Paranormal Metal Bending

METAL BENDING PARTIES

I took part in one such party at Cambridge University, UK in 1982 where I heard Kenneth Batcheldor speak.  After a banquet dinner with wine, a group of us, perhaps 30 or so people, met in a large comfortable sitting room with the goal of bending cutlery.

Some of the locals had brought their own flatware but many of us had swiped tableware from dinner. I filched my small silver coffee spoon.

USEFUL SUGGESTIONS FOR METAL BENDING

As we sat around relaxed and in high spirits, the leader told us what we could expect. We were supposed to chant, “Bend, bend, bend!” while lightly massaging our forks and spoons. After a while, this experienced and authoritative man told us, we would feel an “urge” or “knowledge” that the metal would bend. We were to act upon the urge and try to bend our object. It would probably appear to “melt,” he said, for a second and then “harden” again so that it might take a few tries to bend it completely. He also asked that the first person to get some bending tell the group.

BREAKING THE BELIEF BARRIER TO PARANORMALLY BEND METAL

With these suggestions firmly implanted in our minds, we laughed and joked and chanted and rubbed… and suddenly I got the feeling that I could bend my spoon. I tried it and, lo and behold, it “gave” as though it was a licorice stick then immediately hardened again. I looked at it. Sure enough, there was a slight bend in the handle. I held it up and shouted excitedly, “Look, it bent! I bent it!” 

The floodgates broke. Everybody’s flatware started to bend. After two more “urges” and tries, I got the spoon to bend completely in half. Some people had forks that twisted like corkscrews, the tines becoming a tangle of unkempt Medusa’s hair.

DON’T BREAK THE “TRANCE”

I was with Peter Lewis, the British journalist who was wearing a copper bracelet, which at one point in the frenzy he started to wind, ribbon-like, around his index finger. “Don’t stop me,” he said, “It’s like an orgasm; if you distract me it’ll stop it.” 

URI GELLER: SAME EFFECTIVE TECHNIQUES FOR SEANCES AND METAL BENDING

The effects of suggestion and belief were dramatically illustrated by Uri Geller’s televised feats of metal bending in the 1970s. Immediately people from all over the world who saw him began bending cutlery and restarting broken watches.

Julian Isaacs, a British researcher, used some of Kenneth Batcheldor’s theories in his work screening subjects for laboratory paranormal metal bending (PKMB) experiments. He employed the same techniques that I mentioned earlier for spoon-bending parties. He would lecture the group to convince it of the reality of PK and suggest that the metal-bending would spread further in the audience—which it did.

He persuaded them to loosen up and enjoy themselves in a “silly” way to try to bend cutlery. Isaacs pointed out that the roles of humor and amusement to diffuse the tension of an encounter with PK, to relax, to prevent over striving in the PKMB task, and to block analytical thinking are identical in the sitter-group and metal bending situations. 

BRINGING SAFE EQUIPMENT TO METAL BENDING PARTIES

Dennis Stillings of the Archaeus Project told of a metal-bending party that he was asked to conduct for a group of medical professionals. Everything was wrong, he said. It was a small group of primarily skeptical people who were into deep relaxation techniques, which is not usually conducive to metal bending. 

He had brought with him a quantity of forks and spoons, which he had tested for toughness and the bent ones were either thrown out or were bent back into their original shape. He had also brought, in case he should find a metal-bending prodigy, a small tray of “really tough and unusual materials.” Among these was a three-pronged cast-steel fondue fork with its shaft imbedded in an ebonite handle. 

METAL BENDING ROUTINE

Stillings began with Jack Houck’s routine, which encourages a true party atmosphere. He told them to “imagine a point of intense white light in the middle of your brain. Bring it down through your arms and put it into the metal. At the count of three we will all command the metal to bend.” After they shouted, “Bend!” three times they went into a concentrated meditative state. 

After ten minutes passed with nothing happening, Stillings, in his own state of embarrassment, decided to do a little “artifact introduction” in order to “break state.”

A LITTLE ENCOURAGEMENT TO START THE BENDING

He saw that the fork being held by the person in front of him looked as though it was a little bent. (Perhaps he had not straightened it out very well before the party.) He exclaimed, “Look! We’re getting some bending!” That broke the unproductive meditative state and people started talking to each other. Soon forks and spoons were bending away.

One physician stroked the side of a knife blade and became excited as he saw it begin to droop. Another turned a strong fork into a series of waves, and the psychiatrist who held the fork that Stillings “saw” bending tied it in knots. 

AN UNFORESEEN PROBLEM WITH BENDING METAL

This last individual then went over to the tray of “tough items” and took the heavy fondue fork with the ebonite handle. He began stroking it lightly and Stillings watched in apprehension from about eight feet away, worrying that the man might hurt himself if he forced it. He was about to warn the man when he noticed the tines beginning to fan out.

As he continued to watch, a bend of about 15 degrees formed in the last centimeter of one tine, a bend that would be impossible to make without the use of a tool. Then suddenly the fork exploded. Fragments of ebonite struck against the windows and walls.

The psychiatrist sat stunned, shaking his hand in pain. What had happened was that the part of the metal shaft imbedded in the ebonite had bent, even though it hadn’t been touched directly, shattering the brittle ebonite. The now exposed haft was bent about 20 degrees.

LINGER EFFECT

Some time later Stillings took it out to show someone and noticed that the bend was at a much greater angle than it had been on the night of the party. The metal had continued to bend in storage. Whenever he showed the fork to someone, he would insert the tip of the shaft back into the fragmented handle as it had originally fit. The fit was tight at first but some months later, when he tried to do it again, it would no longer slide into place. The extreme tip of the haft had begun to curl back on itself. 

That psychokinetically bent metal continues to bend is a phenomenon that has been noted in demonstrations by Uri Geller and others. It seems to be similar to the linger effect experienced in other PK demonstrations such as Felicia Parise’s deflection of compasses.

DID THAT REALLY HAPPEN? RETROCOGNITIVE DISSONANCE

Stillings noted that he is particularly susceptible to “retrocognitive dissonance” and admitted having a tough time with this phenomenon. But, he maintains, “This fork was truly bent by forces which have not been taken into consideration by normal science.”

You might want to try throwing a spoon-bending party of your own with a group of like-minded individuals. Since it might only be a one-time event you don’t need to have a faithful following willing to commit a substantial part of their leisure time. Make sure you have a lot of cheap cutlery around. (Hide the silver you inherited from Aunt Martha!) If you have inexpensive, thin, stainless forks and spoons that you’ve picked up in a close-out store, people will be more likely to believe they can bend them than a formidable, heavy butter knife. We’ve seen that plastic can also be bent, but again, people are more likely to remember Geller’s spoon-bending feats and want to try it with metal. 

THROW YOUR OWN METAL BENDING PARTY?

Make sure to prepare the group with positive suggestions (as given in the two instances above) and keep a fun, relaxed atmosphere in which everyone is actively involved.  

Explore more topics “outside the séance room”
JOTTS • Paranormal metal bending • Poltergeists • Psychokinesis (PK)
Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis (RSPK) • Thoughtography

Watch video of New Thinking Allowed host Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, who acknowledges that, while a skeptical attitude toward psychokinesis (PK) can be healthy, he personally has been convinced of the phenomenon for decades. He points out that the implications of the PK Party goes far beyond the uncanny bending of cutlery.

You can watch the original PK metal-bending party video.

Many thanks to Dr. Jeffery Mishlove for allowing us to share the outstanding videos from his excellent New Thinking Allowed  series.