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THE METAL-BENDERS” by JOHN B. HASTED

I include mention of a reported instance of remote induction which, if replicated, could have far-reaching consequences.

David Nemeth is a young metal-bender who has demonstrated his ability to me on resistive strain gauges, and in other ways, in the presence of various observers.

His mother was nursing in a hospital more than ten miles from their home, and she had the keeping of the key of a poisons cupboard, a special responsibility for her. One day at work she searched for her key and found it in her pocket, bent; she was unable to reopen the cupboard lock.

Although her first thought was that the paranormal bending was her own, it transpired that David had at that exact time been particularly anxious that his mother should come home to him. Mrs Nemeth wished to discourage this from happening again, but there was a recurrence under similar circumstances.

I attempted to stimulate an experiment, giving David and Mrs Nemeth identical sets of different-shaped metal pieces; David was to concentrate on one and see if the similar one in his mother’s possession bent in the hospital. No success was achieved with systematic experimentation.

My interest in such induction experiments has been stimulated by the feeling sometimes subscribed to by metal-benders that ‘the power comes through them or from outside them’. I do not yet know whether this is true or not, or even whether it is a meaningful statement to make. Certainly there is a ‘distance effect’ in that the power demonstrates itself within a slightly mobile ‘region of action’, removed from the body of the subject. But the metal-benders do not regard this region as a manifestation of an ‘external’ source of power.

Induction effects are one of the most tantalizing of all the metal-bending phenomena, and their existence is very difficult to prove quantitatively. A great deal more study is necessary. Our understanding is made more difficult by the possible existence of ‘poet-active effects’..... Metal-bending is sometimes found to continue after the ‘conscious’ action by the psychic has ceased; but has the action really ceased? And might an induction effect have taken its place?

All attempts I have made to send telepathic messages or communicate by means of signals on resistive strain gauges have failed.

It occurred to me that strain gauge signals were similar in many ways to the paranormal raps produced on table-tops and elsewhere by ‘sitter groups’ when a question is asked of a ‘discarnate entity’. This entity can even be imaginary, invented just for the purpose of the experiment.  The answer is usually given paranormally by code in raps. During successful resistive strain gauge sessions, the metal-benders and I have occasionally asked questions in order to obtain answering signals, but have been vouchsafed none.