Although Uri could bend it, he wanted his wife to spend it

Wealth is not really important to Uri Geller. Spiritual happiness is. As he tells Mark Anstead, it is crucial to keep your eyes on the bigger picture
In the early 70s Uri Geller made a decision not to directly handle money for spiritual reasons. The Jewish psychic, famous for his spoon-bending routine, felt that using a wallet and a credit card was damaging to his spiritual energy and so he delegated the management of his finances to his wife, Hannah.

Not that this radical asceticism saved him from the trappings of fame - he may not have physically touched money with his hands, but he certainly spent it.

Worldwide fame sent him on what he refers to today as his "ego trip" during which he was addicted to decadent shopping. He would walk into an expensive clothes shop, he tells me, point to a few silk shirts he liked and have his wife purchase 60 of them on his behalf.

"After 29 years guess where they are?" he asks me. "They are still lying new in the closet, never used."

So what drove him to that kind of extravagance?

"I think it happened because of a lot of insecurities," he says. "I was brought up very poor - my parents ran a small bed and breakfast in Cyprus and my father squandered all the money on women. After he died from a heart attack, our little hotel went bankrupt and my mother took me back to Israel, to a one-bedroom apartment where I slept on the floor while she took work as a seamstress."

After national service, his first job was as a male model and he used all the money he received to stop his mother from having to work.

Although he began to develop his psychic routine, he knew he needed to go to America to perform and he was fortunate to have a pianist friend in New York who lent him $40,000 to rent an apartment from which he could get his career started. As it turned out, it was just a matter of months before his famous television programme with David Dimbleby shot to him to international attention.

"I became world famous overnight and money poured in," he says. "But I couldn't handle that and it went to my head. I used to meet John Lennon every week and he talked to me about spirituality but I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. One day, in the mid-80s, I just couldn't take it any more and I decided to give away all our belongings and put my entire family on a plane, including my mum and my two children, and fly to Japan. I disappeared into a forest under Mount Fuji for a year and gave up on material things - I prayed and I meditated and it totally changed my life."

He now lives in a seven-bedroom home in Sonning-on-Thames that was bought just before this trip to Japan. He's keen to point out that he has installed his mother in one wing and hasn't spent any money on it in 17 years.

His approach to investment is simple - he spends what he needs, gives a large proportion of it away and keeps the rest in the bank for unforeseen emergencies.

He owns no other properties because he would rather not have the worry of maintenance. His wife still looks after paying the bills.

He will always carry on working in one way or another. He presents positive thinking seminars, designs a range of jewellery that he sells on QVC, creates pottery, exhibits his artwork around the world and he has written 15 books (and is just finishing his fourth novel). This is on top of TV and radio work.

"The big lesson is that if you have money you need, give part of it away in order to receive other positive things," he says. "You've got to help people and then there will be an inner light in your life, like a spiritual ignition.

"The most important element in our lives is health. Money cannot buy you health or love or happiness. I get hundreds of emails a week from people complaining about trivial and silly things. But it's important to keep your eyes on the bigger picture."

Lottery: If he won £5m he would buy two apartments for his children, Daniel and Natalie, somewhere in London. He would secure the future of his children and then distribute the rest to different charities.

Best buy: His home in Sonning-on-Thames because it has a few acres running down to the banks of the river.

Worst mistake: Not buying a house in London for £900,000 20 years ago. It is worth £17m today.

Tipping: He leaves it to his wife, but she always tips.

Financial advice: There's nothing like bricks and mortar. "If you adhere to location, location, location it doesn't matter what you buy - a tiny little place will triple or quadruple over the years."

Today's best video

Today in pictures