The Time I Bent a Spoon and the Time I Didn’t.

Reading Time: 7 minutes and 24 seconds

I Always Thought Spoon Bending was a Magic Trick Until I Did It.

Spoon bending is a magic trick. An illusion anyone can learn. Right? That is what I thought, until I actually bent one. And then another time when I didn’t, that only backed up why I think it is real. Yes it can be a magic trick, but when I bent one, I can guarantee it was not a magic trick. At least if it was an illusion, I cannot begin to tell you how I did it. 

Like most people, I assumed spoon bending was a fun and fairly ordinary magic trick. I would be impressed if someone bent a spoon in front of me at a party, in the same way I am when they pull the card I chose from a deck. Cool trick! I’m curious! But I would consider it as real as the big fuzzy person in a bunny costume on Easter.

But when my dad passed away in 2015, leaving me shattered, and in a new universe, I began to question the laws of the universe. My very first thought, as a logical-minded atheist, was could reincarnation be possible. Not in the karma, grow, spiritual sense, but in the if consciousness is created by our brain neurons, and this firing of neural pathways created an experience of “me,” why could that not happen again. Although I would be a completely different person, and it didn’t mean I would see my dad again, it sounded like a much better alternative than complete obliteration. When obliteration is what you always assumed, your standards aren’t too high for what ways your consciousness might continue.

Was there any evidence of an afterlife? What happens when we die?

Anyway, to make a long story very short, I began to examine if there was any valid evidence of an afterlife, and question what was possible versus impossible. Part of this exploration involved reading about psychic mediums, mainly the research conducted by Dr. Julie Beischel at The Windbridge Institute, getting my own medium readings, and taking classes at a place called The Rhine Institute. Overall I was doing my best to explore this possibility that my dad was around me somehow, and these normally considered woo-woo topics, in the least woo-woo way possible. 

That was how I even came across spoon-bending as something to look into. In one of my classes at The Rhine, my teacher Loyd Auerbach mentioned it. I was shocked (something I was experiencing on a regular basis since studying all of this crazy shit) that he claimed it was something real. Was it? 

I noted to myself that I needed to research a place where I could try spoon-bending. If it proved to be real, that would give Loyd Auerbach some real credibility. It would be an “astronomical claim” I could directly test. It would show that our consciousness could interact with matter and material in our world, not reliant on a brain or body.

Even if it was attached to a physical body when someone bent a spoon, it wasn’t the physical body moving the spoon. That was a testable and tangible hint that maybe our consciousness could be able to influence and interact with the world even when not attached to a body. It would also show that the skeptics, who I respected and tended to believe based on most of what they debunked (like essential oils curing diseases), were not right 100% of the time. That things that were not possible according to the laws of the universe as we know them to be, like the ability to bend a spoon with our energy or survive death in some form, just might be possible. 

I Go to a Spoon Bending Workshop

The day after I was up reading my homework from Loyd’s class at the Rhine, when I had that thought which I jotted into my phone to find a spoon bending class, I had a workshop on learning about your intuition with a psychic medium. She was also going to give group readings. 

This was the second workshop I had gone to with this medium and I was really really nervous. I had spent the first time I met this medium awed at her “groundedness” and “normalness.” At the same time I awkwardly and not as stealthily as I was attempting , lurked around trying to see if I could find the catch. I didn’t! I was terrified I would figure it out this time. Or maybe she would be really inaccurate in her readings or more “woo-woo”and less grounded than I remembered. 

I was extra nervous because one of my two main lifelines during my early grief thought highly of her. I had never actually met this main lifeline, Dr. Julie Beischel, who I mentioned above, but since she was logical, science-minded, data driven, and had given up a career in pharmacology to study and research psychic mediums, she gave the possibility they could actually be real more validity than anything I had encountered so far. If this medium proved to be fraudulent, or kind and honest but delusional herself, Dr Beischel would lose a lot of credibility. I didn’t want my lifeline to lose credibility, and the whole possibility of “we survive bodily death” to go back to being a fantasy.

This psychic medium seemed genuine?!

Long story short, the medium really impressed me, and I did not lose my respect and mental dependency on Dr. Beischel. 

But that is not what you came here to read. You came to learn about the time I bent a spoon. And that is exactly what this medium announced we would be doing at one point in this workshop. I was a little taken aback at the synchronicity that I had just noted the night before that I wanted to attempt this, but I didn’t take that as more than a coincidence. 

So she passed around spoons. I turned to my friend that I had brought with me, a large guy much physically stronger than me, and shrugged. “Well, it’s worth a try.”

I honestly didn’t expect much as we all felt and checked to make sure these were normal spoons. The medium directed us to first attempt to bend them with our hands. No one could. They were normal solid spoons. Then she told us to stare at them, feel our energy around them and all shout “Bend!”. I did, feeling fairly silly.

But I looked over at a woman two seats away and she was bending her spoon into a twisted, I don’t know what. 

“Holy shit!,” I basically screamed in shock. 

She shrugged as if it was the most normal thing in the world. 

Then things got really weird. I felt my hands get hot. Really, really hot, and then the spoon got really hot too. But it was more like an “energy” heat because it didn’t hurt or burn. It felt a bit like the kind of heat you generate when you rub your hands together. The next thing I knew was the spoon felt very soft and as if it was a semi-melted metal. I easily bent the rounded spoon head down with no resistance. Then I felt it cool off and I couldn't bend or contort it any further. 

I sat there for about a minute. Staring at it. Stunned.

“What the actual fuck!” I finally managed to state. I had just defied the laws of the universe. I just got some actual tangible reason to hope that my dad was still around. That I would still be around. The whole laws of the universe were suddenly a but..different. More hopeful? 

Also I looked over at my friend. A much bigger and stronger guy. He had not been able to bend his spoon. If this was just strength, he would have certainly been able to bend his much, more so than I should have been able to.

I took the spoon home. I kept it to remind myself that “yes,” I really did this. Even with it, skeptical mind kept inventing more “logical” explanations, such as maybe a few of us were given much weaker spoons so we would be the ones who bent. But I had tried before the group all “focused our energy on it.” Maybe in my desperation to believe this stuff, I had gotten some weird superhuman strength?

Photos of the time I bent a spoon.

#picsoritdidnthappen

But when I went to an afterlife and mediumship convention …

Fast forward about two years when I was further along in my research and had gathered significantly more evidence in favor of survival of consciousness and weird paranormal shit being real. I went to a weekend event, The Afterlife and Mediumship Convention, being held by an organization called the Forever Family Foundation. 

Shortly after the time I bent a spoon I had reached out to this organization that used science-based testing to see if mediums were getting genuine information, and had a board of scientists who were going off the beaten path and studying evidence related to the afterlife. 

So here I was at their event, which I was helping run, surrounded by some of these mediums I had now befriended. Also my teacher from my class at The Rhine, Loyd Auerbach, who is president of this organization was there. He was running many workshops, including a spoon bending one. I had to see if I could do this again! 

The Time I Didn’t Bend a Spoon

(But it Made me Believe Even More)

So while in the other class, there had been about 50 people, there were only seven of us since it was a packed weekend with many activities to choose from. All of the other people, aside from one man, who like my previous friend, was physically strong, were psychic mediums, or claimed some sort of intuitive ability. 

Loyd dumped a pile of silver spoons on the table as I stood between two of my friends. Both small women. Both mediums, one of whom was certified by Forever Family Foundation, and I had seen give highly evidential readings, including to me before she really knew me. We all grabbed spoons and Loyd directed us to get fun and silly to get our energy up. This time we stood up (instead of remaining seated) and once again all yelled “bend.”

I took the spoon, I took a deep breath. I held it. I went to feel for energy. Nothing. I tried again. Nothing. I looked over to my left and right and both of the mediums had bent up and contorted their spoons. 

There was a table full of spoons and forks. Loyd told us to keep grabbing as many as we wanted. So I turned to my friend on my right and handed her my spoon. She easily bent it. I grabbed another. Tested to make sure it was a normal and solid spoon. And then I took a deep breath. Felt the energy build up in my hands. Tried to feel them get hot and heat my spoon. And nothing. I could not bend it. I handed it off to my other medium friend who easily bent it.

I was the only one who couldn’t bend a spoon.

To repeat, all three of us are small women. None of us are especially strong. I grabbed another. And another. I could not bend them and as I handed them off to my two medium friends, they kept easily bending and twisting them as if they were rubber. They also were grabbing spoons off the table themselves which they were also easily bending.

At the end of the workshop, the two mediums and everyone in the class aside from me and the man, who was much stronger than all of us, had managed to bend spoons. Everyone in the class aside from me and him were mediums or energy workers of some sort. Could that have had anything to do with it?

“Loyd, why could they all bend the spoons and I couldn't? And why was I able to bend one in Laura’s class and not now.”

There was no scientific data-based logical answer.

But I did know that these weren’t trick spoons if I couldn’t bend the very same ones, that the mediums, once again women of similar size and strength, easily could. 

I can’t explain how they did it. Or how I did it that one time. I do know that I did, and my friends did, something that according to science, logic, and the laws of the universe, we can’t do.