Can someone explain this to me in non-paranormal terms? I read a little about the use of misdirection but how EXACTLY is the misdirection used and in what way?
Thanks.
Here’s one explanation:
“In most cases, the trick could be accomplished simply by misdirection, a basic tool of the stage magician. Namely, the performer draws the audience’s attention away from the spoon during the brief moment while he is actually bending it with his hands. The typical bend, where the bowl meets the handle, requires relatively little force. Another possible method is to use a metal spoon that has been previously doctored so that a simple flick will cause it to bend. This can be done, for instance, by repeatedly bending the spoon at the desired spot, until the metal cracks and weakens. A skilled magician can disguise a sharp flick so that it appears smooth and natural.”
Here’s a DIY spoon bending trick I learned from watching James Randi. You take two spoons, one is used as a reference. You show them together (in “spooning” position 
) and then set down the reference spoon. You hold up the other spoon, gingerly handling it only by the tip of the handle, wave your hands around a bit, and then compare it to the reference spoon, where you see the spoon was bent!! The trick is to bend the reference spoon as you put it down following the initial comparison. Nobody’s looking there and it’s easy to do with one hand.
But I don’t know how Uri Geller did the whole melting bit.
There is no one way. It can be done through patter, body motions, looking away at something - anything that taps into the basic human inclination to look to where our attention is somehow directed. Simply reaching down to a table with the other hand would do.
You may have seen another example in movies or TV shows, where A is holding B at gunpoint. B looks over to the side, maybe shows some reaction as if he’s seeing someone coming. A glances over to see what B is looking at, at which point B jumps A and disarms him.
Here’s another technique:
Hold the spoon so that the handle is lightly held in you hand, with the bowl pointed toward your audience. With a little pressure, you can bend the part concealed in your hand, with the bent part in your palm. Then you can slowly feed the spoon forward, letting the bowl droop and revealing the bend . From head on, it looks like the spoon just sagged under its own weight.
Obviously, patter and misdirection help here as well.
Randi and Martyin Gardner describe spoon and other types of bending in various places, like Randi’s book Flim-Flam! and Uri Geller Exposed, or Randi’s circa 1976 article in technology Review. There is no single method. They all rely upon misdirection and taking unexpected opportunities. Sometimes you can get to the spoon beforehand and weaken (work0-harden) it beforehand by bending it back and forth. Sometimes you say something like “It helps if you put it near metal”, and in an unguarded moment while everyone looks for exposed metal, you bend it with one hand against convenient leverage. Or you reach unsder your chair to grab it so you can scrooch forward, and jam the spoon against the chair to bend it. You conceal the actual bend with your hand and only gradually reveal it, saying that you can “see it bending” and “feel it bending”, this giving the impression that it’s happening then, not a few minutes ago. You tell people that it’s benmt a little and place it aggainst the table with a little sticking up on each side, then you say that it continues to bend, and the next time you place the handle flat on the table, so the bowl sticks up at twice the angle.
It sounds crude as given here, but you can easily play on people’s perceptions with the way you hold the part and what you say. The patter isn’t all misdirection – some of it is outright lying, planting the idea that the spoon is continuing to bend more when nothing is, in fact, changing. And you can always use misdirection or opportunity to bend it a littkle further later on. Even believeres have spoken of the “shyness effect” – that things often seem to bend when you’re not lookingh at them. Gee. I wonder why?