Thursday, March 28, 2019

Uri Geller Versus Brexit

The spoons are gonna roll, people! That's the prediction of fully-debunked-but-still-claiming-psychic powers stage magician Uri Geller, whose original claim to fame was his purported ability to bend spoons with his mind. The trick isn't actually all that hard, which led to a high-profile debunking by none other than arch-skeptic James Randi himself. Geller is now threatening to use his (debunked) psychic powers to stop Brexit by means of telepathy, which he's totally going to do if the prime minister won't play ball. Theresa May, fear his spoony wrath!

In an open letter to the prime minister, the Israeli-British TV personality said he felt “psychically and very strongly” that most Britons were anti-Brexit and promised to stop the process telepathically. He wrote: “I feel psychically and very strongly that most British people do not want Brexit. I love you very much but I will not allow you to lead Britain into Brexit. As much as I admire you, I will stop you telepathically from doing this – and believe me I am capable of executing it. Before I take this drastic course of action, I appeal to you to stop the process immediately while you still have a chance.”

Geller, who is currently in Israel, used to live in Sonning, which lies in May’s Maidenhead constituency. In his letter, he said he had known the prime minister for 21 years and that she had visited his home. He added: “Three years before you became prime minister, I predicted your victory when I showed you Winston Churchill’s spoon on my Cadillac, which I asked you to touch.” He also claimed he is using the power of his mind to ensure that “Jeremy Corbyn never gets the keys to Number 10 Downing Street”. “I will ensure that they bend out of all proportion to ensure that he never takes up residence there,” he wrote.

To be fair, Randi is known to play as fast and loose with his debunking efforts as a lot of phony psychics do with their powers. So it's not entirely beyond the bounds of probability that Geller might have some psychic abilities, even if the spoon-bending thing is a stage magic trick. He's calling out what he's going to do ahead of time, so we can watch and see. If Brexit goes through and/or Jeremy Corbin becomes Prime Minister, those are just more failures to add to the list. On the other hand it's possible that he could succeed, so like a good scientist I will wait and see.

Note that I barely follow British politics and have no idea what's going to eventually happen. But Geller sticking his spoon into the mix is just plain hysterical.

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2 comments:

master bates said...

I also think that Uri has no clue about British politics. It'd be of more use if he used his so called powers to bring peace and resolution to the Palestine-Israeli conflict!

Scott Stenwick said...

Yeah, there are a lot of other things that he could use his powers on, assuming he can actually use his powers.

My thought is that there is a lot of political opposition to Brexit now, and if somebody pulls off some sort of unexpected solution that prevents it he can turn around and say "See! I did it!" That fits his MO over the years pretty well.