Spoon bending, how's it done?

[Lusikka]

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.

I originally published two of my articles in December 1974 and one in January 1975. Into my blog I have copied one of the original articles (with my own photo from year l974) and the longer article is a summary of all information I have gathered. The two blog articles are found from the link http://parapsykologia.blogspot.com/search/label/Mini-Gellerit.

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

I really was lucky to find and meet the boys, and both boys with their parents were willing to co-operation. I tell the story in my articles. Naturally, as an engineer in metallurgy I did not believe in the bending in the beginning, but seeing is believing. At the moment I don't know anybody who could bend metal without applying force.

 

[Resume]

I originally published two of my articles in December 1974 and one in January 1975. Into my blog I have copied one of the original articles (with my own photo from year l974) and the longer article is a summary of all information I have gathered. The two blog articles are found from the link http://parapsykologia.blogspot.com/search/label/Mini-Gellerit.



I really was lucky to find and meet the boys, and both boys with their parents were willing to co-operation. I tell the story in my articles. Naturally, as an engineer in metallurgy I did not believe in the bending in the beginning, but seeing is believing. At the moment I don't know anybody who could bend metal without applying force.

Are you familiar with Project Alpha?

 

[Lusikka]

Holy resurrected thread, for a moment I imagined that CFLarsen is baaack.

Yes, I can imagine you have discussed this topic dead already many times here. But I feel it is important to remind folks of the phenomenon now and then.

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

I suspect you have no use for the names. As far as I know only one of the two men can speak English. I am possibly able to give you their telephone numbers. But if you call them, you can afterward say they are fakes. Your last sentence is very typical, and you are quite right, nothing concerning metal-bending is evidence for you.

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?

I think the phenomenon is real. It was even common in 1974 because there must have been thousands of children capable to bend spoons as a psi-phenomenon. Nowadays it is extremely rare, I think, but as a real phenomenon it will be researched thoroughly sometimes in the future. I cannot explain the metal-bending at all, in any respects.

 

[AdMan]

I cannot explain the metal-bending at all, in any respects.

I can.

It's a trick, and a simple one at that.

You state you are an engineer in metallurgy, as if that is supposed to make your claims any more believable.

Do you have any training in conjuring and misdirection? That's what's required to catch people bending spoons. Not knowing about metallurgy.

 

[Lusikka]

Are you familiar with Project Alpha?

Yes, I think so. I have read and filed the both articles Randi wrote in the Skeptical Inquirer. Also Marcello Truzzi wrote about it in the Zetetic Scholar, can be read here (very bad quality of scanning):
http://www.tricksterbook.com/truzzi/ZS-Issues-PDFs/ZeteticScholarNos12-13.pdf

I have also followed the controversy in a few other articles. I have written one artcle about the case in my blog.

 

[wardenclyffe]

I originally published two of my articles in December 1974 and one in January 1975. Into my blog I have copied one of the original articles (with my own photo from year l974) and the longer article is a summary of all information I have gathered. The two blog articles are found from the link http://parapsykologia.blogspot.com/search/label/Mini-Gellerit.

Thank you. Where were the articles first published in '74 and '75? In what publications?

Do you have any idea why so many people seemed to be able to do this in 1974 and why it is so rare today? What could possibly account for that?

Thanks,
Ward

 

[often mrunderstood]

I always found this to be one of the oddest (dumbest?) forms of claimed paranormal abilities. Seriously, bending spoons? Put a fork on the table and "tie" a couple prongs in into a knot with your ridiculous PSI (no touching).

Thousands of spoon bending children from the 70s. I'll be retelling that one for a laugh or two.

I predict spoon bending will not win the JREF million. <chuckle>

 

[Lusikka]

I can.

It's a trick, and a simple one at that.

That is your belief.

You state you are an engineer in metallurgy, as if that is supposed to make your claims any more believable.

I have no claims. I am only telling what I have seen myself and what I have read others having done and seen. I suspect it has not occurred in your mind that it is possible to find metallurgical anomalies in the test pieces, and so has happened. Do you think a physician or psychologist or magician is able to speak as an authority about dislocations and work hardening and grain size and so on.

Do you have any training in conjuring and misdirection? That's what's required to catch people bending spoons. Not knowing about metallurgy.

I have no training in conjuring and I must therefore leave magicians in peace, but neither did the boys have any training or time for training. What happened was so clear and simple that you can never have any performing magician to do the same thing.

 

[Lusikka]

Thank you. Where were the articles first published in '74 and '75? In what publications?

Only in popular magazines, not scientific ones. I did not have possibility to do controlled experimentation because of the vanishing abilities, but I felt it was important to inform wider public what I and my colleagues had observed.

Do you have any idea why so many people seemed to be able to do this in 1974 and why it is so rare today? What could possibly account for that?

Thanks,
Ward

The explanation is very simple: Uri Geller performing in TV in many countries. Nowadays the topic is outdated, but I am certain it will return sooner or later. Thank you for your to the point questions.

 

[Olowkow]

That is your belief.

...What happened was so clear and simple that you can never have any performing magician to do the same thing.

That is a statement that can easily be proven wrong. In fact, I suspect several magicians are frantically posting YouTube videos of a myriad of spoon bending techniques.

When I was a kid, I was saving my money to buy a "magic spoon", which, apparently had a soft metal joint, from Johnson Smith and Co. I finally got the $2.00, and instead spent it on photographic film that needed no developing. I got taken. I should have bought the spoon.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Naturally, as an engineer in metallurgy I did not believe in the bending in the beginning, but seeing is believing.

It's not, actually. That's how come magicians can make a living.

Your last sentence is very typical, and you are quite right, nothing concerning metal-bending is evidence for you.

Actual evidence would be. You just saying "I knew 2 kids who could do it briefly 40 years ago" isn't evidence, I'm afraid. It is you who said "you ought to demand reliable information". As yourself whether you'd take your posts in this thread as "reliable information" if you were someone else.

However, you mention metallurgical anomalies after spoons have been bent. Can you point us to any published, peer-reviewed research on this? Any places where this has been replicated? That kind of thing would be quite compelling evidence that something other than the obvious was going on.

I think the phenomenon is real. It was even common in 1974 because there must have been thousands of children capable to bend spoons as a psi-phenomenon.

What do you think a credible explanation for this might be? And why do you believe these children you mentioned spontaneously acquired their abilities after seeing it done on television? Was it pure coincidence, or did the television broadcast have something to do with it?

I've already given you my hypothesis for the relevance of the television broadcast, and I'll share my hypothesis with regards to the relative rarity of spoon-bending in the modern age, as well as before its popularity in the 70s - it was a fad. Just like ectoplasm before it was a fad. These things come and go, as has been demonstrated numerous times over the years.

What alternative explanations do you favour and why?

 

[Lusikka]

I always found this to be one of the oddest (dumbest?) forms of claimed paranormal abilities. Seriously, bending spoons? Put a fork on the table and "tie" a couple prongs in into a knot with your ridiculous PSI (no touching).

In science every phenomenon ought to be studied with the best methods suitable for the phenomena. How can a phenomenon be "dumb"?

Thousands of spoon bending children from the 70s. I'll be retelling that one for a laugh or two.

Please, do it if you like to do so. I guess you have read only skeptical articles about the metal-bending.

I predict spoon bending will not win the JREF million. <chuckle>

I am afraid you are right in that prediction.

 

[often mrunderstood]

dislocations and work hardening and grain size and so on

This sounds like evidence to me. Exactly what are the anomolies observed in PSI bent spoons that differ from hand bent spoons?

Vanishing abilities indeed!

 

[often mrunderstood]

In science every phenomenon ought to be studied with the best methods suitable for the phenomena. How can a phenomenon be "dumb"?

I actually waivered on using that term and ultimately justified it this way:

Considering the very extremely unlikelyhood that this is a real phenomenon, I feel the tricksters involved are insulting our intelligence by claiming so. This lowers my standard for addressing them respectfully.

Were it real, the force behind it would have many more useful applications other than scrapping perfectly good untensils. Bending spoons to demonstrate this "power" is dumb.

We only need one real spoonbender to prove me wrong. Man the 70s were awesome.

 

[AdMan]

I have no claims. I am only telling what I have seen myself and what I have read others having done and seen

That's what claims are--what you are claiming to have witnessed.

I suspect it has not occurred in your mind that it is possible to find metallurgical anomalies in the test pieces, and so has happened. Do you think a physician or psychologist or magician is able to speak as an authority about dislocations and work hardening and grain size and so on.

Did you have these pieces tested by other metallurgy experts? Can you provide the results of the tests, and, even better, the pieces themselves, to have them tested by an independent lab to check whether the anomalies were more likely caused by paranormal rather than normal means?

I have no training in conjuring and I must therefore leave magicians in peace, but neither did the boys have any training or time for training. What happened was so clear and simple that you can never have any performing magician to do the same thing.

Sorry, but I don't buy that. Since you can't provide anything other than your own writings to support your claims, there is little to counter at this point.

The fact that you were fooled by metal-bending children is also not unique. Professor John Taylor of Kings College, London, was also fooled by kids (see also Randi's The Truth About Uri Geller).

 

[Lusikka]

The fact that you were fooled by metal-bending children is also not unique.

"The fact"? I would call this an unsubstantiated positive claim. How do you know it is a fact? What evidence do you have for this claim?

Professor John Taylor of Kings College, London, was also fooled by kids (see also Randi's The Truth About Uri Geller).

I don't like John Taylor at all. His book Superminds is a mess with very bad documentation of everything he has studied. But The Truth About Uri Geller is not much better. The name is bombastic without real substance. The cases are most often so sloppily described that it is very difficult to know what really has happened. I would say the book is best characterized as a pamphlet for advertising the author.

I appreciate Randi very much for his work to fight against real woo. I hate New Age myself, too. But I feel it is sad to see how blindly skeptics believe everything Randi says about parapsychology as a science.

 

[Resume]

"The fact"? I would call this an unsubstantiated positive claim. How do you know it is a fact? What evidence do you have for this claim?



I don't like John Taylor at all. His book Superminds is a mess with very bad documentation of everything he has studied. But The Truth About Uri Geller is not much better. The name is bombastic without real substance. The cases are most often so sloppily described that it is very difficult to know what really has happened. I would say the book is best characterized as a pamphlet for advertising the author.

I appreciate Randi very much for his work to fight against real woo. I hate New Age myself, too. But I feel it is sad to see how blindly skeptics believe everything Randi says about parapsychology as a science.

I'd be willing to bet that if I provided the cutlery, and prevented the handling of same by anyone but a metallurgical expert, no "spoonbender" in the world could bend them.

Of couse excuses would flow like spring runoff, but they'd still be excuses.

 

[dafydd]

"The fact"? I would call this an unsubstantiated positive claim. How do you know it is a fact? What evidence do you have for this claim?



I don't like John Taylor at all. His book Superminds is a mess with very bad documentation of everything he has studied. But The Truth About Uri Geller is not much better. The name is bombastic without real substance. The cases are most often so sloppily described that it is very difficult to know what really has happened. I would say the book is best characterized as a pamphlet for advertising the author.

I appreciate Randi very much for his work to fight against real woo. I hate New Age myself, too. But I feel it is sad to see how blindly skeptics believe everything Randi says about parapsychology as a science.

The words parapsychology and science do not go together. You can have one but not the other. Spoon bending,how frightfully passe.

 

[Lusikka]

However, you mention metallurgical anomalies after spoons have been bent. Can you point us to any published, peer-reviewed research on this? Any places where this has been replicated? That kind of thing would be quite compelling evidence that something other than the obvious was going on.

Yes, I think such measurable anomalies would be compelling. In my own experiments everything was normal, including forming of martensite in a stainless steel spoon. Just as if the specimens would have been bent with force in room temperature.

But there really are some measured or observed anomalies. John Hasted writes in his book "The Metal-Benders" how a boy could bend brittle metal bars, which normally would have broken without noticeable bending. He observed also a spoon becoming soft and breaking spontaneously with necking. Clear necking is normally impossible in bending.

Hasted also measured strains with strain-gauges in some keys, which a boy bent without touching them. He observed suppression of the elastic part of bending. As it happens I got this confirmed in my experiments. One of the boys was not able to bend a saw blade strip, but the other held it between his hands so that half of the strip was sticking out. We saw the end of the strip turn a little and when the boy gave it to me, the strip had just that bend in the middle. The bending would have been impossible normally because the thin and extremely hard strip would have been bending very much elastically before there would have been noticeable bend in the strip.

In an article (C. Crussard, J. Bouvaist (1978): Étude de quelques déformations et transformations apparemment anormales de métaux. Mémoires Scientifiques. Revue Métallurgie - Fevrier 1978) the authors measured work-hardening in a tensile testing bar in the thick end – without visible deformation and totally impossible to get even using strong tools.

J. P. Girard also bent a very strong round bar holding it in one end and rubbing in the middle with fingers of the other hand. The authors even actually saw the bending angle grow during 10-20 seconds. They also measured anomalous increase of hardness in some aluminum strips.

 

[Olowkow]

I find this response by Martin Gardner to the claims concerning feats of J.P. Girard to be informative:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1980/dec/18/parapsychology-physics-1/
Crussard speaks of seven magicians who “saw the deformations…but were unable to find any sign of faking.” Note how carefully this is worded. We are not told who the magicians are, whether they helped design the tests, or whether they were there during the actual bending. Watching a videotape of a miracle is no substitute for being present when it occurs.



Crussard typifies a small, sad class of scientists who are experts in their field, passionate believers in psychic forces, supremely ignorant of methods of deception, yet convinced of their ability to detect fraud. They will watch a conjuror vanish an elephant on a brightly lit stage, and readily admit they cannot explain how he did it. Next day they will watch an ex-magician move an empty pill bottle three inches and instantly declare that no conjuring techniques could possibly have been used!

Typical descriptions with no evidence, and such has been shown over and over again to be the case where any "miraculous bending" is concerned. If such feats were remotely possible, this would be common knowledge and a useful tool for material science.