Penn & Teller, spoonbending--whaaaaaaaa'??

[Goshawk]

I finally got around to watching Penn & Teller's "Bullsh*t" in its entirety, and when they got to the spoonbending segment, my jaw fell open so far it hit the coffee table.

People were blatantly using their HANDS?? And Jack Houck was walking around, blatantly HELPING them bend the spoons with their hands? And then congratulating them on having bent the spoons? As though they really HAD used telekinesis to bend the spoons???????



My head exploded at this point, so I couldn't really take in the "Naked" segment...

...so I had to watch it again...




But I mean...oy.

 

[Phrost]

There's a naked segment on there? Hmm... guess I should watch the whole set sometime.

 

[JLam]

The naked segment was particularly good. That spoonbending party was absolutely mind-boggling. Some people just want to be fooled, I suppose.

 

[aofl]

The only thing I could figure is that they think you can't bend spoons with your bare hands.

The sheepish looks of some of the people as they left were priceless, though.

BEND!!!!

A

 

[Red Siegfried]

Naked people are great when they're good looking.

It's simple distraction. Sometimes you don't even need to distract people to bend the spoons. Amazing. Just say "I'm NOT bending the spoon like this."

And then bend it.

For every 10 that catch what you're doing there will be one that doesn't. And it only takes one to spread the word about your "superpowers."

 

[Questioninggeller]

I just got my Season Two DVD from amazon.com today, with the expection of the Bible episode and Recycling episode, I enjoyed season one better.

 

[Phrost]

The Bible episode should be played at every public hearing on cramming Creationism/ID/BS into classrooms.

 

[Goshawk]

The naked segment is actually on increasing penis and breast size through various woo means. And it actually made sense to have penises and breasts overtly on display, because that was the subject of discussion.

The Creationism segment is a real hoot, I especially admired the tactful way the Science Foundation educator-person (what IS her name? she was in the PBS/NOVA "Creationism" thing, too) said, "Dr. Gish has apparently not kept up with the latest findings, we DO have transitional fossils..." And I was thankful that it happened that two of my teenagers were watching it, too. My freshman daughter actually had a biology class last semester in which her teacher, sighing heavily and rolling his eyeballs, made a perfunctory pass through the mandatory "now, children, evolution is only a theory" speech, and then she says he went right on teaching as though evolution were a scientific fact. And I said Good for him.

The ESP and Alien Abductions segments were also marvelous, mostly for the caliber of people they managed to find to film. The Pet Psychic was my favorite, with the Remote Viewing guy who drew "mountains" (heh) a close second, and the Feng Shui teams, third.

And--be sure you watch the Bonus Features, because there you will see what the "I can't tell you how I know that the U.S. has these secret UFO aircraft because I'd be immediately arrested" guy really looks like. Hint: I see why they digitized out his face in the final cut, because otherwise you'd be sittin' there staring at him, instead of focusing on the woo he was spinning.

Also, the "Junkyard Ghost" on the Bonus Features is not to be missed.

I was disappointed in the Randi interview, though, because it seems like Penn kinda hogged the conversation. I was sitting there thinking, "Geez, let him talk, woncha?"

 

[Goshawk]

It's simple distraction. Sometimes you don't even need to distract people to bend the spoons. Amazing. Just say "I'm NOT bending the spoon like this."

And then bend it.

For every 10 that catch what you're doing there will be one that doesn't. And it only takes one to spread the word about your "superpowers."

No. You misunderstand what's going on in the episode. You need to go rent this and watch it. Disc 2, Episode "ESP".

There's no pretense about it at all. Nobody's going "Presto change-o!" and making a mystical pass to distract your eye, while voila! the spoon is bent when you look back. (Penn says at the end, something like, "He's sunk even below 'magician'! We were expecting a trick! But there's not even a trick! They just bend the spoons with their hands, and Jack tells them their mind power 'softened the metal'!")

There's a whole roomful of people, like about 20 people, and they're all holding spoons in one hand, and Jack Houck says, "Are you ready to bend spoons?" or something like that. And he demonstrates, by holding the top of the spoon--the top of the bowl--in his other hand, and wiggling it back and forth. Flexing it, IOW.

And at 2:10 on the DVD counter, they even SHOW him helping a girl in a gray shirt with her spoon--she has it in her two hands, and is trying to bend it with her hands, and instead of telling her, "Bend it with your mind", he reaches down and touches the spoon himself right at the juncture where it's supposed to bend.

And at 15:40 on the DVD counter, they show a girl in an orange shirt bending her spoon with both her hands (the camera filming over her shoulder), and she holds it up triumphantly, bent, and Jack comes over and claps her on the shoulder in a congratulatory way.

And at 15:49, a guy in a gray shirt bends his with both his hands, holds it up triumphantly, bent, and Jack congratulates him, "Hey!!" and puts his arms up in a "touchdown" gesture.

And next the guy in the gray shirt says to the camera, in excitement, "It just gives! It just gives! You can't do it, you can't do it, and then he [Jack] screamed, and I screamed, and it just gave!" And he's standing there with BOTH his hands holding the spoon, unconsciously re-enacting the motions and thereby demonstrating the precise manner in which it just "gave". Well, yeah, metal fatigue is like that. But he apparently THINKS he did it with his mind.

And next a guy in a white shirt is holding his spoon in both hands, it won't bend, and again, instead of saying, "Bend it with your mind", Jack puts his hand over the guy's hands. Clearly there's no "mind power" at work here; it's all just muscle power.

This whole roomful of people are simply bending the spoons with their hands. You do glimpse one girl holding one of the aluminum rods, apparently trying to get her mind power to soften it, but...everybody else is just twisting cutlery into shapes with their hands.

Hence my jaw dropping onto the coffee table.

 

[Goshawk]

And I thought I'd go look up on his website exactly how he weasels out of this. Because it's just so...blatant.

It's apparently "kindergarten bending", and he admits,up front, that you do it with your hands. And there's even a QuickTime movie there, that shows a guy bending his spoon--with his hands.

http://www.jackhouck.com/pk.shtml

When we do kindergarten bending at the PK Parties, what we are really looking for is to find the moment when the metal gets soft and loses its structure in your hands. You may feel heat coming out of the metal. It often feels like it changes consistency. When you feel the moment that it gets soft, you push on it a little. I named this process "warm forming." I use that term to make it sound more scientific, as Puthoff and Targ called clairvoyance "remote viewing." I call this warm forming because when the silverware feels a little warm, you form it. In kindergarten, you use two hands and apply about one tenth the pressure necessary to bend the silverware physically. Almost everyone can bend silverware physically. However, in kindergarten metal bending we are using both hands, so that you will learn to find the time when the metal loses its structure, gets soft, and becomes a little warm. Then you will be aware of the difference between what it takes to bend the metal physically and with PK. After we do kindergarten bending, we move into "high school" bending where we do things beyond physical strength.

Bolding mine.

Feh.

As Penn says, he's found a way to descend lower than a magic trick.


Oh, and, at the end of the "ESP" episode they try the "two forks" trick with everyone.

Nothing happens.

 

[thatguywhojuggles]

And I thought I'd go look up on his website exactly how he weasels out of this. Because it's just so...blatant.

It's apparently "kindergarten bending", and he admits,up front, that you do it with your hands. And there's even a QuickTime movie there, that shows a guy bending his spoon--with his hands.

http://www.jackhouck.com/pk.shtml

Ahh!... that website makes me dizzy...

 

[Brown]

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.])