Spoon bending (or fork for that matter) is a time-honored old magician's trick. The two basic methods are:
1) Prepare the target spoon by employing what is called "metal fatigue", meaning you bend it back and forth repeatedly until the friction warms the metal and it becomes increasingly bendable. You return it to its proper shape to later pull it out in front of your audience and bend it with minimal effort.
2) Or you use the handle end of it to bend it surrepticiously, using the bulk of the hand holding it to hide the action from your audience. You grasp the spoon with your fingers near the narrowest part and push the handle end against a table or other hard surface. The leverage makes it bend quickly and easily with a little practice.
The above are also how magicians - or magicians pretending they are psychics - bend keys. Slo-mo video of Uri Geller shows him using both methods, as well as palming his own spoon in to replace the unprepared spoon offered by an audience member or TV show host.
It's a simple basic magic trick that went out of fashion for decades and was resurrected in the 1970s by Uri Geller after the public had forgotten it was a trick.  |