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Hey All,
I had the idea last night of having a coin palmed and transferring it to a spectators hand surrepticiously via a handshake. I would then get them to close their other hand over the top and get them to imagine a coin materialising in there hand etc etc. Only problem is, i need them to visualise the coin i've planted. So basically, does anyone know anywhere i could find some psychological coin forces? Or just any advice or pointers in general would be greatly appreciated
I'm sure this must have been done before in some form or other but personally i've never come across it,
thanks a lot, Will

Unless you've tried this out, I can't see how they wouldn't feel it. Unless the plot is that they name a coin and that's the one that's there? In which case, a psych force is probably your best bet, I don't know of any like that though.

Maybe worth doing research on the most commonly chosen coin and going from there.

I.e, if you find out a 10p is named say 60% of the time, try improving that rate, by slipping in things which narrow it down.

'A new, round coin in the palm of your hand.'

'I don't know if that would work, I just assume saying new will make them picture something silver rather than a dull copper, and a round coin eliminates 20/50 without being too specific.

I have read something on psych coin forces somewhere some time ago. It's in a paperback book, of that much I'm sure. I'll have a dig around tonight or tomorrow and see if I can't unearth it.

In Psychological Subtleties 3, Banachek has a great routine where the spectator is imagining picking up coins etc...I'm sure with a bit of knowledge of Equivoque you could get it down to one coin easily. I'm not at all convinced that you could fool them with the handshake thing though.

If they don't notice it, surely they will just drop it on the floor? It's not a natural reaction to clench your hand into a fist after shaking hands with someone. Unless you're planning on punching them in the face afterwards.

I'm all for punching somebody in the face these days. Sorry I'm a bit testy I've a freaking dentist appointment.

cc100 wrote:If they don't notice it, surely they will just drop it on the floor? It's not a natural reaction to clench your hand into a fist after shaking hands with someone. Unless you're planning on punching them in the face afterwards.

Yeah unfortunately it would fall on the floor, or they would notice and look at what you've put in their hand right away..

thanks for the responses, thats all really helpful stuff. I thought psych subt was a good read and had some genius stuff in it, i was looking at getting hold of 2 and 3 so maybe its time to take the plunge, they seem to be pretty expensive now though.

I havent tried this out yet, I can't quite bring myself to do it but my plan was to play it as NLP (I dont believe in this at all btw, but people seem to lap it up) and go for a pattern interrupt kind of shtick. So start shaking hands (tightly, so they wont feel the pressure of the coin on their hand, they'll just think its my palm) then guide their hand so it is palm up during the shake, look them in the eye and ask for their other hand and then guide it on top so they now have their hands together and the coin is hidden (and hopefully they havent noticed). Obv you'd have to keep talking to provide some extra distraction aswel. Psych force or equivoque the coin, get them to imagine the coin materialising in their hand and voila.

This would probably only work one on one because I think spectators would see the coin in their hand before the cover. But hopefully they would be interested enough not to give it away most of the time and if the mark names the coin correctly, theres still some magic for the spec to be impressed by.


and if it does all go tits up, i can always resort to the punch in the face and leg it hehe

oh, and thats a really good idea about the 'new coin' thing. Really clever! thanks Philip

Another thing you might try is rather them hand-shake-coin-putting, go for coin under the watch routine. From there you can force the coin, and do your presentation for coin materializing. This way, you could perform the trick even when there's more then one person around.

I believe it is "Band of the Hand" that Docc Hilford offers one way of handling a kind of coin force, I think it is the routine called "Nightmare Coin"

Nonetheless, forcing someone onto a particular item (most any item) is simply a matter of wordage -- leading & pacing as some might say. Sometimes this may require a series of smaller forces such as asking someone to first name a color, which will typically be "Red" and follow that with a thought of flower... Red will generally = Rose.

In that coins vary from country to country it would be difficult to give just one generic handling outside what I've noted here, but my greater concern would be (as others have mentioned) loading the coin without detection. I'd have to suggest that you look into routines in which physical (contact) modes of misdirection are used, the one that comes to mind is how certain performers use sponge balls for making a watch steal.

Another thought that came to me would be to load the extra coin as you place a known coin into their hand, the known coin or talisman is a "magnet" of sorts that attracts the things we can clearly see within our mind's eye, etc., etc. versa-vice you could (by using a shell) cause a coin in their hand vanish and come to you (because you hold the magick coin/talisman). The overall theme has some cool potential for anyone wanting to develop it.

thanks for all the ideas guys, its really appreciated.

I finally got round to trying this out on my mateys at our local inebriation unit and it worked pretty well. I think the alcohol helped disguise the load but kinda worked against the force. I tried the 'new, round coin' (thanks mister northfield) aiming for a 10p, but they went for a 20p (wtf???! imbeciles). Still, they were impressed that it was a silver coin and swore they felt it materialise in their hands (thankyou Building Blocks by Luke Jermay).
WIll just have to rinse and repeat to see if this will actually work consistently.

best regards

Will
p.s. worked out an anagram piece for mind reading a thought of coin so i can see what people usually go for and it looks like 20p is the popular choice for leamington spa with maybe a 3rd of people picking it. In case anyone was interested.