URI GELLER ON HIS BOARDGAME, STRIKE!
Uri Geller is famously adept at fusing the fortean world with pop culture, so perhaps it was only a matter of time before his face wound up on a board game. That time came in 1986, when Uri Geller’s Strike! was released by Matchbox. The box promises players “a mind-bending experience!” discovering the hidden treasures of Europe. An intense painting of Geller’s face dominates the box, with a rainbow laser beaming from his eye.
The inventive game system combined a board which showed a grid map of Europe, trivia questions ( Trivial Pursuit was huge at the time) and also the mysterious movement of a “Sensotron”. These transparent, plastic pyramids would magically shake and point downwards over certain locations, indicating precious minerals underneath – all thanks to magnets inside the board itself. The board could even be shaken to give a new simulated dowsing experience each time. A search of the Internet found a common assumption in blogs and reviews: that Matchbox invented the game and just slapped Geller’s name on it to harness a bit of star power. Suspicious that this theory might not be accurate I phoned Geller in Israel. He was keen to share his memories of Strike!
Uri’s version of the game’s genesis was as follows: “Well, Matchbox approached me to do a series of Uri Geller games. I came up with a concept that would encompass skills of luck and intuition, and so we created Strike! Basically, it was created after my success in the world of dowsing.”
The game was obviously designed to be a fun experience, but did he think a board game could genuinely train people in harnessing their intuitive skills?
Uri believed that, to some degree, it could. “We all have intuitive energies, powers, call it whatever you
like. But some people have it to a heightened degree. Those people tend to be successful in business, family, and love. I can’t call intuition ESP, but it’s definitely in the arena of the sixth sense... and more. So, I believe that when you play games such as Strike! or any other game, you are absolutely training yourself automatically and you are sharpening your intuition.”
Her went on to tell me that he keeps a copy of Strike! in The Uri Geller Museum in Old Jaffa, Israel, which has recently reopened after Covid closures. As well as the board game, visitors can enjoy guitars from the Rolling Stones, Salvador Dali sculptures and even the Uri Geller Peace Cadillac, encrusted with 2,000 spoons once owned by Picasso, Richard Nixon, The Spice Girls, Chopin, and Pope Francis.