Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante, Had a bad cold, nevenbeles@... -TS. Eliot, The Waste Land Closin psychic,gap F Ak the Byftues coa LAIRVOYANT, TELEPATHIST, PSY- chokineticist, Uri Geller has a C bad cold himself and warns you not to come too close. He's a tall, lean man, handsome in the manner of an El Greco grandee or one of those male models he once was, with dark wavy hair, gentle brown eyes and a hawk nose. An Israeli by birth, Geller has been perfecting his psychic powers since he first bent a soup spoon at age 4 and told his mother he didn't know his own psychic strength. These days, at 37, on the theater and television cir- cuits, he does a lot more. He can bend keys and nails as well as spoons, he can perceive and transmit images and, when he puts his mind to it, he claims he can even erase computer tapes. Which, ff so, makes Geller's talents fit for a bit more than parlor games. In fact, the really big opportunity these days is in business. "Big businesses," he says, 'fare beginning to listen to people who think they can deliver some- thing with their sixth senses." Consider the possibilities, What if some enterprising out- sider were to hire a psy- chic to abscond with the secrets of IBM's new 1,000K RAM chip? Or if a Boone Pickens had the ability to compel a Gulf or a Cities Service to bow to the terms of his latest merger offer? What if he knows what the stock market or the gold market or the bond market will do next week, next month, or next year? Don't laugh. Don't turn the page too quick- ly. This may be a lot of nonsense. On the other hand, President Carter was reported to have been worried enough about the possibilities of psychic warfare to order an investigation of Rus- sian psychic research ac- tivities some years ago. The CIA is said to have spent $6 million on it. Even Congress asked the Daryl Pin Congressional Research MP96-00787ROO020008"lko look into the ieyear ago. @"/fosrft Approved For Release 2001/03/26 CIA-RD Geller likes to talk about A psychic gap, as in missile gap. He believes the Russians may be marshaling cadres of people like himself with the capacity for working high-powered intercon- tinental mischief-erasing computer tapes at a 1 0,000-mile remove, for ex- ample. "if that happens," Geller says, "the American system is finished, it'd crumple, because everything is on computers: automatic missiles, code systems. I mean everything." And when you in effect say to him, ,,if you're so smart, how come you're not rich?" Geller responds calmly, in that soft Israeli accent of his, that he is, very rich. "I'm not in the hundreds of millions' but I am very happy with what I have. I don't need any more. For what you need to live a good life, there is no difference between $15 million and $100 million." When he was poor, and younger, Somebody once asked Grolda Neir what she saw for thefuture of Israel, and she said, "Don't ask me, ask uri Geller." That may have been a Joket but Edgar mitchell and John Tishman weren'tJoking when they persuaded Geller to come to the U.S. Geller found himself admiring the way the very rich lived 6nd decided that one day he was going to make a lot of money himself. And those pow- ers of his paved the way. He made more than 800 appearances in Israel demonstrating his powers. For the past decade he has been going around the world bending spoons, nails and the like and generally stirring aston- ishment, conviction and disbelief wherever he goes. Somebody once asked Golda Meier what she saw for the futu're of Israel, and she said, "Don't ask me, ask Uri Geller." That may have been a joke, but astronaut Edgar Mitchell and John Tishman, chairman of Tishman Real- ty & Construction CO., weren't joking a decade ago when they persuaded Geller to come to the U.S., where Stanford Research Institute gave him a going over. "They wanted me to do strange things like transmission of thoughts, remote viewing, erasing computer tapes, which I can do." But it was Val Duncan, the late chairman of Britain's Rio Tinto Zinc Corp., that made him see the possi- bilities business could offer. Duncan tested Geller's ability to find miner- 'L.Dn ;6V6ed d I nu him in 'APP M83rWerr6atse 20 91 FORBES, MAY 21,1984 Approved For Release touch with the chairman of South Africa's Anglo-Transvaal mining company. The chairman spread out a map and said, "Tell me what you feel." Geller said, I feel something here," and years later, Geller says, the company found coal on the spot. "That's when I learned I could do this for very big companies and prof- it myself also. For seven years I have been doing this, and nobody knows anything about it." Several oil companies, for example, hired him to do some exploration. Acting as a sort of airborne divining rod, Geller targeted I I prospects, 4 of which, he says, proved out. Geller doesn't charge fees, he explains. He relies on people to pay what his ser- vice is worth, in this case a percentage royalty. "It's a very little percentage," he says, "but in oil a little is a lot." Which companies he has worked for Geller won't say. "They do not want their name to be linked t6the psychic, to the paranormal." His only really public venture to date is his success in bringing together Japan's Aoki Corp. and the U.S.' Tishman Realty in a $500 million hotel, condo- minium, shopping development near Disney World in Florida. Both John Aoki and John Tishman were person- al friends, but Geller claims to be more than a mere go-between. "My role is, I predict the success of the venture." That's where the power walion IPORBF,S, MAY 21,198 Appr For Release 2001/03/26 CIA-RDP96-00787ROO0200080020-2 93 P@)@ic Geller A secret Fellini or Yves St. Laurent. Approved For Release 2001/03/26 CIA-RDP96-00787ROO0200080020-2 lies, in being able to predict the future success. Geller has a number of business ventures of his own on the fire. Among them: a chain of Uri Geller fast health-food restaurants in part- nership with Aoki; a movie to be di- rected by Federico Fellini based on his own life story ("A $ 100 million gross- er, because I know how to do it the right war); a line of gold costume jewelry with the Geller bent nail mo- tif, perhaps a perfume, in partnership with H. Stem of Brazil. Listening to him talk, it's difficult sometimes to see wherein he differs from any other marriage broker, mov- iemaker, fashion designer or what have you, who has a sense of what the public will want. Geller puts it differ- ently. He thinks these people arc suc- cessful in what they do because they have some of what he possesses. "Fel- There are all kinds of wa a of organizing reality, ang there's no reason ESP should not sometimes be as qffective as econometric models or sunspots, Starst long waves, entrails or theffights of birds in Predicting the shaPe Of things to come. lini and St. Laurent and Pierre Cardin, they all have the power. I made it very, very secretively, without any- one knowing, and I think I am ready to come out and have my name known. I would like to create health- food restaurants, art pieces. I think we all have this power, and some day it's going to be explained." And why not? There are all kinds of ways of organizing reality, and even the most unlikely often work with varying degrees of success in particu- lar times or situations. There is no reason that ESP should not some- times be at least as effective as econo- metric models or sunspots, stars, long waves, entrails or the flights of birds in predicting the shape of things to come. Geller likes to maintain his ambi- guity, half charlatan, half seer, all showman. "No one really knows if I am real or not," he says. But having been shot once in an assassination attempt-he shows you the scars--he tells you confidentially that if people ever really believed he had the power he claims, he'd have been dead by now. "Whoever has people with such powers," he says, "has an incredible weapon. Incredible weapon." M Cma(ra FOA 95 PWWd9'For Release 2001/03/26 CIA-RDP96-00787ROO0200080020-2 canams Ma& Leaf UiME IS NO SLMSMUM FOR PLWW. Call 800-331-1750 for the Maple Leaf Dealer nearest you. in Oklahoma call 800-722-3600.