Uri Geller Blog

Not Much News

2011-07-11T19:09:00.000-07:00

Seriously, not a lot of Uri Geller news to report on.

Any interesting news you would like to share?

My friend Michael Jackson

2009-08-09T09:02:00.000-07:00

When the news came through that Michael Jackson had died, I simply did not believe it — even though I have been warning for years that the appalling crises that rocked his life were causing him unimaginable stress.

He was a gentle, vulnerable man, who shied away from every confrontation and was prey to a succession of bullies and manipulators who cared nothing for the man or his music, only for his millions. It was inevitable that he would be driven into debt: as a businessman, he was unable to tell the dolphins from the sharks.

They say that when a shark strikes, you can lose a limb without feeling a twinge. All the predators that circled Michael down the years took a bite from him, and I knew he could not endure it forever.

After the financial maelstrom and the global frenzy surrounding his court case, Michael’s decision to stage a comeback was the right one — but he should never have contemplated doing so many shows.

At the Hit Factory studios in New York

One would have been enough. Instead, he allowed himself to be persuaded into an extravaganza that even Elton John or Madonna would struggle to pull off. For Michael, with his health in tatters, and after so many years away from live performance, it must have been a terrifying, nightmare prospect.

His sanity had been buffeted. There were rumours of skin cancer and drug dependency. But in the end it was his heart that gave out. I should not have been shocked — but I was, so appalled at the news that I slammed the phone down on the first journalist after calling him a hoaxer.

The succession of calls that followed left me in no doubt. As all the news agencies, Fleet Street papers and TV stations started to demand instant quotes and tributes, all three of our house phones and the mobile were ringing simultaneously.

All through the night, I felt numb. It wasn’t until the morning, when I had already gone more than 24 hours without sleep, that the real grief kicked in. As I talked to Carla Romano on GMTV by live satellite link, I was on the verge of breaking down in tears.

What I remembered most vividly was Michael’s devotion to his fans. He drew on their love for strength, and his gratitude for their overwhelming affection was bottomless.

I remember watching him in a New York hotel room, searching through every drawer and cupboard before he checked out. “Have you lost your passport?” I joked.

“I don’t want to leave any gifts behind,” he told me earnestly. He took a soft toy from a paper bag that a fan had decorated with hearts, and clutched it to his chest in a gesture that had become familiar to me — Michael hugged every gift he was given, as though he wanted to absorb the loving energies into his heart.

“Everything I was ever given, I’ve kept it,” he said. “I treasure them all. It’s the truth — I have packets of M&Ms from 30 years ago, when I was a kid. Some day, I’ll build a museum for it all.”

For such a loving man, one of the biggest strains of all was being separated from his children. When he flew to England to visit Exeter football club with me and David Blaine, I knew he desperately wanted to bring his children, Prince, Paris and Blanket. And he could not: he knew the paparazzi would have rioted to get pictures of him with his sons and daughter.

I believe Michael envied what John Lennon did when Sean was born — he wanted to drop out of the showbiz firmament and become a fulltime Dad. But Michael was a bigger star even than the Beatles, and it was impossible for him to become ordinary, even for a day.

That caused him agonies of frustration. The loss of his own childhood wounded him deeply, but even more painful was to be ensnared in court cases and health battles when all he wanted to do was share their most precious years.

Michael in my wedding wearing a Kippa (Yarmulke)
As the calls kept flooding in, and I gradually became hoarse from all the interviews, I was astounded at the reaction of the media. Many journalists seemed devastated to realise that such a symbol of our times had gone. Every music-loving reporter in London was hoping to cheer Michael on his comeback — now none of us will ever see him perform again.

For a decade, I have been accustomed to the hostility of the press, who have attacked Michael mercilessly for his eccentrities, his appearance and his friendships with adolescents.

In my wedding with Dave Stewart and Justin Hayward

Now, the controversy is ebbing away. Less than a day after his death, his legend is being redefined, in a positive light. It is his music which shines.

We will remember Michael Jackson for his heart-lifting songs, for his breath-taking dance moves, for his achingly poignant lyrics, for his magnetic, mesmeric charisma.

With Nigel Mansell

We will remember how he could draw love from millions of fans and turn that into pure music energy. We will remember him as an icon, an idol and a unique phenomenon. Most of all we will remember him as the greatest Prince of Pop the planet has ever seen.

At The Oxford Union

Michael Jackson had a probing mind, and many times we talked about life after death. Once we discussed Albert Einstein and his theory of relativity, which states that energy cannot be destroyed. My friend has died but he is a pure energy source now, and that will live forever.

I believe he is shining as brilliantly as ever, in another life, with Lennon, and Presley, and Sinatra, and a twinkling of other supernovas. He burned brighter than any of them.

With David Blaine at The House of Commons

With David Blaine and Matt Fiddes in Exeter

Uri Geller: Keep Fit

2009-05-30T17:57:00.000-07:00

I didn’t know that a quadruple heart bypass was even possible. I thought the maximum number of grafts was three. But when a friend of ours was told his angina had become life-threatening and that he must undergo one of the most serious operations possible, I realised there’s only one person more important than a brilliant surgeon — and that’s a responsible heart owner.

Shipi and I dropped in to the London hospital where our friend, a lawyer we’ve known for over 20 years, is recovering. It’s a good thing Shipi never became a doctor — his bedside manner is appalling.
“I bet when they cut you open,” he announced, “the surgeons discovered you didn’t have a heart at all. I always said that’s what makes you such a great lawyer.”
In fact, the surgery cannot be carried out while the heart is still pumping. It has to be stopped while the new arteries are grafted into place: in order to save the patient, the doctor must first kill him.
Many of my legal friends tell me the biggest problem they face is stress. In a high-powered career, where the stakes are high in every case and clients can face ruin if their lawyer isn’t 101 per cent committed to his work, physical tension can destroy the body.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a non-smoking vegan who jogs to the office every day and never touches more than a half-glass of chianti: stress is a killer.
That’s why I’m delighted that my son, Daniel, has quit his work as a barrister in London chambers to retrain as a Californian lawyer. All that sun and surf will help him to relax.
My own health regime is focused on keeping fit. I’ve been a vegetarian for most of my adult life, I have no resistance to alcohol and couldn’t be a boozer even if I wanted, and I’m lucky enough to be able to afford full check-ups when it suits me — the National Health Service is a marvellous institution, one Britain is rightly proud of, but it’s no good if my appointment for a scan comes through when I happen to be on the other side of the world shooting a TV series.
Since a healthy diet is built into my lifestyle, the chief role I can play as a responsible heart owner is to take plenty of aerobic exercise. That doesn’t mean I have to don a pink leotard and dance round the gym to the sound of Wham! I only do that on Mondays.
Aerobic exercise is the kind that makes the body increase its oxygen intake. For best results, it should not be too intensive, and it should last at least 20 minutes. I always warm up before starting, to avoid straining my muscles, and I always cool off with stretches for the same reason.
My favourite work-out is on my static bike — I try to cover about 27km in 20 minutes, bringing my heart rate up to around 120 beats per minute and keeping it there while I work up a sweat. I also use a cross-trainer which works my arms, and I like to use weights for ten minutes or so: I could never get a Schwarzeneggar body if I trained 12 hours every day for life, but all muscle helps burn fat and the weights help keep my own weight down.
If I’m in a hotel, I might use the pool — swimming is great exercise, though I don’t like sharing the water with a crowd. And I usually find a flight of stairs to help keep me supple, even if it’s on a jumbo jet.
It’s important to know when to stop — and when I first discovered work-outs, moderation was a word that wasn’t in my vocabulary.
By my late twenties, soft living had made me overweight. My favourite foods were hamburgers, salami and especially brie, which is about 80 per cent saturated fat.
I wasn’t obese, not the way my American friends understood the word. Some of them couldn’t see their own feet, even if they lay on the floor with their feet propped on a sofa.
But I stood on a speak-your-weight machine in Manhattan one afternoon and realised I had motored smoothly past 85 kilos and was heading for 90kg... which means I was approaching 14 stone. As a former paratrooper and basketball player, I suddenly felt I’d turned into Orson Welles.
I got hooked on dieting, and that became bulimia. I also got hooked on exercise. Without taking medical advice, I started jogging for at least two hours a day, covering ten miles at a stretch. Then I’d drag myself to a bike and pedal for another 90 minutes. The flab evaporated, but I felt dizzy and depleted all the time.
My glycogen levels never climbed above a trough, and I was constantly tired. At the same time, my blistered feet and burning legs gave me constant pain.
In combination with my eating disorder, I could easily have given myself a heart attack.
My message to anyone who is reading this and who isn’t taking regular aerobic exercise at least three times a week: whether you’re 18 or 80, make an appointment to see your GP right now. Get your health checked over, and find out what levels of exercise you can safely target.
And if disability makes aerobics impossible, make sure you raise your fitness and reduce your stress in other ways, such as regular meditation. The mind is the most powerful exercise machine in the universe, and there’s no charge for using it to the max. Above all, liaise with your doctor, and make a pledge to keep fit... because whatever you’re doing today, I’m willing to bet that you wouldn’t want to swap places with my friend and his quadruple heart bypass.

when I look at this publicity shot of myself aged 62, and think back to the chubby youth I was at 28 in New York, I know which of us looks more in control.

Uri Geller: Twitter, Ezer Mitzion

2009-05-29T17:54:00.000-07:00

*It’s an international phenomenon. Phenomena are my business. I should get involved. Right now I’m brushing my teeth with a new toothbrush.

*Everybody’s doing it. It’s the future of the internet. Facebook is yesterday’s news. I left my old toothbrush in a Moscow hotel bedroom.

*It’s free publicity. Although, at the moment, I have less than 100 followers. And four of them are Hanna, Daniel, Natalie and Shipi.

*You don’t get many words into 140 characters, do you? Still, it’s a good excuse to play with my Blackberry. Like I need an excuse.

*I must stop in at Boots the Chemist and get an electric toothbrush. Either that, or fly back to Russia and collect the one I left there.

*If anyone in Moscow is following my toothbrush saga, please call at the Hilton and ask them to send mine back. I am now walking my dog.

*I am standing in an English field, typing on a tiny keyboard. My greyhound is chasing rabbits. This is a typical morning at home for me.

Twitter account: GellerUri

I’m Twittering. Or Tweeting. I’m not quite sure of the jargon, but the concept is simple: I can send updates from my beloved mobile phone to a webpage called Twitter, and anyone who signs up can instantly see what I’m saying. It’s like sending a text message to countless fans, instantaneously.

Every day I send texts to my children in America, just to let them know I’m thinking of them. Now I can do the same for everyone who watches my TV shows and reads my Weekly News column.

Some of the most popular Twitterers have millions of followers. When Barack Obama was on the election trail, his off-the-cuff observations were beamed via Twitter technology to voters from Cape Cod to San Francisco Bay, generating a wave of excitement and publicity which helped the first Hawaiian president surf into the White House.

Messages have to be ultra-brief, and are supposed to be answers to the question, “What are you doing?” Each one must contain no more than 140 characters, including spaces.

That’s about 25 words which, when I’m worked up, is about as many words as I say every three seconds. Space is a major drawback, but it also forces people to stay focused. If everyone was publishing five-page rants, most of us would never have time to read the Tweets, never mind write our own.

It’s the biggest sensation on the internet right now. Millions of new users are signing up. If you want to read my posts, my username is gelleruri — somebody has already registered as urigeller, without asking me first.

That’s a common practice — the rapper Kanye West went ballistic this month when he discovered that more than a million people were following a Twitter imposter who had hijacked his name. The account was quickly shut down, but it shows the power of the phenomenon: if a million or more sign up to read instant messages from a pretend pop star, the potential for real celebrities must be unlimited.

Who needs TV adverts for a new album or a television show, when you can reach a seven-figure audience with a Tweet?

Unlike most internet sensations, this one isn’t dominated by teenagers. MySpace, Messenger, phone texts and music downloads were all powered by adolescent excitement, but Twitter seems to be an adult obsession. Maybe if it can’t capture the imagination of the very young, it will be short-lived — most internet crazes burn out fast. I’m going to have some fun with this one while it lasts.

*Barney the greyhound is now out of sight. He smelt a rabbit in the next county. This is going to be a long walk. I’ll keep you posted.

***********

Ace pilot Julian Murfitt

My daredevil friend Julian Murfitt put on a display of acrobatics above my home this week, for a party of children from Israel who were visiting Britain with the Ezer Mitzion charity.

All of the youngsters are suffering from very serious illnesses, and the courage and determination they display in the face of frightening and painful treatments is inspirational. I always try to give them a day which will be just as much an inspiration.

I emphasize to the children how important their medical treatments are, and urge them to work hand in hand with their medical team, because the danger is that some might lose their faith when treatments become too painful. The sickness caused by treatments and, for instance, the loss of hair during chemotherapy, can be very traumatic for youngsters.

After Julian’s stunt-plane, an Extra 230, touched down, he explained to the children how he piloted it and what he experienced in the cockpit — and as he used his arms, his face and his whole body to demonstrate the extraordinary strains and stresses of acrobatics, he looked like he was dancing.

Next time, I’m going to film him and set it to music!

When the children leave, I give all of them my private phone numbers, including my mobile, so they can call me any time they need encouragement. It’s not unusual to get a call from a child about to go into the operating theatre, and some of the most moving conversations of my life have come like this, out of the blue.

Maestro pianist Uri Geller

What matters most is that the children take strength and hope from our words — I’m less concerened about the science of what is happening during inspirational moments. I used to think that I was sending an energy flow, but now I’m convinced that the healing power is latent in everybody, and I am just a catalyst, a tool the children can use to trigger their own inner energies. Next week I hope to reveal the incredible experiment which opened my eyes to this universal power.

***********

This spectacular chair was designed by the Israeli genius Ron Arad. We spotted it in the Timothy Taylor gallery in Mayfair, where Ron’s work is on show. If I’d ignored spoons and concentrated on chairs, maybe all furniture would look like this.

Tamas Vasary, Christine Wilde

2009-05-21T18:04:00.001-07:00

It’s an unforgettable romantic moment when the pianist dedicates a song to a couple. Memories like those can define a love affair — that melody becomes ‘our tune’.

These special moments are usually set in intimate restaurants or secluded bars, at family gatherings or on the last night of a magical holiday.

It was different for Hanna and me — the setting was the packed auditorium of the Royal Festival Hall and we were serenaded by one of the most celebrated concert pianists in the world, Tamas Vasary.

But as I told Hanna when the applause died down, Tamas once joined me in one of the most unusual requests of my life, and it was only fitting that he should dedicate another, 35 years later, to us.

In the early Seventies, I was invited to take a cruise from Bordeaux to Naples on board a liner called the Renaissance, with my friend Byron Janis and his wife Maria. Byron was one of the most successful pianists on the planet, an unparalleled interpreter of Chopin: he was to be performing on the musical voyage with another celebrated musician... and that is how I met Tamas.

Tamas Vasary

Anyone who thinks classical pianists must be stuffy and serious has never met one. They’re just as riotous as any saloon-bar piano player in a movie starring Maria’s superstar father, Gary Cooper.

Egged on by Byron, Tamas and the other boys in the orchestra, I decided to recruit the passengers for a mass mindpower experiment. We were out on deck, in the blazing Mediterranean sunshine, off the coast of Spain, when I urged everybody to focus their minds on halting the liner.

All of us clenched our fists, screwed up our eyes and shouted, “One, two, three... STOP!!” Tamas shouted louder than anybody. Maybe it was his psychic energy that tipped the balance — he was an experienced conductor and well used to imposing his will on the elements.

Within two minutes, all of us felt the ship was beginning to slow down. Secretly I suspected the captain was in on the joke, and some of the passengers clearly thought I’d bribed the stokers. But as the liner drifted to a complete standstill, I decided to find out what was going on, and stopped one of the ship’s officers.

He had no idea why we’d stopped — and that was when I knew our experiment had been simply too successful.

It was nearly an hour before the engines shuddered back into life. Later I discovered that one of the metal fuel pipes had buckled, cutting off the supply.

For metal to bend spontaneously, at the precise moment that we were chanelling all our energy into halting the ship, was one of the most conclusive demonstrations of mindpower I have ever experienced.

I didn’t board a cruise liner for another 15 years, and when I did — in Bermuda, on the SS Britannis — I kept my thoughts away from the fuel lines. I noticed, though, several unmistakeable secret service types were watching me (this was at the end of the Cold War, when I was involved with the US delegation to the SALT II nuclear peace talks, so I’m not being paranoid... the surveillance was very real).

I didn’t give the dark-glasses-and-radio-headset brigade any demonstrations of how to halt a ship on the ocean — it might have given them ideas, and I had no intention of becoming a secret weapon against nuclear submarines. But on another cruise ship, in the English Channel, I did put mindpower to dramatic use — by revealing an eclipse of the sun.

It was the 11th of August, 2001, and a total eclipse was due at 11.11am. The day was overcast, and to everybody’s frustration we hadn’t glimpsed an inch of blue sky all morning.

I ordered everybody to focus their thoughts on burning away the cloud cover — and sure enough, the sun burst through, moments before the moon’s disc began to slide across it. We witnessed the whole of the eclipse, though across most of Britain it was wholly hidden by the grey skies.

The Royal Festival Hall on London’s South Bank looks a lot like the bows of a cruise liner too. Perhaps that was in Tamas’s mind when he called a halt during a concert by the London Schools Symphony Orchestra last month to dedicate Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No 15 to us.

***********

Scientists have always been eager to know if my metal-bending ability is latent in many other people, and the late Professor John Hasted at the University of London carried out comprehensive tests on a host of promising youngsters during the Seventies and Eighties.

Christine and Robert Wilde

One of them, Christine Wilde, visited my home with her husband Robert this week, and told me how metal still bent unexpectedly around her. I sent them off to one of my favourite restaurants on the banks of the Thames, and told her to mind the cutlery.

That evening, Robert emailed to say they had experienced two extraordinary phenomena after leaving my home. As they drove to the restaurant, Christine was holding the bent spoon I’d given her, and another straight one which I’d suggested she could use for practice. Without warning, it twisted in her hand — “in a downward direction,” Robert said, “with the bending stopping at precisely the same angle as your bent spoon. The two spoons were truly symmetrical... amazing!”

And as if that wasn’t enough, a key on Robert’s keyring bent during lunch. Christine must have a remarkable gift.

Spring Cleaning

2009-04-14T16:40:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis hasn’t left the building yet. But he’s on his way.

Hanna and I have been in a frenzy of spring cleaning since we came home from Amsterdam last week. Usually we’re glad to see the back of even the most luxurious hotels when a series is over — it’s great to be in a real house again.

But Amsterdam was different. The TV company rented a canal-side apartment for us, so that the sight which greeted us every morning when we turned back the wooden shutters was the barges and the bicycles and the herons on the bridges.

There was no room service, but there were also no noisy guests, or chambermaids with vacuum cleaners, or dining room odours. The place became so much like a home to us that we talked of buying it and popping over for weekend breaks. The airiness and simplicity were right.

We kept it clear of clutter. Instead of stacking up the newspapers and magazines, we chucked them out. Instead of filling the rooms with new suitcases, we used the wardrobes. And instead of buying mountains of clothes that would cost as much again in airline baggage excess, we dressed simply.

That’s nothing new. It’s decades since I shopped like a professional. Paris Hilton probably blows more in one outing than I do in a year.

But in Amsterdam, I experienced the pleasure of living in an apartment that, for a few weeks at least, was a real home — and enjoying a minimalist lifestyle.

Our real home, beside the Thames, has been our spiritual base for 24 years. We love it more than anywhere on earth. But no one could call it minimalist. And when we walked into the family room, with its cushions, its crystals, its clutter and that lifesize wooden figure of Elvis, Hanna and I knew without saying a word: there’d be some changes made.

We hired a skip. Into it went everything we didn’t need. At first I started small — in the bathroom. All the creams, lotions and shampoos that hadn’t been opened for years went out. Most were long past their use-by date... and though some of the products had cost me a walletful of dollars in New York or LA, I didn’t like the thought of rubbing Nineties chemicals into my skin.

Then I tackled the mountains of papers. I’d been ruthless in Amsterdam and I could do it again here — if I really want to find some article from a three-year-old Sunday Times, I’ll Google it. And my shelves were stacked three deep in books, which meant I could never see what I was looking for: now 80 per cent of my reference library has been packed into boxes in the shed.

As Shipi and I carted the books down the garden steps, I said a prayer of gratitude that I hadn’t let my old friend Marcello Truzzi talk me into buying his library of parascientific research before he died. That collection comprised 15,000 volumes.

Four or five exercise machines went into the skip, with tables, chairs and a pile of bric-a-brac. It was time to order a new skip. Some of the debris might have been salvaged, some of it could even have been worth a tenner on eBay — but who wants to pay the postage on a rowing machine?

My heart ached when we reached the rooms that had been my mother’s. I picked up her glasses and realised they were lying where she had placed them for the last time, almost four years ago.

Hanna put her arms around me. “Muti is in your heart,” she said, “not in this room.” She was right — we cannot keep it as a shrine. It’s strange to touch her clothes, her ornaments, her letters, and realise they are nothing but a cast-off skin, left behind when the spirit goes to a better life.

We took the clothes to Oxfam, because I could not bear to throw her possessions in a skip. But I am relieved to have begun the clear-out, because I don’t want to carry the past around with me in a furniture van.

While I have been busy with my live TV shows around the world, my children have both moved to California. It was easier to clear out their rooms, especially after I called Dan to ask if there were any books or toys from his childhood that he would like freighted out. “No way, Aba!” he exclaimed.

So I packaged up his collection of model planes, all 150 of them, delighted that I’d had the foresight to keep the boxes. Diecast models like these are worth so much more in their original packaging.

All my soft toys had to go as well — about 200 of them. I plan to give these away to poorly children when they visit my home, but for now they’re in five wheelie bins, parked in the shed.

We’re not clutter-free yet, and we’re a long way from minimalism. I think there’s another five weeks of clearing out before I can even think of repainting. But we’re getting there.

“It’s starting to look like home,” I said to Hanna. “Our new home.”

Finales, Ali Bongo

2009-03-26T19:24:00.000-07:00

2009-03-14 13:19

The next Uri Geller is a 12-year-old girl. Even her name sounds like mine — Yelle. With her father, Ghani, she cast a magical, mystifying spell across the finale of my Dutch show, and mesmerised the audience.

The viewing figures shattered all records and the phone system went into meltdown as voters demanded this composed, charming child was crowned our winner. Rival channels threw on everything they had, including The X Factor and the movie Borat, but at one stage we had a whopping 44.8 per cent of the viewers. And Yelle was our trump card.

Ever since the birth of spiritualism, 150 years ago, it has always been young women who prove the most natural “sensitives”. That is the word coined by parapsychologists to describe the mentalists and mediums who seem to possess the mindpower to read thoughts and even move objects.

Poltergeists, for instance, almost always materialise around adolescent women, and it is teenage girls who are most likely to see religious visions. More ominously, the KGB’s massive research into parapsychology in the Sixties and Seventies focused heavily on young women as the Kremlin tried to subvert gifted sensitives for espionage and Cold War surveillance.

I loved Yelle’s performances. She could make feathers float and sand move, hear whispers trapped in a wineglass and exert total mental control over the people round her. It was breathtaking.

The studio was silent — and I must have been holding my breath, because I could hear my heart beating — as the Mask was unmasked. He was revealed as Hayashi, who had been the first contestant on the first series. The rules forbade him from returning, but by adopting a new identity as the Mask, he outfoxed us.

Hayashi’s love of danger sometimes went too far, and I was forced on one occasion to halt the Mask’s act because I believed our celebrity guests’ lives were at risk from the razor-edged swords he wielded. And I made no secret of my disgust at the vampiric Vincent, who ate leeches and drooled blood.

I’m delighted that the audience at home shared my misgivings. It’s interesting that my production team, who are investigating the possibility of taking the series to the Far East, say that in many Asian countries the more gruesome contestants would be banned. And in some places, including China, it is illegal to screen performances by mediums who claim to be in contact with the dead.

Pure telepathy, on the other hand, is guaranteed to fascinate Asian viewers — which is just one of the reasons I predict that my successor, 12-year-old Yelle, is on the brink of becoming a major international sensation.

My German series also reached its climax this week — Jan Becker was the winner, and my protege David Merlini, the escapologist, joined us for a memorable show. But my European adventure wasn’t quite over...

Oliver Pocher, the German comic who caused a sensation on YouTube with his parody of me, was filming a new DVD in Berlin, and invited me to join him on stage at the O2 arena in Berlin. The last time I played to such a vast audience was in Rio de Janeiro during my Brazilian tour in the Seventies.

With the presenter of Germany’s Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, Gunther Jauch, seated beside me, I introduced Oliver as “Mortadeller the mentalist”. There

were camera crews all round us, and the comedy was beamed onto Imax screens: every one of the 15,000 spectators had a perfect close-up of our faces from hundreds of feet away.

The next night we were in Rotterdam for a show with Rob and Emil, the mentalist duo, in front of a capacity audience of 1,500 at the Luxor theatre, where Bill Clinton recently lectured.

Only then could we fly home. It’s been an adventure...

I can’t wait to find out what happens next!

******************************************************

The outrageously funny magician Ali Bongo was one of my early detractors — he even went on Blue Peter in the Seventies claiming to be able to bend spoons, thoughwhat he did best of course was raise laughs. Kids and adults both loved his act.

Ali passed away earlier this month, and I was amused to read in his obituary that he once tried to visit me at my London hotel. He claimed I refused to see him, with the m

essage: “I have no time for magicians! What do they know about my powers?”

I don’t remember the incident, but I have to admit it sounds a lot like me at that time!

What the obituary didn’t reveal is that Ali and I became friends in later years, and he greeted me warmly when we met in December at the 37th International Magic Convention in London. The event was hosted by David Berglas, who presented me with a special award.

Ali, who was President of the Magic Circle, congratulated me heartily. When I heard, a few weeks later, that he had suffered a stroke at the age of 79, I contacted his niece and asked to speak to him over the phone.

Ali sounded weak but content, knowing that he had been so lucky to devote the whole of his life to the magic he loved. That’s the greatest trick of the lot.

Caption: To promote the German series’ finale, I joined interviewer Stefan Raub on his chatshow. Other guests included Dr Eckhart von Hirschausen, whose book on positive thinking has topped the bestseller charts, and the children’s entertainer Willi Weitzel.

David Merlini

2008-10-30T08:50:00.000-07:00

With a name like Merlini it was inevitable that my protégé from Budapest would be a magician. From the moment I saw his act I knew he could become a world superstar. What I never imagined was that he would one day place his life in my hands.

David Merlini held 500 celebrities, journalists and television executives spellbound at the Majestic Hotel in Cannes on the first day of MIPCOM, the $500m media fair, with a death-defying attempt to shatter the world record for surviving underwater without breathing.

David Blaine held the title, after he spent more than 17 minutes submerged in a glass globe on Oprah Winfrey’s show earlier this year. But Merlini was confident he could seize that record, after spending more than a year in training.

“I have held my breath for well over 20 minutes in my bathtub,” he assured me. “And I already hold the record for the longest underwater escape — you’ve seen the video.”

He’s right, and it’s the most terrifying 10 minutes and 17 seconds ever filmed. Merlini was chained and handcuffed in a glass cabinet like an up-ended coffin in Hollywood, for a feat that was a direct homage to his hero, Harry Houdini. Unlike Houdini, he did not slip his shackles in a few swift movements, but wrestled with them constantly.

“When you’re fighting to get out of chains,” David told me, “You use up a lot of blood oxygen. This time, I’m going to be perfectly still. The secret is not to hold your breath — it is to breathe out, at timed intervals, just a bubble or two at a time.”

Merlini has accomplished feats of escape and endurance that have never been copied. He has been chained inside a steel box that was welded shut and thrown into the Danube by the world’s strongest man, Laszlo Fekete. He has been suspended from a helicopter by a burning rope, strait-jacketed in a refrigerator at minus 38F, buried in concrete up to his neck and dumped once again into the Danube, and frozen with 300 gallons of liquid nitrogen.

But this time, I was afraid for him. As I ended my introduction and he was lowered into the tank in Cannes, I could not help remembering how I had imagined this scene before. At the climax of my novel Ella, the twisted guru who is controlling the heroine has himself submerged in a tank of water and drowned on live TV, convinced that Ella will bring him back to life in a televised miracle.

My tension must have been visible to the crowd. “You looked like a headless chicken on the stage,” my brother-in-law Shipi told me later, laughing. But my emotion was genuine and I couldn’t hide it: if anything went wrong, I might see my friend die before my eyes.

Uri beyond the panic (All photos are taken by Irene Hell)

As the clock ticked, the atmosphere in the Majestic was nerve-shredding. Merlini seemed barely to blink as he swayed inside the tank, a tiny bubble escaping his lips every twenty seconds or so.

A roar went up as the countdown passed the record mark, and still Merlini showed no sign that he was ready to emerge. I could feel the blood pumping in my head. Nothing would induce him to quit — every second he was extending his grip on the record, making it more and more impossible for anyone ever to surpass him.

After 20 minutes and 30 seconds I saw his eyes roll up in his head as he started to slump to the side. If he wasn’t already unconscious, he was slipping into a blackout, and at any moment his body’s reflexes would force him to gulp for air.

There was no time to prise off the lid. In those few precious seconds, Merlini could drown. Security guards were standing on either side of the tank with sharp tools clutched in their fists, and I gave the order: “Get him out of there! Smash the glass!”

A ton of water exploded across the stage — and it was stained an ominous pink. As Merlini stumbled out of the wreckage, I saw he was badly cut across one side, on his arm and leg.

Merlini just survived his bloody new world record

Paramedics at the scene bandaged his wounds and we rushed him to the city hospital by ambulance. There was a grim surprise for us there — the accident and emergency department was packed with people, some of them nursing serious injuries from car accidents and fights.

Uri and Merlini. “Protégé” sometimes it means – nursing.

I asked Merlini how he was feeling, and he grinned: “I feel no pain,” he said. “I never do, not until the next day. It’s part of my secret — I can endure suffering that would kill a normal man, because I can shut off the pain.”

I made certain that he wasn’t bleeding, then told Shipi to stand guard on Merlini’s place in the A&E queue. “We’re going to a party,” I said.

And we did — the star-studded affair hosted by ProSieben’s CEO Guillaume de Posch. The point of MIPCOM, after all, was to introduce Merlini to the world’s TV bosses, and they weren’t going to come and visit him in hospital.

When we returned to A&E three hours later, a very bored Shipi had almost reached the front of the queue. “You missed a great party,” I told him. That’ll teach him to call me a headless chicken...

Update: Merlini needed 15 stitches, and had lost about a litre of blood. He shrugged it off: “It’s all part of the game... the game of life!”

Uri Geller : KGB, Lev

2008-10-21T07:47:00.000-07:00

As a teenager, I dreamed of being a spy. My imagination fed on cinema portrayals of the glamour and excitement of espionage, and my ego thrilled at the thought of sharp clothes, gorgeous girls and fast cars. My gift for mind-reading, I knew, would make me an exceptional special agent.

My mother was running a guest-house in Nicosia, Cyprus, with my step-father in those days. When one of our lodgers, an athletically built Israeli called Yoav, offered to teach me the rudiments of judo, I seized the chance to learn the skills of unarmed combat.

Yoav claimed to be a grain merchant, but I sensed there was a secret undercurrent to his meetings with shady, soft-spoken characters who muttered in Syrian and Egyptian accents. I sensed, too, that he was an expert with guns and explosives as well as martial arts.

Convinced that Yoav was a spy, I slipped into the attic of our house one afternoon to spy through a crack in the ceiling at our lodger as he studied maps with a contact. My ear picked out words in the whispered conversation that left me in no doubt they were discussing military matters. Some grain merchant...

It never occurred to me that what I had seen could put my life in danger, and perhaps my parents' lives as well. I confronted Yoav, told him what I knew, and demanded to be recruited as a junior agent. When he told me there was no place for boys in the secret service, I gave him a demonstration of telepathy and psychokinesis, moving the hands on his watch with my mind.

Shocked that I had seen through his cover, and doubly amazed that I could reproduce the pictures in his mind, Yoav swore me to secrecy. He would train me as an agent, in return for my silence. For a few weeks, I acted as his go-between, collecting and delivering documents... and then he was gone, assigned to a fresh mission, and my life as a spy was over. I never got to drive an Aston Martin — in fact, the only high-speed chases I had involved Joker, my dog, who loved to belt after my bicycle.

A decade later, after my mindpower abilities were extensively tested at Stanford Research Institute in California, I was approached by the CIA. At first, they seemed to expect little more from me than Yoav had: I was booked onto an airliner and instructed to focus on wiping the electronic files in an attaché case which belonged, I suspected, to a KGB man.

But there was a darker side to the US secret service in the Seventies. It seems incredible now and grimly funny — George Clooney is to star in a black comedy about their activities, with Ewan MacGregor, Jeff Bridges and my friend Kevin Spacey. It's called The Men Who Stare At Goats.

I found nothing funny about the CIA operatives who asked me to stare, not at goats but at pigs. They wanted me to stop the animals' hearts with a psychic attack.

I'm a committed vegetarian, but that wasn't why I walked out of the program. The bosses at Langley weren't just interested in killing pigs: they wanted to learn how mindpower could kill human beings.

I'd love to see my CIA dossier. Chances are there's a drawerful of data on me in Russia's former KGB security archives too. This week I was introduced to a retired Soviet spy, Michael Evlashin, now a published poet, and asked him whether there was any chance I could take a look at my file.

"Sure, no problem," he said with a wicked grin. “Ask nicely and it comes in a presentation package, you know... with ribbons!”

I think that's just the Russian sense of humour...

The nights are drawing in, here in Moscow. That's great news for my TV series, because viewers want to get home early and enjoy a cosy night in front of the television. And we've got fantastic entertainment for them — one on our contestants lay down on a bed of broken glass this week and allowed a road-roller to run over him. Incredibly, he was able to get up without suffering a scratch.

The combination of dark nights and brilliant television is delivering record-breaking ratings for us, above 20 per cent. We're already in talks about a second series. But winter is on the way, and in Moscow that means there's a bitingly cold wind. To keep the hibernation blues away, I'm flexing my most powerful muscle, my mind. It can supply all the sunshine a body needs.

My top tip for instant warmth is to tell my wife and children that I love them. Hanna and I have been together since the start of my career, and I have told her what she means to me a million times... but it always makes me feel great to say it again. Too many of my male friends are tongue-tied with the people who mean most to them: their emotions are bottled up, and that weakens their mental focus and energy. If you love somebody, don't be shy — say so!

Professor Jane Plant, the government's chief scientific adviser, says we should all smile more to combat Seasonally Affective Depression, or SAD. "Smiling is a way of tricking your brain into thinking everything's OK," she explains. "People who are mildly depressed should do their best to show the world a happy face as that will improve people's reaction to you and lift your mood."

Here's another tip: live generously. I shared a stage with one of the world's richest men, the diamond dealer Lev Leviev, at the weekend. He pledged millions of roubles to help Moscow's Habad orphanage, and with a flick of his pen poured an ocean of sunshine into the lives of a lot of needy children.

I mustn't forget to mention one of my favourite techniques to keep stay sunny on the inside: get your hair done. I enjoy a brush-up from a stylist every week, as part of my preparation for the show. It's the fastest way to feel pampered and refreshed, and to send a message to your subconscious that you're a special person.

Amber room, Lisa Stansfield, Tzipi, orphanage, padlocks

2008-10-07T19:33:00.000-07:00

Think of Russian treasures, and you might picture a Faberge egg or the bejewelled Tsarist antiques in St Petersburg’s Hermitage museum. But a Moscow newspaper has challenged me to track down a treasure much bigger than that... it’s an entire room.

The Amber Room was one of the wonders of the world, two centuries ago. Built in Germany and given by the Prussian royal family to Peter the Great, emperor of Russia, it was lined with carved amber across every surface — floor, walls and ceiling.

Six tons of amber, worth an estimated L1bn today...

The room was stolen by the Nazis, who boxed it up and shipped it back to Germany in 1941. By the time the war was over, the room had disappeared. Many suspected Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect, had commandeered it — one rumour claimed it was packed into 27 crates and hidden on board a ship that was sunk by a Soviet submarine.

I believe the amber is underwater now but, as I told the editor of Moscowski Komsomolets, it is not lost at sea. My instincts tell me the Nazis deliberately sank the treasure in an inland lake or lagoon, and that other treasures were buried with it.

I will use my dowsing gifts to try and track it down, though I am concerned that after 65 years underwater, the amber will have rotted. It will be an artistic disaster if nothing remains but an oozing mess.

Back in June 2006 I predicted that my old friend Tzipi Livni, then Israel’s Foreign Minister, would soon be Prime Minister. That took no psychic power — it was clear she stood head-and-shoulders above the other politicians of her generation for sheer drive, talent and intellect.

Last month, with the resignation of PM Ehud Olmert, she was elected leader of the Kadima party and given six weeks to form a government coalition. I know she will succeed, and become Israel’s second woman Prime Minister, after Golda Meir.

Why am I so certain? Because Tzipi and I used to play basketball together, back on the courts of Tel Aviv in the Sixties. Even though she was a dozen years younger than me, she was usually the tallest girl on the team, and she had an unerring aim.

When Tzipi went for a slam-dunk, she hit the hoop as if she already knew the point was scored. That’s the kind of confidence and self-belief that has carried her all the way to the top in politics.

Back then, I was obsessed with basketball. Most of the city’s schools in Tel Aviv had a court, and I would zip around on my Vespa until I found a deserted playground. If the gates were open, I’d start bouncing a ball around, and within minutes there would be a crowd of kids eager to join in.

My favourite trick was to slam the ball through the hoop blindfolded. When I relied on my mind power senses, I was more accurate than when I used my eyes. To prove it I would sometimes ride my Vespa blindfold too. To Hanna’s relief, that’s something I grew out of.... but I’m still crazy about basketball.

Flying back from Moscow to London for an appearance on QVC, the television shopping channel, I got chatting to Rochdale’s soul diva, Lisa Stansfield. She was astonished when I bent a spon for her, and revealed that she has a deeply spiritual side to her personality.

It’s almost 20 years since Lisa’s massive international hit, All Around The World, but she assured me she still loves soul music. These days she is branching out into acting — last year she starred in an episode of Marple with Geraldine McEwan, Alison Steadman and Juliet Stevenson.

If you want a celebrity challenge, try naming a more impressive trio of theatrical talent than that.

One of Moscow's Habad rabbis, Yacov Fridman, left me speechless when he explained how the Jewish Habad movement which he helps to run in Moscow has distributed over L130m to the needy, much of it donated by Russia’s new breed of billionaires.

The rabbi invited me to see the charity at work with a visit to one of the city’s orphanages. We had a wonderful time — the children were full of life and energy, and that always inspires me to entertain... there wasn’t a spoon, a fork or a hairpin left unbent by the time they waved us off.

Maybe I should take up a collection on the show, and ask viewers to each send one piece of unwanted cutlery to the charity. Or perhaps that’s not such a great idea — with six million knives and forks, the orphanage would have no room for the children.

As we were strolling over a bridge towards the Kremlin, Hanna and I were fascinated to see six or seven trees festooned with padlocks. My first thought was that they were artworks created with leftovers from KGB dungeons during the Cold War, but when we looked more closely we saw there were notes and ribbons attached to every lock.

Hanna worked it out: these were good-luck charms, hung there by newly-weds. It’s an old Moscow custom for a couple to celebrate being locked together for life.

Hanna and I have been together nearly four decades, but it’s never too late to celebrate. I’m going to find the biggest, shiniest padlock in all the city’s luggage shops and add it to the top of a tree.

Crystal Skull

2008-06-25T19:37:00.000-07:00

Cinema in Istanbul is a spine-tingling experience. Turks have no inhibitions about displaying emotions — Hanna knows that I can’t watch an old-fashioned tear-jerker without a box of mansize tissues, but she has never seen me weeping, wailing and blubbing like the audience in the multiplex tonight.

And it wasn’t even a romantic movie. This was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

The audience only wept during the soppy bits, of course. The rest of the time they were punching the air, whooping, cheering and threatening to leap at the screen and attack the villains. The next movie I see at the Piccadilly Odeon is going to seem very tame in comparison.

I left the cinema with my hat brim over my eyes, cracking an imaginary bullwhip. It’s been the same ever since I was a boy, sneaking into the Tel Aviv movie-house with my friends to see John Wayne movies: I imagine for days that I am the hero. I even used to try and copy Wayne's walk and his drawl.

But this time I had a good reason to play the leading role. I once embarked on a quest for a crystal skull of my own — and only turned back when I became convinced my family was in danger.

Regular readers will know I have a passion for crystals. They energise me, and my home and garden are filled with them, some taller than I am.

About ten years ago, I purchased a lorryload of crystals from a Yorkshire warehouse. When the delivery driver threw open the rear doors of the truck, I felt like Ali Baba at the mouth of his treasure cave.

Heaped across the floor of the Transit were glittering crystals. Thousands of them. Some as wide as tree trunks. Two of them were too large to go through the front door – we had to struggle around the house and throw open the patio windows.

I tried to count them, and to sort them. I gave up. I found 50 agate slabs, and 120 amethysts. There were five vast amethyst bowls besides, hewn hollow and electric with purple. At least 200 quartz spurs were more than four inches, and the pebbles and semi-precious chippings numbered thousands. Maybe tens of thousands.

Crystal conducts energy, and amplifies it. Sceptics who scoff at this idea ought to read about the use of crystal in Nasa’s space program, which on later missions used stones that had been exposed to low-frequency vibrations – the rocks would store the energy and slowly release it, batteries of vibrations, imitating the Earth’s natural energy field.

These crystals helped astronauts’ bodies to maintain a physical memory of Earth while in zero gravity, and so to remain safely in orbit for long periods.

I did not want my crystals to take me into space. I needed them in the grounds of my house. Between the swimming pool and the River Thames, I had designed a waterfall to flow under a Japanese bridge. The grotto is shaded by a willow, and it is here I come when I am drained of energy and lost for words. It is my haven. I stock it with all the energy I can lay my hands on.

By this pool, I began experimenting with my mountain of crystals. I laid fifty of them in the pool, in a circle. I made a pyramid in the circle. And then I lifted out the stones and rearranged them in a Star of David. There are at least 150 crystals in its 12 sides.

News of my purchase must have made waves among crystal traders, because a few days later I received an offer through a Mexican friend who knew where I could buy one of the fabled Crystal Skulls of the Mayans.

The Central American priests who worked with crystal up to 12,000 years ago have been forgotten – along with their religion. But their artefacts still retain power.

One skull, discovered at Lubaantun, Belize, in 1927 by the explorer FA Mitchell-Hedges, was tested by Hewlett Packard at their Santa Clara labs in California. Scientists reported the artefact, apparently sculpted from a giant rock crystal by craftsmen who rubbed it with sand for an estimated 150 years, emitted inexplicable lights, noises and scents.

The skull that I was offered was said to be even larger and more powerful. It had a million dollar pricetag, and I was prepared to pay that, if it could be proved genuine. But a series of nightmares, over three nights, made me uneasy. I rarely have bad dreams, and when I do they are usually about my war experiences. These nightmares were vague, with their meaning out of my reach.

I decided to find out more about the myth of the crystal skulls, and was horrified to realise that all the Mayan icons were reputed to be guarded by a curse that slays any who mock it. Archaeologists who treated the ancient religion with disrespect sometimes met fates as gruesome as the doomed explorers of the Tutenkhamun expedition.

Crystal stores and amplifies energy, and if priests 12,000 years ago had locked curses into the skulls, I knew I did not dare bring one into my home, where it could fix its baleful glare upon my family.

****

Our whole planet could be built around a crystal skull, as big as the moon. Any alien civilisation which could construct a world must have engineering powers that are beyond human imagination, but many serious scientists are open-minded enough to accept that the Earth’s core may be crystalline, even if it is not skull-shaped.

Iron becomes a hexagonal crystal under immense pressure. After observing that waves travelling through the planet on its north-south axis moved faster than waves traversing east-west, seismologists Lars Stixrude and Ronald Cohen reported in the journal Science: “The very strong texturing indicated by our results suggests the possibility that the inner core is a very large crystal.”

This crystal also appears to be rotating slowly, suspended in liquid metal. And if that notion isn’t strange enough, consider the findings of a group of Russian scientists in the Sixties who mapped the world’s paranormal focal points and discovered a network of connections which formed a giant crystal pattern over the surface of the planet.

The USSR’s parascience budget was colossal — the Kremlin believed they could win the Cold War with mindpower. And they took the findings seriously: the USSR Academy of Science’s journal, Khimiya i Zhizn, demanded, “Is the world a large crystal?”

They published diagrams showing the world was criss-crossed by a 12-sided geometric shape, called a dodecahedron, containing 20 equilateral triangles – a perfect crystal structure.

The key points included the Bermuda Triangle, areas of high solar radiation, temples and holy sites of ancient peoples, such as Easter Island, places with unique wildlife colonies, such as Lake Baikal, exceptional mineral ore deposits, earthquake faultlines, including western California, and the central African site of a spontaneous atomic explosion, 1,700 million years ago.

Famed psychic transfixes Turkish television

2008-06-01T10:39:00.000-07:00

Step right up for a look behind the scenes at a live Turkish 'reality' show where the medium is the paranormal. Welcome to the world of Uri Geller. After frightening the TDN with his famous spoon bending and mind reading, Geller says show business is a cover for his gift’s other uses

ProSieben Orders Second Season of Uri Geller Format

2008-03-27T18:53:00.001-07:00

ProSieben Orders Second Season of Uri Geller Format

MUNICH, February 27: The season finale of The Successor—The Next Uri Geller on ProSieben last night outperformed the average rating for its competitive time slot by 80 percent, and a second season has been ordered for next year.

Up against CSI: Miami and House, the episode scored an 18.1-percent share in the 14-to-49 demographic, according to ProSiebenSat.1 Media, above the 11.7 percent 2007 channel average for this demo. In 14 to 29, meanwhile, it scored a 29.8-percent share. With up to 4.8 million viewers watching the first season, The Next Uri Geller was the highest-rated show premiere for ProSieben over the last year and a half.

The show, marketed worldwide by SevenOne International, is also faring well on the Dutch channel SBS 6, where the local version is scoring an average 22.8-percent share. NBC aired a version last year and the show has also been picked up by CTV in Canada and Nine Network in Australia. It will launch on the Hungarian channel TV2 later this spring.

“This show is a real attention-grabber because Uri Geller succeeds in intriguing people,” says Jens Richter, the managing director of SevenOne International. “With the latest successes in Germany and The Netherlands, we are eager to see Uri capture further international audiences as well.”

—By Mansha Daswani

Paranormalist Uri Geller works his magic on German TV show

2008-01-24T20:42:00.000-08:00

Paranormalist Uri Geller works his magic on German TV show

By Assaf Uni, Haaretz Correspondent

Tags: Hayoresh, Uri Geller, Germany

For those using Berlin's public transportation in recent weeks, it was
difficult to avoid the penetrating glance of Uri Geller, which could have been directed either at them or at the teaspoon he held in his hand.

The portrait of the Israeli magician stared out at passengers from large billboards advertising his new TV show, "The Next Uri Geller," which aired for the first time last week on the German commercial channel ProSieben. The premiere of the show, which is based on the popular Israeli program "Hayoresh" ("The Successor"), attracted a large audience (more than 20 percent of viewers aged 14-49 tuned in) and received particularly extensive media coverage.

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On the show, 10 "mentalists," as they are called in Germany, compete for the title of Geller's successor and for a prize of 100,000 euros. Geller himself appears as a guest and displays the psychic powers that have made him famous in Europe and elsewhere- bending cutlery and repairing electrical appliances.

Many members of the country's media debated with typical German seriousness whether the paranormalist from Tel Aviv and the program's 10 contestants were experts at deception or possessors of authentic magic powers. "Is Uri Geller a wizard magician- or a charlatan?" wondered the daily Die Welt on its Web site, after Geller promised on the debut program to fix electrical appliances with his powers, via a TV set.

"I put the broken television remote control next to the set," wrote one surfer, "and after Uri Geller said in Hebrew the three magic words 'ahat, shtayim, shalosh' ('one, two, three'), the remote started working again." Other surfers and television critics accused Geller of lying and of using magnets.

The German network claimed during and after the broadcast that it had received a huge number of responses: more than 20,000 phone calls, letters and e-mail messages, many of them from people whose electrical appliances came back to life. Geller himself reported that 1,600 e-mail messages were sent to his handheld computer, and later announced to the press: "I've never encountered such a huge response."

Television critics were more skeptical. "The search for a successor hints at the fact that Geller will retire after the program, but that is turning out to be a false hope," suggested a writer for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The critic called Geller "a sad sight," and criticized the network for the air of mystery in which it casts the contestants, instead of admitting that they are chosen for their sleight-of-hand talents.

On the program's Web site, a lively discussion developed surrounding explanations of the magic tricks. Several surfers talked about the trick in which one of the contestants "stopped" his own heartbeat for half a minute. "All you have to do it stick a golf ball in the right place
under your arm," explained one.

Geller, who originally captured German audiences with his television appearances in the 1970s, spoke about those appearances and the experience of returning to perform in the country. "When I landed at the Munich airport recently, customs officials asked me to bend teaspoons. They had seen me when they were children on West German TV," he said in an interview with the weekly Focus. He also mentioned that he had had eating problems and was once bulimic, and once again recounted the mystical experience he underwent in Tel Aviv at age 4, when he ate soup
and discovered that his spoon had bent.

Many German newspapers also told their readers about the embarrassment of the team that had produced the Israeli program, when surfers revealed online just how Geller was able to pull a magnet out from behind his ear and held it between his fingers.

Uri Geller - UFO's, metal-bending and the PSI War.

2007-11-27T16:45:00.000-08:00

Brendan Burton

November 24, 2007

"Uri Geller." Two words which seem to invoke passion in anyone who has read about or seen this truly remarkable person. Yet if one is lucky enough to meet or speak to the man himself, you quickly realise what a disarming and genuine person he really is.

So why all the fuss?

Uri says that he first became aware of his mindpower at the age of four. He was eating, when the fork he was using bent and snapped. His mother, a member of the Freud family, was not surprised at his ability and nurtured his childhood accordingly. It was this acceptance, rather than denial, which enabled his self belief. A belief, Uri says, is inherent in all children, it is social conditioning which creates the denial.

After getting wounded during the Six Day War, Uri left the Israeli Army, and worked as a fashion model by day, and at night started to give displays of his mind-power with the support of his brother, Shimson ( Shipi ). His extraordinary demonstrations quickly became well known and he soon developed a professional stage show. Nothing really strange about the story so far, yet word had spread. Far enough to warrant the mysterious Andrija Puharich to enter the scene ( see http://www.forteantimes.com/artic/126/nine.html ).

Puharich had been working previously with the equally mysterious, Dr Vinod, drawing together 'channelled' information on the principles of 'The Nine' and was a pivotal figure in the 'contactee' movement. Under the wing of Puharich, Uri was flown to the USA, where he was introduced to astronaut Edgar Mitchell, and physicists Hal Puthof and Russel Targ. In December 1972 he allowed himself to become the subject of a scientific study undertaken at the prestigious Stanford Research Institute at Menlo Park, California.

I asked Russel Targ to comment on his experiences resulting from the SRI experiments:

" Uri was at our laboratory at SRI for six weeks in 1973. He showed remarkable ESP perceptual ability to describe and draw hidden pictures. He was by no means the best person to visit our lab and carry out this type of remote viewing, but he was certainly better than the average bear in this capability. He did not bend any metal under acceptably controlled conditions, but I have since that time seen and done paranormal bending under excellent conditions."

He went on to give an account of his personal experiences of PK:

"My co-author Jane Katra, a spiritual healer with small delicate hands, rolled up the bowl of a teaspoon at a PK party with Jack Hauk last year. She was quietly meditating (waiting for the party to end, so that we could go home) when she screamed!

The bowl rolled up 180 degrees in her closed fist, and frightened her. We took a picture of the spoon and put it, with its picture into a plastic bag. By the time we arrived home, the bowl had bent an additional 90 degrees, 270 in all. I wouldn't know how to create such a smooth roll, even if I took a spoon to the lab. At the party, I later bent the bowl of a similar spoon by brute force, damaging my hand in the process. The bowl creased sharply as I broke the back of the bowl. It looked nothing like Jane's.

The following month we had another opportunity to go to a PK party. Northern California does have some advantages. At this party Hauk (a metallurgist from Boeing) had one-foot long, 3/8 diameter aluminum rods as objects for bending. Holding one of these rods in my two hands, I had the experience of it getting springy. As I bent it back and forth with my eyes shut, I finally had the impression that it froze in the bent position. This turned out to be about 30 degrees.

Neither I, nor my two athletic sons could bend a similar rod whatsoever, without putting it over a knee, which is again quite a painful undertaking."

The results of the experiments and studies, which presented an " existence of one or more perceptual modalities through which individuals obtain information about their environment " were written up in 'Nature' magazine.

Hal Puthoff says of the SRI experiments;

"Our publications make our statement, and our personal feelings are congruent with what we've published. And in the intervening years of listening to the criticisms of the skeptics we have yet to be shown any viable reason to reassess our position."

This particular point in time seems to have been a key point in the 'Geller phenomena', as the resulting response of disbelief and claims of poor scientific method from a small group of skeptics, resulted in a rise in publicity for Uri which lead to an intrigued media clamouring for his presence. From this point on, Uri became famous for what he is perhaps best known for now, 'spoon-bending', although even the smallest amount of further glance reveals other phenomena displayed by Uri, including, remote-viewing (RV).

So what about skepticism? A small group of hardened skeptics seized the opportunity of the SRI experiments in order to debunk the phenomena. However, debate still rages to this very day and even a cursory glance at skeptic newsgroups on the Internet reveal that some of the key issues and players are *still* picking over the bones. One of the key points held by some skeptics, is that the 'Nature' editorial is evidence that the experiments lacked sound scientific protocols. However, the editorial appears to have been based on the opinion of three ( I have been unable to identify who they actually were ) people. The fact that the CIA continued working with Targ and Puthoff for many years seems to indicate that the CIA found significant cause. ( see: www.biomindsuperpowers.com/Pages/CIA-InitiatedRV.html )

Geller, of course, has moved on. When I spoke with him he revealed that he became uneasy about the motives of some of those who pertained to 'debunk' him. Indeed, there appears to have been a 'PSI war' sparked as a result of Geller's demonstrations. So deep and intractable became the 'war' that Geller felt he had no choice other than to protect himself through the Courts. Law suits were filed and won, yet the campaign to 'expose' Uri became a quagmire of personal attacks as the 'skeptics' failed to provide proof of their assertion that he was somehow 'cheating'. The resulting mess perhaps affected the both the face of 'skepticism' and the progress of scientific co-operation from other people who claimed ownership of similar phenomenal skills. Something quite ugly appeared to have reared its head within the guise of 'skepticism'. Geller, perhaps wisely, walked away and chose to regain his true 'self' which had taken rather a pounding! ( When I spoke with Uri, he told me that he still meets with scientists and accepts the positive motive behind scientific discovery, it seems it is the adversarial 'pseudo skeptics' which Uri has washed his hands with, not skepticism per se. ) Indeed, one only needs to look at the highly credible witness testimony of people like Dr Werner von Braun , Dr EW Bastin and Dr Edgar Mitchell ( see: www.tcom.co.uk/uribiog3.htm ) to see that some of the most credible academics in the world have witnessed both the bending phenomena up close and first hand. Some of these people even witnessed the objects *continued* bending after Uri had touched them.

Skeptics often claim that these people are not experts at recognising the tricks and tools of deception, yet how do we explain the witness accounts of some of the worlds finest stage magicians, also seeing the first hand 'bending' phenomena? ( see: www.tcom.co.uk/uribiog3.htm ). The testimony of these people alone show that Uri Geller is perhaps NOT the 'Parlour Trick' charlatan some pseudo-skeptics claim.

The ability to 'bend' metals by 'mindpower' is known as 'psychokenesis' ( PK). I asked theoretical physicist, Dr. Jack Sarfatti for his experiences of PK:

" PK means action of mind on matter at a distance. The matter is "outside" the "body" in some cases as in the alleged "Geller Effect".

This requires "signal nonlocality" that violates quantum physics.

There is a larger physics "post-quantum physics" that permits "signal nonlocality".

Quantum physics is a limiting case of post-quantum physics in the same way that classical physics is a limiting case of quantum physics.

Consciousness generation is a post-quantum physical process in strong violation of the uncontrollable local randomness of quantum physics. Indeed one can make a sequence of limiting cases of physical theories ;

Post-quantum physics -> quantum physics -> classical physics.Within classical physics we have:
Non-Riemannian Einstein-Cartan torsion-gravity physics (AKA Einstein's Vision of "Unified Field Theory 1929-55) ->

Riemannian zero torsion gravity physics (AKA Einstein's general relativity of 1915) ->

special relativity of 1905 ->

Galilean relativity of Newton's mechanics of 17^th Century."

Sarfatti has some intriguing insight as a witness to the 'bending' pheomena.

"I have seen things ( PK) in my trip to Brasil in 1985 shown to me by a General in the Brasilian Army, allegedly from a UFO that landed in the Amazon jungle, that is like what Uri did with metal but even more complex than what I saw Uri do in 1974.

It's like the Crop Circles evolving into more and more complex forms."

Another credible witness to the Geller 'phenomena was Metallurgist and US Naval scientist, Eldon Byrd. Before his untimely death in late 2002, Byrd had had the opportunity to observe Uri first hand.

I asked him what these observations revealed:

"I first became interested in "paranormal" (in quotes because the phenomena will be "normal" once we understand the mechanisms) phenomena in general after seeing Ted Serios on the Alan Burke TV show (many years ago). The host was a skeptic, but changed his mind after Serios imprinted images on a sealed and guarded video tape.

I first became interested in metal bending after meeting with Uri Geller in the Washington, DC area when he came to do a demo at George Washington University. I first got involved in studying metal bending after Geller altered the memory of a new shape memory alloy of nickel and titanium called NITINOL, invented at the US Navy Government Lab I where I was working at the time.

There were analytical tests run on NITINOL that Geller had altered, including electron micrographs, density, photographic, and microscopic. Other tests on Geller material I did not conduct included electron microscope photos of broken keys, cracked gold rings, broken needles, and water imprinted with energy.

I have made many direct observations of Geller performing telepathy, mending broken watches and clocks, and sprouting seeds. Some of these I have experienced myself, as a recipient."

Q: What is your 'up to date' knowledge of PK and do you have any thoughts regarding the future understanding of PK?

Byrd: "I developed several theories about how PK might work in the metal bending phenomena. As a physical scientist I have always been more interested in phenomena that produce hard analyzable data, rather than the soft statisical pablum of parapsychology.

Recently I have become acquainted with new information on how the mind can interact with biological processes; I have altered my previous theories. That is how science progresses--not with "proof", but by coherency. We are close to understanding how intention can create action at a distance."

During the eighties, Uri moved away from demonstration to put his skills to a more practical test. He began prospecting for minerals and was successful enough to have created the bulk of his fortune by doing so. He also became increasingly positive about his belief that ordinary people could, with personal faith, use similar skills themselves. He took an interest in writing and developed an interest in the medium of the 21st century, the Internet ( see www.urigeller.com )

So what can be learned from this phenomenal story?

It seems, Uri Geller is the real deal. The fact that I have been able to track down and get up to date responses from some of the key figures in this story indicates that what became known as the 'Geller Phenomena', is still held by many people with credible scientific backgrounds as being a very real ability of human 'mindpower'. Indeed, Targ speaks of 'PK Parties' amongst the intteligentsiai, Govt sponsored physicist bending metals bars using the power of their minds.

In his book, 'Mind Medicine' ( Element Books, 1999) Uri sums up what this 'mindpower' is;

"I believe it represents a deep wisdom that we all inherit form our forebears and which, once harnessed, can effectively give every one of us much greater knowledge and insight into out lives. I believe that with such awareness comes healthier minds and bodies. Some of us learn how to tap into this energy earlier than others; some come upon it through trial and error. Others cannot explain it but trust it totally. Its power is formidable and this frightens those who have not yet reached the point of understanding the potency of such an invisible force."

I sought out the opinion of Dr Susan Blackmore regarding Uri. She provided an interesting perception:

" Although millions of people believe in extra-sensory perception, ghosts, UFOs, crystal powers, and the tenets of astrology - the evidence for ESP is controversial (at best), and the claims of astrology demonstrably false. However, people don't want to see endless meticulous experiments with nothing but negative results. Viewers, and the producers who are their slaves, seem to prefer conspiracy theories, beings from outer space, scientists who cover up the truth about our mental powers, and Russians with strong accents who can move trains with their teeth or bamboozle TV presenters with children's party tricks."

In respect of Geller, there is too much credible witness evidence to suggest that he is just employing mere trickery. Indeed, if such were the case, he would be perhaps even more of a phenomenal person, having maintained a level of deceit so powerful it has managed to fool some of the most credible academics in history, people with high level security clearances, physicists, metallurgists, astronauts, magicians, politicians and world leaders, in short - the kind of people we tend to invest our trust into.

Such supposed 'trickery' to such a large and grand scale has certainly never been done before, and leads even some of the most skeptical to consider: "This can't be possible....... can it?"

For more discussions on the inside take of some of these issues check out Open Minds

Will Uri Geller Win Criss Angel’s $1,000,000 challenge

2007-11-23T19:32:00.000-08:00

Will Uri Geller Win Criss Angel’s $1,000,000 challenge

Dark was Criss Angel who dared Uri Geller $1,000,000 on the Phenomonon magic tricks television series . He tried and explained Criss Angel tricks but what was in a certain envelope and then rapidly cut Geller off when he appeared to intuitively Begin zoning in on it’s content. What was in the certain envelope were the Book of Numbers 911. When Criss Angel asked Geller what was in the envelope Geller for some reason began rattling of dates that unknown to Geller were zoning in on the contents. We revealed phenomenon secrets and other Criss Angel tricks but if Uri Geller said Angel was Max Born on the 19th , just 1 day prior to Geller’ s birthday and he had bent his 1st spoon when Angel was 1 years old. A nervous Angel, knowing what was in the envelope apace cut him off, and diverted attention by chop-chop gap the envelope.

On yet some other Recent show Angel challenged co - host Uri Geller as to what was in the envelope. Criss explained “I will spray on you a million dollars of my personal money right now if you can tell me particular inside information of what’ s in here right now, “Uri seemed willing to try but the show touched on . Criss Angel of mindfreak proven that he had, or brought with him his million dollars.

This is the thought of Dick Brooks , a managing director of the noted Houdini Museum in Scranton, PA is a nationally known paranormalist, psychic research worker and managing director of Scranton’ s Psychic Theater. A few phenomenon tricks will be revealed on this site but he has been called by many a “Supernormalist”. The theater is currently presenting America’ s longest running and well reviewed extrasensory show and session. In phenomenon some tricks explained here, telekinesis , unseeing vision , mentalism that ends with an attempt at recreating an old time sitting. The presentation explained the story of phenomenon and revealed tricks in the edifice going to the Houdini era that were caused by various events that included a execution , suicide , and electrocution. People at phenomenon don’t reveal nor will explain their tricks, instead they explore the pros and cons of such events.

A Chat with Uri Geller, NBC’s latest “Phenomenon” - An Interview in Monsters & Critics

2007-11-04T10:04:00.000-08:00

Israeli mentalist Uri Geller, host of The Successor, is in Cannes to promote his paranormal talent show distributed by the German Company Seven One. EPA/ASM CORBIS OU

By April MacIntyre Oct 23, 2007, 18:18 GMT

Nurturing the power of positive intentions has created a lifetime of success and happiness for Uri Geller, the avatar for all of today’s biggest mind-over-matter gurus and spiritualists like Deepak Chopra, Tony Robbins, and even Marianne Williamson.

Known for his writing, peace brokering and his spoon bending events, he is first and foremost a proponent of the power each of us has within our own minds to direct our lives. Powerful thoughts add up, according to Mr. Geller.

Geller

“Negative thoughts have a biochemical property, you can actually see them on a computer, or machine that measures you brainwaves,” shared Mr. Geller. “The Universe listens to your thoughts, and visualizing them can equal materialization.”

“I am not a healer; I am not a miracle worker,” claims Mr. Geller in an interview with Monsters and Critics.

“My wife and I open our home in England to terminally ill children, and what I call the placebo effect happens during the acts of bending spoons as I draw the audience in, talking to them, it is always a positive reaction.”

NBC President Ben Silverman was “blown away” when he saw the Israeli original show “The Successor”, a runaway hit in Israel that featured the Sabra (Israeli born) mentalist and motivational icon Uri Geller, a national hero in his homeland. “He had goose bumps,” said Mr. Geller.

Angel

The show “Phenomenon” is a direct spin off and both Uri Geller and Ben Silverman used the power of positive thought to summon superstar Criss Angel to come on board for the special five live show tapings, with a bonus 2 hour special on Halloween. "I thought no way could be get Criss Angel, but Ben really pushed for it."

“I am being kept away from the contestants, and from what I know I am being freaked out by some of them,” said Mr. Geller, who promised “Phenomenon” would be a triumph of entertainment value, and pure mesmerization for the audience.

How Uri Geller and Criss Angel came together was in Geller’s words, pure positive thinking on Silverman’s part. It worked, and Geller had high praise for his partner in the live show experiment that promises to shake things up and bend some minds.

“Criss Angel got to where he is because of the power of his mind; he was driven and uses the power of his positive mind to reach his life’s dreams.”

Geller

The live show is based on a successful Israeli version judged and monitored by Geller, which achieved a historical record-breaking viewing audience. The show, similar to “American Idol” is being produced next in Germany, then Holland and then perhaps Australia, according to Mr. Geller, when I asked about his follow up to filming more for a season two here in the United States.

“The Universe answered my request,” shared Mr. Geller.

The series showcases 10 carefully selected mentalists who will compete live against one another each week by demonstrating a wide spectrum of mystifying talents on a panel of celebrity guests who experience the illusions along with the studio audience.

“There will be friction with him (Angel) if there are competitors who claim paranomality and then he tries to debunk them on the spot, as he has suggested,” said Mr. Geller.

Geller and Angel will assess the contestant's talents each week and offer their uncensored opinions. Ultimately, the fate of the winner is in the hands of the viewers at home, who will vote to determine which competing mentalist will receive the grand prize of $250,000 and become the next great mentalist.

Mr. Geller freely admitted he has his share of skeptics and detractors.

“Years ago, Johnny Carson invited me on his show, that was when you knew you had made it big, in the United States, to appear on his show.

What I didn’t know was he was an amateur magician, and Johnny set me up, he made a joke of it, and I sat there on his show for 20 minutes, being made a fool of.”
“But I learned from it, that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

The next morning I woke up, slightly depressed, when I got a call from Merv Griffin, who said, ‘Uri, I want you on my show.’ Then Mike Douglas called,” added Mr. Geller, who shared his favorite quote from Oscar Wilde with me: “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”

“I can sum up my approach to in two words: Be Positive. That means a positive approach to good ideas from every source and every age in history. Forget about fashion, switch off the cynics. Say ‘Yes’ aloud.”

“The skeptics and the cynics failed miserably,” finished Mr. Geller.

LINK-TO-NBC-PHENOMENON-GAME

###

"Phenomenon" - Wednesdays (8-9 p.m. ET) on NBC - Premiere date: October 24, 2007

Two-hour Special on Halloween night, October 31 (8-10 p.m. ET)

The series is, based on a successful Israeli version judged and monitored by Geller, which achieved a historical record-breaking viewing audience, is a Granada America/Keshet Broadcasting/Kuperman Productions co-production in association with SevenOne International. SevenOne International controls the worldwide rights to the program.

Experts: Uri Geller & Criss Angel
Host: Tim Vincent
Executive producers: Suzy Lamb, Michael Agbabian and Dwight Smith
Creator: Format devised by Keshet Broadcasting Limited, Kuperman Productions Limited, Explorologist Limited
Director: Alan Carter
Supervising producer: Melanie Balac
Executive in charge of production: Mark Johnson
Line Producer: Tim Gaydos
Set designer: Anton Goss
Lighting designer: John Morgan
Wardrobe designer: Carrie Cramer
Graphics: SG Arts
Origination: Los Angeles

Uri Geller's Today Show Appearance

2007-10-24T08:40:00.000-07:00

To watch the entire interview visit this link :

Uri Geller on The Today Show

Phenomenon Billboard at NBC Studios in LA

2007-10-22T19:04:00.000-07:00

Phenomenon - Premiers Oct 24 8PM on NBC

Lara Lewington Interview

2007-10-21T07:56:00.000-07:00

12/10/2007 By Lara Lewington

The celebrated cutlery-bender is taking his hit Israeli television series global. He talks to Lara Lewington

Uri geller divides opinions. People look at his “magic” skills and either agree that he is a psychic, or accuse him of being a trickster. He prefers the term “mystifier”.

Now the 60-year-old Israeli is out to mystify a whole new audience. Geller is moving from bending spoons to breaking America as the Simon Cowell of an X-Factor for illusionists.

How he plans to do this is not actually mystifying at all. Geller is relying on a good old-fashioned reality-TV show to win over American hearts and minds.

In The Successor, Geller passes judgment on young magicians who hope to take up his spoon-bending mantle. The show was such a hit on Israeli TV that NBC has bought it for the US market.

Yet it will not follow the Israeli format exactly. Instead, NBC is sexing it up.

“They wanted to make it more mystifying and mysterious, so they came up with the name Phenomenon, which sounds much more powerful,” says an excited Geller.

Along with American magician Criss Angel, he will be an expert panellist on the programme, which will be screened weekly from October 24. Viewers will phone in to vote for the act that has most impressed them, but Geller and Angel retain the power of veto.

“We have the power, the expertise and the know-how to judge” which competitor has “the power, the charisma and the act”, says Geller.

He may be on to something. Industry insiders are predicting that this could be the latest reality format to spread around the world. After its run in America, it is heading for Europe, starting with a series in Germany.

“People think because of what I do I’m looking for an individual with powers, and I’m not, because The Successor is really about many things,” explains Geller.

“It’s about the performance, talent, personality and character of the competitor. It’s about the way you deliver your act, and most importantly it’s about the astonishment factor.”

Geller has received strong support from the chairman of NBC, Ben Silverman. He is the man taking his chances on Phenomenon being a hit Stateside, and has a reputation for recognising a good format.

As Geller says: “Ben Silverman had the vision to take The Office, to take Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? to the United States. When they asked him why he commissioned the show — after all, they said, Uri is controversial — he answered: ‘Because when we watched The Successor, my hair stood on end’.”

Viewers may be forgiven if they detect a hint of ego in all this, but Geller is having to share his show with a man who is an even bigger name in magic than he is.

Criss Angel, who has a large US fan base, specialises in illusions, “mentalism” and escapology. He is one of the rare few to have converted a hit Broadway magic show into a success on the small screen, with Criss Angel: Mindfreak.

Geller says that Angel is reportedly being paid £100m to perform at the Las Vegas hotel The Luxor — “but I can only quote you what I’ve read in the gossip columns”, he says, adding: “When I drove down LA’s Wilshire Boulevard, there was a billboard of Criss as big as the Hilton Hotel.”

Geller can comfort himself that Angel is little known in the UK, beyond a few tabloids briefly linking him to the troubled pop star Britney Spears.

Geller himself has been a controversial character over the years, with some people mesmerised by his abilities and others cynical.

“For many years lots of things have been attached to my name. People have called me anything from a magician, to a mentalist, to a psychic, to a ‘mystifier’, to a miracle worker. Yes, everything. I mean, I’ve even been called a trickster. You name it, I have been called nearly everything. I love to be called a ‘mystifier’. After all, I have amazed and mystified millions of people in the world.”

Whereas many young boys dream of being a fireman or astronaut, the young Geller spent his formative years in Tel Aviv with other ambitions in mind. “I was three years old, when I was eating soup, and suddenly the spoon bent in my hand. That was the first time my association with an energy, a power or a talent came.”

More intriguingly, he believes the source of his abilities may be inherited. “It comes from my mother’s side, because she’s related directly to Sigmund Freud. Very few people know this, but my name in my passport is actually Uri Geller Freud.”

No stranger to reality TV, in 2002 Geller appeared on ITV1’s I’m a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here. Even though it was well publicised that he was a vegetarian, he proudly admits: “I was the first person on the history of I’m a Celebrity… to eat living bugs.”

Does he feel these programmes can keep working? “Some reality shows are better than others. I think that reality television is still going to flourish. People think it’s peaked, but no way. It’s exactly like the magazines such as the National Enquirer, OK! or Hello!. People are interested in celebrities, people are interested in gossip. People are interested in the lives of others; people are interested in the mysterious things. The universe and beyond. Shows like ours, like Phenomenon, will always be intriguing.”

So back to the question of who is right about Geller — the fans who believe in his talents, or the doubters who do not.

For what it is worth, I can add a personal experience to the debate. A few years back, I interviewed Geller about his well-publicised friendship with pop star Michael Jackson.

During our conversation, he asked me to take off my necklace — a choker with a curved metal pendant hanging from it.

He rubbed his fingers over the metal pendant and, as I watched, it bent. Simple as that — he was not even touching the part that contorted.

I could not find any logical explanation for what happened right before my eyes. Later, I asked if he would tell me how he did it.

He replied: “If I am asked, ‘Uri, tell me how do you do it,’ I simply answer that I’d rather it be a mystery.”

Mystifying indeed.

Born: Tel Aviv in December 1946. His original name was Geller Gyorgy

Family: Geller was born to Hungarian- and Austrian-Jewish immigrants to Palestine. He claims to be distantly related to Sigmund Freud on his mother’s side

Early life: Geller says he first became aware of his paranormal powers when he was three, after a light from the sky knocked him to the ground. He served as a paratrooper in the Israeli army and was wounded in action during the 1967 Six-Day War. His early career was as a nightclub entertainer in Israel. He moved to America in the early 1970s

Geller trivia: He speaks four languages — Hebrew, English, Hungarian and German. He has been chairman of English football club Exeter City. He owns a 1976 Cadillac adorned with thousands of pieces of bent cutlery, given to him by, among others, John Lennon and the Spice Girls. He says he has been anorexic for many years

Jewish identity: Geller is the president of the International Friends of Magen David Adom. He also says he that his friendship with Michael Jackson — Jackson was best man when Geller renewed his wedding vows — ended over antisemitic comments the star allegedly made.

Uri Geller And Criss Angel Present : Phenomenon

2007-10-13T13:53:00.000-07:00

Uri Geller and Criss Angel Present Phenomenon. The New ground breaking reality show on NBC.

Beginning Oct 24th, Wednesday, 8pm EST on NBC. Don't forget to watch Phenomenon

Check out the trailer below running currently on NBC!

Los Angeles

2007-10-05T20:26:00.000-07:00

What I love most about Los Angeles is the sense of being inside a movie. Anything is possible, the more dramatic the better. All you have to do is dream.

At dinner last night with my TV producer, Suzy Lamb, I heard a wonderful story about Jim Carrey, the comic star of The Truman Show and Bruce Almighty. In 1987, a 25-year-old unknown, Jim drove his old Toyota into the Hollywood Hills and parked on Mulholland Drive.

The city which was spread out before him, like angel dust on the hillside, had never heard of him, but he was going to make sure it did — and the rest of the world with it. Taking a scrap of paper and a pen, he wrote himself a cheque, “for acting services rendered,” and dated it Thanksgiving Day 1995... eight years in the future.

The cheque was for ten million dollars.

Jim Carrey believed in his own talent so vividly, and was so unswervably committed to turning his dream into reality, that he easily outstripped his goal. By 1995, he’d broken box office records with The Mask and Dumb And Dumber, his worldwide grosses were estimated at more than half a billion dollars, and he commanded a cool $20m a picture.

Throughout my career, I’ve been urging people, “Believe in yourself and anything is possible.” But if your self-belief needs a boost, jump on a plane and come to Los Angeles.

And bring some sun-cream... it was 110 degrees in the city yesterday, and out in the California desert today, on a dry lake bed at El Mirage, the thermometer is bursting out through the glass. It’s hard to believe California is on the same planet as England — we had more rain last month than this desert has had in a century.

I’m here with a crew of around 80 technicians to shoot a promo for my show Phenomenon with Criss Angel. He’s internationally famous, but in the US there’s no one bigger — more members of the public would recognise his face than could name even the President.

I was introduced to Criss about an hour ago, and he struck me as a charming, thoughtful guy. Shooting an entire series with him promises to be a fascinating experience.

We have to survive this promo first, of course. Unbelievably, as well as contending with the naked sun and 115 degree sands, there are billion-watt lamps over our heads. I’m wearing a special jacket designed to absorb or deflect all the heat — otherwise, I’d look like I’d just stepped fully clothed out of a swimming bath.

And of course we have an air-conditioned trailer. That’s not a Hollywood luxury... it’s a life-support system.

I can’t wait to see the finished promo footage. There will be amazing, stunning special effects. And I have no lines... it’s all about the way I stare into the lens. The location was chosen for its eerie open spaces and the other-worldly glow of its cracked, white sands. For me it’s a unique experience — I’ve never shot anything like it.

Yesterday we were at the NBC studios, with Jay Leno’s Tonight Show shooting next-door. I was astonished to see a team of 18 people for an ordinary photoshoot, taking publicity stills for newspapers and magazines in the run-up to the show’s launch. It really drove home to me what a massive business NBC is — one of the big three television channels, in the country that produces most of the world’s biggest TV shows.

The Tonight Show, when it was compered by the late Johnny Carson, was the scene of my greatest professional humiliation, in 1974. My detractors have never let me forget that night: my dowsing and mind-reading abilities deserted me, in front of an audience of countless millions.

Johnny, who was an amateur conjuror and a sceptic about the power of the mind, thought he’d caught me out. I knew I was simply having the worst off-night imaginable, like a tennis star who freezes on match point. But it was a turning point for me, and I learned more from that disaster than I could have possibly discovered by any easy route.

Yesterday I was interviewed by NBC’s publicity team, who wanted to know what will make Phenomenon a show unlike any other. The answer lies with the character and charisma of the contestants. It’s about natural-born showmanship, creating acts that make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck.

And it’s about the audience too. I’ll be urging viewers to video any phenomena that erupt spontaneously in their homes while they are watching — they can email the clips to us and we’ll be able to screen them live on air. That’s a genuinely thrilling prospect.

Shipi and I were amazed to find ourselves standing under a mural depicting NBC’s logos down the decades. The rainbow swatches started out in 1956 as a peacock... with eleven feathers. Regular readers will know I regard eleven as much more than a lucky number: it signifies a connection to the cosmic consciousness, a gateway to infinite possibilities. It’s no coincidence that this peacock has eleven brilliant feathers.

My daughter Nat, who lives and works out here in the movie industry, has been driving me and Shipi round in her Mini Cooper. It’s the quintessentially British car for a very English young lady! But we’re off to Germany in the morning, and it’s a sure bet that my next despatch won’t be coming from a 115 degree desert. Fortunately, we’re booked on an airline where the seats recline fully, into beds. I’m going to need mine!

NBC Phenomenon Preview

2007-10-04T19:04:00.000-07:00

Premieres Wednesday, October 24 8/7c

New LIVE competition that will blow your mind!

PHENOMENON on NBC

Mystifier/artist Criss Angel ("Criss Angel MINDFREAK") and famed mentalist Uri Geller will host this mysterious live competition series in which they will conduct an intensive search for the next great mentalist. The series tests 10 hopeful mentalists who must compete each week to demonstrate a wide spectrum of mystifying talents for a panel of weekly celebrity guests and a studio audience. Geller and Angel will assess the contestants but ultimately the winner's fate will be determined by the viewers at home. In addition to voting, each episode will also contain an interactive component to engage the at home audience. WATCH PREVIEW NOW

X-teacher, Prince Naz

2007-09-27T20:37:00.000-07:00

Prince Naseem Hamed, the former world champion boxer, was famed for his flamboyant ringside entrances, and I was secretly hoping that when he visited my home this week he'd arrive on the back of a gold-plated elephant, draped in a cloak of peacock feathers. For Naz, even that might have been low-key — he once had an elevator built at the Manchester Arena, to convey him to the ring, and for the demolition of another opponent he strutted up a catwalk runway.

His smile was so broad, as he stepped from their car with his family on our driveway, I couldn't be disappointed. Naz is such an infectiously charismatic character, with a charming wife and three delightful children, that he doesn't need the razzle-dazzle — it's all in his personality.

We first met more than a decade ago, at a TV studio, and I was so impressed by his star quality that I picked our photo together to be the icon for my website's gallery of celebrity photographs. Throughout my career, I've always kept a camera close at hand, and it could have been a rock star, from Elton John to Alice Cooper, or a movie hero, a political leader or even a great artist such as Dali who symbolised the cavalcade of famous names.

I chose Prince Naseem, I think, because his pose radiated confidence and positive energy. One flash of that thousand-watt smile was like being hit by a bolt of inspiration. He wasn't simply the world champ — he believed he was the very best that ever had been or could be.

His left-hand punch was so powerful, it frequently knocked out opponents with a single blow. But that was only half the story — he was credited with the fastest reflexes that had ever been seen in the ring. Naz dodged punches the way Superman dodged bullets.

I told him of my training sessions with Muhammad Ali in the late Seventies, when we worked on visualisation techniques which the three-times world heavyweight champion had evolved instinctively. "Ali saw punches coming in slow motion," I told Naz, "because he believed he could literally slow down time. It was the power of his mind, not his fists, which defeated opponents."

"That's exactly what I do," Naz replied, his brilliant smile giving way to a moment's seriousness. "That's why I'm the Greatest too."

I'd love to take the confidence that bubbles out of Naseem Hamed and bottle it. We'd be trillionaires, because he'll never run dry. At its source is an unshakeable faith that he can be the very best at whatever he devotes his life to being, whether it's a boxer or a father — he's a dedicated family man.

It can't be bottled, of course, but that doesn't mean the rest of us have to go without. Every human being is born with a well of self-confidence. Believe in yourself, and it starts to flow. The more it flows, the more you believe, until you're standing in a deluge, a cloud-burst of super-confidence. To start it gushing, all you have to do is create that first drop, with the magic words: "I believe in myself!"

My former teacher Joy Philippou, who taught at my school in Cyprus back in the Fifties, celebrated her 80th birthday with a party at Los Toreros, a fabulous Spanish restaurant in London. She had a great deal to celebrate, because as well as clocking up eight decades (she makes me feel so young!) Joy was also basking in the afterglow of a brush with fame... on the X Factor.

Dr Philippou, to give Joy her proper title, is a multi-talented woman: president of the Body, Mind and Soul International society which promotes holistic health, and the author of more than a dozen books. But as she demonstrated to the TV judges, she can also play the violin, the mandolin and the Hawaiian guitar — without instruments. Joy is a musical mimic, and like the best ventriloquists she doesn't even move her lips: the sounds come through her nose.

She was one of a record 150,000 applicants to try out for the show, and she made it through the first rounds to the X-Factor 'Boot Camp', at Haythrop Park Hotel, Enstone in Oxfordshire. That wasn't a happy experience, though — the organisers admit this part of the show is "an endurance test," and Joy felt that she and other older contestants should have been warned how tough the conditions would be.

With 200 other hopefuls, she spent four hours waiting in line on a Sunday night, and three-and-a-half hours more under a hot sun the next day, without so much as a toilet break. "There was no talking allowed," Joy said — "it really was scary."

I know from my experience presenting Successor in Israel, and from my intense discussions with the producers of the forthcoming US version, Phenomenon, that it's essential to generate levels of tension and rivalry between performers on talent quests. That's what helps to make them such compelling viewing. But I believe it's going way too far when elderly ladies are subjected to hours of physical discomfort.

Luckily, Joy is well able to stick up for herself. She concluded her performance by asking the judges if they thought they were running a concentration camp, and then told reporters that Simon Cowell was a "sadistic psychopath".

Good for you, Joy! Any teacher who could keep me in line during my teens has got nothing to fear from television tyrants.

Arts & Cushions

2007-09-21T20:35:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I sit down to write this column and an idea hits me for something completely different - a song, a piece of jewellery, an unbreakable umbrella. Or, in today’s case, a book.

It’s a detective thriller about an Elvis impersonator who doubles as a serial killer. Every victim is murdered in a homage to one of the King’s hits - trampled to death with Blue Suede Shoes, garotted with a Good Luck Charm, or All Shook Up in a concrete mixer.

Unless the editor gives me another 100 pages or so, I don’t think I’ll have room for a whole book today. If you can find a copy of my novel, Dead Cold, in a second-hand shop, you’ll get a taste of something similar, though - the psychic detective is a Sinatra fanatic and the blowtorch-wielding villain is Too Close For Comfort!

As I was writing the book, Sinatra’s greatest albums were blasting from my stereo, providing the soundtrack. And that fabulous music came rushing back in my head when I saw Ol’ Blue Eyes staring at me from a window in London’s Wigmore Street.

The shop specialises in art fabrics, with cloth painted in the style of geniuses like Dali and Warhol, or embossed with images of screen icons such as Marilyn Monroe. As soon as I saw the cushion decorated with a stark, black-and-white portrait of Sinatra, I had to have it.

“That’s why they called him the Chairman of the Board,” joked Shipi, testing the cushion for softness.

He started us all off. “Sinatra was the godfather of Lounge music,” Dan declared. “You Make Me Feel Sofa,” I said.

Hanna trumped us all, though. As I settled onto my new cushion, she nudged me and said, “It Was A Very Good Rear.”

There’s a marvellous restaurant, the French Horn, close to my home, with a reputation for extraordinary cuisine which brings visitors from all over Europe. I was introduced there to a energetic and visionary man, Richard Tibber, who told me over dinner that he was managing director of Zeon watches.

“I’ve been in the watches business my whole career,” I exclaimed - “stopping them, starting them and making them spin. I’ve even halted Big Ben twice. Maybe I should be designing watches for you.”

Richard loved the idea, and now the Uri Geller Positive Energy range is about to go into production. These are exceptional timepieces, powered by the kinetic energy of the owner’s body, with a piece of crystal embedded in the back which will be in constant contact with the skin.

I have decorated the faces of the watches with symbols that focus on time’s infinite, unending power - the infinity sign, the 11-11 pairing and Einstein’s formula e=mc2 which defines all matter as energy.

Even the glass cover of the watch is unique: some are encased in transparent pyramids. I chose that design for two reasons, the power of pyramids and the resonance of ancient Egyptian motifs.

No one knows how a pyramid of the correct proportions, such as the Great Pyramid of Cheops, on the Giza Plateau outside Cairo, focuses energy, but there is no doubt of its extraordinary effects. The pyramid of glass and steel in my garden is constructed to exactly the same ratios, and everyone who steps inside it is struck by the sense of serenity and rejuvenation which floods through them.

The potency of Egyptian symbolism has been at the front of my mind this week as I work on my latest line of jewellery. It’s going to feature brooches, earrings, necklace pendants and bracelets modelled on hieroglyphics.

One of the most sacred symbols of orthodox Jewish worship are the tefillim or phylactery, boxes containing holy Hebrew scripture which are worn bound to the head and arm, especially at prayer time. I was delighted to meet a shy young Jewish man, Solly, who visited my home with a gift of the tefillim from Rabbi Elvaz in Jerusalem.

The rabbi was a fan of my show, Successor, earlier this year, and wanted to send me a thank you gift. It’s a good thing he sent Solly along too, to help me tie it properly.

Annie Kevans is one of the most prominent portrait artists in Britain, whose career took a leap up when the noted collector Sir Charles Saatchi bought out her last exhibition, lock stock and barrel. Saatchi, who is married to the domestic goddess, Nigella Lawson, has often been criticised for his policy of buying art with a JCB digger, but there’s no doubt he can make a young artist’s reputation with one flash of his chequebook.

The dynamic Flora Fairbairn, founder of the Collect Contemporary consultancy, contacted me to say Annie had completed a portrait of me. I explained that I have a policy of rarely buying art (I didn’t mention the Sinatra cushion) but I was always happy to exchange pieces.

Annie and Flora were intrigued, and when they brought the portrait over I fell in love with it. They selected a piece of hand-decorated Poole pottery in return. The painting went straight on my wall, and it’s causing fewer problems than the sculpture by Gavin Turk which was delivered this week - it’s the rear bumper of a car, and at the moment it’s in our garage. I’m having some trouble persuading

Weekly News : Auras

2007-09-14T17:15:00.000-07:00

The secret of success is energy. When you focus your mental energy into your actions, you can achieve anything — whatever your mind can imagine. And the more focused your energy becomes, the more visible it is.

I call this visible energy an ‘aura’. If that word sounds too fanciful, call it a ‘glow’. Think of a bride on her wedding day: the words that spring to mind are radiant, glowing, luminous. The joy and excitement literally shine out of her. That is her aura, a psychic energy so obvious that no one could deny it.

With a little practice, it’s possible to see the auras around many people. At first, you will probably be able to detect the faintest shimmer, like a colourless heat haze, along the contours of the head and hands. As your ability develops, the haze will be more sharply defined, and you’ll start to pick out colours within the patterns.

Seeing auras is a skill. Like any skill, it’s available to anyone. Some find it easier than others, but no one can achieve it without trying. And like any skill, practice makes perfect.

Find a quiet, well-lit room – and make sure the light source is above or behind you, not shining in your face. Lay out some brightly coloured objects on a neutral background, such as a pink sheet of newspaper from the business section.

Relax. Breathe steadily and rhythmically. Let your mind drift – don’t focus on your desire to see an aura. Daydream. Meditate if you wish. Let your eyes rest unfocused on one of the objects.

Don’t stare directly at the edges, though this is where the aura will be – like the faint light of a star, the effect is brighter in your peripheral vision, so let your eyes wander. After a few seconds, you’ll see a band of coloured light around the object. This is a simple aura, an emanation not of the object but of its colour.

Practice. When your mind is relaxed and you feel day-dreamy, let your eye seek out auras around animals, trees, furniture – anything. Once you start seeing auras, they will begin to appear more easily. It’s a knack – and it only seems difficult until you’ve mastered it! Look for the etheric aura, a gaseous, colourless glow like heat haze. The etheric aura is not generated by colour energy – it reflects the energy in the object itself.

The most dramatic auras surround living creatures, especially people. Learn to look with a partner — it is a deeply bonding experience, to see each other’s aura.

A good time to view your own aura is in the bath. Lie back and daydream. When you are relaxed, rest your feet on the rim and gaze towards them. The first sign of your aura will be a shimmering around the outline, like rippling heat. Colour will build up around this – probably green or blue, because you will be physically and mentally at ease.

A century ago, one brilliant and unorthodox scientist produced research that proved the aura was a biological fact. Dr Walter J Kilner invented a device for viewing ultra-violet light through eye-pieces dyed with dicyanin which made the human aura hazily visible. The electrotherapist at St Thomas Hospital, London, published a book in 1911 expounding his theories: healthy males had similar auric patterns, but women varied and children’s auras lacked refinement.

Kilner identified three aura bands: the etheric, the inner and the outer. The inner aura displayed the densest, most consistent colours, while the outer flared and shimmered. Other experimenters found his eye-pieces caused inflammation and were uncomfortable, and after his death in 1923 Kilner’s work on medical diagnosis using the aura was largely forgotten.

To keep your energy levels topped up to the max, you need to be surrounded by bright, vibrant eye-catchers. Colours are created when light vibrates on different wavelengths, and our minds respond vigorously its energy.

Dynamic reds and yellows are great motivators, filling the mind with the impulse to act. White can be energising if it’s clean and shining — think how your heart lifts at the sight of fluffy white clouds on a blue background (but not at grubby grey clouds!)

My favourite is orange, a fiercely active colour that supercharges the psychic senses. I have orange circles, some as big as bicycle wheels and others the size of satsumas, hung around my home to inspire me.

One of our hidden human abilities is to see colour shimmering in the energy that radiates from every living thing — the aura bands of shining light that glow around the body. Some people even see numbers as shapes, melodies as rainbows or taste music on their tongues.

A team from University College London, led by the eminent neuropsychologist Dr Jamie Ward, believes at least one per cent of humans do this instinctively — and many more of us could learn. In one experiment, Dr Ward asked a 70-year-old schools inspector named Dorothy Latham, who sees colours when she hears music, to describe the hues of a series of notes, starting with deep bass tones and ending with tinkling high ones.

Dorothy saw rippling, dark colours at the low end of the scale, and shimmering light ones at the top. Next, Dr Ward asked his research group, who didn’t consciously associate colours with music, to imagine they could “see” the notes — and they too matched dark hues to low sounds, light colours to high.

“We all seem to do this, even though most of us are completely unaware if it,” Dr Ward said.

Dorothy thinks many people repress the ability. “I imagined everyone would be exactly the same as me, until I spoke to schoolfriends and they said, ‘You’re a weirdo!’ So I shut up about it and kept quiet.”

Panel:

Everyone sees auras diffently, but there are some meanings in the colours which are common to many observers. How do yours compare?

• Red: Indicates physical energy, capacity to work hard, sexual appetite, generosity, vitality.

• Pink: Selflessness, compassion, capacity for loving, attention to family.

• Orange: Emotional power, inspiration, leadership. Becomes yellow as spiritual nature develops.

• Yellow: Joy, childlike enthusiasm, intellectual power, spiritual energy and freedom, focused and positive emotion.

• Gold: Very deep spirituality, enlightenment, inspired teaching gift, psychic.

• Green: love of nature, healing energy, restful mind, methodical.

• Turquoise: Dynamic personality, psychic power, restless mind, wide interests, easily bored, keen to delegate.

• Blue: Highly spiritual, infused with life energies, at one, self-disciplined, healing ability.

• Violet: Clairvoyant, inward-looking, visionary, changeable.

Captions:

Rod Stewart was wearing a vivid, purple-striped jacket when I met him at David Frost’s garden party. His energy is electric, just like the colours of his favourite clothes

Chris Tarrant chose a vibrant red shirt to the garden party. His energy is practical, earthy and forceful, and he radiates colours which express that.

Gillian Anderson, star of TV’s X-Files, has a natural innocence. Her open mind and trusting nature are the keynotes of her energy, and she chooses white clothes which complement her aura.

Vanessa Feltz has a vivid nature with rapidly changing moods. Her aura energy is turbulent and powerful — the colours change rapidly, just as they do in her multi-hued clothes.

Weekly News: Tokyo, Sony, David Berglas, Shinzo Abe, Bao Xishun

2007-09-03T18:19:00.000-07:00

Tokyo looks like no other city on earth — but when I flew in on a lightning business trip recently I decided to put some of my other senses to work. Instead of seeing the city, this time I wanted to experience it through my ears, my nose, my palate and my skin.

I stood with my eyes closed for 20 minutes outside my hotel — with Shipi at my side, in case any passing thief decided I looked like a man who needed his wallet removed!

The sensations were phenomenal. The noise of feet slapping on the sidewalk sounded like waves. The melee of voices — and I speak a little Japanese — was a babble washing over me. The whole experience was like being immersed in a human sea.

Later I ate with my eyes shut, which left my companions helpless with laughter — chopsticks are hard to handle at the best of times! The crisp distinction between dry and oily foods was like bright colours on my tongue.

I explored my hotel room in the dark, fingering the delicate paper wall dividers and the light silks of the cushions. The mental images I brought home of Japan are far more vivid than anything I have known before, even though I lived in the country for two years.

We neglect all our senses in favour of our sight. For many people, taste and smell almost dry up. But our intuitive sense is worst neglected of all. Most adults simply ignore it.

The Japanese are more open to mind energy than most Westerners. I will never forget an encounter I had with Masaru Ibuka, founder of the Sony Corporation, two decades ago. He looked like an ancient master of martial arts as he stared into my eyes for fully two minutes — leaning forward, with his knuckles resting on an immense mahogany table, gazing silently at me. As though he could read my soul.

I felt my collar clinging to my neck, and a pulse trembling in my forehead. I dared not avert my eyes or break the silence.

At last he straightened, and spoke: “I believe, Geller-San, that truly you possess the abilities which you claim. But what I am asking is this – what use are they?”

This was a question I had heard many times before. “Spoonbending and telepathy have made me world famous,” I smiled.

“But.” Mr Ibuka repeated, speaking very slowly, as though to a stupid child. “What Use Are They?”

The same question was torturing Sony researchers. Japan’s foremost electronics company, which pioneered miniaturisation and invented the Walkman, had set up a psi research unit of five scientists to test the reality of extra-sensory perception.

They carried out tests with psychics to find hidden objects, to see colours blindfolded and to sense which glass of water among a tray of ten had been infused with healing energy. After thousands of experiments, the psychics were scoring impossibly better than mere guesswork could ever do, with a 70 per cent success rate.

And the scientists were in despair. What use was this power? They couldn’t distill it into batteries (though how they had tried!). They couldn’t use it in market research or recording studios. Sony were stumped.

When Mr Ibuka died in 1998, the corporation was quick to shut down the psi unit. Company spokesman Masanobu Sakaguchi announced: “We have found out experimentally that yes, ESP exists, but that any practical application of this knowledge is not likely in the foreseeable future.”

Many people possess powerful mental talents without knowing it. That can cause chaos, because the energy needs to be channelled if it is to be kept in check.

Maybe your computer crashes when you’re under stress — journalist friends tell me that often Fleet Street newsrooms are bedlam as deadlines approach, with PCs which have behaved perfectly all day suddenly developing mysterious glitches.

Or maybe street lamps flicker on and off as you walk down the road — this is such a common phenomenon that Dr Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire ran a research project to discover what is happening.

Parapsychologists call it the SLIde effect — Street Light Interference. The energy isn’t always human, as a family in London, Ontario, discovered not long ago. All the children’s toys sparked into life, buzzing about the bedrooms and chattering at full volume, after lightning struck the house.

There was so much electrical energy in the air that fires started spontaneously, and neighbours had to use garden hoses to prevent a full-scale blaze.

I’m glad my own energy focuses on metal objects and not soft furnishings!

It was a joy this week to have dinner with our old friends, the magician David Berglas and his wife Ruth. Incredibly, David had his 81st birthday this year, though he looks 20 years younger. He and Ruth celebrated their golden wedding anniversary last year — David tells me their best man was his beloved dog, Tricky, who carried the ring on a ribbon around his neck.

I first met Shinzo Abe, a brilliant man from one of Japan’s leading families, in 1973, when he was 19 years old. His father was then leader of the Liberal party. Now Shinzo is Japan’s youngest ever Prime Minister. He is also a best-selling author, and I’m enjoying the copy of his chart-topping book Towards A Beautiful Nation... though it’s hard work for me to read Japanese.

Bao Xishun, the world’s tallest man, has featured in news stories around the world after he was photographed with He Pingping, the smallest man on the planet. Incredibly, they were both born in Mongolia. I met Bao in Tokyo, but I don’t think his friend was there... unless, of course, I simply didn’t notice him.

Crystal chess, Iraqis, Nat and Dan

2007-08-16T18:30:00.000-07:00

As we watched our children growing up, Hanna and I tried to teach them to stay young at heart. It’s wonderful to see our kids become adults, but we wanted them to retain that childlike spark that helps us take joy in life.

Our daughter Nat is a young woman now, with an exciting new life on another continent — like her brother Dan she was born in the US, and she’s taking advantage of the fact that she doesn’t need a visa or a work permit to have a career in the States, working in the movie industry.

She flew back to Britain for a summer visit, and I was delighted to see that childlike spark is burning as brightly as ever in her. It’s always there, in her infectious sense of humour and her liveliness.

Living in California, she misses her big brother badly... misses teasing him, in fact. When she visited his apartment overlooking Hyde Park, she insisted on trying on his barrister’s wig and robes, and trying out a few dance steps.

Dan laughed, but he knew the joke was on big brother... just as it always was when they were growing up. For a moment, it was like looking at our children aged eight and ten again. Which seems as if it was just a week or two ago, instead of a decade and a half.

Another lesson which Hanna and I worked hard to teach our children was one that many parents assume their kids know instinctively: How to get your own way.

In fact, there’s a right way and a wrong way of getting what you want. The right way is one of the most valuable skills you can learn. The wrong way is destructive, dangerous and, in the end, will only bring misery.

We all know people who can bulldoze straight through other people’s objections and feelings. “Get out of my way,” they shout, “or you’ll get hurt!” Very often, they do get exactly what they want — but they also make an enemy of the whole world. Bullies don’t prosper for long. Sooner or later they meet people who are even more aggressive than they are.

Sadly, there are also many people who look in horror at the bullies and think, “I’d hate to be like that. If that’s what it takes to get your own way in life, then I’ll settle for being a nice person who has to miss out.”

This passive attitude attracts bullies like jam attracts wasps. If you act as though it’s your lot in life to be forever trampled and cheated, there will always be a queue of aggressive people ready to walk all over you.

Bullies don’t respect what anyone else wants. Passive people don’t respect their own needs. To be happy, you must avoid both those mistakes.

Be assertive. Respect your own needs, and be mindful of what other people want too. Being assertive means you state your feelings clearly. You say, “I am going to get what I want — tell me what you want too, and let’s co-operate so we can both get our own way.”

It’s all about self-respect and respect for others. When you learn that, you’re on track for a happy life.

That’s such a simple lesson, though it needs to be repeated many times before a child can fully understand it. I can’t think why schools don’t teach children how to be assertive. Self-respect, plus respect for others: it should be everyone’s first lesson!

Out of the blue, I received a tempting invitation from an Amsterdam jeweller and sculptor named David CJ de Jong. He’d watched me being interviewed for the launch of Staya Erusa, the Dutch movie which explores paranormal phenomena by delving into my life story, and I had talked about the incredible power of crystals.

David was fascinated — he had just finished creating a chess set cut from rock crystal. The pieces were huge, lustrous, and intensely detailed, each one a unique artwork. Every game with that set would feel like a brush with magic, David promised me.

I did like the idea. Rock crystal energises me — I always carry a piece or two with me. to replenish my mind’s batteries. There’s plenty of scientific evidence to show that crystals do act as energy amplifiers — that’s why there’s a fragment in every quartz watch.

Would my calculations become sharper when I played chess with a crystal set? Would I see deeper into the game, building combinations and sensing strategic weaknesses? Would I be a match for Garry Kasparov, with a quartz king under my fingers?

Then David revealed the price to me: 750,000 Euros.

Regretfully, I turned the offer down. “For that money,” I told him, “I think I’d rather have a house on one of Amsterdam’s historic canals.”

As Iraq won football’s Asian Cup with a 1-0 win over Saudi Arabia, I couldn’t help celebrating too. The conflicts which have torn that country apart for years, leaving many hundreds of thousands of innocents dead or maimed, has given the world a warped view of the country, as if it’s a place where only bad things happen. It’s great that the nation has something to cheer about, and give the rest of us a chance to see its people happy.

My work with charities in Israel brings me into contact with many Arab children. I know that they could easily be brothers and sisters to the kids who have been blown apart by bombs and missiles from all sides in the war. Bombs don’t care who they kill.

On an impulse, Hanna, Shipi and I walked to Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park, where the celebrations were centred. We were welcomed by everyone. It was fantastic to meet people, like the girl in this photo, who had seen me on Arabic TV, in Iraq.

We ended up with many new friends at a Lebanese restaurant, where I ate till I felt like bursting. Football fans sing “Who ate all the pies” at porky players...in my case, it was more like, “Who ate all the pittas?”

Phenomenon, mentalists, Cyprus

2007-08-14T17:42:00.000-07:00

The phones have been ringing red-hot since my US television show Phenomenon was announced to the entertainment press in America. The time difference between here and Los Angeles is giving me jet lag in my own home — they’re eight hours behind England, so a 7pm call from a journalist on a California news station will jerk me out of bed in the small hours of the morning.

It’s crazy, but it’s fun. And it’s a lot less crazy than my first rush of fame in the States, back in the Seventies. That really was out of control... in the most extraordinary and dramatic ways.

If I told you what it was like to cope with the paranormal mayhem that surrounded me in New York, circa 1975, you wouldn’t believe me. You couldn’t — it defies logic.

My mentor, Dr Andrija Puharich, tried to make sense of it in his biography of me. But it was brimming with UFO encounters, and back in the Seventies, before Close Encounters and The X Files, you might as well claim to be Napoleon Bonaparte as announce that you regularly saw flying saucers.

I published my own version, in a bid to undo the harm my reputation had suffered. It focused on the human aspects of my story over the alien. But the truth was that I felt I had lost control of my career. I believed I could regain power over my destiny by an immense act of will, and I almost lost my mind in the process.

When the acclaimed journalist and novelist Dotson Rader interviewed me in my apartment for an Esquire magazine feature, he saw the terrifying effects of that mental strain, and he wrote about them fearlessly. His 5,000-word account describes a sculpture that hurls itself across the room, crystals that slide over tabletops, rocks that fall out of the air.

Rader came to the lobby of my apartment building on Manhattan’s East Side, and described me as if he was introducing a character in a story: “He wore black Lee jeans, round-toed Italian boots, and a brown leather jacket. He smelled of Acqua di Selva, an Italian cologne. The impression he makes is that of a highly successful fashion model.”

The interview starts off with a few isolated phenomena: objects that seem to move without being touched, a display of telepathy, some unexplained noises on Rader’s tape. It builds, like a Stephen King story, through a crescendo of terror, to a pitch where my apartment is charged with a crackling, oppressive force, where I am ranting and screaming, where lumps of stone materialise to hammer the walls and floor, where Rader is pleading with me to stay away from him and open a window before he dies of the suffocating heat which, apparently, only he can feel.

“I realise that you may believe I was fooled or duped,” Rader writes. “It cannot be helped. What I am not is a liar. And this is what happened.”

He was telling the truth. Mysterious energy did erupt spontaneously and uncontrollably around me at that stage of my life, and a lot of scarier things happened than a few ornaments jumping off shelves. A few months earlier, I had appeared in two places simultaneously... and that, I promise, really is frightening.

These phenomena are rare for me now. Occasionally I’ll find something from the house lying on the lawn, or a long-lost trinket of mine will appear on a friend’s bedside cabinet. But, most of the time, sanity in my home means pretty much the same as it means in everyone else’s.

Last weekend, two brilliant mentalists visited my home. Drew McAdam and Colin McLeod, both from Scotland, are deeply aware of the power of the human mind, and how we consciously use only a tiny percentage of our brains. I told them how glad Hanna and I were that our lives are under control for this year’s American adventure — I don’t think we could stand another outbreak of the paranormal on that scale.

I’ve heard plenty of explanations: I was possessed by a poltergeist that was exorcised during my spiritual sojourn in Japan; I was the plaything of an extraterrestrial child; I was suffering side-effects from the CIA brain implants that let me see clairvoyantly into the heart of the Kremlin.

“The big difference between 1975 and today,” I told Drew and Colin, “is family. I’m a father and a husband. That’s far more important than my career... and that’s what keeps me sane.”

More memories were stirred by a fabulous photographic exhibition at Westminster Cathedral Hall, depicting the damage done to around 100 churches in northern Cyprus by soldiers and looters since the Turkish invasion 33 years ago.

I spent my teens in Cyprus, and it saddened me to see the extent of the desecration. Photo journalist Doros Partasides has created a moving series of images, which I hope will prompt tourists to this sunny Mediterranean jewel to look further than the bars and the beaches. Cyprus is such a beautiful island — it ought to be a paradise.

We joined the veteran peace activist Max Kampelman and security expert Ian Davis for dinner at the Park Lane Hilton in London. Max is currently head of the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya. Naturally I can’t reveal too much of what we discussed, but the meeting left me both sobered and cautiously hopeful for the future.

Criss Angel, Boris Becker, Mel C

2007-08-11T08:17:00.000-07:00

This week’s column was going to consist of just one word, repeated a thousand times: PERSEVERE. If you are seeking success, whether that’s at school or in a relationship or in your career or any other arena, it’s the one word which truly matters: PERSEVERE. Keep saying it to yourself, over and over, in as many different ways as you can: PERSEVERE, KEEP TRYING, NEVER QUIT, YOU CAN DO IT, PERSEVERE.

For thirty-five years my ambition has been to front a major TV show in America. My business is entertainment, and to achieve global success it’s crucial to win the US market. In different ways, through Hollywood and chatshows, scientific experiments and books, I’ve left my imprint. But the ultimate goal, the television series on a major channel, has always eluded me because I was busy doing TV work globally.

I never gave up on my ambition. I always believed it would happen. And now it has.

This autumn, I will team up with America’s best-known mentalist magician, Criss Angel, to present a show called Phenomenon on NBC television. It’s based on my smash-hit Israeli show Successor, with Criss and me watching ten mind-blowing performers compete in front of a studio audience and celebrity guests.

The show was announced at the American Theatre Critics Association in the Beverley Hills Hilton, LA, earlier this month (16 July) by Ben Silverman, the co-chairman of NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios.

Ben’s enthusiasm for the concept has made the whole show possible. Before his arrival at the TV station earlier this year, it looked as though we might not secure an American deal. After our storming success in Israel, I was disappointed, but not downhearted. I kept persevering, taking the show again to US executives at the Cannes festival.

If I had accepted the first rebuff, or the twentieth, or even the hundredth, my belief would have been doomed. But I have always believed that, if you never quit, you’re never beaten. So I persevered.

The involvement of Criss Angel will be immensely important. His Mindfreak series is the most popular mystifying show on American TV, making him the modern successor to his childhood hero, Harry Houdini.

Criss’s triumphs include levitating above the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, walking on water and floating between two buildings. To say he has a taste for the spectacular is like saying Madonna has had a couple of hit records.

We’ll be presenting our ten contestants on live TV for ten successive weeks, building up to a climactic showdown between the most popular acts, just before Christmas. Criss and I will be the ringmasters, but the viewers at home will wield the real power, voting to keep their favourites on the show.

It’s going to be a whirlwind few years, because as soon as the US series ends, I’ll be flying to Germany to repeat the performance. The German series was also announced to the media this month, with a special presentation called the Big Show for TV’s top advertisers.

My instructions were simply to stir up as much excitement around the show as I could, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. As always, I was staggered by how young ad executives are — many of them seemed younger than my own children. “None of you can possibly remember my first appearance in Germany, in 1972,” I told them, and their blank looks revealed I was right — I might as well have been talking about the Napoleonic wars.

“One thing is sure, though” I added — “your own kids are going to know all about my successor.”

I’m confident about reaching the school-age generation in both Germany and the US through the series, because the most fanatical viewers in Israel were children. Magic has maximum appeal for the young mind — kids believe in it, because they haven’t learned to be cynical and skeptical.

I bumped into a couple of old friends at the Big Show — Boris B and Mel C. Boris is Germany’s most famous sportsman, alongside Michael Schumacher. He was sporting a vivid tan, which I suspect he didn’t get at the Wimbledon washout.

He’s a fascinating man, with a keen business sense, who is completely relaxed about his fame — some celebs are snobs, but Boris is genuinely happy to chat to anyone who intrigues him. He has an open and inquiring mind, which is why I think he’ll make a great success of his German TV show, as an interviewer.

One of the first face-to-face chats he has lined up will be with the footballing maestro Franz Beckenbauer. That promises to be fascinating viewing, as well as a useful opportunity for me to brush up on my German.

With the Spice Girls preparing to make a comeback with a world tour, the five have got a lot of ground to cover with their pre-publicity. Mel C, who I always suspected had the best voice of them all, was full of energy, and the centre of attention.

I asked her what she thought of the Beckham’s switch to Los Angeles, and Mel was full of positive comments. She’s sure the duo will win over the US public, and she pointed out that the most important thing for Victoria was her children — if they were happy, so was Mum.

Stuart Semple took me, Shipi and Hanna to Brick Lane in London for a car boot sale where the vendors were leading artists. Tracey Emin was there, as well as Vivianne Westwood. I bought an artwork created from a dismembered Metro motor-car from Gavin Turk — that’s him in the dark glasses. He’s been exhibited at the Tate Modern, and Charles Saatchi has his work in his collection.

NBC also looking for a successor to Uri Geller

2007-07-21T07:49:00.000-07:00

The large American network bought the format for the Israeli television program. Geller: 'I am very happy, not for Uri Geller, but for the State of Israel which made history'

Merav Crystal Published: 07.19.07, 16:24 / Israel Culture

Uri Geller is widening his search for potential successors across the ocean, together with the illusionist Criss Angel. The NBC network, one of the four largest television networks in the United States, recently bought the format for “The Successor,” the first time an Israeli format has been purchased by a major US broadcast network.

In America, the show will be called "Phenomenon".

As in Israel, it will be hosted by Uri Geller, but with Criss Angel by his side for the American audience. Angel is one of the most famous magicians in the US specializing in illusions, mentalism, and escapology.

He starred in a successful Broadway magic show (“Criss Angel Mindfreak”), which became a television series filmed in Las Vegas. Also an actor and musician, Angel will also star in the movie “Mandrake the Magician” which will air in 2008. The film is an adaptation of an old American comic strip that features a magician who uses his powers of hypnotism and illusion to fight crime.

The Granada production company will produce “The Successor” for NBC, working closely with Israeli franchise Keshet and Kuperman Productions, who produced the show in Israel. The show's format has also been sold to the German ProSieben network, one of the leading commercial channels in Germany and Europe.

Elad Kuperman from Kuperman Productions explains: “It will be a local adaptation of the program. The format is a little different because Criss Angel is also involved in helping Uri find the successor. Our company creates television events. The fact that we have succeeded in selling it is amazing."

Is it magic?

“It is not magic, it is more than that. It was not obvious.”

'Controversy made Uri Geller'

In a conversation from England, Uri Geller declares that what is good for him is good for Israel: “I am very happy this morning, not for Uri Geller, but for the small State of Israel that has made history. I am reading the New York Times, the LA Times, and Forbes, and I am proud.

"I search on Google and Yahoo, and see that they are flooded with hundreds of articles about NBC buying a format from Israel. Out of this whole matter, this is what makes me happiest and only then comes the great news, that NBC bought “The Successor.” (NBC executive) Ben Silverman believes in this, and said that they wanted to be the first to broadcast it. There is already a line of countries waiting to broadcast the program. After America it will air in Germany and Russia. In any case, I am very surprised at the international success of “The Successor.”

Why was Criss Angel added?

“He joined because I found it hard to work alone. I learned from my experience in Israel. Even “American Idol” has more than one judge. I need feedback. When I raised the idea of having someone by my side, Silverman said 'Criss Angel.' I did not even know if he would have time to do it. I am happy that he agreed, because Angel is as famous in America as Paris Hilton or Madonna. He is an incredible man, he has amazing, surprising abilities, and he is also an interesting personality. It will be interesting to do the show with him. He is also younger than Uri Geller. The combination will be astounding.”

Why was the name changed?

“We all agreed that 'Phenomenon' was a deeper, stronger, shinier name full of mystery.”

Are you looking for someone with unique powers?

“No. We are not looking for someone with powers, rather huge performers. I am looking for an act, a person with charisma and a personality that simply makes your hair stand on end. A reporter asked Silverman: 'Why did you choose Uri Geller, he is mired in controversy?' Silverman answered: 'Because when we watched 'The Successor,' we had goose bumps.'"

The program will force Geller to move to the United States. Geller revealed that he will be there for six to eight weeks, and the network is already planning an additional season.

"We suggested three versions of 'The Successor' because I am only one person. When you have a format it can run in twenty countries, because every country has a presenter, but 'The Successor' needs Uri Geller. So there is the version that includes me.

"The Germans, for example, did not want to give me up, so after America I will be in Germany for 14 weeks. The Americans also refused to do it without me. I hope that there will be countries where I will be a guest on the show once every three weeks.

"We created a third version without Uri Geller, so that other countries can find a local mentalist to present the program for them.”

Do you think that you will receive the same criticism that you received here?

“I am not afraid of that. There is no such thing as bad criticism. I live for controversy. Controversy made Uri Geller; it gave me the push without having to try. And yet the criticism in Israel was a little too strong and unnecessary. I still do not understand why they cannot treat people well in Israel. I do not see a place for controversy; in America they know that it is entertainment. I think that it is going to be amazing, and we are very excited.”

NBC ANNOUNCES DEAL WITH WORLD-RENOWNED MYSTIFIER CRISS ANGEL AND FAMED MENTALIST URI GELLER FOR 'PHENOMENON,' CONTROVERSIAL NEW LIVE COMPETITION SERIE

2007-07-16T07:41:00.000-07:00

BURBANK - July 16, 2007 - NBC has signed a series deal with mystifier/artist Criss Angel ("Criss Angel Mindfreak") and famed mentalist Uri Geller for "Phenomenon" (working title) -- a mysterious live competition series in which both men will conduct an intensive search for the next great mentalist. The announcement was made today by Ben Silverman, Co-Chairman, NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios.

"The match-up of two world-famous personalities, Uri Geller and Criss Angel -- who have demonstrated astounding skills -- makes for a riveting series format," said Silverman. "Factor in the mystery of the genre, the live competitive angle as the contestants attempt to follow in Criss and Uri's footsteps, and incredible interactive applications, and we think viewers will have many compelling reasons to watch."

The series, based on a successful Israeli version judged and monitored by Geller which achieved a historical record-breaking viewing audience, tests 10 hopeful mentalists who must compete each week to demonstrate a wide spectrum of mystifying talents on a panel of weekly celebrity guests who participate along with a studio audience. Geller and Angel will assess the contestants and offer their unfiltered opinions. Ultimately, the winner's fate will be determined by the viewers at home.

The visually arresting Angel is the creator, director and star of his self-titled, alternative cable series, "Criss Angel MINDFREAK" which is currently wrapping post production on its third remarkable and critically acclaimed season.

In addition, Angel created and starred in two top-reviewed cable television specials, 2002's "Criss Angel MINDFREAK" and 2003's "Criss Angel: Supernatural." He has been the featured guest-star on both NBC's "Las Vegas" and "CSI: New York." Angel also has appeared on countless talk shows including "The Oprah Winfrey Show," "Larry King Live" and "Late Night With Conan O'Brien." In the summer of 2008, Angel will team up with Cirque du Soleil for a live magic experience at the Luxor Resort and Casino in Las Vegas that is slated to run for ten years and over 4600 shows.

Geller soared to international fame by claiming extreme mind-over-matter abilities that aroused much controversy to this day in his hundreds of TV shows across the globe -- particularly the ability to bend spoons, among others. He was instrumental in creating the first interactive TV show worldwide when mysteriously objects bent in people's homes and broken watches came alive.

"Phenomenon" is a Granada America/Keshet Broadcasting/Kuperman Productions co-production in association with SevenOne International. SevenOne International controls the worldwide rights to the program.

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Deborah Thomas, NBC Entertainment Publicity, 818/840-3663
Wendy Luckenbill, NBC Entertainment Publicity, 818/840-2543

Criss Angel and Uri Geller Join NBC for New Series

2007-07-14T17:20:00.000-07:00

July 18, 2007 With the intention to bring forth a unique and mysterious live competition series, NBC has recently inked a deal with Criss Angel, illusionist famed for Criss Angel: Mindfreak, and Uri Geller, known for his claimed psychic powers, to team up for a new series called Phenomenon.

Inspired by an Israeli version judged and monitored by Uri Geller, Phenomenon is a reality series that features an intensive search for the next generation mentalist. Each week, 10 hopeful mentalists must compete to demonstrate an extensive array of mystifying talents in front of weekly celebrity guests who participate along with a studio audience. While Geller and Criss Angel assess and evaluate the participants, viewers at home will determine the winner.

"The match-up of two world-famous personalities, Uri Geller and Criss Angel -- who have demonstrated astounding skills -- makes for a riveting series format. Factor in the mystery of the genre, the live competitive angle as the contestants attempt to follow in Criss and Uri's footsteps, and incredible interactive applications, and we think viewers will have many compelling reasons to watch," NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios Co-Chairman Ben Silverman said.

Geller rose to fame by claiming psychic powers and performing a series of televised performances of paranormal nature. His mind-over-matter abilities, including bending spoons and describing hidden drawings, roused much international controversy.

As for Angel, he became known for his stunts as a magician, escapologist and hypnotist. He was also noted for his television appearances on Las Vegas, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien, besides his own reality show.

Meanwhile, Angel is currently wrapping up postproduction of the third season of Criss Angel: Mindfreak, in which he stars, and serves as the creator and director of the series. Additionally, he will be teaming up with Cirque du Soleil for a live magic show at the Luxor Resort and Casino in Las Vegas in the summer of 2008, which is expected to run for ten years.

Garden Parties

2007-07-14T16:29:00.000-07:00

If you walk into a crowded room and Tara Palmer-Tomkinson is somewhere in the crush, it’s her face you’ll see first. She could be marching with half a million people in a Hyde Park demonstration, or hidden in the top tiers of Man United’s gargantuan stadium, and you’d pick here out instantly, as if she had a spotlight trained on her.

That’s an almost psychic gift. It’s as though, amid the blur of the crowd, Tara is the one person who’s in focus. When Hanna, Shipi and I rolled up at Sir David Frost’s garden party in north London, TPT was naturally the first person we spotted.

It wasn’t as if there was a mere scattering of famous faces. Everywhere we turned we caught the eye of people we’d seen countless times on TV, often making statements to the House of Commons or being interviewed by Larry King on CNN.

Many were politicians, but we also spotted Bob Geldof, Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, General Sir Michael Jackson, Rowan Atkinson, and Derren Brown. Bruce Forsyth and his wife Wilnelia were there, full of lively chatter — but it was Tara who shone brightest.

Perhaps her companion, the Dubai media mogul and fashion stylist Mohieb Dahabieh, was partly responsible, because TPT was wearing a dress that made everybody stare. It wasn’t just backless — it was virtually bumless.

While we were chatting, a guest tucked her business card in a place which I’ve never seen used for business cards before. Even Tara looked surprised. She blamed Shipi at first but, though he is sometimes fond of schoolboy pranks, even he wouldn’t be that cheeky.

Sir David posed for a photo with me at the gate. His events are strictly camera-free, but there must have been 50 paparazzi hanging around in the street, so he was happy to let us take a snap.

There’d been no photos the previous evening either, at Kensington Palace for Princess Michael of Kent’s annual garden party. We were invited to take cocktails on the lawn, and as in previous years the princess insisted all her guests wore “shoes for lawns” — she doesn’t want stilettos ruining the perfectly manicured greens.

The downpours and deluges of the past few weeks threatened to make a washout of the evening, so I spent a few minutes teaching the princess how to “cloudbust”. It’s a simple piece of psychokinesis — just stare at a cloud until it goes away.

Scientifically, it’s impossible to prove how much of the effect is due to mindpower, but against all the odds Princess Michael’s party stayed dry.

We talked mostly about art — the princess is a connoisseur, and president of Partridge Fine Art Ltd. The following afternoon I joined her for lunch at Partridge’s beautiful house in Bond St, London, and marvelled at the exquisite furnishings. The cutlery, especially, caught my eye — it was silver, and so gorgeous that I couldn’t bring myself to bend it. I must be growing up.

Most dramatic of all were the mirrors... but don’t be tempted to hang one on your bathroom wall unless you’re a billionaire.The price of one mirror, from St Petersburg, was £550,000.

My table companions included the owner Mark Law; Countess Pinky Le Grelle, a marksman who was the first woman to shoot for Great Britain at the Olympic Games, in 1988; the interior designer Tatiana Rugova, and Lady Middleton. I also spent a long time chatting to Oscar Humphries (pictured), a young man who is perfecting his eye for artworks and antiques while he works there.

I asked Oscar if he was ever intimidated by the titles of his clients. “Hardly,” he said — ”my father’s a Dame.”

It turned out his father is Barry Humphries, alias Edna Everage.

I’ve written before about the dangers on my BlackBerry mobile phone and email handset, known to many users as a CrackBerry because it’s so addictive. I’m afraid my obsession with the device is now completely out of hand.

Hanna is threatening to buy me a full suit of body armour, because I’m a menace to myself and everyone around me as I stroll through London, peering at the screen and tapping away with my thumbs on the keyboard.

She’s particularly worried about my habit of walking out into the road without looking up. Anyone who wanted to assassinate me would have only to send me an email as I was about to cross Oxford S

Who is Uri Geller?

2007-06-01T10:44:00.000-07:00

Uri Geller is one of the world's most investigated and celebrated mystifier. Famous around the globe for his mind-bending abilities, he has led a unique life shrouded in debate, controversy and mystery. He is also related to Sigmund Freud.

He was studied by scientists who worked with Albert Einstein and the world's most prestigious scientific magazine, Nature, published a paper on Uri's work at the Stanford Research Institute in the U.S.A - a unique endorsement, and an irrefutable proof that his skills are genuine. His work with the FBI and the CIA has ranged from using Mind Power to erase KGB computer files and track serial killers, to attend nuclear disarmament negotiations to bombard and influence the Russian chief negotiator with positive thought waves so that they would sign the Nuclear Arms Reduction Treaty. Uri also spoke for a group of US Senators and National Security Executives in the high-security room in the Capitol Building in Washington. For decades this aspect of his career was too confidential and controversial to discuss.

Recently Uri has helped to negotiate an amicable agreement between the Palestine Red Crescent and Israel’s Magen David Adom: "Uri Geller did not just help break the ice with the skills that have made him famous - a considerable number of bent spoons line the road that led to this agreement," said Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey. "He has also played a pivotal role in helping everyone focus on the main objective and overcoming differences over secondary details at key junctures," she told the assembled dignitaries. Later on in Geneva he read a speech from the organization pledging to address Syria's humanitarian concerns to a 192-nation conference to approve a new Red Cross (Red Crystal) emblem that enabled Israel to join the movement after nearly six decades of exclusion.

Uri has lectured to the directors and CEOs of large multinational companies such as Henkel, The Prime Minister's Conference, Novartis, Mizuno, Sony, Rolls Royce, Hallmark and many more. He was also invited by PriceWaterhouseCoopers as a speaker to the 2004 World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, along with such dignitaries as Bill Clinton, Dick Cheney and Steve Forbes. In 2006 Uri lectured to the heads of Reuters in Jerusalem and also to the heads of Google Europe. In 2007 he motivated Balderton Capital at their Annual CEO Summit in London.

A vegetarian and fervent promoter of peace, Uri has used his intuitive notions to successfully detect oil and precious metals. This has provided him the freedom to help others. He is the motivational Mind Power coach to Premier League footballers, industrialists, Formula One drivers, boxers and racing cyclists, Uri cycles 15 miles daily on his exercise bike.

Uri Geller is mentioned in AT LEAST 1,250 DIFFERENT books.

Uri's artistic skills began during his early childhood. A ’pupil’ of Salvador Dali, whom he knew well, Uri's drawings, paintings and artworks have been exhibited in major galleries and museums in the U.S.A., Europe, Japan and Israel. His pottery, crystals, glass and natural rock crystal jewelry creations are in great demand worldwide. Uri’s drawings ARE featured on both Belinda Carlisle’s and Michael Jackson's latest albums. Uri Geller has designed the logo of the most successful boy band in the world ever N*SYNC.

He has also met great artists such as Andy Warhol, Picasso, Peter Max and John Lennon, whom he befriended.

Uri's tireless dedication to charitable work and humanitarian projects led to his appointment as the Honorary Vice-President of the Royal Hospital for Children in Bristol and of the Royal Berkshire Hospital, close to his Thames-side mansion. Uri is a patron of Climb For Tibet together with the Dalai Lama . On numerous occasions, he has given awards on behalf of His Royal Highness Prince Philip - The Duke of Edinburgh at Buckingham Palace and St. James Palace and lectured at the United Nations for international delegates. He is the father of a twenty-five year old daughter and a twenty-six year-old son, the owner of two dogs and the author of fifteen best-sellers, including the novels and Dead Cold, the latter having been listed as a contender for the Golden Dagger Award by The Times in the U.K.

His television series The Successor which premiered in Israel early 2007 to historical record breaking ratings will now be launched world-wide. Currently showing in the United States (live primetime) on NBC is the popular series Phenomenon together with artist Criss Angel following similar format (which Geller creates) for ProSieben in Germany January 2008 as well as in Holland, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Russia and Japan.

www.urigeller.com

Write to him at uri@urigeller.com