Uri Geller, Bigfoot, and a Virgin Birth

Believing in what isn't proved.

Uri Geller in Russia, photo provided by Dmitry Rozhkov, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

Every day I enjoy looking up which famous people have a birthday, and on December 20 I saw it was Uri Geller's 75th.

Geller's fame comes from numerous television appearances where he demonstrated his alleged psychic abilities. Although the late magician James ("The Amazing") Randi seemed to expose Geller as just another magician, Geller still has credibility as the subject of government-funded experiments by the Stanford Research Institute.

I came across a quote by Geller, originally published in Colin Wilson's 1976 book The Geller Phenomenon: 

"The things that always seem to work are the things that any magician can duplicate. Randi's quite right to point that out. But that's not because I'm doing a conjuring trick. You'd think that whatever causes these things to happen doesn't want them to be proved." [Emphases mine.]

Whether Geller's been a con artist all along, or actually has (or once had) unusual psychic abilities, this is an astute remark. My thoughts went to the Where the Footprints End books about Bigfoot by Joshua Cutchin and Timothy Renner. We all know that a Bigfoot specimen has never been captured and no corpse has been found, but in Volume II  Renner discusses something weird: disappearing evidence. For example, hair samples and bones that were to be studied in labs by respected scientists somehow went missing. Even the canister of the original Patterson-Gimlin film that began the Bigfoot craze has vanished.

Renner's point isn't that proof of Bigfoot's existence is being suppressed, but that even possible evidence that warrants further investigation somehow disappears. It seems, to paraphrase Geller, "whatever causes Bigfoot to appear doesn't want Bigfoot to be proved." 

Psychic phenomena and Bigfoot fall under the category of "paranormal" with ghosts and UFOs because they can't be predicted or experimentally replicated. It's not as if you do steps A, B, and C and you'll see Bigfoot the way you'll get Pavlov's dog to salivate.

We often think only things that conform to the universal laws of physics can be "real" and the rest is false identification or misguided imagination, but perhaps some things are meant to happen to some people and not to others. Perhaps a paranormal event changes one life the way a dream, which also can't be proven, changes another. Everyone's on a different journey. 

We've all had extraordinary experiences that others don't and often can't understand. But if we are to respect each other, we should believe each other's stories, no matter how seemingly improbable, unless they reveal themselves to be dishonest.

Perhaps Geller did, or does, have some powers that only he and a few others have, can have, or need to have, for reasons and purposes we don't understand. In the same way, perhaps one family experienced hauntings or poltergeist activity in a house, and families who lived in the same house before and after had no such experiences. I would still believe the family.

And perhaps, 2,000+ years ago, some wise men living somewhere east of Palestine noticed a light in the sky no one else saw or attached meaning to, which prompted them to go on a journey. Perhaps shepherds near Bethlehem saw beings in the sky that directed them to a stable with a newborn baby when no one else in the vicinity saw such beings and heard no noise.

Perhaps that baby was born to a woman claiming to be a virgin.

None of them had any obligation to "prove" anything to anybody. 

Perhaps whatever caused all of this to happen didn't want any of it to be "proved," just believed.

Updated with minor grammatical edits 12/20/2024.

James Leroy Wilson writes from Nebraska. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter. If you enjoy his articles, subscribe and exchange value for value. You may contact James for your writing, editing, and research needs: jamesleroywilson-at-gmail.com. Permission to reprint is granted with attribution.

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