What's Uri Geller Up To These Days?

Uri Geller was a big name in the 1970s and 1980s. He dazzled people with his amazing psychic abilities — or alleged abilities, as he only seemed to be able to dazzle those who didn't understand how easy it is to fake the things he did. After a while, he faded from view - but he didn't disappear entirely. He's still trying to keep his name in the spotlight as long as possible.

In the January / February 2006 Skeptical Inquirer, Benjamin Radford writes:

Geller kept his name in the news over the past few years, not with any spoon bending or timepiece tampering but because of his friendship with (and vigorous defense of) Michael Jackson. Geller was convinced of Jackson’s innocence because, Geller said, he hypnotized Jackson and asked him if he had ever molested children. Jackson told him no. That was good enough for Geller, who then instructed Jackson to forget that he had asked. ...

If Uri Geller genuinely believes that this is a sound basis for his belief, then I suppose that Geller is even better at fooling himself than he is at fooling other people...

One of Geller’s latest endeavors is a psychic Museum in York, which he founded in 2005 with astrologer Jonathan Cainer. Visitors are led in groups of twelve or fewer through “mind-opening experiments, providing a personal experience of psychic power and potential.” Exhibits and demonstrations include dowsing, psychometry, auras and energy fields, remote viewing, psychokiesis, and telepathy. According to Geller, “What’s happening around the world now is that people are beginning to validate psychic phenomena.... It does work, otherwise people wouldn’t be interested in it.”

If we are charitable, we’d have to describe this as another example of Uri Geller’s extreme and amazing gullibility. No sensible person would argue that something must really “work” merely because it attracts people’s interest. If we were to accept the validity of Geller’s argument, then we would also have to conclude that Islamic extremism and terrorism “work” because otherwise there wouldn’t be so many people interested in and adherents of it. Why is Uri Geller defending Islamic terrorism?

Well, he’s not — not really. His argument is a defense of Islamic terrorism if we take it at face value and accept as a statement of sound reasoning. Since even he probably wouldn’t accept this application of his argument, we must conclude that he probably doesn’t really accept the principle he is articulating. To be charitable again, it would be appear that he hasn’t though carefully enough about his position to realize just how nonsensical it is.

 

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