A phenomenon in popular usage is an extraordinary event and Fenomenon the STAR television show is exactly that. Recorded before a live studio audience ten magicians try to prove themselves worthy of being hailed Uri Geller’s successor (by Uri) and to STAR’s joy it’s a ratings recordbreaker..Presiding over events with his deep suitably otherworldy voice is TV journalist and presenter Sinan Çetin and as his percing brown eyes stare into the camera you are left in no doubt that you are watching supernatural events.

Phenomenon started in Israel in 2007 and according to Uri and Sinan Çetin’s interview ith Hürriyet newspaper has also been broadcast in America, Canada, Germany, Hungary and Holland. Other countries including Spain, İtaly, Russia and Japan are all in negotiations to televise their own versions. İn all these countries it is called ‘Successor’ or ‘The new Uri Geller’ but in Turkey it is called Phenomenon as no one previously knew who Uri Geller was. Each week three competitors do their special tricks and the public vote by SMS, oddly Uri is allowed to choose one that can’t be voted out but this is only revealed after everybody has paid their money and sent their text. Ultimately Uri will choose the winner (so why bother with sending an SMS at all) and they will go on to compete against the winners from other countries in a final magic showdown in Las Vegas.

Vatan newspaper were quick to interview Uri when the programme started in May but cynical enough to put his headline – This Man is a Phenomenon – in quotation marks. Apparently Uri loves Turkey, he finds Turkish people to be very spiritual and sensitive and says he felt wonderful on arrival here. He also has a story from his youth sure to warm the cockles of every Turkish heart, aged eleven and living in Cyprus he met an imam who told him ‘Whatever you imagine can become real, the greatest power is imagination’ and thus inspired him to believe in his supernatural gift.

Also in his Vatan interview Uri explains that his gift has not affected his life, except that kids at school called him crazy. Although he has earnt his fortune from it he says he’s not in it for the money and gives most of his earnings from his motivational books (like his former close friend Michael Jackson); ‘to children, especially sick children’ and he says he is the Honorary Vice President of King’s and the Royal Berkshire Hospitals. Despite the strength of his telepathic powers he never uses his mental abilities for gambling purposes, which seems a shame since he could also redistibute that money to the less fortunate. Perhaps he likes to save his energies for other lucrative enterprises like divining mines and crude oil which his STAR spiel claims he does or for his great anti-smoking drive. İn Germany he used his mental powers to stop fifty five thousand people smoking and, according to Hürriyet newspaper’s interview (Title ‘Anything could happen in your house while you watch this man’), is going to perform the same public service here in Turkey live on Phenomenon.

Uri also likes to associate with and name drop the successful sports peoples he coaches in positive mental energy techniques including Premier League footballers, Formula One drivers and boxers. He may have a special place in the heart of Galatasaray fans because he says that in their 1999 final UEFA Cup Champion’s League match in Milan he had mentally prepared the ground for the Turks to win 3 - 2 by scoring in the last three minutes of the match. Not all his sportif interventions are quite so successful. On the James Whale Radio Show in the UK, Geller predicted that David Coulthard would win the Formula 1 motor race in the UK. He exhorted the listeners to shout ‘Win, David, win!’ but Coulthard had a crash in the first lap and had to retire on Lap Three. Again in 1996, Geller asked everyone to touch an orange spot on the TV screen in order to make England win the 1996 European Football Championship. Immediately after that process started, they got knocked out of the competition by Germany. In 1997 Geller predicted that a horse named Go Ballistic would win the Grand National. The race was abandoned.

Appearing on GMTV in 1998 Geller predicted that England would beat Argentina 1-0 in their game to be played on 30th June. England lost in a penalty shoot-out, the full-time score standing at 2-2 and no goals being scored in extra time. Another of his football efforts backfired in 1999 when Geller said he was going to use his powers to help Scotland beat England, (after all he'd helped England win the last time they met). The result, England beat Scotland 2-0. During the Wimbledon Games in 2001, Geller announced he was using his powers to back tennis star Tim Henman. Henman lost to Ivanisevic. Apparently unaware of ‘the curse of Uri Geller’ Exeter Football Club asked Uri to become co-chairman of this 3rd Division club in 2002. At the end of the season they were relegated, and the owners were being investigated for irregularities.

Does Uri genuinely have supernatural powers? İn his Vatan piece he calls himself a conduit or a catalyser, he says that the clocks and remote controls he fixes (via TV projection) are actually mended by the energy of the viewing public, he just channels it. STAR’s Fenomenon website tells its eager audience that Uri is one of the world’s greatest mystics and that Nature magazine carried out experiments at Stanford University’s research centre that proved Uri’s powers were genuine. They also share the details of his work for the CİA in 1987 when he sent positive thoughts to Yuli Voronstov, First Deputy Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union and encouraged him to sign the Nuclear Arms Reduction Treaty. Did he however manage to bend any Turkish spoons or fix any clocks, not many it seems, one disgruntled blogger even offered other readers the chance to watch a video of his stubbornly unbent spoon and undiscommoded clock.

There are many who have disputed his claims to have supernatural powers and described him as a charlatan who can at most claim to be an illusionist. İn his interview with Turkey’s Tempo magazine he claims that they do not ruffle his feathers and that as Oscar Wilde said; ‘the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about’. But that is not strictly true for Uri has instigated countless courtcases against his defamers and even one against Nintendo in 2000 for producing a Pokemon children’s card with a magician character based on him (Yurigera) – he wanted £60 million in compensation. He also considered a suit against IKEA over a furniture line featuring bent legs that was called the "Uri" line.

Uri’s most persistent critic James Randi (who has earned his own fortune from slating Uri and others like him) has several times offered Uri one million dollars to step up and prove his powers under conditions which Rand determines. The same challenge was made by Uri’s co-host on the US version of Successor (he had to scan the contents of a closed envelope) but again Uri failed to take up the challenge. When Uri appeared on the American Johnny Carson show in 1973 Randi advised Carson not to let Uri touch any of the spoons pre-show and Uri was subsequently unable to bend the cutlery. Try and find this clip on the internet though or another from 2007 when on Successor he was filmed with a magnet on his thumb making a compass dial move and you’ll believe that Uri has the power (supernatural or not) to make things disappear.

As the many references to newspaper and magazine interviews above demonstrate the Turkish press have been falling over themselves in their haste to give Uri column inches. Having dropped out of favour in his adopted home of the UK perhaps  the greatest Phenomenon is Uri’s reinvention of himself from relative obscurity and the international after dinner speech circuit. His true talents appear to be the successful divination of franchisable television programmes.