Did you ever see a magician bend a spoon right in front of an audience and wonder how it was done? While spoon-bending as a psychic phenomenon has been amply discredited, it still makes a good stage trick.
Step
1. Obtain several spoons you can afford to ruin. Yard sales and thrift stores are excellent sources of inexpensive, mismatched spoons. Get several, so you'll have plenty to practice with. Don't use good flatware or break up a matched set.
Method one
Bend the spoons back...
...and forth
1. Prepare for this trick by gently bending back and forth the handle of the spoon, where the handle joins its bowl. The objective is to weaken the metal without breaking the spoon. Bend it back and forth repeatedly.
- What you are doing, as far as materials science is concerned, is subjecting the neck of the spoon to low-cycle fatigue.
2. Bend the weakened spoon back into position so that it has an appropriate shape and appears whole and unaltered to your audience.
Display an "ordinary" spoon.
3. Display the spoon by pulling gently on both ends of the spoon to show your audience it is intact. You can also tap it gently against something, such as a glass or tabletop.
- Keep the spoon moving around at this stage if there are any tiny cracks at the fatigue point. It will help to keep your audience from seeing your preparations.
Hold the spoon like this.
4. Place the spoon, handle towards you and bowl upwards, between your first finger and thumb.
5. Gently rub and push the weakened spot in the spoon until it becomes hot to the touch, approximately 20 seconds. You can add drama and distraction by 'meditating' or 'concentrating' if you wish.
6. Help the spoon along by "supporting" it at the tip of the bowl, as you rub and push.
Hold the tip of the bowl lightly with your fingertips.
7. Bend the spoon or allow the spoon to bend so that it droops. If you can, quickly loop the bowl around several times, winding toward the handle. The spoon may also break in two.
Display the bent spoon.
if the spoon breaks, go with it. Pinch your fingers over the break, then gradually loosen them so the spoon appears to bend. Holding the spoon vertically and letting the bowl sag to one side will intensify the effect. Then, dramatically drop the two separate halves with a clatter.
8. Set the spoon down. By the time your applause ends, the spoon will be cool to the touch and no one will be the wiser.
Method two
1. Talk about your "psychic" or "telekinetic" powers and spin a story around what you are about to do.
2. Direct the audience's attention elsewhere for a moment.
- Make a broad gesture or create some other distraction.
- Conceal the spoon under a table or elsewhere out of sight while you talk about your powers.
- Brazenly ask your onlookers to close their eyes so that they can better focus their energy on the spoon.
3. During the moment of misdirection, bend the spoon. Practice this maneuver so that you can perform it discreetly and with only one hand.
Jam your thumb into the bowl of the spoon.
- If your hands are strong enough, jam your thumb into the bowl of the spoon, with your fingers on the spoon's neck and the back end of the handle against the heel of your hand.
Press against a table or other surface.
- Alternatively, set the tip of the spoon against some other surface, like a table or your knee, and push your thumb firmly into the neck of the spoon.
Hold the spoon like this in the lower hand...
...but cover the fact that it's already bent.
4. Display the handle of the spoon horizontally, but conceal the fact that the spoon is already bent. Use the top hand to rub the spoon, to give the illusion that something is happening. To further the illusion, grunt, chant, or remind your audience to focus, envision the liquid state, etc.
5. Gradually extend the bent end of the spoon so that it appears to bend and droop.
Remember to credit your psychic energy.
- Try the process called "ratcheting", which basically works just as it sounds. Each time you stroke or jiggle the spoon forward, push it out, just a notch.
You could become famous!
6. Display the bent spoon and accept your applause.
Tips
- Be prepared to ruin several spoons in the pre-weakening process before you learn exactly how much you must bend them prior to a successful act.
Do not repeat this trick for the same audience. Do have a claim ready about why you must not repeat this trick. Some good ones include:- It doesn't always work
- You are psychically exhausted from all the mental effort.
- Repeated psychic disturbances of this magnitude may create rifts in the continuum.
- It's still a waste of a perfectly good spoon.
- It doesn't always work.
- A true magician will never perform his trick twice!
- Much of the believability of this trick comes from the story, so go on about mental energy, how you learned to bend spoons with your mind, the interaction of telekinetic energy waves with metal atoms (because metal is conductive, you see...) and any other mumbo-jumbo that will add to the illusion that your demonstration is supernatural rather than subterfuge.
- If you have small hands or want to vary the trick, try Method Two with a smaller metal object, such as a key. Just make sure it isn't an important key.
- If the spoon breaks don't panic, simply "explain" that the spoon was under shock from all the mental pressure, or something along those lines.
- Don't use thick spoons or show signs of struggling.
(wikihow)