Geller has claimed his feats are the result of
paranormal powers The
Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) was a prominent early critic of Geller. Skeptics such as
James Randi have shown that Geller's tricks can be replicated with
stage magic techniques.
Andrija Puharich met Geller in 1971 and endorsed him as a genuine psychic. Under
hypnosis, Geller claimed he was sent to Earth by
extraterrestrials from a spaceship 53,000 light years away. Geller later denied the space fantasy claims, but affirmed there "is a slight possibility that some of my energies do have extraterrestrial connection." Puharich also stated that Geller
teleported a dog through the walls of his house. Science writer
Martin Gardner wrote that since "no expert on fraud was there as an observer" nobody should take the claim seriously. In his biography of Geller,
Uri: A Journal of the Mystery of Uri Geller (1974), Puharich claimed that with Geller he had communicated with super-intelligent computers from outer space. According to Puharich the computers sent messages to warn humanity that a disaster was likely to occur if humans did not change their ways. The psychologist
Christopher Evans, who reviewed the book in
New Scientist, wrote that although Puharich believed every word he had written the book was credulous and "those fans of Geller's who might have hoped to have used the book as ammunition to impress the sceptics [...] will be the most disappointed of all." Geller was a friend of
Bruce Bursford and helped him "train his mind" during some cycling speed-record-breaking bids in the 1990s. In 1997, Geller was involved with Second Division football club
Exeter City by placing ‘energy-infused’ crystals behind the goals at Exeter's ground to help the club win a crucial end-of-season game. (Exeter lost the game 5–1.) He was appointed co-chairman of the club in 2002. The club was relegated to the
Football Conference in May 2003, where it remained for five years. He has since severed ties with the club. He had also been involved with
Reading F.C. and claimed in 2002 that he had helped them to avoid relegation by getting the club's supporters to look into his eyes and say "win, Reading, win.” Reading manager
Alan Pardew dismissed Geller's role in the club's survival – which was achieved thanks to a draw in the critical match – stating "as soon as we get a bit of joy, thanks to all the hard work and efforts of my staff and players, he suddenly comes out of the blue and tries to claim the limelight." In a 2008 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!" The United Kingdom left the European Union on 31 January 2020 under the leadership of May's successor,
Boris Johnson.
Stage magic parallels Many scientists, magicians, and
skeptics have suggested possible ways in which Geller could have tricked his audience by using
misdirection while bending objects such as keys and spoons manually. There are many ways in which a bent spoon can be presented to an audience so as to give the appearance it was manipulated using supernatural powers. One way is through brief moments of distraction in which a magician can physically bend a spoon or other object unseen by the audience, before gradually revealing the bend to create the illusion that the spoon is bending before the viewers' eyes. Another way is to pre-bend the spoon, reducing the amount of force that needs to be applied to bend it again. Critics have accused Geller of using his demonstrations
fraudulently outside the entertainment business. James Randi, one of Geller's most prominent critics, wrote
The Truth About Uri Geller explaining how Geller's various alleged supernatural abilities, such as spoon bending and telekinesis, can be easily reproduced by any magician using
sleight of hand. In Geller's first autobiography,
My Story, he acknowledged that, in his early career, his manager talked him into adding a magic trick to make his performances last longer. This trick involved Geller appearing to guess audience members' car registration numbers, when his manager had given them to him ahead of time. Yasha Katz, who had been Geller's manager in Britain, said in 1978 that all performances by Geller were simply stage tricks and he explained how they were really done. Geller's spoon-bending feats are discussed in
The Geller Papers (1976), edited by
Charles Panati. There was controversy when it was published. Several prominent magicians came forward to demonstrate that Geller's psychic feats could be duplicated by stage magic.
Martin Gardner wrote that Panati had been fooled by Geller's trickery and
The Geller Papers were an "embarrassing anthology". During telepathic drawing demonstrations, Geller claimed the ability to read the minds of subjects as they drew a picture. Although in these demonstrations he cannot see the picture being drawn, he is sometimes present in the room, and on these 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. He has claimed that even though his spoon bending can be repeated using trickery, he uses psychic powers to achieve his results. Randi has stated that if Geller is truly using his mind to perform these feats, "He is doing it the hard way." In October 2012, Geller gave a lecture for magicians in the United States at the
Genii Magazine 75th Birthday Bash.
Scientific 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 allowed some scientists to investigate his claims. When Geller's supposed abilities were tested by the US
Central Intelligence Agency in 1973, the experimenters concluded that Geller had "demonstrated his paranormal perceptual ability in a convincing and unambiguous manner".
A study was commissioned by the United States
Defense Intelligence Agency as part of the
Stargate Project and conducted during August 1973 at
Stanford Research Institute (now known as SRI International) by parapsychologists
Harold E. Puthoff and
Russell Targ. Geller was isolated and asked to reproduce simple drawings prepared in another room. Writing about the same study in a 1974 article published in the journal
Nature, they concluded that he had performed successfully enough to warrant further serious study. Critics have pointed out that both Puthoff and Targ were already believers in
paranormal powers and Geller was not adequately searched before the experiments. The psychologist
C. E. M. Hansel and skeptic
Paul Kurtz have noted that the experiments were poorly designed and open to trickery. Critics of the experiments include psychologists
David Marks and Richard Kammann, who published a description of how Geller could have cheated in an informal test of his so-called psychic powers in 1977. Their 1978 article in
Nature and 1980 book
The Psychology of the Psychic (2nd ed. 2000) described how a normal explanation was possible for Geller's alleged psychic powers. Marks and Kammann found evidence that while at SRI, Geller was allowed to peek through a hole in the laboratory wall separating him from the drawings he was being invited to reproduce. These drawings were placed on a wall opposite the peephole which the investigators Targ and Puthoff had stuffed with cotton gauze. In addition to this error, the investigators had also allowed Geller access to a two-way intercom, enabling him to listen to the investigators' conversation during the times when they were choosing and/or displaying the target drawings. These basic errors indicate the great importance of ensuring that psychologists, magicians, or other people with an in-depth knowledge of perception, who are trained in methods for blocking sensory cues, be present during the testing of psychics. ==Litigation==