MAGIC MAN Who is Uri Geller? Spoon-bending psychic and television personality – all you need to know

He is famed for his apparent ability to bend spoons with his mind and had his psychic abilities investigated in the 1970s.

Israeli Uri Geller is a famous illusionist, magician and television personality who was outed as being a secret agent.

Recently Uri Geller claimed US spooks used his strange telepathic skills to force the Russians to sign a nuclear arms treaty during the Cold War.

The TV star also stated he has worked as an operative for the both the CIA and Israel’s feared Mossad agency.

He may have led a colourful life – but who is he?

Who is Uri Geller?

Uri Geller was born on December 20, 1946 in Tel Aviv, Israel.

He was born to Hungarian Itzhaak Geller, a retired army sergeant major, and Austrian Manzy Freud.

When he was 11, the family moved to Nicosia, Cyprus where he learned English as he attended high school at the Terra Santa College.

At the age of 18, he became part of the Israeli Army’s Paratroopers Brigade, where he was injured during the 1967 Six-Day War.

He then worked as a model during 1968 and 1969 and started to build a name for himself in Israel performing as an entertainer in nightclubs.

He branched out into being featured in universities, theatres, public halls and auditoriums and had become well-known in the US and Europe by the 1970s.

Uri drew interest from the scientific community, who were keen to investigate his reported psychic abilities.

During the peak of his career in the 1970s, he was featured on worldwide television shows, but has done a lot more besides.

Is Uri Geller psychic?

When he first began his early television appearances, Uri performed illusions including such as bending spoons and describing hidden drawings.

He claimed he had achieved this through telekinesis and his psychic tendencies, but critics have long been sceptical of his ‘powers.’

It recently emerged that US spooks became convinced of his abilities after performing experiments on him in 1973.

He said: “A lot of people think Uri Geller is a fraud, a lot of people think he is a trickster but at the same time he has a history of doing things that nobody can explain.”

Is Uri Geller a spy?

Uri claims to have worked as a “spy all over the world” — but refused to reveal if he has now retired.

He said: “I also cannot discuss if I’ve ever worked for the British government. 95 per cent of what I did will remain a secret.”

He previous spoke of how US spooks used his strange telepathic skills to force the Russians to sign a nuclear arms treaty during the Cold War.

He claims he was flown by the secretive organisation to Switzerland where he “bombarded” the mind of a top Russian official to make him sign the historic deal.

What is Uri Geller’s connection to the CIA?

Uri was subjected to a series of bizarre secret experiments that aimed to weaponise psychic abilities, CIA documents have revealed.

The Israeli was taken to Stanford Research Institute in the 1970s to have his psychic abilities investigated.

A newly released cache of CIA documents reveals UFO sightings and psychic experiments from the “Stargate programme”, which has long been of interest to conspiracy theorists.

The researchers concluded Uri “demonstrated his paranormal perceptual ability in a convincing and unambiguous manner”.

Speaking to the Mirror from his home in Israel, Geller said: “The release of these secret documents surprises me because I continued working for the CIA after those experiments and I am very surprised they allowed such information out.

In 2013, Uri Geller has lifted the lid on his secret past as a spy — and told how his spoon-bending antics were just a cover.

What has Uri Geller predicted?

The illusionist claims he bonded with Theresa May over spoon-bending and predicted she would get to No10.

Uri, 70, said Mrs May visited him when she was Home Secretary.

He told The Sun on Sunday: “I had taken her out to the garage of my old home to show her how I bent spoons.

“I happened to pull out one that once belonged to Winston Churchill. Then it struck me. I said, ‘Theresa, you will be the Prime Minister’.

“She laughed but I was right. I don’t know if it was intuition, psychic powers or telepathy. This was about two-and-a-half years before it happened.”

Is Uri Geller married?

Uri married his manager Shipi Shtrang’s sister, Hannah, in 1979.

The couple have two children together.

A news article in 1974 alleged that both his manager and her sister secretly helped in Geller’s performances and his abilities were false.

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