Hi Olavi!

> Thank you, Peter Mulacz for the free summary of your paper about
physical mediumism: http://www.parapsych.org/papers/29.pdf .

With pleasure.

> You write: "Taking into account the potential relevance of
(ostensible) phenomena of physical mediumism the present state of
affairs is a deplorable one. However, research in Paranormal Metal
Bending was a first little step in the right direction of reversing that
process."

> I agree with you otherwise, but the Paranormal Metal Bending is a
disaster in my opinion. I have always wondered why parapsychologists do
not take enough advantage of what mainstream scientists already know.

It is difficult to urge mainstream scientists to cooperate with
parapsychologists.

> There have been mainly physicists and scholars who have tried to
investigate the metal bending, with exceedingly poor results. As far as
I know, the only highly knowledgeable metallurgists were from France,
with very convincing results.

I disagree insofar as I believe the late British physicist John Hasted
has done a good job in investigating PMB. See his book "The Metal
Benders." London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980. There is also a
documentary "Spoon Bending" by Adrin Neatrour (Cincle Cut Motion
Pictures). The text of Hasted's book used to be available on-line.
Moreover, the phenomenon evoked widespread interest in the
parapsychological community, see for example
http://www.zem.demon.co.uk/belofb.htm.

Could you provide sources for that french metallurgist?

> There were many "mini-Gellers" in Finland in the year 1974.

There were many of these kids and adolescents all over the world; in
Austria we used to call them "Gellerini" -- I believe, it was the late
Hans Bender who introduced this nick.

> As a young metallurgist I did experiments with two of them, boys aged
8 and 9 years. Beyond all reasonable doubt they could bend my specimens
paranormally.

I investigated several children at that time, in particular a boy of 14
and a girl of sevenandhalf. For the latter, see
http://parapsychologie.info/history/slides/21.htm.

I also could -- kindly mediated by my late friend, Heinz Ch. Berendt
(see http://parapsychologie.info/hcb1.htm, in German) -- investigate the
Israeli psychic Rony (Ronny) Marcus who at that time (in the 1980ies)
showed 'genuine' phenomena, however, he started to mix them up with
stage magician tricks. Now things have changed, during investigations
by Radin and Braude he did hardly, if ever, produce phenomena, just
tricks. http://ronny-marcus.tripod.com/

> When the metal bending is discussed now much later, everybody
remembers Uri Geller but mini-Gellers are most often ignored. Although
their abilities are the most convincing phenomenon to show that
psi-phenomena can be real.

Agreed.

> Unfortunately the ignoring concerns also the parapsychological community.

In part, only.

I should add that there is one elderly gentleman in Germany, Reiner
Höhndorf, who successfully rans courses in PMB.


Best,
Peter

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