Uri Geller: Self-Proclaimed ‘Psychic’

A flash-back to 1975 when Uri Geller came to town.  Super-psychic or super-charlatan? Who to Believe?

On the one hand, a scientific report published in Nature verifying Geller’s psychic abilities under supposedly cheat-proof conditions, and on the other, a highly speculative but critical attack published simultaneously in New Scientist. While Targ and Puthoff’s reply … would seem to invalidate his explanations of their significant results, it is difficult to disregard the doubts Hanlon has raised about the “circus atmosphere” that he believes surrounded the SRI experiments. Frankly, at the end of 1974, we were puzzled and confused. Weighing all the evidence available at that time, it seemed impossible to decide whether Geller was a genuine psychic or an ingenious and highly skilled hoaxer. Clearly, the Geller effect had to be taken seriously as, in either case, there would be much of interest to learn about the mechanics of psychic performance. Clearly, what was needed was more experimentation.

First Encounter

Our first live encounter with Geller was accidental. On 23 March 1975 Geller arrived in New Zealand from Australia to begin a series of four “lecture-demonstrations” of his psychic powers. To facilitate communications, I ( David Marks) checked into the same hotel as Geller in the Dominion capital, Wellington. Hopefully we could obtain a sufficient level of cooperation to complete a series of laboratory tests. I left a letter for Geller at the hotel reception inviting his participation in some experiments.

I had been told by Geller’s local agent, Bruce Warwick, that Geller was due to arrive on the ten o’clock plane, and so an arrangement was made to talk with Geller the next morning after a press conference. At eight o’clock on the evening of the 23, I went down to dinner in the almost empty hotel restaurant. At about nine o’clock a party of noisy, flamboyant people sat down at the table next to me in the quiet dining room. From their accents, some were obviously Americans, others Australians, and others sounded like Americanized Israelis.

Suddenly, as I idly scanned their faces, to my utter amazement, I saw Uri Geller. Apparently, he had materialized himself into New Zealand prior to the aircraft’s arrival! He was sitting with his back to me, not more than ten feet away, opposite a woman with blond hair who spoke loudly and clearly with a distinct American accent.

Geller’s Faux Pas

Although I was dying to meet Geller, my first reaction was to leave, as the last thing I wanted to do was invade Geller’s privacy. However, it was I who had been there first, and they had sat next to me, not vice versa, so I decided to finish my dinner and then leave.

To this day I can still hardly believe what took place in the next few moments. The American woman (whom I knew later to be Miss Solveig Clark, one of Geller’s personal assistants) asked Geller in a clear and distinctive voice whether he had “read the letter from Dr. Marks.” Like most other people, I find it hard not to tune in to a conversation when my name is mentioned. I heard Geller reply: “Keep that guy away from me; he’ll pick up the signals (sic).”

No words can describe how I felt at that moment. What signals? Could these be the signals described in the New Scientist? Who was Geller’s female confidante? Was Puharich there, or Shipi Shtrang? Although I couldn’t answer all these questions, Geller had already told me more than I ever imagined would be possible. Yet Geller was blissfully ignorant of this major faux pas. I couldn’t help feeling that if Geller were truly psychic, he’d certainly have sensed my presence and avoided giving away trade secrets!

Postscript:

No question about it, from that moment I sensed that Uri Geller was nothing more than a not-so-clever trickster.

Anybody can bend a spoon, as long as you have a firm grip. Try it without touching, however, and its a very different story.

Geller successfully conned pretty much the whole world into believing he had special powers.

He does. It’s called sleight-of-hand!

Flashback: an extract from “The Psychology of the Psychic”.