In 1973, Uri Gel­ler clai­med to bend metal with his mind on live tele­vi­si­on. Skep­tics couldn’t beat him. Now they’ve joi­n­ed him.

In 1973, a young man named Uri Gel­ler appeared on one of the BBC’s most popu­lar tele­vi­si­on shows, “The Dim­ble­by Talk-In,” and announ­ced that the laws of New­to­ni­an phy­sics did not app­ly to him. Or that, at least, was the impli­ca­ti­on. A hand­so­me 26-year-old Israe­li, dres­sed casual­ly and flan­ked by a pair of aca­de­mics, Mr. Gel­ler per­for­med a series of bewil­de­ring feats using not­hing more, he said, than his mind.