Mind-bending method of self-discovery

Press, 10 March 1987, Page 46

Mind-bending method of self-discovery

By

ANNA SOBKOWSKI

of Reuters

NZPA-Reuter New York In the 19705, a psychic, Uri Geller, stunned audiences with his seeming ability to bend metal with his mind. In the 1980 s, it seems, anybody can do it. The humble fork and spoon have become the tools of a self-discovery technique based on using mental powers to bend metal. Groups began gathering to mutilate cutlery in the search of truth three years ago in Southern California and the trend has spread across the nation. In New York it has found an ardent teacher and promoter in Diana Gazes, who calls herself a “futurist.” Gazes, whose goal is to spread the gospel of the fork and spoon, fairly pulsates with a sense of mission. She believes that in coming years metal-bend-ing will prove to be a vital tool for coping with our confusing, hi-tech world. Gazes appears regularly on radio and has her own cable television show, "Gazes into the Future,” in which she reports on future trends and “the cutting edge of the paranormal.” But it is through her frequent workshops in New York that Gazes most dramatically spreads the word to the curious. She holds the workshems in her spacious livingroom, which is domin-l/ ated by an enormous

pyramid hung with "powerfully energising” crystals. Participants, who pay $5O each, are invited to sit under the pyramid whenever they feel their energy lagging. Attending one recent evening workshop were a diamond cutter, a graphic artist, a tennis professional, a chiropractor and his wife, a dancer, a computer consultant, a Wall Street broker, a speech therapist, and a 12-year-old prep school student. Why had they come? “To give up preconceived ideas.” “To learn how to use intuitive powers in business.” “To learn about paranormal phenomena.” “If I can bend metal I can learn how to do other things more easily.” “Because my mother learned how and she thought I might like it.” There were also a couple of sceptics. “As we step into what we call the information age, so much is coming at us,” explains Gazes, a former TV executive who saw auras around colleagues in the boardroom. Dressed in a “futurist” white outfit looking like a cheerleader for the new age, she says: “High technology is speeding along on a highspeed track. We’re recognising that we can be buried in all that information unless we continue to develop the finest computer on this earth, which is the human mind.” She thinks of metal

bending as just the beginning of what mental power can accomplish. The idea is to harness and direct the psychic energy we all possess on to a spoon or fork with such intensity that a “window in time” momentarily opens up. During that moment the metal becomes warm and malleable enough to bend. To reach that point, doubts and preconceived notions must be released, Gazes says. To get the workshop into the right frame of mind, she embarks on “white light” exercises: “Imagine a ball of white light coming down from the heavens, pouring around and through you, clearing away, washing away any resistance, any stress that may be in your body. Feel that ball of energy in your fingers, take a breath and really pump that energy up,” she says. Everyone sits with eyes closed, spoons and forks poised lightly between fingers and then as Gazes leads, they take up the chant: "bend, Bend, BEND.” “You got it GO FOR IT,” Gazes shouts. One by one, people hold up their mangled utensils with expressions of incredulity and satisfaction on their flushed faces. Only the computer consultant’s fork stubbornly refuses to budge. He casts a sceptical eye on the exultant group. A woman takes it from

him, bends it like putty and hands it back, triumphant. Gazes, who describes her business as “trying to wake up the human race,” says interest in her teachings has come from unexpected quarters. Several Wall Street businessmen are ardent followers. They take clients to lunch to teach them to bend. “I don’t think the restaurants are too happy with this,” Gazes says with a laugh. One successful businessman keeps a sculpture of bent utensils at the entrance to his elegant Manhattan offices — “to show that when you think it can’t be done it can.” Bending metal is just one paranormal technique Gazes employs in selfexploration. She also uses a pendulum to help her make important decisions and is not above calling on angels — “the spirit guides” — in times of need. Sceptics argue that people who bend metal are just responding to a charismatic personality • who so energises them that they believe they are drawing on some cosmic force, when they are actually simply exerting the pressure themselves. To that kind of pragmatic talk Gazes replies: “Show me a man with both feet on the ground and I’ll show you a man who can’t get off.”