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About two weeks ago I was working a 21st. Seeing a fairly sidelined guest, I figured OOTW could be a good trick, it's got a fair bit of interaction in it and it's long enough that it might get some people there and chatting to her.

The trick went off fine and the reveal was greatly appreciated, to the point where she announced she'd always had latent psychic abilities. A little nonplussed at that, I went for a non-committal response and started moving on. She was now the centre of some attention, figured I'd end it there for several reasons.

She followed me though and every card trick I tried to do was accompanied by her guessing the card. When she got it wrong, she'd try again and again, till people started forgetting the card they had actually picked, slight issue there. Didn't know how best to handle it at the time so I shelved the cards and dipped into my meagre collection of coin routines.

Thinking back on it though, I've only come up with two ways of handling it, one is co-opting her into a specific routine, getting her to hold an envelope with a prediction in it, something to keep her occupied. A lot of the other assistant based magic I've seen relies on props I don't want to carry around. The other idea I had is to get the participant to show her the card and have her transmit it to me. Workable but guaranteed to extend the problem.

While I sincerely hope this was a rare (read as completely unique) occurrence, I want to be prepared if it should happen again, my boy scout nature coming to the fore. Does anyone here have a contingency plan for this or got any ideas for me?

Yes, but the plan involves poison. Your best bet would have been to make her part of the act. Hold the envelope etc. Everyone handles these sort of things differently, and they don't seem to happen often.

I would kindly ask whoever it is to keep observations and guesses to themselves as I have been paid to do a job. That job involves people interacting with me with some amount of focus and they are accidentally making that impossible for anyone to do so.

It is admirable that she enjoyed what it is that you were doing, but the point of it is to keep a cerain person happy, and that is the person shelling out dough.

Bmat, poison sounds like a damn fine idea. I'll start carrying a vial of cyanide. Seriously though, many thanks to both of you, at least I know I'm thinking on the right track here with this. Doesn't happen often

russellq wrote:The other idea I had is to get the participant to show her the card and have her transmit it to me. Workable but guaranteed to extend the problem.

Yeah, that was my first thought, to use her enthusiasm to heighten the effect, but the problem is twofold - first you definitely won't get rid of her that way, and second it's not really fair to allow her to have an experience which will increase her own faith in her 'abilities'. Because next time, there won't be a magician standing next to her to make sure she's always correct!

I've had a similar problem after one of my performances, when a 'believer' berated me in front of other people for saying that psychic phenomenas have not been confirmed by science. And that after doing a 'telepathy' trick with a member of the audience. Had a hell of a time getting her to leave me in peace.

While poison might indeed be a morally acceptable solution, I would say that if you caused her to believe she had psychic powers, you need to make her understand it's only your presence / signals / tricks that caused her to do that. You might want to show her and everyone a very simple trick and explain to them how it works - and then explain that all magic is like that: simple techniques that utilize the capacity of the human mind to fool itself.

Scoffing at someones beliefs and entering into a debate with them is highly unprofessional. Dealing with people diplomatically is a skill that will ensure you leave everyone satisfied.

Ok, so dup and user24, you both feel I should have popped her bubble so to speak. Not a major problem that, fairly easy to verbally explain the use of sleight of hand, misdirection, simple manipulations and so on but...

I might be wrong here, but I feel if I were to explain / demonstrate a simple trick, wouldn't I be opening the door to being bombarded with requests to explain all the other tricks? Not only requests, but I've now set a precedent of explaining them. While I don't mind giving away the circus trick (could have the wrong name for it) explaining one of my staple tricks like OOTW is not something I'm prepared to do. Given that OOTW started the whole shebang, there is a possibility that they'd push to have that explained to solve the situation

I don't know about popping her bubble - I'm just saying it could be dangerous to make her bubble any bigger. For her own sake.

I wouldn't feel happy knowing my magic had strengthened someone's belief in the supernatural. To me it just doesn't sit right, and while it is nice for our egos to think that we may be skilled enough to take a spectator to the point that they're willing to allow for fairies and angels and ley lines as the explanations, I think it's too exploitative for my taste.

I don't think you need to get into a demonstration of how it's just a trick and not psychic powers, not only would it encourage further exposure requests, but also I feel it would change the atmosphere from a magical one to an instructional one. Which is fine if that's the focus of your presentation a la Penn and Teller's sleight of hand act (the one with the cigarette), but if not it could change the mood for everyone.

I would think an open but firmly phrased rebuttal of the supernatural would be the best approach - something like this;

"I won't offer an explanation of my own, because that would be telling, but I will say that I've spent many years researching magic and the supernatural, and I have never experienced something that I can't explain by application of skilled sleight of hand and various magical and mental techniques. I keep an open mind, but I know for sure that the effects I'm performing tonight rely on no supernatural force"

But I remember a Derren Brown show where one of the participants said " I think he's psychic but doesn't know it". So I don't think there's a foolproof way of dealing with people like that.

Ok, my misunderstanding there, sorry user24.

user24 wrote:"I won't offer an explanation of my own, because that would be telling, but I will say that I've spent many years researching magic and the supernatural, and I have never experienced something that I can't explain by application of skilled sleight of hand and various magical and mental techniques. I keep an open mind, but I know for sure that the effects I'm performing tonight rely on no supernatural force"

Nicely phrased, doesn't leave too much room for doubt for a rational person, but as you said with the Derren Brown anecdote, nothing's foolproof in this situation.

@Lord Freddie, sorry I missed your post, must have come in while I was working on my reply. You raise a valid point, debates on belief never have a winner and are never a good thing. It seems like there can't be a winner here either, a lot of different viewpoints that all have weight and reasoning behind them

Just this week I was performing and was approached by a Nigerian chap who was a born again Christian who said he had never seen anything like this before and asked if I was a witch doctor.
I told him I wasn't and that I was just an entertainer and he told me that my 'powers' were a gift from God and said that God created man in his own image and we all had some of his power in us and that I was using it. I told him it was only a card trick. He then enthusiastically explained the whole of the new testament to me and Jesus miracles. I smiled politely and appeared interested. He was a big fellow and very full on with his beliefs.

If I had smugly folded my arms and told him that science has failed to prove the existence of God or verify the events in the Bible he would probably have gone into a rage. And maybe killed me!

When entertaining you will come across all kinds of people. You will just have to accept some will have a different belief system to yourself which is as strongly followed as your own. And treat them with respect.

The performance is about the audience and their perceptions of things. You have to be prepared for some odd responses when performing strong magic.