Bay Area magicians and critics of those claiming psychic powers are rallying to a colleague named in a libel suit by Uri Geller, the spoon-bending showman who says he wields energies science cannot explain. The object of the $ 15 million lawsuit is James Randi, a stage magician and Florida resident. He often appears as ''The Amazing Randi'' on stage and late-night television, where Johnny Carson is among his most ardent fans.
Although he rarely performs in public now, Geller's celebrity took off in the early 1970s when, in stage performances, he appeared to be able to fix broken watches and to bend spoons and other metal objects with mind power alone. Unlike most stage magicians, however, Geller always has said he is not tricking anybody, but is channeling powers unknown to science. Many of his fans believe that he receives energy from extraterrestrial beings, which Geller neither confirms nor denies.
Robert Steiner of El Cerrito, president of the Society of American Magicians and a leading member of the Bay Area Skeptics, a group that frowns on claims of magical powers, said Geller's tricks "are well-known among those who have studied magic" and rely on no special powers.
THE LAWSUIT
The suit, filed May 3 in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., was served on Randi on May 4 at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley during the committee's annual meeting. It cited two statements in an article about Randi in the International Herald Tribune newspaper that said Geller has tricked many scientists and that quotes Randi as saying the tricks "are the kind that used to be on the back of cereal boxes when I was a kid."
TIMEX ALSO BEING SUED
Geller is also suing Randi in Japan and said he is investigating the possibility of suing him in Finland. Geller also is suing the Timex watch company over an ad in which a magician fails to make a Timex run backwards. Geller and Randi first met in 1973 when Geller performed for the editors of Time magazine. The editors also invited Randi to sit with them. After Geller left, according to one of the editors at the meeting, Leon Jaroff, Randi got up and duplicated every one of Geller's tricks.
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