Michael Shermer has appeared on such shows as The Colbert Report, 20/20, Dateline, Charlie Rose, Oprah, and Larry King Live (but, proudly, never Jerry Springer!). He has been interviewed in countless documentaries aired on PBS, A&E, Discovery, The History Channel, The Science Channel, and The Learning Channel. He regularly contributes opinion editorials, essays, and reviews to: the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Science, Nature, and other publications.
Ever since the 1970s, spoonbending (and the bending of other cutlery, metal bars, and the like) has been held up as physical evidence for telekinesis, a form of PSI in which thoughts alone can allegedly be employed to alter the physical environment. In this episode, Michael Shermer attends a seminar on spoonbending and discovers the power of group think to actually bend metal!
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how Akismet processes your comment data.
Copyright 2023 Michael Shermer | All Rights Reserved | 3938 State Street, Suite 101, Santa Barbara, CA, 93105-3114 | 1-805-576-9396
February 6th, 2008 at 7:23 am
Mike has again demonstrated that Science has trumped the bogus theories about PK.
Actually, In my opinion, pseudoscientific theories are WORSE than the “Pure Magic” appraoch.
This is because the claims of pseudocience give the
hucksters an undeserved respect in the general population.
Claims of “But it’s really Scientific at base”, allow people who scorn the occult to follow hokum in good conscience.
As an aside , as children, we would have never been allowed to participate in this hokum because of the strong belief that it was possibly due to SATAN!!
February 16th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
I have observed spoon bending pk stuff for many years. I have never seen anyone start the exercise by doing it physically. That’s just silly. Anyone can bend a spoon with their hands, as tableware is not that strong to begin with.
In 1977 I saw Uri Geller in person, and anyone who hopes to follow Geller is going to have to try harder than the guy in this video.
February 17th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Well, I don’t believe in psycho/telekinesis any more than Michael Shermer, but I don’t think this video addresses the main point, which is spoon bending without (apparent) physical contact. For someone to say you can’t bend a spoon by physical effort, and someone else to say, yes you can, doesn’t really get us any further.