LONDON — A magician claimed recently that there is a secret liquid that would allow anyone to bend spoons and door keys like Uri Geller, the wizard who has amazed audiences with his apparent mental feats. And to prove that it was possible, two science masters at a London public school made up the liquid.
There was only one flaw: if Uri, who seems to bend spoons by concentration, regularly used the liquid, he would be dead by now.
The liquid is extremely poisonous. It is absorbed through the skin (despite reports of it not harming bare hands). Once in the body it attacks the kidneys, stopping them from extracting waste matter. Two tenths of a gram is enough to kill a man, and its effects are cumulative.
Nor is it all that good at bending spoons. At St. Dunstan's College in South London, the deputy headmaster, Dr. Philip Carter, who supevised the experiments, admitted: "They tend to snap rather than bend. Though it may be if we had time to work on getting the exact mixture, we could produce a slowly bending spoon."
As it is, the liquid is a clumsy tool for any magician. Ian Burgess, one of the school science masters, demonstrated its power on a stainless steel spoon. After five minutes in the liquid, the spoon's shaft had to be bent vigorously three times before snapping. An untreated spoon took nine bends to snap.
Slightly more spectacular results were obtained with a brass door key. Mr. Burgess painted it all over with liquid, applied with a dropper, and left it for five minutes. The yellow brass turned grey, and the key snapped when he bent it.
"Brass , aluminum, or nickel silver are the metals it works on fastest," said Mr. Burgess. "I do not want to reveal exactly what the liquid is since anyone experimenting with it literally takes his life in his hands. I refuse to handle it without rubbergloves. And I change to a new pair each time."
"Magic liquids that bend or break metal are much talked of among some magicians, but rarely if ever used. As well as this particular mixture, there is another equally dangerous compound sometimes mentioned. It too, produces fairly unspectacular results."
Nor are liquids necessary for successful spoon bending. By now several magicians have demonstrtacd similar feats to those practised by Uri Geller, using simple misdirection — the ability to divert the observer's attention at the crucial moment.
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