This is an accepted version of this page Uri Geller (/ˈʊəri ˈɡɛlər/ OOR-ee GHEL-ər;[1] Hebrew: אורי גלר; born 20 December 1946) is an Israeli-British illusionist, magician, television personality, and self-proclaimed psychic.

[3] At the age of 11 Geller moved with his family to Nicosia in what was then British-ruled Cyprus, where he attended high school, the Terra Santa College, and learned English.

[11] The work of magician and investigator James Randi was the main factor in revealing that Geller's actual methods were stage magic tricks.

[19]: 9'48"–10'10"  When Geller joined Carson on stage, he appeared surprised that he was not going to be interviewed, but instead was expected to display his abilities using the provided articles.

To an enthusiastically trusting public, his failure only made his gifts seem more real: If he were performing magic tricks, they would surely work every time.

[21]By the mid-1980s, Geller was described as "a millionaire several times over" and claimed to be performing mineral-dowsing services for mining groups at a standard fee of £1 million.

In early 2007, Geller hosted a reality show in Israel called The Successor (היורש), where the contestants supposedly displayed supernatural powers; Israeli magicians criticised the program, saying that it was all magic tricks.

[26] In July 2007, NBC signed Geller and Criss Angel for Phenomenon, to search for the next great mentalist; contestant Mike Super won the position.

[29] He also appeared on the Dutch television program De Nieuwe Uri Geller, which shares a similar TV format to its German counterpart.

Geller also performs his standard routines of making stopped watches start, spoons jump from televisions, and tables move.

The documentary claimed Geller became a "psychic spy" for the CIA, was recruited by Mossad, and worked as an "official secret agent" in Mexico, being a frequent guest of President José López Portillo.

Reading manager, Alan Pardew, dismissed Geller's role in the club's survival – which was achieved thanks to a draw in the critical match – stating "as soon as we get a bit of joy, thanks to all the hard work and efforts of my staff and players, he suddenly comes out of the blue and tries to claim the limelight.

"[44] In March 2019, The Guardian reported that Geller wrote an open letter to the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, stating that he would telepathically prevent her from leading Britain out of the European Union.

[46] Many scientists, magicians, and skeptics have suggested possible ways in which Geller could have tricked his audience by using misdirection while bending objects such as keys and spoons manually.

[50][51] In Geller's first autobiography, My Story, he acknowledged that, in his early career, his manager talked him into adding a magic trick to make his performances last longer.

[52] This trick involved Geller appearing to guess audience members' car registration numbers, when his manager had given them to him ahead of time.

Critics argue this may allow Geller to infer common shapes from pencil movement and sound, with the power of suggestion doing the rest.

[60][61][62] A study was commissioned by the United States Defense Intelligence Agency as part of the Stargate Project and conducted during August 1973 at Stanford Research Institute (now known as SRI International) by parapsychologists Harold E. Puthoff and Russell Targ.

[66][67] Critics of the experiments include psychologists David Marks and Richard Kammann, who published a description of how Geller could have cheated in an informal test of his so-called psychic powers in 1977.

[70] Marks and Kammann found evidence that while at SRI, Geller was allowed to peek through a hole in the laboratory wall separating him from the drawings he was being invited to reproduce.

These basic errors indicate the great importance of ensuring that psychologists, magicians, or other people with an in-depth knowledge of perception, who are trained in methods for blocking sensory cues, be present during the testing of psychics.

Later, Goldstein admitted that he went to the show specifically with the intention of suing to get his money back, and he had already found a lawyer to represent him prior to attending the performance.

[75] The story was also repeated in a Canadian newspaper, which quoted Randi as saying essentially the same thing: "One scientist, a metallurgist, wrote a paper backing Geller's claims that he could bend metal.

The court declared Randi's statement an "insult" as opposed to libel, and awarded a token judgement against him, paying Geller only "one-third of one-percent of what he'd demanded".

[79] In 1992, Geller filed a $15 million suit against Randi and CSICOP for statements made in an International Herald Tribune interview on 9 April 1991,[72][75] but he was unsuccessful because the statute of limitations had expired.

[78] As part of the settlement, Geller agreed not to pursue the payment of the 1990 Japanese ruling, in exchange for Prometheus Books inserting an errata on all future editions of Physics and Psychics, correcting erroneous statements made about him.

[86] In November 2000, Geller sued video game company Nintendo for £60 million over the Pokémon species "Yungerer", localized in English as "Kadabra", which he claimed was an unauthorized appropriation of his identity.

Geller also claimed that the star on Kadabra's forehead and the lightning patterns on its abdomen are symbolisms popular with the Waffen SS of Nazi Germany.

[89][90] In 2007, Geller issued a DMCA notice to YouTube to remove a video uploaded by Brian Sapient of the "Rational Response Squad" which was excerpted from an episode of the Nova television series titled "Secrets of the Psychics".

[99] In 2014, a 12-foot-tall statue of a gorilla made from approximately 40,000 metal spoons was unveiled in Geller's Berkshire garden by the Duke of Kent, with the intention of possibly relocating it to Great Ormond Street Hospital.