Before the Spoons Bent - Uri Geller part 1 of 3

Uri Geller didn’t just bend spoons—he bent an entire era around himself. In this first episode, we trace his rise from a young Israeli performer with a mysterious origin story to an international psychic celebrity whose claims of telepathy, metal‑bending, and mind‑power captivated a world hungry for the paranormal. Before the lawsuits, the intelligence agencies, and the corporate consulting gigs, there was simply a man, a spoon, and a public ready to believe.

Before Uri Geller became a household name, he was a young performer in Israel weaving together a potent mix of charisma, mystery, and just enough supernatural suggestion to ignite the public imagination. Episode 1 explores the early construction of the Geller mythos: the childhood stories that shifted over time, the first demonstrations of spoon‑bending and telepathy, and the cultural landscape of the late 1960s and early 1970s that made audiences unusually receptive to claims of psychic power.

We follow Geller as he moves from small local performances to international stages, attracting believers, skeptics, journalists, and eventually the attention of institutions that should have known better. This opening chapter sets the foundation for the stranger turns ahead—government interest, scientific testing, media battles, and the long, complicated shadow Geller would cast over the paranormal world. It’s the story of how a single performer became a global phenomenon, and how the world helped him do it.

Links:

SRI Research paper: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00787R000700110003-2.pdf

Uri Geller on Johnny Carson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD7OgAdCObs

Uri Geller's website: https://urigeller.com/