin, Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus A collection of essays and articles, including several on Uri Geller, scientific reactions to him, and related matters.
• Geller, Uri, My Story, Warner, 1976. LoC 74-25462
• David Marks The Psychology of the Psychic (2nd Ed.) New York: Prometheus Books
• Randi, James, The Magic of Uri Geller. Note: This is the book's original title. Later editions are titled The Truth About Uri Geller.
• Randi, James (1982). Flim-Flam! : Psychics, ESP, unicorns and other Delusions. New York: Prometheus Books. pp. 131–160. ISBN 0-87975-198-3.
• Puharich, Andrija, Uri: A Journal of the Mystery of Uri Geller. Anchor Press / Doubleday
• Ben Harris. Gellerism Revealed. Micky Hades International 1985 ISBN 0-919230-92-X
• Jonathan Margolis. Uri Geller Magician or Mystic?. Welcome Rain / Orion ISBN 0752810065
• Wilhelm,John. In Search of Superman. Pocket Books, 1976

Books By Geller

Non-fiction

• My Story. Warner, 1976. LoC 74-25462
• Uri Geller and Guy Lyon Playfair The Geller Effect Grafton, Jonathan Cape, Hunter Publishing, ISBN 0586074309 ISBN 978-0586074305
• Uri Geller & Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. Confessions of a Psychic and a Rabbi (Foreword by Deepak Chopra)
• Geller, Uri. Mind Medicine
• Uri Geller's Little Book of Mind Power
• Uri Geller's Mind Power Kit
• Uri Geller's Fortune Secrets Psychic Hotline Pty Limited 1987

Fiction

• Ella, ISBN 0747259208

External links

Official

• Uri Geller official homepage
• Uri Geller official blog

Criticism

• Geller on the Ropes by James Randi
• Uri Geller listed in The Skeptic's Dictionary
• Geller, Uri in An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural
• Alleged "Psychic" Uri Geller loses libel suit against Prometheus Books from Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

Video

• Video of Stanford Research Institute Experiments With Uri Geller
• Google Video – James Randi debunks Uri Geller
• Nature - Original Nature 1974 article
• Graze the page of Uri Geller