People really do exist that can read your mind.

Monza said:
The entire purpose of magic/mentalism is to fool people. So there is no shame is actually being fooled. I think it is shameful when someone uses these tricks (tricks is not a good word either, some of the methods are quite clever and sophisticated) to leave the impression that it is real.
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That's the difference between an entertainer and a con man. I'm told the best cons are the ones where the victim never finds out he's a victim, and the best con men believe their own cons.
 
happycats said:
I don't remember. I'm guessing that the first time around, I probably picked a rather small number (something under 100), but the second time around, I remember picking a much larger number. He said I could pick any number as long as it wasn't too long because then he would have trouble remembering it. For example, he told me not to pick a number like: 1,893,569. The whole game seemed ridiculous to me at first, which I remember making apparent to him.
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Do you ever use ATMs?
 
More importantly, do you ever even think about using ATMS?

Beady said:
I count three times you've asked that. Just how certain are you that Happycats has any idea what you mean? If she has none, how do you expect her to get your point? Hell, I know what "ATMs" are in this context, and I'm not sure what your point is.
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It seems the crux of the whole issue. If minds can be read, there can be no secrets. Not even PIN codes. Unless the "mindreading gene" is linked to the "scrupulously honest" gene, if there are real mindreaders some will be hanging out in bank parking lots, reading the minds of ATM users as they recall their PIN numbers, and getting rich.

Since this doesn't seem to be a common security leak, there are probably no mind readers.
 
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Pup said:
It seems the crux of the whole issue. If minds can be read, there can be no secrets. Not even PIN codes. Unless the "mindreading gene" is linked to the "scrupulously honest" gene, if there are real mindreaders some will be hanging out in bank parking lots, reading the minds of ATM users as they recall their PIN numbers, and getting rich.
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Don't they need the ATM card first?
 
lolurigeller said:
Don't they need the ATM card first?
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Getting the card number is easy. You wouldn't believe all the info you can find in someone's trash. With the number + PIN, you don't even need a physical nowadays. Just go online or by phone, and have fun.
 
Happycats, if you're still following this thread, can you tell me if you're certain he showed you the answer he'd written after each question, or is it possible that he just passed you the folded paper on which he'd written his answer after each question (but before you told him your answer), and you looked at all of them at the end?

That's the kind of detail people here have been talking about, when they say you might be misremembering details that didn't seem important at the time.

In this case, it could be very important, because if you unfolded all the answers at the end, I can tell you how he did it, and it's a method that requires little skill or practice, and no preparation or equipment (as would be required, for example, if he were using a secret writing gimmick). Considering the circumstances under which he performed his feat, I suspect that most likely he was not a practiced mentalist, but rather a guy who learned a trick from a friend at a bar or something like that. That's why I suspect an easy self-working one-ahead trick (I'll explain what that means, if you answer the question I started out with).

Nor, I suspect, did he have any inkling that it would make such a great impression on you.

Respectfully,
Myriad
 
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happycats said:
Perhaps it was just a magic trick/illusion, but you magicians should just simply state that instead of pretending it was something you were born with....like this man told me. It really screwed with my head and I didn't like it.
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There is a lot of debate in magic circles (so to speak) about this. Some mentalists adopt a persona or character that really has magic powers. If you spoke to them 'off stage' they'd tell you it was all tricks (although not about how they were done). But when they're performing, they talk about energy, quantum, and the mystical powers of the human mind.

The scale ranges from people who get up and say - "You're about to see some tricks..." or "Is this trickery or am I really reading your mind? You be the judge" to people who act like a 'psychic' on stage. And of course at the far end, people like Uri Geller and Sylvia Browne, who never admit to any trickery or fraud.

There's a fine line in the middle between honest, fun entertainment, and perpetuating and validating the con-art of psychicry

dannagain said:
a. isn't that impressive and b. clearly wasn't psychic?
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Probably wasn't a psychic...

Myriad said:
In this case, it could be very important, because if you unfolded all the answers at the end, I can tell you how he did it, and it's a method that requires little skill or practice, and no preparation or equipment (as would be required, for example, if he were using a secret writing gimmick).
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In a PM preferably. I'm voting for non-disclosure please... (at least on the internet...)
 
Id like to know why he gave you his phone number? I mean if he could read your mind he could obviously see you did not want to "be his friend" and that would make the passing of his number to you ultimately useless.
 
vIQleS said:
In a PM preferably. I'm voting for non-disclosure please... (at least on the internet...)
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I will comply, because that appears to be Randi's preference too, as expressed in the guidelines for the stage magic subforum, and I'm a guest here.

Personally, though, I think such trumped-up pseudo secrecy concerning basic principles of stage magic, which are available for free in books found in any public library, is ridiculous, if not outright wrong. Scientology and stage magic are the only two disciplines that endeavor to enact this sort of secrecy of basic principles, outside of all established intellectual property law, maintained (however ineffectually) by bogus self-serving etiquette rules and legally null "oaths," for commercial benefit. (By which I don't mean the benefit of professional performing magicians, whose acts are no more impeded by general knowledge of basic principles of magic than appreciation of professional baseball players is reduced by teaching kids to play baseball, but the commercial benefit of the rather sleazy retail amateur magic business, whose ability to charge $6.95 for a folded xeroxed sheet of paper in a plastic bag depends precisely on the etiquette of "nondisclosure."

Respectfully,
Myriad
 
Myriad said:
I will comply, because that appears to be Randi's preference too, as expressed in the guidelines for the stage magic subforum, and I'm a guest here.

Personally, though, I think such trumped-up pseudo secrecy concerning basic principles of stage magic, which are available for free in books found in any public library, is ridiculous, if not outright wrong. Scientology and stage magic are the only two disciplines that endeavor to enact this sort of secrecy of basic principles, outside of all established intellectual property law, maintained (however ineffectually) by bogus self-serving etiquette rules and legally null "oaths," for commercial benefit. (By which I don't mean the benefit of professional performing magicians, whose acts are no more impeded by general knowledge of basic principles of magic than appreciation of professional baseball players is reduced by teaching kids to play baseball, but the commercial benefit of the rather sleazy retail amateur magic business, whose ability to charge $6.95 for a folded xeroxed sheet of paper in a plastic bag depends precisely on the etiquette of "nondisclosure."

Respectfully,
Myriad
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The difference is that the more something is posted on the internet, the easier it is to find. If someone has a real interest in magic, then they can go to a library or find a magician to teach them, but its the people who just want to know how its done so they can tell people and ruin the trick that i'm trying to keep in the dark.

Your analogy is flawed as well, whereas everyone knows how to play baseball and nothing is lost in sharing the 'secrets', magic relies in a large degree on the method behind the trick remaining unknown, otherwise its not as fun - to watch or perform.
 
So how does one learn stage magic anyway? I'd love to be able to do it, but I don't know any "tricks". My repertoire currently consists of two card tricks - the 3x7 column trick and the turning-the-card-over-in-the-deck trick. Neither of them are particularly mysterious.
 
arthwollipot said:
So how does one learn stage magic anyway? I'd love to be able to do it, but I don't know any "tricks". My repertoire currently consists of two card tricks - the 3x7 column trick and the turning-the-card-over-in-the-deck trick. Neither of them are particularly mysterious.
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Library - 796.8

Find your local magic club and talk to the local magic shops.

The best way is to learn from someone. Otherwise you're teaching yourself and that'll take a while... And finding the methods off the internet doesn't really help much, because they don't teach you the things you need to know, like presentation etc...
 
I think the kicker for me is always the little "staging" elements. "Think of a number. Write it down on a piece of paper, fold it up and don't show me..." "Think of a number. Have you got it yet? Concentrate..."

It's all so unreal-world. If I really could read minds and wanted to impress someone, it'd be like:

"Think of a number. Four thousand, three hundred and one. Another... three-eighty-seven. What sort of car do you drive? Oh, a green Fiat Uno, eh? What about children? Ah, Danny and Louise."

Of course, that wouldn't make good entertainment. Anyone except the person whose mind you were reading would be baffled. But your subject would be absolutely stunned, freaked and in awe! Much more, in fact, than if you got them to write it down. The only point I can see in getting someone to write it down is if:

a) You want to involve an audience, which would not seem to be the case here,
b) That's the way the trick works.

It's the little ritual steps that ring wrong to me: more like showmanship than sorcery.
 
I've told this story before, but--

I was teaching a class in argumentative essay-writing and critical thinking, and as an object lesson, one day I came in, told the class to be very alert to everything that would follow, and had them all write down their name and some unique word or number--"Your birthday, or your Social Security number, or something that is unique to you. Maybe the name of your first pet." They folded their responses and passed them up. I then did a really simple "one-ahead" reading, claiming to be able to read minds by the Johnny Carson "Amazing Carsoni" method of holding the folded paper up to my head and identifying each student and the unique thing he/she had written. I repeatedly asked them, "How am I doing this?" and got any number of wrong answers. Finally I showed them the trick--when I supposedly opened a folded paper to "confirm" the answer I had just given, I was actually opening the NEXT student's paper.

My intended lesson was that a writer has to think of all possible explanations, including trickery. And I wasn't even very good at the trick.

But within a few days, faculty were asking me in the dining room if I was psychic. And I gained a reputation among the students as someone who could "read minds." I never repeated that lesson because I got so fed up with explaining it over and over.
 
Spektator said:
Johnny Carson "Amazing Carsoni"
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(Psst. I think you mean Carnac the Magnificent..)

Good story though. And as an aside, James Randi found an evangelist doing that trick when he was a kid. I'd seen the trick before, be never figured out how it was done until I read that about him.
 
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