A Teacher
Uri Geller
Mind over matter as public spectacle
The transmission
Uri Geller was born on 20 December 1946 in Tel Aviv. An Israeli-British performer, he became internationally famous in the 1970s for televised demonstrations of spoon bending, broken-watch restarting, and apparent telepathy and psychokinesis, which he presented as genuine psychic abilities.
At the height of his fame he was tested in 1972-73 by the physicists Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), whose cautiously worded reports were widely cited by proponents of psychic phenomena.
Geller’s claims have been extensively contested. The magician and investigator James Randi argued that Geller’s effects are ordinary conjuring achievable by sleight of hand, and detailed this case in The Magic of Uri Geller (later reissued as The Truth About Uri Geller).
In a celebrated 1973 appearance on The Tonight Show, with props prepared on Randi’s advice to prevent tampering, Geller was unable to produce his usual effects. Under tightly controlled conditions his demonstrations characteristically failed.
He is included here not as evidence for psychic power but as a major cultural figure whose career shaped public belief about “mind over matter,” and whose exposure became a defining episode for the modern skeptical movement.
He has at times described his performances ambiguously, and his significance is primarily memetic and cultural.
What they gave
Mass-media psychic icon: Made “mind over matter” a global popular idea through television, embedding spoon-bending in the cultural imagination.
- The SRI episode: His 1970s testing at Stanford Research Institute became a focal point in debates over the scientific status of psychic claims.
- Catalyst for skepticism: His exposure by James Randi helped galvanise the organised skeptical movement and modern standards for testing paranormal claims.
- Belief as the real phenomenon: Whatever the mechanism, his career demonstrates how public attention and expectation can sustain belief in extraordinary mental powers.
The line they stand in
Taught by / Influenced by: the stage-magic tradition, the 1970s wave of parapsychology, and the SRI researchers Targ and Puthoff who tested him.
- Taught / Influenced: the popular culture of psychic claims, and, as a foil, the modern skeptical movement that organised partly in response to him.