It is incredible to realize to what extent, in the context of say a coin routine, the human mind is unable to properly reconstruct simple steps that occurred a couple of minutes before the end of the routine. By listening different spectators' testimonies one comes to realize everybody seems to have witnessed a different thing: some would swear they saw both hands empty (when they never actually did), some others would affirm they were given 4 coins, because they saw them (when they could not), some will scream "He gave me the silver coin, I saw it!!!"... And I even noticed that these -convinced- specs would not even let anybody talk them out of it, and become sometimes aggressive when contradicted.

What I wanted to say here is that 'helping' specs to reconstruct the way we want is a largely under-estimated way to reinforce, strengthen the impact of an effect. Asking a spectator to loudly acknowledge what is happening, 'helping' them in that way by making them repeat what we want, is I think a very powerful tool. A slight detail we will add when making them repeat will go unnoticed at this point, but after the effect is over and when they try to reconstruct, this detail will come again (since they repeated it), and will definitely prevent them (and the other spectators) from reconstructing anything compromising.

Just a little thought on a flaw of the human brain that serves us so well.

Phedon

Magic is in the mind of the beholder.

Words can add to it.


Harris "out of my ..." Deutsch

Thanks for bringing that out Phedon. You make some real good points there. I have witnessed some of the same. I never really looked at it as a useful tool, but I will now.....

Sounds like you've read the ads for some of Kenton Knepper's early products including "wonder words".

One the simple things that helps me to achieve this is to tell the spectator what happened at key points in the routine, just after they happened. You say it in an offhand way, not asking them to agree and therefore not giving them the opportunity to disagree.

When they retell the story they will generally follow the version that you told them, because this is the one that has been reinforced most often.

It's great when it works!

Hence,

magic is not about what you see
but what you make others see

:)

It's funny you should mention this.
A friend of mine was two tricks last night at dinner.
Here's his description.
A sugar cube is initialed by his wife.
She dropped the sugar cube in a glass of water and
held her hand over the mouth of the glass.
A moment later she lifted her hand and her initials were on her hand.

I asked him if the magician touched the cube and he said no.
OooKK.

Not asking any further questions, I asked how he thought it was done.
The answer was that it was probably a chemical reaction.

I've done a Bluff Vanish with a coin where I've asked them, "See this dime?"
The response is, "Yes."
That's all I needed.

The words we use and how we use them is something I've been looking into more.

Nice post J. McGrath.

I agree, nice post and excellent reminder.....

A couple of things about this:

This is a very valuable observation, and it's important to understand that there are at least two different ways in which the phenomenon occurs. When someone misrecalls a magical event, he is either 1) creating a false memory of something that he did not see, or 2) accurately recalling something he did see, but which did not really happen.

To bring this back to coin magic, remember the old gag where a coin vanishes from under a handkerchief, even though everyone feels it to make sure it's there? That's going to create the first type of false memory. A properly executed retention pass creates the second type.

As to using verbal techniques to emphasize certain aspects of a magic effect, see Gary Kurtz's "Leading with your Head". He uses verbal confirmation and a "nod technique" to emphasize the elements he wants remembered.

One of the earliest advocates of planting "false memories" in recent times is Michael Ammar, stemming from his exploration of the "Card on the Ceiling". He doesn't emphasize this as much in recent lectures, but you can find it in his older material.

"Post-selling" (?) I've heard some call it. I think Sankey might be one who I've heard use the term...

You don't have to wait until after either...I like to pump the conditions right before the revelation as well, because the climax will drown out any conflicting thoughts because they are overwhelmed by finish.

After a riffle force, comments such as "And you could have stopped anywhere, free choice?" and after they agree you can say "you had a free choice of any card" without any objections.

Or by calling attention to your empty hands when they are empty allows you to mis-call them when they are holding out so the spec will swear they saw empty hands entire effect.

Very underused part of magic from what I've seen, but those that use it tend to use it well to get great reactions.

I'd like to reinforce Curtis's mention of Gary Kurtz's "Leading with your Head". I always try to follow and implement what Gary set out here. This is one of my top 10 favourite books.

Another that is in much the same vain is Pocket Power by Jarle Leirpoll. Jarle is a TV producer and has some very valuable advice on framing and structure.

It seems 'Leading with your head' is a must-have... I also heard much about Pocket Power, and had a look at Jarle's website on Misdirection... I think I know what my next buy is...

Phedon

Strangely enough, isn't "Leading with Your Head" also available on Jarle's site?

Of course, there is quite a bit of work on this in mentalism, and in card work. Juan Tamariz's lessons on this are quite good. But the Kurtz materials are my pick for the most rigorous academic approach, while still being easy to understand and supported by good working examples.

In coins, it would be interesting to make a list of favorite dodges in standard effects.

"Hmmm, not yet....okay there it goes" When vanishing a coin, look into your hand and "see" that it hasn't quite gone yet. Try again, and it does vanish. Later, people will recall that the coin simply vanished from your hand, and nothing even came close to your hand when it did.

Slydini's "watch" strategy is well known, and similar. (i.e. holding up nothing when there should be something there. Most people "see" a coin there. Others simply assume that they have a bad angle, but everyone else can see it.)

Emil Jarrow changing a penny into a dime in a spectator's hand. He use to do this on stage. He'd have a person in the back of the room take a coin out of his pocket, and hold it in his hand. Jarrow would then coax the guy to the aisle, down the aisle, and up to the stairs, where he'd change the coin. Later, people would tell the tale of the day Jarrow "had a guy in the back of the room stand up, hold a penny in his hand, and it turned into a dime." See the Ross Bertram book "Magic and Methods" for the full story.

Coins Across--the coins arrive on the spectator's hand, covered by your hand. This is easily described (for their later retelling) as "The coins appeared in my hand."

On the false recollection dodges, it's good to remind them to talk about the trick later. The thought would never occur to some people these days. I use phrases like "You'll be able to tell your friends at work tomorrow..." and "Let's review, so you'll know what to say to the TV news people..." etc.

There's a lovely copper/silver transposition by Ken Krenzel where the spectator does the whole trick himself. You touch the coins just once, briefly. The script emphasizes the fact that you never touched anything, and the spectator did it all.

There are others, I'm just drawing a blank at the moment. Anyone else got one?

Those are great Mr. Kam, I love it! I definately need to give these techniques some more thought. I can see some great things happening, so to speak, using techniques like this.....

Curtis, thanks so much for sharing all this and for giving further references.
Personally, I use this very much in many of my routines; for instance, in coins across in spectator's hands, I always have the spec remind everybody how many coins they're holding. They never need to peek, they 'know' they have, say, 4 coins!
Same with a copper/silver transpo; they'll always tell what they're SUPPOSED to be holding, since the magician's demeanor indicates that the magic still hasn't happened. I think that's another point here: having done all the job (transposition etc.) while having them think the effect is just beginning.

In mentalism, after a peek for instance, and before the reveal, I always make the specs say that NO WAY I could have seen what was written on the piece of paper. I'll even wait for someone to say that it's impossible, that if I found what was written they would (die, go crazy, scream, you name it)... It's very easy to have them escalate like that before the reveal, just give them time and 'encourage' them just a bit...

The next day, I even sometimes tell them 'Remember, I didn't even TOUCH this piece of paper'. I still haven't found anyone to have replied 'YES YOU DID!'

Just some thoughts on this. And I'll look into Curtis's references.

Phedon

"Coins Across to Spectator's Hands" is a good example of creating a false memory of seeing something that he did not see.

They see four coins in RH and an empty LH.
Coins are tossed to LH which closes.
Mage's LH is held closed and out to the left.
A flat RH hovers over their hands and a coin drops on their hands.
RH picks up the single coin. "One has traveled." Then the coin is replaced.
LH still far away rattles it's coins. "The rest are here."
The mage's hands never come close.
RH hovers again and another coin falls to their hands.
This time two coins are shown in the LH and in the last phase one coin is shown in the LH.
--------------
I have questions.
In the first phase where one is seen to have flown and LH coins rattle, should we just allow the suggestion work in thier minds or should we say something like, "The rest are here." or "That leaves three here."??

Also, since the coins are shown in the LH in the last phases, do you think this will enforce a notion that they also saw three coins in the first phase??

Then there's the first two passes where the hands never come close to each other which should be remembered more than when the hands do come closer at the end.

I don't think I'm exposing anything here but if anyone feels I have then please have this post deleted.
>>
Here's an example I saw recently.
A non-magician at work must have learned an impromptu 'Mental Epic' type trick w/o cards.
I saw him do it on a few people and some asked me how he did it.
I asked, "What did he do?"
Their description and answers about the sequence of the trick were off the mark.
They were all wrong.
With wry smile my answer was, "I have no idea how he did it."

It helps to be a convincing liar when performing magic. My role model is Tommy Flanagan (John Lovitz). All I can say is "that's the ticket"!

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/85/85bliar.phtml

I remember doing a fund raiser as a kid and noticing this for the first time. A spectator brought someone by my table and described the cups and balls routine that I had just did for him, except his descriptions was much more magical then what I had done.

I never realized how to use this until recently. The card book Royal Road explain the importance of leaving out key events when recapping a trick to the audience. For example, the spectator selected a card, you buried it in the deck and now you are having him think of this card. When recapping this to the audience you simply state that you will attempt to name a card that is merely being thought of and most of the audience will forget that the card was ever selected from the deck and will be left with the impression that you named a card that was merely thought of.

I've been considering ways to use this in coin magic. On thought is in routines where I give the audience the impression that both hands are empty. I would never want to state the fact up front, but in the form of a recap of what has happened, right before the grand finali, I'm considering adding a statement that my hands were "clearly empty" or something like that.