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urigellerinfo.com

Spoon-bending and "mind reading" are pretty easy-to-learn and easy-to-perform parlour tricks - I learnt how to bend spoons in less than a minute thanks to Randi. Suppose I do have to thank Geller for bringing simple parlour magic to the masses after all.
 
tuxcat said:
Spoon-bending and "mind reading" are pretty easy-to-learn and easy-to-perform parlour tricks - I learnt how to bend spoons in less than a minute thanks to Randi. Suppose I do have to thank Geller for bringing simple parlour magic to the masses after all.
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But you have to give Geller credit for being the first to make millions from it. And no matter how many skeptics try to expose him, he's still had a lifetime of wealth and fame, and can still laugh all the way to the bank.
 
Reno said:
But you have to give Geller credit for being the first to make millions from it. And no matter how many skeptics try to expose him, he's still had a lifetime of wealth and fame, and can still laugh all the way to the bank.
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Never mind millions, he's got a car covered all over in bent cutlery :boggled:
 
Reno said:
But you have to give Geller credit for being the first to make millions from it. And no matter how many skeptics try to expose him, he's still had a lifetime of wealth and fame, and can still laugh all the way to the bank.
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Yes, and at least a few magicians and mentalist whom I hold in high regard hold Uri in high regard, some counting him as a close friend.

I give him credit for basically creating a genre and being a formidable performer.
 
Garrette said:
Yes, and at least a few magicians and mentalist whom I hold in high regard hold Uri in high regard, some counting him as a close friend.

I give him credit for basically creating a genre and being a formidable performer.
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Surely someone in the depths of the past must have invented "doing slight of hand and pretending it was magic"? :boggled:
 
Garrette said:
Yes, and at least a few magicians and mentalist whom I hold in high regard hold Uri in high regard, some counting him as a close friend.

I give him credit for basically creating a genre and being a formidable performer.
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Really?

I have ever been under the impression that he was a bit of a hack and was not held in any regard by any half-decent conjurer, magician or mentalist.
He's certainly been caught out often enough in extremely clumsy (lack of) sleight of hand attempts that I think very little of his prowess.

I've never been impressed with any performances of his that I've seen (none live, I will admit).
 
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When I was in college I completely stole his routines and because I often performed for the same audience I had multiple spoon, key, and nail bending methods. Some methods took more practice than others. Some methods required me poking around silverware drawers when no one was looking but I never regretted the time I put in because it was always well received and because I also did straight magic at the same parties the vast majority of my audience considered the bending and mentalism stuff to just be an extension of the magic. Occasionally participants spoke to me later and told me a story about how they always knew they had the ability/knew such things were possible; I always told the truth and said everything I did was a trick and everything I did was using the exact or similar method to Uri.
 
Senex said:
When I was in college I completely stole his routines and because I often performed for the same audience I had multiple spoon, key, and nail bending methods. Some methods took more practice than others. Some methods required me poking around silverware drawers when no one was looking but I never regretted the time I put in because it was always well received and because I also did straight magic at the same parties the vast majority of my audience considered the bending and mentalism stuff to just be an extension of the magic. Occasionally participants spoke to me later and told me a story about how they always knew they had the ability/knew such things were possible; I always told the truth and said everything I did was a trick and everything I did was using the exact or similar method to Uri.
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I know some tricks to baffle 3 year olds, but that's about it. I've tried the spoon bending but I just can't make it convincing.

Ever get any hostile reaction to telling people it was all a trick?
 
There are always people willing to believe, even in the face of evidence against. I read Blackstone's biography of Houdini, and he said that people refused to believe that Houdini accomplished his escapes by thoroughly-explainable trickery... He must have been using teleportation or some other mental powers.

Even after his death and his formidable collection of lockpicks and "gaffed" restraints was made public.
 
Spindrift said:
Ever get any hostile reaction to telling people it was all a trick?
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Never hostility but disbelief I was telling the entire truth no matter how sincere I was because I wouldn't give away the trick. Usually it was 18-19 year old girls who felt they were in touch with some sort of woo even before the performance. I used suggestion/hypnosis and some/most people truly felt heat/throbbing in their hand when the key was being bent. For some reason I usually used a pretty young woman to discover the bend and I told them it was their thoughts that made it happen. I didn't make the truth known to the crowd it was just a trick but only to people who would ask me about it later who I felt were sincere about believing the woo that I later said it was just a trick to. To answer what I think your question may also be asking is no, I don't think I changed any woo believer's minds even though they believed me to be a woo until I admitted to not being one.
 
Senex said:
When I was in college I completely stole his routines and because I often performed for the same audience I had multiple spoon, key, and nail bending methods. Some methods took more practice than others. Some methods required me poking around silverware drawers when no one was looking but I never regretted the time I put in because it was always well received and because I also did straight magic at the same parties the vast majority of my audience considered the bending and mentalism stuff to just be an extension of the magic. Occasionally participants spoke to me later and told me a story about how they always knew they had the ability/knew such things were possible; I always told the truth and said everything I did was a trick and everything I did was using the exact or similar method to Uri.
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I've report this on the Forum before but here seems a good place to repeat it. Randi was on TV here in Canada a few years ago and bent a key for the host of the show. They sat at opposite sides of a small table with one of the sides facing the camera. We, the TV audience, saw when Randi waved one hand in one (mis-)direction and surreptitiously bend the key in the corner of the table leg with his other hand. The host did not see this and was demonstrably amazed and mystified when Randi did the reveal.

I remember thinking at the time that I hoped someone in the studio later told the host what had happened. :cool:
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
I've report this on the Forum before but here seems a good place to repeat it. Randi was on TV here in Canada a few years ago and bent a key for the host of the show. They sat at opposite sides of a small table with one of the sides facing the camera. We, the TV audience, saw when Randi waved one hand in one (mis-)direction and surreptitiously bend the key in the corner of the table leg with his other hand. The host did not see this and was demonstrably amazed and mystified when Randi did the reveal.

I remember thinking at the time that I hoped someone in the studio later told the host what had happened. :cool:
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My preferred method of key bending was using another key to give me the necessary leverage against the soon to be bent key. I could do while passing keys from someone on my right side to the person on my left side.

Bending stuff in a manner that fools a room full of people isn't as easy as many people reading this think. People stare at your hands and distracting everyone at the same time isn't easy. I sometimes used expensive and time consuming to learn gizmos to do bending properly. I also occasionally "arranged" for a distraction to happen.

I did it right.
 
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