Super-normality as a Mode of the Present

Abstract

The topic for this chapter is one which the reader will have little difficulty in associating with the name of the Israeli entertainer Uri Geller and the highly publicized controversy of the past decade over his claim to the reality of so-called ‘metal-bending’. That is, more specifically, his claim to the demonstrability of his capacity to bring about the super-normal softening, deformation and fracturing of pieces of metal, for example spoons, forks, keys, etc. (as well as, occasionally, other materials such as plastic), either (a) by the simple act of gentle finger-stroking, or even (b) by the direct action of thought alone without any touching whatsoever. In thus reminding the reader of the topic for discussion, it may be brought into sharper focus through mention that, whatever the ultimate significance of the claim embraced under (a), it is the starkness of (b) which is clearly of most decisive interest in the current context. To this extent — and in full acceptance, right from the outset, of what may well be taken as the inherent improbability of such happenings — the concern in what follows will relate most expressly to the latter, with only implied or incidental reference to the less conceptually provocative, though more widely publicized, mode of the challenge embraced under (a).