Spoon Bending and The Paranormal
Due partly to the publicity surrounding Uri Geller in the 1970s, bent spoons have become a common visual symbol of the paranormal. It is shown, for example, in The Matrix, when a young boy bends a spoon to demonstrate the unreality of a computer simulation, and the Pokémon Kadabra and Alakazam both carry spoons as symbols of their psychic powers.
While many individuals have claimed the paranormal or psychokinetic ability to bend spoons or manipulate other objects, spoon bending by mental powers alone has not been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the scientific community. Magician and skeptic James Randi has offered a prize of one million dollars to academic-backed media figures who are able to demonstrate paranormal abilities such as spoon bending.
Read more about this topic: Spoon Bending
Famous quotes containing the words spoon and/or bending:
“No spoon has yet destroyed a mouth, but the knife of war cuts portions that are hard to swallow. Perhaps the big mouths of the privileged are able to cope with them, but they dull the teeth of the little people and ruin their stomachs.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“Go bind thou up young dangling apricots
Which, like unruly children, make their sire
Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight.
Give some supportance to the bending twigs.
Go thou, and like an executioner
Cut off the heads of too-fast-growing sprays
That look too lofty in our commonwealth.
All must be even in our government.
You thus employed, I will go root away
The noisome weeds which without profit suck
The soil’s fertility from wholesome flowers.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)