There’s a difference between criticizing someone’s act and criticizing their public stance.
We’re not offering a critique on his act. Apparently, his act is pretty damn good, or at least, it was.
We’re criticizing his claim that he has psychic powers, when in fact he uses magicians’ tricks. One does not have to see his act to see his claims (which we can find on his own website) or read what he has written,
The only possible defense would be to say that he simply remains “in character”, but IMHO that’s pretty thin. Oh, wait: the other defense would be to prove that he actually does have psychic powers, but he’s failed at that.
If I persuade you to give me money so that I can buy a boat, then you give me the money and I do, indeed, buy a boat, then that is not fraud.
If you give me money because I’ve persuaded you that I’m going to use it to fight hunger in Africa, and then I instead use it to buy a boat, then that is fraud.
See the difference?
If Geller works to persuade people that he is using psychic powers to do the tricks, then that is fraud. We have seen ample evidence in this thread that Geller does indeed make these claims, and I have not seen any quote where Geller admits that he doesn’t. Further, I also think that no one participating in this thread thinks he is doing the tricks with actual psychic powers.
Given that, I don’t see any wiggle room: Geller is a fraud. Ample evidence presented, none at all that would refute the idea. He’s a fraud.
Technically the fraudster needs to know they’re lying. I think there are some claimed psychics that are just deluded, and thus not legally defrauding their clients.
But in any case, that’s obviously not the situation with Geller. He’s put a lot of work into his slight-of-hand tricks that he then presents as real, that can’t really be any defence he thinks he’s the real thing.
The only point I was making at the time was that if you’re going to attribute a quote to someone, it’s a good idea to attribute it correctly. I would have thought this was a relevant point to make on the SDMB. I still think it’s helpful to preserve the distinction between what Uri says about Uri and what other people say about Uri. If you think it doesn’t matter, or if it all amounts to the same thing, well, we have a difference of opinion, which is fine by me and certainly isn’t the end of the world. But I don’t see why you feel the need to allege or suggest a lack of good faith.
You can find it odd if you want to. That comes down to you and your opinion. I don’t think it’s odd at all. If people are making points about either Randi or Geller, and I have relevant information to share, I think it’s relevant to mention that I’ve been friends with both of them personally for many years.
I think we may be straying into ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ territory here. If I had not admitted that I know Uri personally and have been friends with him for years, and someone had then unearthed the fact (I am mentioned once or twice on his website), maybe you would have snarled and me and wondered out loud why I didn’t disclose this information and come clean about my friendship with the guy. I feel fairly sure you could have shaped into some sort of suspicion of acting in bad faith. Sometimes, these things are in the eye of the beholder.
Here’s the point I was trying to make, obviously unsuccessfully. If you look at something Geller has done and want to discuss whether he did it using psychic powers or not, that’s one discussion we can have. However, I think it’s unhelpful and a bad idea to introduce the word ‘fraud’ because it is a legal term and it could get someone, somewhere into legal hot water. I’m not just making this up. I’m basing it on legal advice I received some years ago, after I’d received a letter from Uri Geller’s lawyers threatening to take legal action against me concerning a magazine article.
It’s also unnecessary. You can have a long, detailed chat about whether something is evidence of psychic powers or more likely to be accomplished some other way without ever once mentioning the word ‘fraud’. And that’s what I tend to do.
I don’t know if the fact that I’m based in the UK makes a difference - is the word ‘fraud’ used differently in other countries? I don’t know. Also, although I signed up to the SDMB using the name ‘ianzin’, I’ve never made any secret of my real name and it’s really easy to find out. So, no, I’m not going to make a statement about any named individual accusing them of ‘fraud’, given that this is, AFAIK, legally actionable.
Do I think Uri Geller has psychic powers? I don’t know. I wasn’t present at each and every one of his supposed demonstrations. In my personal opinion, it’s unlikely, given the state of psi research since the 70s, and I myself haven’t seen or witnessed anything that makes me think the psychic hypothesis is necessary. But I know lots of people would disagree with me, and I don’t have a problem with that. Maybe I could listen to them and learn a thing a two. I’m not dead yet and I haven’t stopped listening and learning.
OK, but as many people have pointed out, Geller does in fact claim to have real magical powers (see my post #136 for one of the many examples in the thread). And not just in the context of his performances, on his website he says he has the power to douse for ley-lines, valuable minerals, etc. etc. People were quoting him correctly.
No one is going to sue the SDMB over this thread. Public figures (and not public figures) get called fraud and much worse here every day. If it was actionable, the Board would’ve been sued out of existence on day one. (also, its your business, but I’d think a past threat of legal action would kinda put a dent in any friendship you have with Uri).
OK, but some people are frauds. At some point it becomes kinda silly to tiptoe around the word. It doesn’t have the legal ramifications you seem to think it does, and its useful to distinguish between people that are merely wrong vs people that are actively seeking to mislead.
As has been said here many times, anybody can get sued for anything. Lawyers write letters every day threatening dire consequences and depend on the reluctance of people to even enter the legal arena because the costs are so high. Any lawyer in his or her right mind would tell you to avoid getting into such a situation.
That being said, Uri Geller is a fraud. Fraud, fraud, fraud. A fraud among frauds. He is such an embarrassment to magicians and the field of magic that has a long history of combating fraudulent psychics that I along with everyone else here remain gobsmacked that you would spend a single electron to defend him.
And you damn well know what the meaning of fraud is. A fraud is someone who does magic tricks without the acknowledgement that he is a magician.
That being said, Ianzin is less anonymous than most of us, and he’s apparently been threatened by Geller’s attorneys in the past. Given Geller’s litigiousness, I can understand his reluctance to state publicly that Geller’s a fraud.
I don’t understand his defense of Geller, but I suppose that’s his business.
It is a matter of good faith. The question is whether Geller claims to have psychic powers.
(A) Stating “I have psychic powers” is a claim to having psychic powers.
(B) Putting a statement on your own website from John Doe stating “Geller has psychic powers” is also a claim to having psychic powers (unless of course, he himself adds something like “It’s nice of John Doe to say so, but I don’t really have psychic powers.”
Let’s just put this on the table, which is something that seems to be very difficult to get you to do. Do you agree with (B) or not? I’ll tell you why I am asking. Because if you don’t agree with (B), then your credibility is in question. If you don’t agree with (B), you have what I’ll gently call an unconventional view of truth, one that you will find is not look on kindly here.
You could simply have added as a disclaimer that you are friends with Geller and Randi. Instead, you couched it within your posts in such a way as if it should add to the credibility of your statements – at least, that’s what it looked like to me.
I don’t believe that this is true.
Then you should have stated so in the first place. “I am not willing to express an opinion regarding whether Geller is a fraud because he has threatened legal action against me in the past based on something I had said publicly.”
I know that the defamation laws in England and Wales are kind of crazy, so I’m willing to believe that you, being English, might have a legitimate concern. But I think you should be up front with that, rather than making generalized statements about what the board in general should or should not be saying with respect to fraud. Just say it – “As a British citizen and as someone who has had dealings with Geller, I fear putting myself in jeopardy of legal action if I address that issue.”
That’s just peachy. But the issue of whether X is evidence of psychic powers is a separate question from whether Geller is a fraud. And both questions are ones that are legitimate topics of discussion.
The legal definition of “fraud” in most U.S. states is very similar to the definition I used above. But a legal charge of “fraud” by the state is not the sole legitimate use of the word “fraud.” We, as individuals, may legitimately discuss whether we believe that a public figure is a fraud, regardless of whether the state has ever expressed any such opinion.
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I don’t know. Also, although I signed up to the SDMB using the name ‘ianzin’, I’ve never made any secret of my real name and it’s really easy to find out. So, no, I’m not going to make a statement about any named individual accusing them of ‘fraud’, given that this is, AFAIK, legally actionable.
Yes, you could learn a thing or two about committing fraud. IMHO.
A fraud takes money from companies knowing that he cannot deliver what he has promised.
A fraud makes false claims about helping police departments.
A fraud lies about working with the government.
A fraud presents lawsuits instead of evidence.
I don’t disagree with that (though it seems a weird friendship where you have to worry about the other guy suing you all the time), but Ian seemed to believe TPTB would prefer the Board in general didn’t use the word. This is obviously not the case. Ian can of course use it or not as he sees fit.
In anycase, “Uri isn’t a fraud because he’ll sue me if I say he is” seems kind of a weak defence of Uri. Sort of like when POWs are forced by their captors to make videos telling their home-countries how well they’re being treated.
But you’ve certainly seem some of his acts where he claims to have psychic powers. From your post I assume that you’ve concluded that for the demonstrations you’ve seen, those tricks were in fact just slight-of-hand, not real magical powers. You say you weren’t there at every one of his demonstrations, but what are the odds that he uses slight of hand when your watching, but real psychic powers when you aren’t? You say its “unlikely”, but I think that gives it too much credit.
In any case, suppose that your personal opinion is correct, and that psychic powers don’t exist. What does that mean regarding Uri?
Good heavens, Peter Duffie is one of the entries? That take me back. I wonder if he still claims that Randi put a wart on Geller’s nose on a book cover.
Earlier in the thread (or perhaps in one of the videos or links) Geller was alleged to claim he received Mexican citizenship. Can this be confirmed? Does or did he have Mexican citizenship?
Nearly ten minutes of a magic video doesn’t erase Geller’s fraudulent past so it’s not going to change my opinion of him. You claimed Geller is a magician. Ten seconds into the video recommendation, Geller stated he is not a magician, never has been. So basically you give me your loaded gun, and told me to shoot you with it. I don’t know what point you’re trying to make by having someone watch this crazy thing, and you haven’t been forthcoming with it. It seems like you got more time to waste than I.
I did scan through to the end, and sure enough, it’s the same ole Geller doing the same damn psychic shtick. I don’t care if he added to his repertoire with some other trick he seems to be doing in the middle, how does that change things? You think I give a deuce that he on rare occasion does other magic? Or did you find the act so clever, it just kept you at the edge of your chair, and you just had to share it with others. Spare me in the future of what you think I like for entertainment.
Also unlikely considering how well established conservation laws are. Those same conservation laws are the reason the US Patent Office doesn’t take perpetual claims seriously. They can also be applied to psychic phenomenon. Any strict adherence to such laws and the way they are understood make psychic phenomena impossible. Einstein didn’t believe in psychics for that reason, and how it also was applied to the inverse square law. For psychics to be legit, there has to be an energy source. Transmission of information through space such as telepathy requires energy going from one mind to another. All psychic phenomena are violations of conservation of energy in various forms.
That doesn’t help his case at all, go to his cite. Some of it is written by him, and other parts are others writing some glowing accounts of him, which surely if the cite is his, he has to approve of it. Do you want me to quote from there? If he wants to say he is not a magician while performing, fine, but what about when he isn’t? Or is he on 24/7/365, and he can use deceit any way he sees fit to bilk others out of their money, and I don’t think we’ve heard any disproval from you thus far, have we?
While you seem like a nice of enough guy to me, and seem to be respectful and all, this is why I kind of feel uncomfortable about you, is that pretty much everything mentioned about Geller thus far, has been you and PM coming to his defense, saying well, he is a magician, he’s been awarded such and such; he’s a really nice guy; other magicians respect him; other magicians do this; and you add he is a friend of yours. A friend that threatened to sue you, so is that why you’re so skittish to say anything about him in a negative way?
I realize everything Geller says about himself and other things he has on his cite has to be taken with a grain of salt, but if you want us to go by what is said there, he has taken millions from investors by using his psychic abilities and dowsing to look for minerals just from that alone. I’m sure he exaggerates, many of these places remain unnamed, and details are sketchy, and getting outside corroboration on just about the majority of it is difficult. But why is he building up his reputation to be able to do this unless it is to get his hooks into another big investor or use his supposed psychic powers for other ventures as well?
Randi, Penn & Teller, the late Houdini, and many, many others realize there is a time to be on, and a time to be off, and most importantly have the ethics not to swindle or use their talents and skills in such a way to defraud others, and will also go to great lengths to expose others for the fraud and con-artists they are. So why is it with you, which I assume you’re familiar with such things, it’s basically just a shrug of the shoulders with you?
Which ironically enough, given his personal knowledge of the topic and people involved, makes his contributions to the discussion no more informative than anyone else’s, and, arguably, less informative. I mean, what do his assertions amount to?
I know Geller and he’s a nice guy and a lot of people like him.
I know Randi and his book about Geller was his finest moment and I told him that personally.
I’ve never seen Geller demonstrate genuine psychic powers, but who knows?
Some of the statements about Geller’s supposed paranormal powers are by people other than he himself (ignoring citations to his own direct claims).
1 and 2 are substanceless and 3 and 4 could have been said by anyone.
And now having been tipped to that 2004 thread on which he claimed that linking to a website explaining a trick was done kind of intellectual property violation makes me suspect his motives entirely on these kinds of topics – that he’s really only interested in toeing some kind of thin blue magic wand. James Randi has always said upfront that he’s a trickster. Penn and Teller never claim any paranormal powers and they and Houdini expended significant effort in denouncing or exposing frauds. They don’t seem to feel the need to toe that line.
Are we talking about that video in which Geller does a “time machine” trick for a TV show? I watched the whole thing. What about it so profoundly enlightening?