The most popular types of mentalism tricks include spoon bending, mind reading, predicting the future and watch stopping.

But, do you need to be a Uri Geller or a Derren Brown to perform these kinds of tricks? Do you need to have supernatural powers to be a mentalist?

Well, the logical answer is NO! you do not need to have any special powers.

However, you do need to have a period of concentrated training and lots of practice to be able to create the illusion in peoples minds that they are seeing and believing the impossible happen right in front of them.

So, why are mentalism tricks so popular and why are they so believable? If you closely watch Uri Geller at work you will see how fascinating the effects he creates can be. Watching Uri bend a spoon and then seeing it break in two simply because he rubbed it gently with his finger has confounded and amazed people for many years. How does he do that?

People will go and grab a spoon and try to do the same as Uri, but they cannot achieve the same effect because they do not know the secret.

The secret to this trick is very simple and believe it or not anyone with the knowledge and some concentrated practice can perform this trick.

The spoon needs to be prepared in advance by bending the head backwards and forwards until it is almost ready to break. It takes some practice to prepare the spoon correctly. If you bend it to many times it will break, but if you do not bend it enough times you will have difficulty breaking it during the trick.

Once you have prepared the spoon place it back on your demonstration table amongst other cutlery items. Remember where you have placed it because at the start of your trick you will choose your prepared spoon, apparently at random, from all the other cutlery items on the table.

To give the impression you have a perfect spoon gently tap in on your table a few times. Using your index finger and thumb hold the spoon at the point where you have prepared the bend and begin to rub the spoon at the bend point. Gently apply some pressure to the spoon as your rub.

Your are almost there now. All you have to do is continue to rub and apply pressure both upwards and downwards on the spoon at the bend point and it will start to bend.

When you feel the spoon break continue to hold the head and the handle together between your fingers. Hold the spoon with the head pointing upwards and gradually reduce your finger pressure. This will allow the head of the spoon to slowly drop sideways and to really wow your audience finish the trick by allowing the head of the spoon to drop onto the table with a band.

Uri Geller convinced his audience that he could bend the spoon using the power of his mind. If you can perform this mentalism trick in the same way you will have your audience gasping with admiration just as Uri Geller did.