Uri Geller - Paranormal Claims

Paranormal Claims

Geller has claimed his feats are the result of paranormal powers given to him by extraterrestrials, but critics such as James Randi have proven that Geller's tricks can be replicated with stage magic and are simply "parlour tricks".

In the early 1970s, an article in The Jerusalem Post reported that a court had ordered Geller to refund a customer's ticket price and pay court costs after finding that he had committed fraud by claiming that his feats were telepathic. In addition, a 1974 article also hints at Geller's abilities being trickery. The article alleged that his manager Shipi Shtrang (whom he called his brother at the time) and Shipi's sister Hannah Shtrang secretly helped in Geller's performances. Eventually, Geller married Hannah and they had children.

In 1975, two scientists (Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff from the Stanford Research Institute) said they were convinced that Geller's demonstrations were genuine. Since that time, however, notable scientists, various magicians, and skeptics have suggested possible ways in which Geller could have tricked the scientists using misdirection techniques. These critics, who include Richard Feynman, James Randi and Martin Gardner, have accused him of using his demonstrations fraudulently outside of the entertainment business. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, who was an amateur magician, wrote in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985) that Geller was unable to bend a key for him and his son. Some of his claims have been described by watchmakers as restarting stopped mechanical clocks by moving them around.

Geller is well known for making predictions regarding sporting events. Skeptic James Randi and British tabloid newspaper The Sun have demonstrated the teams and players he chooses to win most often lose. John Atkinson explored "predictions" Geller made over 30 years and concluded "Uri more often than not scuppered the chances of sportsmen and teams he was trying to help." This was pointed out by one of Randi's readers, who called it "The Curse of Uri Geller."

During the Euro 96 football game between Scotland and England at Wembley, Geller, who was hovering overhead in a helicopter, claimed that he managed to move the ball from the penalty spot when Scotland's Gary McAllister was about to take a penalty kick, something that, if true, would be against the rules of Association football, as the ball would then have been "Out of Play". The player ended up missing the chance to equalise for Scotland.

In another notable instance, in 1992, Geller was asked to investigate the kidnapping of Hungarian model Helga Farkas; after he predicted she would be found alive and in good health, she was found to have been murdered by her kidnappers. Geller was a friend of Bruce Bursford and helped him "train his mind" during some cycling speed record-breaking bids in the 1990s.

In 2007, skeptics observed that Geller appeared to have dropped his claims that he does not perform magic tricks. Randi highlighted a quotation from the November 2007 issue of the magazine Magische Welt (Magic World) in which Geller said: "I'll no longer say that I have supernatural powers. I am an entertainer. I want to do a good show. My entire character has changed."

In a later interview, Geller told Telepolis, "I said to this German magazine, so what I did say, that I changed my character, to the best of my recollection, and I no longer say that I do supernatural things. It doesn't mean that I don't have powers. It means that I don't say 'it's supernatural', I say 'I'm a mystifier!' That's what I said. And the sceptics turned it around and said, 'Uri Geller said he's a magician!' I never said that." In that interview, Geller further explained that when he is asked how he does his stunts, he tells children to "Forget the paranormal. Forget spoon bending! Instead of that, focus on school! Become a positive thinker! Believe in yourself and create a target! Go to university! Never smoke! And never touch drugs! And think of success!"

In February 2008, Geller stated in the TV show The Next Uri Geller (a German version of The Successor) that he did not have any supernatural powers, before winking to the camera.