PAPER: The Independent (London)
DATE: November 3, 1996, Sunday
TITLE: The Hester Lacey interview: Uri Geller; He bent his first spoon aged four; now world leaders enlist his 'powers'. Who needs The 'X Files'?
BYLINE: Hester Lacey
SECTION: REAL LIVES; Page 2
LENGTH: 1821 words
The first thing to tuck into one's handbag when off to visit Uri Geller is obviously a spoon. Not just any old spoon, either, but a particularly sturdy specimen, one made from the toughest Sheffield steel, a spoon normally reserved for heavy-duty tasks like serving too- frozen ice-cream: a challenging spoon, a spoon that will stubbornly resist psychic attempts to rearrange its molecules. (But not one from the expensive wedding-present matching set, just in case.)
...
A special Geller-empowered crystal is the free gift on the cover of Encounters, "the world's most paranormal magazine", relaunched this month as Uri Geller's Encounters, with Uri gazing hypnotically from the cover with piercing brown eyes. To prepare for the launch, he spent 11 days in his garage, touching each crystal individually. "A crystal is an energy source, it can transmit and it can receive. I believe that when I hold it and I want to empower it, I will empower it," he says.
...
He speaks slowly and intensely, with an un-English intonation and accent, and exaggerated emphasis. Uri (it's actually pronounced Oori, rather than Yuri) was born in Israel, brought up in Tel Aviv and then in Cyprus. He first discovered his mystical talent when eating soup at the age of four; the spoon drooped, sending the broth into his lap. He has no idea why. "Maybe this does not come from me at all. Maybe this is something extra- terrestrial. Maybe it is a little alien baby run away from its parents and it's playing around with me," he says, completely straight-faced.
...
Light entertainment - spoon-bending and such-like - was his passport to international stardom; people still hand him cutlery wherever he goes. Does he get sick of it? "I can't regret something that made me famous." But why not channel his powers into something a bit more useful? In fact, he says, he is not short of practical projects. Earlier in the week he jetted to Germany at short notice to help the police in a kidnap case. Tomorrow he is going to address a seminar in Athens. "I do very powerful, positive things - negotiating, for example. Vice-President Al Gore, the American head of the foreign relations committee, invited me to the international nuclear treaty negotiations. My task was to bombard the Russians to sign the treaty."
He has helped the Americans out on other occasions too. "The CIA recruited me in Mexico. Because I'm adventurous like James Bond, it was fun being a spy for a while. Mexico City was the largest centre for espionage in Latin America. They used to put me on Air Mexico, in first class where the KGB agents sat with diplomatic pouches handcuffed to their arms. I had to erase the floppy discs they were carrying in the pouches, or get the information out of them."
...
Though not everything materially advantageous is disallowed. "I haven't been prevented from finding oil and gold and diamonds for major companies, so I still don't understand how come I'm allowed to go and locate precious minerals, but I cannot use these powers in a casino."
...
