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Spoon bending, how's it done?

Squeegee Beckenheim said:
I saw this trick on a TV programme once. It was one of those "when magic goes wrong"-type deals. It wasn't a spike, it was a sharp hunting-knife and the magician wasn't using just his hand, he had the volunteer's hand underneath his. She's very lucky that she wasn't up for it and was instead trying to get out of his grip and resisting him pushing her hand down, because what was quite nasty could have been really nasty had she been co-operating.

IIRC, the programme said she sued successfully. Quite right, too.
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I believe the video of that is still on YouTube. I'm not going to link to it though; it's difficult to watch.
 
Ref the OP: Banachek performs his spoon-bending act with forks; it is a thing of beauty and far more impressive than what Geller did with spoons (though he does deserve credit for creating the effect).

Ref the spike under the cup effect: there is no need for code or for anyone to be in on it. The magician can perform it alone without help. Though, as has been seen, he can also mess it up alone.
 
I believe that Randi has always said that the spoon bending trick was published on the back of cereal boxes when he was growing up. So Geller did not create the effect, but he certainly popularized it, but only by claiming that it was a real psychic effect.

Ward
 
wardenclyffe said:
I believe that Randi has always said that the spoon bending trick was published on the back of cereal boxes when he was growing up. So Geller did not create the effect, but he certainly popularized it, but only by claiming that it was a real psychic effect.

Ward
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Really? Hmmm. I'll have to check that out; I was always under the impression Geller invented it. Ah, well. It's about time I was wrong about something. It's been far too many decades of perfection for my taste.
 
Explorer said:
I saw that original show with Geller. The spoon bending was impressive, but since then so many "magicians" have repeated the effect, that today it ceases to have any more impact.

What was more impressive in that first show, was his seeming ability to bend a watch hand under the glass. A member of the audience gave him a watch simply to stop. After holding the watch he held it up close to the camera. Not only had the watch stopped, but the long hand was bent by about ninety degrees.

This could have been explained by palming another watch, and perhaps the member of the audience was a planted stooge.

To bend metal in a sealed container is quite different from from handling spoons and concealing the "work hardening" actions by sleight of hand.

A twelve year old schoolboy in the UK apparently under good lab conditions could bend a strip of metal in a sealed glass tube. Fitted strain gauges also demonstrated that something unusual was going on. Can't remember the when and where, but it followed the Geller TV programme by a few years.
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Prof. John Taylor at King's College, London, investigated a number of kids who could apparently bend metal in sealed tubes, and wrote a book called Superminds about the experiments. He later admitted that they had hoodwinked him.

I'd like to see Geller try to bend a spoon made of titanium.

I was studying psychology at Birkbeck, London when Geller visited the physics department, at the invitation of Prof. Hasted. The psychology department wanted to send a couple of people to the meeting, and Geller refused to attend if they were present. The physicists were suitably impressed, of course.
 
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Garrette said:
Really? Hmmm. I'll have to check that out; I was always under the impression Geller invented it. Ah, well. It's about time I was wrong about something. It's been far too many decades of perfection for my taste.
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I think that's why Randi was so pissed at Geller; it was a fricken parlor trick.
 
wardenclyffe said:
I believe that Randi has always said that the spoon bending trick was published on the back of cereal boxes when he was growing up. So Geller did not create the effect, but he certainly popularized it, but only by claiming that it was a real psychic effect.

Ward
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As a skeptic you ought to demand reliable information – the details of that cereal box. As far as I know, nobody has ever really found the box. If I am wrong so I am willing to accept any better (reliable) information.

There are some problems with the published information of the spoon bending trick. How do you think the two Finnish boys (8 and 9 years old) were able to do the trick in the same evening they saw it in the TV? Where had they learned it?

They bent even soup spoons quite easily in their small hands, all the time above the table level and several adults seeing quite clearly the actual change of the bending angle up to over 90 degrees. The boys had no possibility to conceal the spoons in their hands during the 2-5 minutes of time the bending operation required. They did not use any force but one of the boys only held the spoon between their hands and the other gently rubbed the bending spot. I saw it myself with my very eyes with some colleagues. I published the occurrences rather immediately but no scientist was interested. I am an engineer in metallurgy.
 
Lusikka said:
As a skeptic you ought to demand reliable information – the details of that cereal box. As far as I know, nobody has ever really found the box. If I am wrong so I am willing to accept any better (reliable) information.
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Randi consistently speaks of a cereal box; I gather he encountered it as a youngster.
 
Lusikka said:
How do you think the two Finnish boys (8 and 9 years old) were able to do the trick in the same evening they saw it in the TV? Where had they learned it?
They bent even soup spoons quite easily in their small hands, all the time above the table level and several adults seeing quite clearly the actual change of the bending angle up to over 90 degrees. The boys had no possibility to conceal the spoons in their hands during the 2-5 minutes of time the bending operation required. They did not use any force but one of the boys only held the spoon between their hands and the other gently rubbed the bending spot. I saw it myself with my very eyes with some colleagues. I published the occurrences rather immediately but no scientist was interested. I am an engineer in metallurgy.
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Are you saying there is more to this than a conjuror's illusion?
 
Resume said:
I think that's why Randi was so pissed at Geller; it was a fricken parlor trick.
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I agree with that and have known it for a very long time, but that is separate from whether or not Geller invented it.
 
Lusikka said:
As a skeptic you ought to demand reliable information – the details of that cereal box. As far as I know, nobody has ever really found the box. If I am wrong so I am willing to accept any better (reliable) information.

There are some problems with the published information of the spoon bending trick. How do you think the two Finnish boys (8 and 9 years old) were able to do the trick in the same evening they saw it in the TV? Where had they learned it?

They bent even soup spoons quite easily in their small hands, all the time above the table level and several adults seeing quite clearly the actual change of the bending angle up to over 90 degrees. The boys had no possibility to conceal the spoons in their hands during the 2-5 minutes of time the bending operation required. They did not use any force but one of the boys only held the spoon between their hands and the other gently rubbed the bending spot. I saw it myself with my very eyes with some colleagues. I published the occurrences rather immediately but no scientist was interested. I am an engineer in metallurgy.
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For your claims about the Finnish boys I think that I will take your advice and demand some reliable information. Got any?
 
Lusikka,

Thank you for the correction. There never was a cereal box with spoon bending on the back. Apparently Randi was referring to the quality of the trick rather than the actual trick itself. The following is from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_About_Uri_Geller), which, as we know, is never wrong (I don't know how to do sarcastic smilies):

Randi...said Geller had "tricked even reputable scientists" with tricks that "are the kind that used to be on the back of cereal boxes when I was a kid".*

I misinterpreted the quote to mean that the exact method of bending spoons was on the cereal box. Thanks for clearing that up for me. I will look for other publications that reveal the methods of the spoon bending trick that pre-date Geller's appearance on the scene.

In the meantime, if you can produce two Finnish boys who can psychically bend spoons, then you should immediately have them apply for one of the many cash prizes that are available for proof of paranormal powers.

Below is a list of prizes other than Randi's prize. Two of them offer a finder's fee that you could win if the boys win the big prize. One of the prizes is a short ferry-ride away in Sweden. Good luck.

Ward

P.S. Here's the list:

There's the Australian Skeptics' AU$100,000 Prize
http://www.skeptics.com.au/features/prize/
They also offer AU$20,000 as a "Spotter's Fee"

There's the IIG's US$50,000 Challenge in California, USA
http://www.iigwest.org/challenge.html
They also offer US$5,000 as a "Finder's Fee"

There's the North Texas Skeptic's US$12,000 Challenge in the USA
http://www.ntskeptics.org/challenge/challenge.htm

There's Prabir Ghosh's 2,000,000 Rupee Challenge in India
http://rationalistprabir.bravehost.com/

There's the Swedish 100,000SeK prize offered by Humanisterna
http://www.humanisterna.se/index.php...d=27&Itemid=49

The Tampa Bay Skeptics offers a US$1000 prize in Florida, USA
http://www.tampabayskeptics.org/challenges.html

In Canada there's the CAN$10,000 from the Quebec Skeptics
http://www.sceptiques.qc.ca/activites/defi

In the UK, the ASKE organization offers £14,000
http://www.aske-skeptics.org.uk/challenge_rules.htm

Tony Youens in the UK offers £5,000
http://www.tonyyouens.com/challenge.htm

In Finland, Skepsis offers 10,000 Euros
http://www.skepsis.fi/haaste/

The Fayetteville Freethinkers in Arkansas, USA offer a US$1000 prize
http://fayfreethinkers.com/

There's a 1,000,000 Yuan prize in China offered by Sima Nan. This is his blog: http://blog.sina.com.cn/simanan

The Belgian SKEPP organization offers a 10,500 Euro prize
http://www.skepp.be/prijzen/de-sisyphus-prijs/

If you find any broken links, or know of any tests not on this list, please notify me in this thread.

*Original source material for the quote is apparently "How does Uri Geller do it?". The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. 2002.
 
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Garrette said:
I agree with that and have known it for a very long time, but that is separate from whether or not Geller invented it.
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I think warden's post cleared up the way I remembered Randi talking about the cereal box trick. Another example of how faulty memory can be.
 
Lusikka,

Could you let us know where you first published the account of the two Finnish boys? I'd like to read it. I still think your best course of action is to win one of the prizes available for proof of the paranormal. That will make scientists interested, and you'll make money at the same time.

I wrote to a friend of mine who's a magician. I asked what he knew to be the first account of spoon bending. He wrote back:

"...I have a book in my library (at home) wherein a ghost story writer from the late 1800's writes about silverware mysteriously bending. Not sure, but I always thought Geller got his idea from this book..."

It's not clear whether this account of spoon-bending was done Geller-style. I will continue to look for obvious antecedants. There are enough magicians around here that we should be able to find someone who performed this trick before Geller. If not, then perhaps Geller deserves credit for inventing a new and easy (but impressive) magic trick. He might deserve credit for that, but he also deserves the blame for everything he did with his trick.

Ward
 
wardenclyffe said:
Lusikka,

Could you let us know where you first published the account of the two Finnish boys? I'd like to read it. I still think your best course of action is to win one of the prizes available for proof of the paranormal. That will make scientists interested, and you'll make money at the same time.
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Thank you for your being interested. Nearly all information I have written and my references are in my blog http://parapsykologia.blogspot.com. Unfortunately only in Finnish language.

I have had parapsychology as my main hobby for 50 years and have argu…, er, discussed with the Finnish skeptics during 20 years. Therefore I know the challenges and so on very well.

Unfortunately the boys I experimented with lost their ability in a few months. At that time, 1974, I did not even have a camera. I was prepared to do much controlled experimentation with the boys, but as it happens I have now only my simple notes and my written articles left.

The parapsychologists practically ignored the metal-bending and even the "Project Alpha" happened at a very unfavorable time.
 
Unfortunately, I do not read Finnish. Did you originally publish back in 1974 or was it just later when you started your blog. If you could direct me to the relevant blog entries, I can try to translate them and read them.

So, did you just happen to be in the right place at the right time to know these two boys? Is there anyone who can predictably bend spoons using mental powers? Geller could not do it on "The Tonight Show" in the USA when he had the chance. Is there anyone who could?

Thanks,
Ward
 
Lusikka said:
Unfortunately the boys I experimented with lost their ability in a few months. At that time, 1974, I did not even have a camera. I was prepared to do much controlled experimentation with the boys, but as it happens I have now only my simple notes and my written articles left.
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You'll have to forgive us for not taking your word for this. As you've said, we should be on the look-out for reliable information yet anyone can write anything on the internet, and anyone can be fooled (did you ever ask a stage magician to look at what the boys were doing? They would be the most qualified). We also know of any number of instances of people bending spoons by trickery and none by psychic powers so, in the absence of good evidence to the contrary, the best explanation for these two boys is that they worked out what is a very simple trick, elaborated on it as time went on, and then either got bored or thought the attention was getting too much and pretended to lose the ability. Especially as, as you say, they acquired the ability after seeing the trick done on a television programme. Which seems more likely to you - that they spontaneously acquired paranormal powers after seeing a trick of prestidigitation on the television, or that they worked out how the trick was done?
 
Holy resurrected thread, for a moment I imagined that CFLarsen is baaack.

@Lusikka:
You have a story of two _unnamed_ boys (could you name them please)?
You have no evidence.

But if this phenomenon is real, as you suggest, then there probably are other boys (or girls or men or women) who can do the same? Are you aware of any others, and if yes, can you give their names or contact details? If not, how do you explain the extreme rareness of the phenomenon?
 
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For what it's worth, here's a repost about a spoon-bending party attended by the late Michael Crichton:
Brown said:
Michael Crichton's "Travels" describes a spoon-bending party hosted by Houck. Crichton reported that there was something strange happening, but he didn't think it was all that weird. What is really interesting about his story is that he reports various facts that should have made him suspicious as hell, but didn't.

For example: The bending always seemed to occur when no one was looking. Crichton acknowledged that he personally bent the cutlery with his hands (although he did not remember doing so in his first successful bend), but he did so by applying less pressure than he thought he would need to do the job. (Gee, is it possible that ALL bending was done by applying force with the hands? Isn't that the most likely explanation?)

For example: The spoons were not uniform. They were brought to the party by many people and thrown into a pile. Participants were to select a spoon and, if the spoon did not bend, they were to return it to the pile. Crichton reported that some people were frustrated by their inability to bend a spoon. (Gee, is it possible that these frustrated people said, "Take THAT, you stupid spoon!" and deliberately bent it, then returned the metal-fatigued spoon to the pile? Gee, is it possible that some of the spoons were el-cheapo spoons [after all, who would bring their BEST cutlery to a "spoon-bending party"?], and that people tended to prefer the flimsier spoons because they wanted to see results?)

For example: Children were bending spoons. (Gee, is it possible that they were simply applying leverage, as films of metal-bending children have shown that they do?)

For example: Crichton insisted that, unlike James Randi, he (Crichton) did not employ a trick. (Gee, Mike, would your answer be the same if you were told that one way to appear to bend a spoon supernaturally is to use a cheap, metal-fatigued spoon? [Mr. Randi disclosed this technique on "Secrets of the Psychics" as one way--but NOT the ONLY way--to mysteriously bend metal.])
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