This is about a show from the first German season of “The Next Uri Geller” from early 2008. You can also:
» Show all my reports from the first season.
» Show everything about the second season 2009.
» Show really all articles about Uri Geller.

General reading tips (German): GWUP info page; and the blog with explanations and discussion already during the shows: The contestants’ tricks, explained in an easy way. English: CSI (ex-CSICOP).

(Note: If anyone knows good English sites, please let me know.)

Introductory remarks

• Uri Geller was guest in last week’s Schmidt & Pocher – reports (German), among others, at Welt and RP. Oliver Pocher as “Morta Deller” poked quite some fun at the “mystic” magic tricks, and while Geller played along – e.g. with the typical overly enthusiastic summary –, according to his facial expression, he seemed anything but enthused… Well, main thing is to be present and talked about, he knows from years ago that even bad PR is good PR.
   
  The entire performance can be seen here on YouTube. And here’s the end credits which some see as Geller going ballistic.
• gedingst.de interviewed Nicolai Friedrich (German).
• The Dodo of the Month January 2008, award for brainwashing of the people, went to ProSieben for “The Next Uri Geller”.
• And again, I’d like to mention my article titled “Magic?” with some arguments and thoughs on magic, paranormal abilities, rational explanations and dangers of too uncritical thinkung…

As always, in general: These are all tricks, no supernatural powers! And we’ll see how good and entertaining today’s tricks are… today, all six who are left in this mentalist race perform, and thus the show is planned to last two and a half hour (including commercials).

The show starts with a warning board:

Translated: WARNING! Several live experiments of the following show are LIFE THREATENING! Only professional mentalists can execute these experiments.
NEVER TRY THIS AT HOME!

Life threat or no – calling the magic tricks “experiments” is ridiculous, though unfortunately fits in the scheme ProSieben and Geller are using in this show.

Loki and Helmut Schmidt had been reported smoking this week (no wonder) – and they have reserved two seats for them, with Geller promising that if they come, he’d guarantee to make them stop smoking. Uri raves about the many “normal” people that thanked him for their smokelessness.

The most frequently asked question is passed along: “Uri Geller, do you have supernatural powers?” – Answer: “Stephan, of course I have no supernatural powers”, plus an extreme wink in his eye. Meh. “Solved once and for all”? As if! Better had done without that rubbish.

Celebrity guests: Actress Michaela May, presenter Mareile Höppner – voted “most erotic news woman in Germany” in a poll – and dancer and Popstars juror Detlef D! Soost.

And I hope I never need the help of the three chief physicians who attend the show to pretend credibility – called “the incorruptibles” by ProSieben. Ha! If the invitation to appear on TV and sit almost in the front is no bribe, then what is?

New: After each performance, the viewers can vote (for 2 minutes).

Contestant 1: David Goldrake

Continue Reading »

This is about a show from the first German season of “The Next Uri Geller” from early 2008. You can also:
» Show all my reports from the first season.
» Show everything about the second season 2009.
» Show really all articles about Uri Geller.

General reading tips (German): GWUP info page, GWUP special site.

Introductory remarks

• A few days ago, I wrote in this post titled “Magic?” about some thoughts and issues about magic, tricks, mentalists, paranormal abilities, rational explanations as well as dangers of too uncritical thinking, based on the report of a mentalist show attendant.
• A green smilie will be Uri Geller’s successor!
• T-shirts with “Achad Shtaim Shalosh” are available in the ProSieben collection. And if you look at the large capital letters above each other – well, according to the new German orthography, “ASS” is indeed how to write the German word for “ace”, but…

The fourth show from 29 Jan 2008

As always, in general: These are all tricks, no supernatural powers! And we’ll see how good and entertaining today’s tricks are… today, the four “survivors” of the 2nd show performed again.

The smokers’ willpower is to be incited – Geller’s energy and the energy of all viewers is supposed to help. Especially children and adolescents shall help – “more later”. And Verena Wriedt in the telephone central is again happy about her big the big feedback with a few questionable cellphone videos of which Uri thinks they’re real.

Celebrities today: “The most successful female boxer of all times”, Regina Halmich, “Monrose” singer Senna Guemmour and ProSieben presenter Oli Unknown. Erm, unknown to me, I neither understood what he said nor do I want to rewind again. Ah, “Stars on Ice” host. So *google* Oliver Petszokat = Oli P. And three state attorneys from Cologne are lowering theit respectability on the second couch.

Contestant 1: Alexander Hartmann

Continue Reading »

This is about a show from the first German season of “The Next Uri Geller” from early 2008. You can also:
» Show all my reports from the first season.
» Show everything about the second season 2009.
» Show really all articles about Uri Geller.

General reading tips (German): GWUP info page, GWUP special site.

Intoductory remarks

First, a little poem of mine:

so you say that – achad! –
real powers he got?
 
these “powers” are – shtaim! –
not worth a mere dime
 
is it mystic? – shalosh! –
no way, golly gosh!
 

achad, shtaim, shalosh: Hebrew for 1, 2, 3

And a perfectly matching current cartoon by xkcd:

(via BA)

The show from 22 Jan 2008

General reading tips (German): GWUP info page, GWUP special site.

The contestants’ contracts

Skeptiker (GWUP) and Stern report about the contracts – among other things, the contestants would originally have had to sign that they “have distinct mental and intuitive abilities, such as mind reading, telekinesis, sugestion or autosuggestion”.
» More (in German) at Stern!

The contestants’ web sites

In my first show’s summary, I was wondering:

The question is how much the contestants are behind the “real powers” balderdash which also was clearly shown in the short films introducing them – or if they rather submitted to the show’s demands.

And checked their websites. I should do this for the other five contestants, too, of course (my translations):

• Dr. Lord Jack Nasher, “Management Psychology”, also gives courses. „Jack Nashers Mind Mysteries are demonstrations of human perception deception. […] a performance with psychology, knowledge of human nature and pure deception – not forgetting irony.“ The lord didn’t even give a basis of paranormal for ProSieben’s short texts.
• Alexander Hartmann: „In my show I do things that seem inexplicable to most people to create extraordinary moments. My goal is exclusively to offer good entertainment – not to claim or prove the possession of any supernatural abilities.“
  
• Farid (by the way, are there any clearly laid out pages on MySpace?) writes: “Farid has already entertained his audience with professional magic when he was 10. […] A new and modern kind of magic.” Not really extensive, but for itself, it doesn’t sound bad. But if he really stands behind what the ProSieben website says that he has said: “I remember it clearly: as a little child, I was raised out of my bed one night like by ghost hand”, then:
  
• Thorsten Strotmann Magic Entertainment: A “magician, magic artist, entertainer, infotainer, host”, who, on the one hand, presents himself quite businesslike, on the other hand unfortunately also writes: „Mental magic: thoughts are energy. […] As a child, he already recognized that he has a special gift and can grab energy and thoughs on another level. […] As well, he can influence energetically “charge” objects by the power of his mind.“
  
• Leo Martin, “staged communication”: “[…] suggestive communication, perception deception and attention guiding. He creates illusions in the heads of the people and makes them do things that they wouldn’t have considered possible beforen.” Sounds rather psychological and magic-artistical than supernatural. ProSieben, by the way, writes “…have been able to before.” You can read this as a small but relevent difference towards more balderdash…

And I still think: In any case, a magician who doesn’t think too lowly of himself should not have applied for such a show in the first place.

Geller about his powers

On the one hand in an interview of the Berliner Kurier (all my translations):

“? So you do have telepathic abilities?
! Without a doubt.
[…]
I beleive I had been given an extraordinary paranormal energy.”

On the other habd in the Magische Welt (magic world), the independent German magazine for magic artists:

“I don’t claim anymore that I have supernatural powers. I am an entertainer, I want to do a good show. My entire character has changed.”

Now what?

The show from 15 Jan

At the beginning, press reactions are mentioned and shown in the background – only briefly and only positive ones, there must be a relation. And did Geller really say, “we don’t claim to have supernatural powers, we just want to enjoy it”? So really the new, more conservative line, if you will? (Cf. above.) Well, hopefully not the most interesting thing this evening…

Continue Reading »

This is about a show from the first German season of “The Next Uri Geller” from early 2008. You can also:
» Show all my reports from the first season.
» Show everything about the second season 2009.
» Show really all articles about Uri Geller.

It was terrible! I wasn’t even watching TV, when suddenly I heard a drawer in the kitchen open, a spoon came flying and turned on the TV! A strange guy seemed to loudly clear his throat – and that on ProSieben which I don’t even have in my channnel list! Very closely I evaded a second spoon that came rushing with full power, smashing the remote control so that I couln’t switch channels anymore!

Aaaargh!

Okay, joking aside. More notes about yesterday’s “event”, the first edition of this German show, which to me only was an event because I had blogged live…

• English readers probably find a lot of info on CSI (ex CSICOP), or watch the (English) videos at the first of the following German links: GWUP-Infoseite zu Geller; GWUP-Blog (including funny video); special page that also informed live/a>.
  Also (also German): trick explanations on Welt.de und at the tz.
• The question is how much the contestants are behind the “real powers” balderdash which also was clearly shown in the short films introducing them – or if they rather submitted to the show’s demands. In any case, I think a magician who doesn’t think too lowly of himself should not have applied for such a show in the first place.
   
  Addendum:
  Nicolai Friedrich Update 16 Jan: clearly writes about magic tricks used to write that on his HTML site – in the German Flash version only, he writes (translated) that he’s “able to transfer his mental abilities to his audience so he can create telepathic connections between people, look with the viewers’ eyes, move objects with the power of his mind and take a look into the future.” So he adapted himself to that stupid show motto.
  Hayashi (Ryan Lam): Found no homepage, but in show announcements, he’s quite often called magic artist, e.g. “European champion of magic”;
  David Goldrake: Homepage currently not accessible, only the Blog. In a press release there, he’s named an “illusionist”;
  The couple, Duo Sonambulo: In that lengthy Flash animation, the word “entertainment arts” is mentioned once, but much too often for my taste, they talk about paranormal stuff;
  Vincent Raven: (my translation:) “No magic show, but a mystic spectacle from the past awaits you.” – “an artist of illusion and fantasy invites you to a world of the strange. Illusion show in mystically staged atmosphere. Vincent Raven seducts you into the realm of myths and spirits.” Umm, well…
• The performances were, in part, quite okay, but nothing to sweep you off your feet. Especially that raven guy’s “world of the dead” communication trick playing with the feelings not only of the celebrities (who probably had been paid well enough), but also many viewers, was somewhat questionable.
• Ratings: 3,85 million (12,1% market share) aged 3+, 2,69 million (20,1%) aged 14-49; only RTL with US series had more. ProSieben can probably be satisfied. Just a pity that way too many are probably not skeptical enough…… (source: teletext and Quotenmeter.de)
• Updated: About the brief guest I had mentioned, Dr. Friedbert Karger: He used to be at the Max Planck Institute for plasma physics and apparently had himself become confused by a “Poltergeist” so much that he’s quite popular among parascientists now… The show’s producers were probably glad to have found a doctor title holder to utter “confirming” statements, forgetting about the proven existence of magic tricks.
• The visitor numbers here were quite good for me, but blog seemed to be rather listed sufficiently high in the search engines for the search combinations of “Uri Geller” and “Son[jy]a Kraus” to attract visitors… a few critical ones, luckily, also came, but also one who search for “next uri geller what do you have to say to throw spoon down from tv set”.
• Live blogging is quite exhausting – I certainly won’t do that again for this show. If at all, I’ll just watch the recording time-shifted to be able to skip over uninteresting parts.

» Detailed explanations (German) at “The Tricks”.

» Take a look here at all my posts about Uri Geller «