What the Hell's the Matter with Florida - Plus a Free Magic Trick!

Florida - land of crooked politicians, hard-case anti-drug governors with drug-addicted daughters, and just plain stupidity. I actually feel good about my state, Oklahoma, when Florida is in the news, and the only time they're in the news is for something stupid like the following.

Here's a pretty good summation.
http://www.randi.org/joom/swift/swift/swift-may-9-2008.html#i2

Simply put, this substitute teacher in Florida did a magic trick where he made a match disappear, and he lost his job because some student probably went home, told his parents, and they accused him of wizardry.

Wizardry.

The reason I'm blogging about this is the same reason I chose that link above. One of my few heroes, James "The Amazing" Randi, states in his post about this situation, that he's never been accused of wizardry.

I, however, have.

It probably helps that I live in Oklahoma, and the woman for whom I performed this trick (the one that I will reveal how it's done) graduated from Oral Roberts University.

Now I know a lot of graduates from ORU who have basically come out of their experience unscathed, and many of them somehow find work even though listing ORU under the education section of their resumés should serve as a warning to potential employees. One ORU student who was a regular at the arcade I used to work part time at claimed he went to a healing of a woman with cataracts, and they popped right out of her eyes, and she was able to see again. Hallelujah. Every other thing about him was perfectly normal though.

Except for his webbed toes.

Anyway, this trick I did for this woman from ORU. It was a prediction trick. When I performed it for her, she went crazy and insisted I had some sort of supernatural power or ESP. I argued with her quite a bit that these powers didn't exist, and that I certainly didn't have them, but since I didn't reveal how the trick was done, I wasn't able to convince her otherwise. I even jokingly offered her the opportunity to go see a curandero (Mexican witch-doctor - she was Oklahoma State's Director of Hispanic Student Services) and have him put a curse on me using money I would give her. She flat-out refused even when I suggested that the curse didn't have to kill me... just have me break my little toe or something. Just get a deadline on it. Still no good.

So right, the trick.

Even though I'm a semi-professional magician - more of a balloon twister who gets to do the occasional magic trick - I will often show people how this one is done to hopefully get them to start thinking "magically," so next time they run into an actual magical charlatan, even if they can't figure out what they're doing, they'll at least know they're doing something.

So right, the trick (part deux).

Get a deck of cards. Find all the 3's and put them on top of the deck. Put 3 random cards on top. So now you have a deck of cards with 3 random cards on top, the four 3's, and the rest of the deck. Tell someone that you have looked into the future - a vision came to you while going to the bathroom this morning, but unfortunately of nothing significant so there's no reason to get too excited. Ask for a pen and paper and on the paper write, "You will pick the 3 pile." Tear out the sheet, fold it up dramatically (if that's even possible) and place it somewhere where it can be seen by all.

Bring out the deck of cards and put down 3 piles of cards. The first pile, you will deal 3 cards into it. The second pile you will deal 4 cards into it (all the 3s), and into the last pile, you will deal 5 cards into it. Call the piles, first, second, and third as you do this.

Ask them to pick a pile. They do so.

They pick pile #1.
Your response: "Ah, interesting. You didn't pick the pile with 4 cards in it, and you didn't pick the pile with 5 cards in it but the pile with 3 cards." Reveal your prediction that they will "pick the 3 pile."

They pick pile #2. (This is the most impressive scenario)
Your response: "Ah, interesting. You didn't pick the first pile." Turn over the first pile. "And you didn't pick the third pile." Turn over the third pile. "As you can see, these are just random cards. You chose the middle pile, which, " turn over the middle pile, "is all 3s." Reveal your prediction that they will "pick the 3 pile."

They pick pile #3.
Your response: "Ah, interesting. You didn't pick the first pile, and you didn't pick the second pile, but you chose the third pile." Reveal your prediction and say something like, "And my prediction was, 'You will pick the third pile.'" Chances are they will not miss the little rd that should go by the 3 to make it "third."

I think this is a beauty of a trick. I've performed it for other magicians, and it's fooled them (which is the marketing line for every magic trick out there - IT FOOLS OTHER MAGICIANS!), but, anyway, nice little trick. Enjoy.

And Liza, if by any chance you stumble across my blog - there. Now stop believing I have supernatural powers, or I'll curse you.