Apologizing for Uri Geller by Steven Novella

A recent New York Times article tries to rehabilitate the reputation of Uri Geller, famed spoon-bending magician, by simply telling a one-sided narrative. From my perspective as a skeptic, this was a terrible article that missed the real issue, glossed over glaring defects in Geller’s behavior, and essentially just apologized for fraud. I know my perspective is not always mainstream, at least when it comes to popular culture, but shouldn’t good journalism at least represent all sides fairly? This piece was the equivalent of covering a contentious political topic only from the perspective of one political party.

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But here is the controversy surrounding Geller – was he being unethical in terms of the degree to which he presented himself, not as a magician, but as a true psychic? It is pretty clear (in my opinion – don’t sue me, Geller), that Geller is nothing but a stage magician. He is using tricks that any skilled magician can do. As James Randi was fond of saying, if Geller is using real magic to achieve his results, then he’s doing it the hard way. Randi stated it this way, because Geller sued him for defamation (three times) when Randi said that Geller was using magic tricks.

Some may still consider that there is also a controversy over whether or not Geller has true power, but again, in my opinion there is no real question there. Everything Geller does is easily replicated by magicians, and Geller has not been able to perform any feats under conditions sufficiently controlled to prevent magic tricks. Geller famously bombed on The Tonight Show when Randi helped Johnny Carson set up some controls to prevent the techniques Randi suspected Geller was using. He has been caught in the act of cheating. Confederates of Geller’s tricks even confessed he was cheating.
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What David Segal, the author of the NYT article, misses is that Geller took this approach to a new extreme. He claimed, adamantly, that he was a true psychic, and he sued Randi just for saying that he was doing magic tricks. Geller was not being coy, not just putting the mystery or implication out there – he claimed psychic powers. This is why other magicians criticized him. Geller crossed over a line from magical entertainer to charlatan.

more...https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/apologizing-for-uri-geller/