Bending Spoons
Mind Over Matter
[Or in this case, cutlery.]
Uri Geller became famous for bending spoons and forks. The reason such a mundane, unimpressive, and pointless activity of destruction gained such worldwide attention was because Ur Geller claimed to, and appeared to, bend the objects using only the power of his mind.
The Trick
Use your mind to bend metal cutlery such as a spoon or a fork.
This is a magic trick. Seriously. It is straight out of our books and DVDs. When you get into magic, and you learn to do this trick. Many professional magicians today perform metal bending in their shows, and it is very entertaining and amazing to watch.
The difference is that these magicians don’t claim such powers to be real.
The trick works off of what magicians call “misdirection.” This is where we control the attention of our audience away from the secret, and towards something else. This is what you will be doing. They key to misdirection is to always focus on what you want to audience to look at, and not on trying to hide your secret move. If all you are worried about is them not seeing the secret, they will be able to sense that- and you’ll be found out. I speak form experience, my friends.
Mutter some mumbo jumbo about mind over matter to your friends. The more exotic and scientific phrases you can throw in the better. Tell em you’ve been practicing and would like to try something. Ask to borrow a fork or spoon.
Side Note: It’s a good idea before you launch into this to have already “tested” the cutlery in your environment before hand. Make sure that the fork or spoon can be bent pretty effortlessly with two hands, but isn’t so malleable that you could bend it with one hand. This is easy to do under the table, far before you even bring up the topic of metal bending.
Take the spoon or fork and place it openly on your palm and stare at it for a good 10-15 seconds. Feign concentration, and stress your brow muscles to really sell the mind-over-matter premise.
After you’ve built up some good suspense, relax and express frustration. Announce that it will be easier with somebody else. Look at the person sitting or standing across from you in the eye. Ask them to hold our their hand. As soon as her eyes dart up to meet yours, quickly and stealthily put a sharp bend in the spoon/fork!
Place the already bent spoon/fork in her hands. The back of your hands will shield the condition of the spoon from her, and she can’t feel. Again, feign concentration and gently massage the fork/spoon and really sell the bend.
The Lesson
There are lots more fancier ways than this to bend metal using misdirection, psychology, and pre-planning. They are all tricks, and if you care to learn them, (and even perform them), all the secrets can be yours for the price of a DVD or book.
Uri Geller, and “psychics” like him, have been caught red handed using these same tricks. This march for truth was lead by magician and famous debunker James Randi. And in case you are interested, Randi could do the tricks better than Geller!
So Ask Yourself
If any hack magician who bought a book or DVD can apparently bend metal with their mind, shouldn’t we apply a higher degree of skepticism to anybody who performs the same feat and claims it to be real?
Fields which are true improve over time. Science gets better, history expands, technology skyrockets. If “mind over matter” is real, how come the practitioners of it are stuck simply destroying our cutlery? Shouldn’t the military or doctors be using this stuff by now?