Chapter 7 / Fame and Friction

"I don't predict. Why don't you ask Uri Geller?'
Prime Minister Golda Meir, asked at a 1970 press conference about Israel future.

The Prime Minister, Golda Meir finally ensured Uri's elevation to stardom.
Asked by a radio journalist at a Jewish New Year's press conference a few weeks later to speculate on how the next year would work out for Israel, Meir probably delighted at the chance both to avoid giving an answer and to manage to sound clued-up, said, 'I don't predict.
Why don't you ask Uri Geller?' Geller responded later by saying that, in fact, he wasn't in the habit of predicting either.

Jean Bobo - Modern Coin Magic

Uri Geller on a new bent
By Marco R. della Cava
USA Today - November 18, 1999

Geller pulled me aside, gave me paper and asked me to draw something. "Keep it simple, please," he said, turning. I drew a house with a triangular roof and a door. He closed his eyes and told me to concentrate on the image. He started sketching.

A minute later he asked me if my drawing was complete. I said it was. He opened his eyes and frowned: "Well, I got an incomplete image."

He turned his paper around and looked at my drawing. His eyes lighted up, and he slammed the kitchen table with an open palm: "Yes!"

Geller drew a square house with a triangular roof but no door. "Ah," he said, "that's why mine was incomplete. You weren't thinking of the door."

"if you're asked to choose one of five objects, people always go for the second from the left"

Expert Card Technique: Close-up Table Magic by Jean Jugard and Frederick Braue 1944:

"invite the spectator to point to any card.
Altough he is given a free choice, he will point to the card second from his end of the row."

January?
"In a demonstration of telepathy, Uri draws five simple objects for us: a
bottle, a star, a chair, a pair of glasses, and an apple. He projects into our
minds the image which he has previously drawn and sealed in an envelope. Each of
us in the audience draws the image we "receive" from Uri. In the last minute of
the show, Uri reveals his drawing, which has been waiting ceremoniously inside a
clear plastic box on stage since the start of the show: a star. We all hold up
our drawings: about 75% of us, myself included, have drawn stars."
Jane Bernstein A Day With Uri Geller

February
Four of the five Zener symbols are displayed.
They are the circle, star, square and cross. Before the show Uri placed one of the symbols inside an envelope and
he intended to transmit this symbol to the Viewers.
It was the star.
Beyond Belief

4December
"MANY of you looked into Uri's eyes as part of our paranormal experiment a week
ago. One reader reported: "I felt his eyes were almost alive, real and looking
into mine with intense power." The image sent to our offices by Uri, and the one
he was trying to communicate to readers telepathically, was the star. Readers
responded with pictures including a desert island with palm trees, and a castle.
One reader connected, however, and sent in a star. It was signed only `Andy S'
York Gateway

1999
27th May
For Jane Yates of Coed y Bryn correctly guessed the shape telepathic artist Uri
Geller was drawing 250 miles away in the broadcasting studios of Atlantic 252 in
London. "The shape of a star came into my head, so I drew it and sent it off and
thought nothing more about it," she said.
Tivy-Side Advertiser A mindblowing prize

2001

July?
Uri is interviewed on the Lisa Chait show - Cape Talk radio, South Africa.
Host: You asked me to draw a picture. Which I've done
Uri: Oh yeah, wait, wait. Look first of all, we've got the drawings, which I
beamed my, my, you know my, the symbol I chose. Now you drew a picture and I'm,
you know we have just a few more minutes. I want you to focus on that picture,
and I'll try to see if I can receive it, I doubt it, because you know I am
tired, and it is thousands of miles away. But what I'm getting, is, it's really
what I'm getting is what I drew, I'm getting a square and a, like a triangle
protruding out of it on the top, and something circular on the left side. That's
all I've got. Am I very wrong?
Host: Medium.
Uri: Medium. All right, don't tell me what it was.
Uri also attempted to send a symbol to the listeners:
"I have drawn on a piece of paper, five symbols, now you people at home please
draw them. ... from left to right, a circle, a star, a cross, a triangle and a
square. ... I'm now focusing on one symbol, on one shape, and I'm now
transmitting it to all of you out there. So I'm now also repeating the name of
what I drew, in my mind. I'm going to say it five times."
The symbol Uri was sending was the star.
Uri Geller on the Lisa Chait show

2002

January
"Most Lynn News readers who took part in Uri's experiment in telepathy chose the
star symbol that he blasted across West Norfolk using the power of his mind. But
it was a close run thing, with the fish and the chair proving popular choices."
Uri's the star

25th March
"To coincide with his visit to Wrexham Science Festival, Uri has set up these
online experiments on our North East Wales web service to test your ESP. ...
Clear your mind and focus on Uri's hand-drawn shapes. Can you decide which one
he's "sending" to your mind?" [The choices were: circle , star, square, cross,
triangle.]
Results:
"People who took part in our fun ESP test with paranormal guru Uri Geller
correctly guessed what he was thinking - the shape of a star... Amazingly, 53%
of people correctly guessed the answer with 15% each for the square and
triangle."
Revealed: Uri's ESP test findings

Peled got Geller to come round to his busy ground floor
office close to the town hall within two hours. 'Uri was
wearing a short-sleeved shirt - it was summer - and the
first thing he asked was whether I knew what I had in my
briefcase. I did, of course, and he wrote on piece of
paper a complete list of everything, in detail.
It included some medicines, some pictures of my family,
bills, the exact number of keys.
He knew everything.
I couldn't believe it.

Gideon Peleg and Dov Yarom

"He once said that he could make people stumble and fall when they are walking, but he wouldn't do it because he is not that kind of person. I think"

Dov Yarom

"He looked out of the window and said he can decide whether someone will fall in the street, although he didn't do it for me."

It is practically impossible to establish nearly thirty years after the event the exact timings involved, but the Isreali papers over the next few days were full of the story of Uri Geller predicting the death of Nasser twenty mintues, as they seem to have agreed, before it was announced in Cairo.

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