Special to JohnFMurray.com – Jun 30, 2007 – Wimbledon, England – Four years ago during one of Dr. Murray’s trips to England, Murray received a personal invitation by famous spoon bender Uri Geller for a visit to Geller’s home. Read the story about that trip to Geller’s home here
The following year Dr. Murray returned the invitation – teasing Geller that he needed to improve his tennis game – and Geller made a guest appearance at Dr. Murray’s sport psychology workshop. He gave a one hour inspirational speech to the attendees, performed some of his feats and then concluded with the highlight, bending the metal T-2000 tennis racket made famous by Jimmy Connors. You can read the BBC story here.
Geller came through again this year. During one of Dr. Murray’s meetings with tennis pro Vince Spadea, Uri and his family met Dr. Murray and Spadea in Wimbledon Village, provided some interesting words of wisdom, and then showed Vince what put Geller on center stage in the USA national media many many years ago. He bent a metal fork for Vince by rubbing it gently, and then almost perfectly replicated a drawing of a small house that Vince had drawn totally outside of his view. Geller had accomplished the same feat with Dr. Murray and others at the workshop.
Why the interest in Geller? As Dr. Murray explains, “no matter what anybody says about Uri, he has treated me as a friend several times in England, he has a wonderful family, and he’s a lot of fun. I think he likes the fact that I am a performance psychologist and he is distantly related to Sigmond Freud. How he bends spoons or replicates drawings I have no clue. All I know is that he is a fun, interesting and informative fellow who has the ability to inspire. There is not too much wrong with that.”
Dr. John F. Murray is a sports psychologist and clinical psychologist providing sports psychology and counseling services based in Palm Beach, Florida.