Spoon-bending workshop, widely ridiculed online, pulled by university

After a healthy dose of online ridicule, the University of Alberta has cancelled a workshop atwhich doctors were supposed to learn to bend spoons.

With their minds.

When Tim Caulfield first spotteda poster forthe event,he didn't understand what he was seeing.

"When I first saw the post I thought it might be a magic show,"said the professor of health law andscience policy at U of A."But this wasn't being presented as that, or as satire, it was being presented as a real event where you're supposed to use the power of your mind to bend spoons."

The seminar, titled simply"Spoon Bending and the Power of the Mind," was arrangedby the university'sComplementary and Alternative Research and Education program or CARE, aspart of thePediatric Integrative Medicine Rounds, a series of monthly seminars presenting a specialist in the field of integrative medicine to a clinical audience.

WhenCaulfieldheard about event, he immediately tweeted about it causing many on social media to ridicule the workshop and the university.

It was to be taught by AnastasiaKutt, an Edmonton "energy healer" who specializes inreiki,aformoftherapyinwhichthepractitionerisbelievedtochannelenergyintothepatientinordertoencouragehealing.

On herwebsite, Kuttsaidshe "has been studying [and] experiencing techniques such as yoga, meditation, and other energy healing techniques for over 10 years."

When I first saw the post I thought it might be a magic show.- TimothyCaulfield

Her website explainsenergy healing as "removing issues and stress from your energetic field, to bring it into balance and its original state of good health."

She has taught similar seminars onspoon bending, alsodescribed asPK bending psychokinesis bending.

Kuttis also a research assistant in the CARE programandco-ordinates the education arm of the program.

The poster boasts that at the end of the day, 75 per cent of the doctors, with guidance fromKutt, would be able to bend spoons solely with their minds.

It's a notion thatCaulfield, along with many others online, scoffed at.

• Trending story|Spoon bending' workshop for doctors withdrawn at University of Alberta

"Spoon bending is kind of ironic because it's been debunked so often," saidCaulfield.

"There is absolutely no physical way you can bend a spoon with your mind. That's why it's so frustrating that it's being presented in this legitimate way at a science-based institution."

The event poster featured the disclaimer that states, "This workshop is experiential and is meant to spark interest.This will not be a scientific evaluation of the process."

The University of Alberta released a statement saying the workshop had "been withdrawn by the presenters."

It added that the event was "about reiki and other energy therapies, highlighting how and why patients and therapists use it ... acknowledging that there is a lack of evidence about how, and how well, it works."

'Embrace of pseudoscience'

ForCaulfield, the issue is that programs like CARE lendlegitimacy to these sorts of ideas, something he doesn't believe an institute of higher learning should do.

"That's my sort of umbrella concern with this," Caulfield said. "Is these kind of programs legitimize the pseudo-science.The problem is, it always sort of slides into the embrace of pseudo-science.

"It's always presented in a legitimate fashion. You don't have that critical component to it, you're working arm inarm with energy healers, reiki experts and homoeopathy practitioners."

He said he's not sure what exact role the University of Alberta played in the organization, but it doesn't matter anyway. The poster featured the university's logo, which links the event directly to the institution.

"It really does seem like they are part of academia and that, to me, is problematic."