Uri Geller is an Israeli performer who became internationally famous in the 1970s for apparently bending metal cutlery, restarting stopped watches and reproducing hidden drawings. He was tested at Stanford Research Institute in 1972 and 1973, and results attributed to him formed part of the material that programme published, though the metal bending was never part of the Nature paper. Professional magicians, most persistently James Randi, demonstrated that every effect in his act could be produced by ordinary conjuring methods and argued that the scientists testing him lacked the training to detect them. Geller has pursued libel actions against some critics and has in later years described himself as a mystifier and entertainer rather than making explicit paranormal claims. He is a living person and this atlas records the documented tests and the documented criticism without characterising his intentions.
Facts
Disputed
Tested ByStanford Research Institute in 1972 and 1973; the metal bending was deliberately excluded from what the resulting Nature paper presented 2 Russell Targ and Harold E. Puthoff's Information Transmission under Conditions of Sensory Shielding (Nature, 1974) included tests of Uri Geller alongside other subjects at the Stanford Research Institute, using their sensory-shielding remote-perception protocol. The tests themselves took place and the results were published in a peer-reviewed journal, which is not disputed; what the results establish is disputed on the same grounds as the paper's other findings, since critics including Marks and Kammann later argued the protocol's design left cues available that could produce apparently accurate results without any anomalous perception on Geller's part specifically. Notable ExposureProfessional conjurors, most persistently James Randi, reproduced every effect in the act using ordinary methods and argued that the physicists testing him were not trained to detect them 1 James Randi's The Truth About Uri Geller (Prometheus Books, 1982) presented Randi's own reconstructions, performed as a professional magician, of Geller's claimed psychic feats, including spoon-bending and metal-bending effects, using purely physical stage-magic methods to duplicate the same visible results. Randi's method was demonstrative rather than investigative: showing a trick can reproduce an effect using conventional method, not documenting Geller himself using that method, so the duplication does not by itself prove Geller in fact used a similar technique. Geller has disputed Randi's specific accounts and characterisations, in some cases through litigation, and the dispute over what Randi's duplications actually establish about Geller's own methods remains open. Identity
Also Known As Origins
Place of OriginTel Aviv, in Mandatory Palestine (now Israel) 1 Life
Lifespan or Floruit Learn More
The Act, and the Laboratory That Tested It
The performance that made Geller famous was small in scale and enormously effective on television: a spoon or key held lightly between the fingers appears to soften and bend, a watch that has stopped begins to run, a drawing sealed in an envelope is reproduced. Between 1972 and 1973 he was tested at Stanford Research Institute, and the tests are documented, which is unusual for a stage psychic and is the reason he appears in a reference work of this kind at all. The published Nature paper reporting SRI work described results attributed to him on picture-drawing tasks and on dice prediction, and pointedly did not include the metal bending, which the authors declined to present as an established phenomenon.
Critics have made two separate objections that are worth keeping apart. The first is that the picture-drawing protocol as run allowed opportunities for ordinary information transfer that the experimenters did not close. The second is broader and was pressed hardest by professional conjurors: that a physicist observing a performance has no training in what to watch for, and that the entire act is standard mentalism performed extremely well. The two objections are independent, and a reader can accept the first without needing to reach a view on the second.
A Fifty Year Argument, and a Change of Description
James Randi spent decades reproducing every effect in Geller's repertoire in front of audiences and explaining the methods afterwards, and wrote a book setting out his account of how the SRI tests and the television appearances were done. Randi's standing argument was never that a duplicate proves a fake, which it does not, but that once an ordinary method is demonstrated, the burden shifts to whoever wants to claim an extraordinary one. Geller pursued libel actions against several critics, with limited success, and the litigation itself became part of the controversy. What has changed most is the description rather than the evidence.
In recent decades Geller has generally presented himself as a mystifier and entertainer, has spoken about his career in show-business terms, and has largely stopped asserting a specific paranormal mechanism in the way he did in the 1970s. He remains a living person with an active public profile, and this atlas states only what is documented: that he was tested under laboratory conditions, that results were published, that the protocols were criticised in detail, and that conjurors reproduced the effects. It draws no conclusion about what he privately believes or intends.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
The association is documented: his televised performances made spoon bending a mass phenomenon. The effect itself has been reproduced by conjurors using ordinary methods and is not accepted as paranormal.
Critiqued By
This edge names the critic rather than a contested claim in its own right. Geller's own notable-exposure and tested-by facts already carry the dispute over his claimed abilities in full, including Randi's decades of reproducing the effects by ordinary conjuring methods.
Sources
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