'That's a fiddle. It's sleight of hand' was Paul Daniels' reaction when in the early seventies Granada television showed him their film about psychic surgery in the Philippines. Their response was to say that they had 'watched' the surgeon. He said 'But 'I' watched the assistant.' Standing next to him was a leading Spiritualist who wasn't convinced. 'No, it isn't a cheat' he asserted. 'But you can 'SEE' it' Daniels insisted, but to no avail. The man just couldn't be persuaded.

With eleven television series and numerous specials behind him (the twelfth series is currently being broadcast) Paul Daniels is a well established household name. When I went to interview him for 'The Skeptic' I knew from previous interviews I had read that he is very outspoken about religion and morality (in its widest sense), but in addition I wanted to ask for his opinion about psychics and psychical research and whether he originally believed in the paranormal. He answered my questions with great enthusiasm.

'Yes, as a growing lad in the North, I believed that it was probable that people could transmit thought waves to one another. I believed in religious mysticism and I thought therefore, that as an extension of transmitting thought waves, telekenesis might be possible. I used to sit for hours trying to move a ping-pong ball across a table. It was only when I could afford a wider range of books that I became a lot more logical, and a lot more observant.'

This wider range of books included books about magicians of the past and the history of magic itself. 'Magic meaning conjuring' he clarified. 'It was Robert Houdin in the last century who said that a conjuror is an actor playing the part of a magician, magic being a thing of fable, fairy stories, and dreams. I realised that religion was a set of rules for society to live by that was operated by a set of guys doing magic tricks. It was an Egyptian guide who explained to me that Tutankhamen was a sentence: King Tut son of the sun god. At that time in history kings, pharaohs, and religious leaders were frequently called son of god, frequently given a virgin birth, and I thought, 'Why wasn't I told this at school?' Within a primitive society you may need a mystical fear to control them, but I believe that now you could educate children as to why those rules are good to live by and if you break them there's a pyramid effect of people who are going to get hurt by your action. I really would like to see all schools have religion removed from them. It's time for the world to grow up. If people want religion they should give it to their children at the weekend'. These are strong statements, and are - surprisingly - from a man who was once a Methodist lay-preacher.

Equally surprising perhaps, Paul Daniels is very sympathetic towards Uri Geller. 'Humanist News' reported him as saying 'I don't mind Uri, he goes up and does his trick', adding that Uri 'is a nice guy'. He told me 'Uri is interesting. On the next series of 'The Best of Magic' (transmitted last autumn) he comes out of the closet and does a magic trick. A trick similar to one we did a few years ago in which you set a clock up and do certain things while the clock is ticking and then you take the clock back the amount of time you've been busy. We boiled water for example, and although the water has boiled you pour it over your hand and its cold again. Oddly enough rumour has it that despite his paranormal powers the whole thing didn't work anyway and it had to be reset behind a screen. But he is a great showman. I don't know where you draw the line. I mean if he's a con-artist to what extent is he a con-artist? Who has he conned? He is entertainment value, but he has no psychic powers whatsoever. He cannot bend metal by thought waves, he can do nothing by thought waves. He's a good entertainer if you leave it at that. The area where I think it's very grey is this odd area where government bodies are set up to investigate or study this kind of phenomena, and I think that's a bit sad because it's my taxpayers money which could be going to pay some nurse, or for the poor, the sick, the needy. When major companies pay such people, not just Geller, but other so-called psychics, when they do this to find oil or gold or silver, or whatever, that is money that is going to marginally put that commodity up in price. I think that's wrong. I really do. But he's a nice enough guy. He's certainly interesting to be with at dinners because he's constantly searching for information about everybody else at the table so he can presumably use it later, which of course is written up in all the good books on how to be a good mentalist. But I would say he's coming out of the closet. He goes to a few magic conventions now. David Berglas (President of the Magic Circle) is a close friend.'

'Can he afford to come out of the closet?' I asked. 'Mining companies like the one in Australia which paid him A$250,000 would ask for their money back.'

'But will they go public and say "aren't we idiots?". I think they'd rather forget it. What he might do for a while is claim both ends, "Yes, magic was a hobby as a boy but then I developed my mystic powers". Mentalist Joseph Dunninger said that.'

Daniels once got a typist to re-type the star sign information from an astrology book, but switched the headings around. 'Several times at parties people asked me "What star sign are you?" and I'd say "It's funny you should ask. I'm doing a book on that" and show them the piece marked with their star sign. They'd say "Yes, this is me"'. He laughed. 'When I told them what I'd done I lost so many friends....

'When the palmist at the holiday camp died (which seems very odd to me because he had signed a contract for the season - surely he would have known) Ali Bongo - who is now my programme associate - became the palmist. After two weeks it was amazing - he became very good. But Ali's got enough sense not to take it seriously. He knew what he was doing.

'I get people on stage all the time, and over the years I've developed a knowledge of who I can turn my back on and who's telling me the truth. Who's going to be fun; who's going to be sad. Just years of what I call animal instinct. And I'm very rarely wrong.

'Isn't it amazing that you aren't taught in school that in life you will meet the three card man; you will meet con-men at your front door trying to sell you things? Isn't it amazing that life isn't taught in school? There's an awful lot taught in school that they'll never use again. Why don't they teach them stuff that they will?'

'I think that because of bad education - capital B A D - people have a need for mysticism; they're missing out on the simple fact that what you 'are' is amazing; what you are is wonderful. What you ARE. No extraneous influences. What you are, inside you, is just fantastic. It really is, and yet they sit in front of the TV and watch David Attenborough going on about some mysterious animal that has developed its eyes so that it can see in the dark and they say "Isn't that wonderful". And they miss out on the fact that the thing that's watching this is the most developed animal of all in terms of thinking, and movement, and sense, and yet they look for mysticism, and that just drives me up the wall.

'Nobody's promoting the human animal as being IT, as being the be all and end all. Only Humanists to an extent. But Humanists aren't really promoting it, are they? They're not getting out there, writing articles and getting on television programmes. Maybe the answer to the paranormal is an awful lot of practical proof of what you are, what you can do. What we as a group can do without it being paranormal.

'Although it's not difficult to find skeptical books people are not made aware by the media that they exist. It's sad that the people who have written these books which say "Oh, come on! This is nonsense" don't get much publicity. When you do, you're the bad guy. When Doris Stokes died, I got a 'phone call from the press, and I told them it was nonsense before, and it's nonsense now. I got quite viciously attacked in the press because they said I didn't pick up on her while she was alive. Well, I 'did'. At every opportunity. So I became the bad guy, although I was telling the truth. And I think that's the real oddity in human nature. An oddity, but understandable. It's a truth, isn't it, that the mass of the people will always be poor, comparatively, and it's the poor people that need mysticism. The mass press will therefore always promote it.

'TV people doing skeptical programmes do it in the wrong order. People flip channels and there is research to show how soon after the start of a programme they do so.' (This research shows that viewers flip from 'The Paul Daniels Show' later than most programmes.) 'What they should do right at the start of a debunking programme is say "What you are about to see is a programme that will show you how these people cheat, how they play on emotions. The people are fakes". They should say that right up front, but they don't. Inevitably they do the programme as if it's for real and then they do the debunking. It's at the wrong end of the programme because by then you've convinced a major proportion of viewers who have changed over. 'Oh well, yes it's another psychic and we know about psychics don't we?'

He picked up a copy of 'The Skeptical Inquirer'. 'This word, "skeptical", is going to drive away the people you're trying to get to. Might I suggest a change of title to "The Paranormal?" with a question mark?'

In the last few years Daniels has spent two days a week developing and promoting a high speed language learning system which uses an ancient Greek memory technique. Already there are course in French, German, Italian and Spanish. Using the system, Daniels learned enough Spanish in a week to perform his act before a Spanish speaking audience. Portuguese has just been recorded and Japanese is next in line for the treatment. 'Japanese is proving very interesting. It is different, not because of the sound, but for the way they speak. But it's marvellous. Very difficult for the Japanese to explain it to me.'

He has also been working on a medical project in which a bit of a problem (which he didn't enlarge upon) has come up. 'It's funny, the areas I move in, isn't it?' he told me. 'And always the ongoing development of shows for people in business who want to promote products and want to do what we call 'trade shows'. You never know who's going to ring the doorbell next. It's an interesting job.'

Daniels strongly approves of James Randi's work. 'It's something that really needed to be done. I think in his life he must have done more than anyone has ever done to raise public awareness - certainly in America - among thinking people. The saddest part is that Randi isn't young, and that he isn't on every day doing this as the audience is changing all the time. It should be taught in school. To me, the works of Randi should be taught alongside the works of Shakespeare because it's as necessary for your quality of life as art or literature'. Praise indeed!

For several years in addition to his series and Christmas special Daniels also made a special Halowe'en show which he enjoyed doing. The BBC would only allow a 1990 show if it was made in the middle of the of his new series. This would possibly have meant the enormous physical and mental strain of doing two different shows in two days. 'But what I find odd is, here's an organization that's got, arguably, a pretty good magician, and Halowe'en is a mystical kind of an evening and they don't use it as part of an annual celebration of entertainment. I think it's a mistake. Well, come on, it's hard enough as it is to fill the schedules, and here's a free gift almost. It's Debbie's birthday, so we don't really mind missing out.' From some this would sound big headed, but Daniels is really quite a modest man.

'Funny enough, involved in what you're involved in, but a BBC radio producer 'phoned my manager and wanted me to go on his show and perform a miracle. Mervyn said I wasn't available that particular night, but would be the following week. "Oh, no!" said the man. "You don't understand. It's on Halowe'en. That's the day their powers are greater isn't it?" This is a BBC producer in 1989. But come on! In this day and age he believes my powers are greater on a particular day of the year.'

'The one thing that is wrong with psychics' statements that I am negative is that I am a professional magician who has been in love with magic since the age of eleven. The one thing I would love to meet is somebody who could really do it. This is my hobby. My life. I wouldn't be offended at all. If I could find somebody who could really do magic, really bend metal, I'd put him on my programme. On the other hand, if you really had that power, would you want to spend your life bending spoons? To say I'm negative is a joke. I want to meet one; I want to see a ghost. And I would be prepared to pay. Even now, with all the knowledge and the reading that's in my head, I'd really like to meet one. Wouldn't you?'