FORTUNE TELLERS/ MEDIUM

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Again look at 5:44 in the video. Slow it down to 0.25 play speed which you can do on you tube. Joe gives him the note. The Magician then brings his OTHER hand up from a concealed position and places it down over the note. Then fumbles the hands together.

This is a classic 101 move.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Funny you should say this. When myself and a few others were studying the techniques of such frauds we noticed something at the time. What we noticed was a claim (I believe it is true but have not checked it deeply) that people who make maps tend to include one small error deliberately in the map so if anyone copies their work they can prove it. Because if your competitor has the same error as you, they must have cheated and plagarized your map.

So a few of us uploaded our CVs to a few sites at the time (was awhile ago now) and each included one lie in it. A job experience we never actually had. We then visited a medium/psychic.

My own lie was work I had done in the sewage systems which I thought was funny at the time. The job being a load of crap you see. But my medium / psychic started discussing my history and said things like "I am getting images of a history..... somewhere in the dark..... somewhere that smelled really bad....." and in the end started getting really frustrated with me when I was like "No no I really do not remember any such experience". Until at the end she was THROWING specifics at me "It was a job. I know it was a job. Something to do with....... human waste maybe.......????" before she finally abandoned it.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

But, again the problem with television is that a lot of those techniques happen before you know it.

In fact with a LOT of magic the trick is done LONG before the bit the observer focuses on. Many card tricks for example... if the trick lasts 5 minutes the actual "move" the trick is based on probably happened in the first 20 seconds. The rest of it is misdirection and patter and play. Derren Brown write a bit about this in "Confessions of a conjurer" (hope I remembered that title right, too lazy to check).

And unfortunately your video comes in / starts right at the delivery end of the trick. He is in a room he was clearly in for I do not know how long before the video started, and likely a lot of the "moves" I would be looking for would have happened then. The TV show shows the amazing bit. But never shows the bit I would need to see as a critical observer.