Monday Mailbag #36 - Santa's Super Sack Edition

This is the last week of posting for the 2020 Jerx Season. And 2021 won’t kick off with regular posting until February (assuming the supporters decide to go for another yerar), so I figured I’d go with an extra-large mailbag post today.

Love your rabbit's foot angle for the trick (a huge improvement) but for me HIT has another, bigger problem. Anyone who plays blackjack even a little will be put off by the weirdness of trying to decide a "winner" based on only two cards. Literally a major component of blackjack is that you can "HIT" your hand to get another card, with the chance of busting out over 21.

The blackjack theme is kind of built into the premise of the trick. I suppose you could just say, whichever of us has a higher total of two cards wins...but then you just have a random procedure untethered to a real gambling game.

So for me it feels awkward and contrived regardless, a fatal flaw. Plus, you need two full arm sleeves and ink up your neck to really sell it. —JS

Yeah, I found that fairly confusing as well. In the demo he talks about how blackjack is a game where the winner is the person closest to 21 “without going over.” But they only ever get two cards so the possibility of going over 21 doesn’t exist (so why bring it up?). Anyone who has played a single blackjack hand would not say, “Ah, your hand of 12 beats my 11.” They would say, “Hit me.”

It’s odd that the trick is called “HIT” when that’s the one thing you don’t do in the trick.

As I mentioned in that post, I don’t own this trick, but I know Luke is a pretty thorough teacher, so I assume he goes over this issue in the download.

Here is the tactic I would use for the “lucky charm” version I described in the previous post.

“We’ll play a game to demonstrate the power of this rabbit’s foot. It’s sort of like Beginner’s Blackjack. In Beginner’s Blackjack, each player gets two cards. The person with the highest total wins. Usually it’s a game to teach addition to kids. There is no hitting, there is no strategy, there is no card counting. It’s barely a game, but to the extent that it is a game, it’s one based solely on luck. So you’ll really get a feel for how this charm influences the game.”

In the spirit of “take your weaknesses and make them strengths,” this presentation would make the lack of hitting an enhancement to the effect. We want to see the power of this lucky object, so we’re going to simplify the game so that it is just a matter of luck. We’re going to take out all the other variables.

In last week’s mailbag post, JT was looking for some options on how to unload some magic. Below are a couple ideas that were sent to me in regards to that.

Responding to JT's question in today's Mailbag about offloading a lot of old magic: I recommend the Facebook group Surplus Magic Exchange. (groups/surplusmagicexchange). Lots of people there sell in bundles like "these fifteen decks for $X.XX" or "five Tenyo item for $Y.YY" or "twelve unassembled Sans Minds tricks for eight cents." —EK

***

In response to your reader who asked about donating magic tricks to a charity, our magic club in Omaha, Nebraska is a 501c3 non-profit that accepts gently used magic tricks which are then tax deductible at fair market value on the giver’s taxes.

We use many of the tricks with our Junior Magician’s programs and/or our after-school onsite programs. Some we sell to help fund those programs which can be read about on our website: https://TheOmahaMagicalsociety.org —DA

Regarding the post And Found

I was wondering, is it stronger to perform the ritual in the likely location of the lost objects (i.e. in your home, if the items were last seen there) or would it be better to do the ritual somewhere else? Of course, that's merely academic until we can actually go somewhere else, but just planning ahead... —CK

I think either option will work fine. If I had my druthers, it would probably be stronger to make someone’s cufflink—which they lost at their home in Reston, Virginia—reappear in a card box some months later when we’re vacationing in Aruba while I’m casually showing them a card trick late one night. That’s going to hit harder than if it reappeared back in Virginia. But I wouldn’t worry too much about it.

There are two variables here that will impact the strength of the trick: time and distance. So, how long ago the object was lost, and how far away the object was lost. But the most impactful variable is the time one. If I make a pin you lost reappear 5 years later—even if we’re in the same place you lost it—that’s going to be very powerful.

But if you lose your cufflink while we’re packing to go to Aruba and the next day I make it appear in Aruba, that won’t be anywhere near as strong.

So time is the necessary variable and distance is a “nice to have” option.

Finding missing objects alongside a missing card is very magical. I think that Martin Gardner wrote about searching your friends' couches for lost objects in his encyclopedia. If you're looking to improve the odds of performing Leigh's trick without really stealing anything, it's probably a good place to start. —IM

Great idea. Thanks, IM. And thanks, Marty G.

In the interest of handling cards like a regular human (i.e. Neolift)….have you made any adjustments to how you false count/steal the cards for Las Vegas Leaper? Counting with the Biddle grip just seems unnatural in that regard. —ZA

No, I don’t. Here’s why…in most instances, with a double-lift, you want to draw no attention to the moment, so it makes sense that the handling should be natural to the point of being invisible (in my opinion, that is—I know other people prefer flourishy double-lifts, but I’m not sure what their rationale for that is).

But this moment in LVL is not one we want to go by unnoticed. So it doesn’t really matter if the count is unusual, what matters is that the unusual-ness is justified.

How would someone normally count cards? They’d spread them from hand to hand or count them on the table. What are the potential vulnerabilities in those ways of counting? Well, you could miss cards spreading from hand to hand. And if you count into a pile, I could maybe do something to the pile when you aren’t looking.

So, while I don’t mention those potential issues out loud, I frame the counting procedure in a manner where if someone were to give it some thought, they might conclude the counting procedure I’m suggesting is more sure-fire than the “natural” way to count cards. “I want you to hold the cards like this and we’re going to count them one at a time and in your own hands.” So I’m stressing the idea that each card will be dealt with singly and will never leave their hands (unlike the other unspoken options of spreading or dealing the cards). I don’t think this normalizes the counting procedure, but I think it justifies it enough. And later in the effect they will just count the cards into a pile on the table and we’ll get a repeat of the effect, which I think takes any residual heat off the counting process.

What I don’t do is say—as Paul Harris does—”This is how they count cards in Vegas.” Anyone who has been within 500 miles of a casino, knows that’s not true.

I was playing with a tiny blank book I bought a year or so back. (The idea was a 1x1.5 inch mini erdnase, with real Erdnase text and pictures shrunk down.)

And I thought, what if I have some old magic manuscript -- some rare magic trick a weird magician once sold. And the instructions were written in code, so you have to figure them out. And you went through it all, decrypted the instructions, and it ended up being a pretty good trick. Not great, and maybe not worth all the effort, but it was fun to figure it out. Do they want to see it?

The overall idea is to specifically and openly downplay the trick part of the experience in favor of the story of how you learned it. But still there’s a trick, which the audience is underestimating a little. And you can use it to intro any trick that uses common objects.

Also you can have parts where you are not sure of your decryption. That could produce some good moments. —PM

Yeah, I like it.

I would probably have a point where, as you suggested, your decryption isn't exact. So you may have two possible interpretations for a certain step, you try it the first way and nothing happens, then you try it the second way and you get some sort of result that tells you you're on the right track.

Or perhaps something happens slightly when you do it the first way and then you “perfect” it the second way.

For example, let’s take a look at the trick in the previous email, “Las Vegas Leaper.” Imagine you’re reading some instructions you decoded (“Fore Which To Tranz-pose Gaming Cards Betwixt Packets”). You ask the person to count their cards. Then they hold them in their hands. You have them name a number between 1 and 5. They say 3. You tell them to rotate their packet around clockwise while you turn your packet counter-clockwise.

“Okay,” you say, “I think that’s all we need to do. Count your cards, do you have three more now?”

They count their cards. They have 11. You have 9.

You go back to the instructions. “Okay, yeah, I thought maybe this is what we needed to do, but I wasn’t sure. I think we need to rotate our packets around one time for each card that we want to go.”

Now the other person rotates his pack three times clockwise, while you do yours three times counter-clockwise.

This time, three (more) cards have transported. So they now have 14 and you have 6.

This type of thing always goes over well. Any manner in which you can flesh out the world of how tricks are learned and passed on and how you learned this particular trick can do nothing but enhance something that might otherwise just be a good but “standard” magic trick.

Sunday Public Service Announcement

Found this video really inspiring. I hope it can help someone ❤️ pic.twitter.com/JzXY7BjepY

— nick ciarelli (@nickciarelli) December 7, 2020

The Juxe: Hark! Part One

We continue Christmas music month with some more Christmas and Christmas-Adjacent songs that I enjoy.

Christmas Auld Lang Syne by Bobby Darin

The mid-century Christmas music can’t be beat. This song isn’t super well-known (well, the Christmas version of this song isn’t) but this version by Bobby Darin is pretty great. The video is nicely put together as well.

Santa’s Beard by They Might Be Giants

It’s a song about jealousy, not Christmas. But I did say “christmas-adjacent” music, so lay off. The chorus is a banger.

If you look around for meanings of the song online, most talk about how the narrator’s wife is cheating on him with their friend who plays Santa Claus. I think I used to think of the song that way too.

But now I don’t think of it that way. I think it’s a song about a woman who is being playful and festive with their friend and—at most—harmlessly flirty. And this fucking nerd she’s married to can’t take it.

Twas the Night Before Christmas by Art Carney

This is nothing but Art Carney saying the classic story/poem in a syncopated manner over a jazz drum beat. I don’t know why i like it as much as I do. I just get into it. “NOW Dasher! NOW Dancer! NOW Prancer and Vixen! on-comet-on-cupid-on-donner-and-blitzen.”

Christmas Song by Joy Zipper

Joy Zipper was a great, dream-pop duo from the early 2000s. The song isn’t really a “christmassy” song, but occasionally you’ll hear it played in stores during christmas time. I’ve had a few friends who worked in retail and fell in love with this song that way. After hours and hours of festive Christmas music, this song comes up and it’s synthy and vibey and sort of romantic (if you don’t listen to the lyrics too closely), and people become hooked on it because it’s unique amongst all the other songs they’re hearing throughout the day. It’s one of the few songs you’d hear on a Christmas mix that you’d consider putting on your make-out mix. (Unless you’re a total psychopath and like to fuck to this.)

Dumb Tricks: Numeric-Alpha

Here is a somewhat dumb trick, but with the potential to be a better trick.

I asked for my friend’s help with something. I had him think of anything in the world. Then I took a slip of paper and wrote something down on it. I folded the piece of paper and set it down on the table.

“What are you thinking of?” I asked.

“Orange Soda,” he said.

“Nice,” I said, smiling. “Was there a thought process that brought you to ‘orange soda’ or did it just pop in your head out of nowhere?”

He explained the chain of thoughts that brought him to orange soda.'

“Okay, one final question. This may seem insignificant, but it’s important. Did you think of ‘orange soda’ or ‘orange sodas’ plural?”

He said he thought of orange soda, singular.

“Great.” I picked up the paper on the table and unfolded it.

It didn’t say: Orange Soda.

It said: 12.

“I’m kind of impressed with myself,” I said. “I almost got tripped up on the whole ‘soda’ vs. ‘sodas’ thing.”

I then brought up this image, and showed to him that I had predicted the scrabble score of the word/phrase he thought of.

Okay, as I said, it’s a bit of a dumb trick. My reasoning behind the effect was that I was trying to strenghten my Scrabble game using some of my magic/mentalism skills. “Typically you get better at scrabble by having a broader vocabulary. It’s all an offensive game. Trying to come up with words that will score more points. But if I know what words people are thinking of—and thus know what word they’re thinking of playing—and the points those words will garner, I can play defensively and block that spot on the board.” The logic doesn’t make complete sense. But I feel I could defend it if I was called on it.

Obviously this is just a way of predicting a number using a thumb-writer. But I think it feels more impossible/impressive than if I had just said, “Think of a number between 5 and 25.” (Which is about where most words would score.) Doesn’t it seem like it’s more impossible? I haven’t played around with it enough to say so definitively, but I think there’s a chance some spectators will feel I must have known what word he would think of to know what the score would be. I suppose how the trick is interpreted will depend on how analytical your spectator is.

Now, to ramp the trick up, here is something you could do.

Let’s say you’re performing at a table. As soon as the person says their word, you write it on the back of a business card in your lap. Now, after you show you predicted the scrabble score you can say, “Of course, you might think there are a lot of words that have a scrabble score of 12, so I didn’t necessarily know you would think of Orange Soda, that’s why I put something in this envelope before we started.” And use a Card to Wallet type of load to put the word in a sealed envelope in your wallet.

You have quite a bit of time to do some dirty work when they’re calculating the score of their word.

Or, imagine doing a parlor version of this. The scrabble game is in its box, on a table back behind you. There is a hole in the short end of the box, that is near an off-stage area. After the word is named, and while you’re showing that you predicted the score, an offstage assistant sets some scrabble tiles on one of the tile racks to spell out the thought-of word, and then just slides it into the hole, so it’s now in the box. Now you can go back and grab the box and reveal you set the word up on one of the racks before the show began.

Of course, the question remains, how do you know what score to write down? Yes, you have to memorize the letter scores, but it’s easier than you’d imagine. (And if your memory really sucks, I’ll give you an even easier way to do it after I explain this way.)

You can memorize the letter values it in a few minutes.

All the letters you would think of as really common are 1s. (I’m just taking it for granted that you have an innate understanding of what letters are common.)

Here’s how I remember the rest:

Score - Letters - Mnemonic

Two points - G and D - GoD has two big balls (I’m guessing).

Three points - C, M, P, B - You’re going to have three drinks at the CuM PuB. Where they serve semen and you chug it down in pint glasses. Lapping the thick nectar up as the jizz drips down your chin. (They say a strange/dirty image helps you remember your mnemonics. That’s why I went into detail there.) You swallow those loads so fast you have a cute cum-stache under your nose. (That extra imagery wasn’t for memory sake, I just thought it was funny.)

Four Points - H, F, W, Y, V - I just remember the sounds in the word “halfway” and the I throw V in there because it’s half of a W. So it’s easy to group all them together. There are three point groupings above and below this. So 4 is the halfway point.

Five Points - K - You run a 5K. (Well, not you. But a person like you who’s not lazy might.)

Eight Points - J, X - The JerX ate (8) some buffalo-wings covered in red-hot jism at the old Cum Pub.

Ten Points - Z, Q - I don’t need a mnemonic for these.

When I got “orange soda,” i just went through it in my mind, adding up the values. It’s not too hard because most words are made up of the common letters which are 1s. Plus you have some time to do this while you ask about what caused the person to think of that word.

“Orange Soda” was a fairly long word to get. Which is good, because it made the number a little higher. Shorter words are easier to calculate, but less impressive.

The Easy Way

The easy way to do this (and perhaps better way in some respects). Is to pretend to write something down, ask for the word, then have them calculate the total of the word, and then unfold the paper and reveal what you wrote down. So that way you don’t have to calculate anything. You just write down whatever total they get, once it’s known to you.

Where I’m Thinking of Going With This

I’ll set a small bag on the table in front of them.

I’ll ask them to think of any word.

I’ll write something down (apparently), fold it up, and put it on the table.

They’ll name their word. “Chair.”

I’ll think: C is 3 (3 drinks at the Cum pub), H is 4 (Halfway), so 7, plus A, I, R (8, 9 , 10)

I’ll unfold the paper, thumb-write 10, and show it to them.

I’ll have them dump out the objects in the bag. They will be scrabble tiles and a small box.

I’ll have them find the letters that form CHAIR.

As they concentrate on finding the letters, I will have far more time than I need to write “Chair” on a business card in my lap, and fold it into quarters with my right hand. At the same time, I will be poking through the letters along with them using my left hand, so I still seem engaged.

We will determine that my prediction was accurate.

I will then open the box that they dumped out of the bag earlier and dump out my other prediction which matches what they said perfectly. (Using any type of effect where a folded card appears in a small box. I wouldn’t use one of the gimmicked boxes for this. But something like this should work well.)

The combination of methods used here would make this quite difficult to figure out for anyone unfamiliar with magic methods. And the process of having them find the letters to verify your initial prediction would give you all the time you need to write your other prediction.

It’s still missing something presentationally to tie it all together (hence the reason it’s in this Dumb Tricks post). But I actually think all the component pieces are there for something pretty strong.

And Found

Here’s an idea I received from supporter, Leigh H. It’s pretty fully-formed, so I’ll post it as is and just add a couple quick at the end.

I stumbled into the opportunity for a pretty strong piece of magic recently, which I thought had a useful underlying idea in it:

I had my girlfriend choose a card, and we lost it in the deck. I tried to find it a couple of times, and failed, so we gave up.

Later, I remembered something my grandma used to do when she had misplaced things: a little superstition which was supposed to help you remember where you'd left something you lost. I suggested we use it to try and find the card.

We conducted a little ritual, focused around the card box, to try and help us locate her lost card.

Unexpectedly, it seemed to work: something appeared inside the box.

I dumped out the contents of the box…

The reaction was really strong. Not because the card was correct, but because some of the things in the box were legitimately lost and had suddenly reappeared, supposedly summoned/found by the ritual.

This came about because over a year ago, my girlfriend let a friend of mine borrow a padlock she had (he was staying with us, and going to the gym in our building). He ended up heading back home to England with the lock, and neither me nor my friend thought anything of it.

Months later, in passing, my girlfriend mentioned that the lock had some sentimental significance, and she was pretty sad it was gone (but knew it was 'just a silly padlock', so had already given up on it).

I reached out to him, he had it and mailed it right back. I was planning to wrap it up as a gift and give it to her at Christmas (not as part of a magic trick).

But then... we have these little plastic figurines we hide around the apartment as a game: put the guy somewhere funny, and wait for the other person to stumble across it.

They often get hidden and forgotten about, and turn up a couple days/weeks later so we only know where 1 or 2 are at any point in time.

Goose had not been seen for months. Neither of us remembered the last place we hid him, so eventually we concluded he must have been hidden in a cereal box or something and thrown in the trash.

But, months after we assumed he was gone, I found him when she wasn't around (he was in a box of Christmas tea bags, which had stopped getting used after the holidays). I immediately had the idea to put him with the padlock and gift them both back at the same time.

But then I realized I was in a unique position where I had possession of multiple items which were assumed lost, and could use that as the basis of a magic trick.

The opportunities to use this effect are likely pretty rare, but it feels like a useful tool to have in the back of mind in case it does come up.

I suppose you could also just start stealing small objects from your friends in order to eventually give them back, but that changes up the sentiment a little, I suppose! —LH

I like this idea a lot.

Note that the idea is not to use a magic ritual to find a spectator’s lost object. You don’t say, “Let’s use a ritual to find your lost ring,” or whatever. Instead, the lost object is found as a repercussion of a “ritual” used in the context of a card trick. So it’s the fictional magic world and their real world intermingling in an unexpected way.

You’ll see a similarity with this idea and the trick In Search of the Castaways in book #2. And the subject of Reps (repercussions) is covered extensively in the next book (#4).

The only tweak I would make is to do some sort of card case switch. So the person you’re performing for hands you the empty card box and while you’re arranging things for the ceremony, you switch in the pre-loaded box. I recommend this not because this is a trick about items magically appearing in the card box. But because this has the potential to be a “big” trick in their memory. And the empty card case might be a detail that gets lost in the moment (under the surprise of seeing their lost object). But it can be a little magical time-bomb that they remember when they think back to the effect. “Wait… there wasn’t even anything in the box when I handed it to him.” It’s good to “seed” big effects with smaller magical details that might get remembered later. And that’s simply because big effects are the ones people think back on the most, so it makes sense to pack them with as many little moments as possible.

And I agree with Leigh that I wouldn’t just steal something in order to perform this effect at a later date. I would wait until I serendipitously found something that someone had lost. Ideally you want something that has been missing for weeks or months, not hours or days. However, after I found such a missing item, I probably would steal something else to round out the effect a little more. I think the ideal “cache” to appear in the box would be something like what Leigh had:

1. Something that’s been missing for a while that you genuinely stumbled over.

2. Something else that is both inessential, but also will be noticed missing. Most likely this would be something you take yourself. And I emphasize “inessential.” Don’t steal their credit card or car key or something for your trick.

3. The missing playing card.

4. And then fill it out with some random “missing” items. The sort of things people lose all the time, but aren’t necessarily remembered like change and the button in Leigh’s example. Also little screws (from when you’re putting together furniture), guitar picks, rubber bands, hair ties. Maybe an M&M that rolled under the fridge back in May.

Of course, there’s a decent chance whatever lost item you find won’t fit in a card case, but you can use the same basic idea with any type of larger container as well.

This isn’t something you’ll have the chance to do often (although I did recently find my friend’s earring at my place, so I’m set up to do this soon), but when the situation to perform it does arise, I think it has the potential to be a really strong moment for the spectator.

Thanks to Leigh for sharing this with us.

Wiki-Squared

Today’s post is for people who use Wiki-Test. It’s an application of the Squared Anagram concept to the thought of words used in the second phase of that trick. If you already have a good grasp on the concept, then all I need to tell you is that the first “impulse” is between S and T, and the second is between U and V. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then I’ll link a pdf that goes over it all in excruciating detail at the end of this post.

I’ve gotten a ton of feedback on Squared Anagrams. If you are at all into anagram work, it’s something you need to give some thought to. As I write in the pdf to come…

The nice thing about the “Squared Anagram” approach is how much less it feels like letter guessing than the traditional anagram. It feels more like you’re actually sensing something. You’re not guessing two letters at once. You’re feeling an impulse and then verifying where that impulse was directed. If they say “yes” for an S, and “no” for a T, that’s not one hit and one miss. That should just come across as one hit that required some clarification. Like if someone was pointing to something on a high shelf and you were asking, “Do you want this one, or this one, or both?”

Although not as universally applicable as traditional anagrams, it’s a much more streamlined technique. And the “misses” almost vanish. (As I discussed in this post.)

Okay, I won’t try to sell you on it anymore

Here is a pdf with the information related to the Wiki-test version. (Password is voice)

HIT Thoughts

If you’re familiar with it, what are your thoughts on Hit by Luke Jermay? I’ve been playing with it since he taught it on his Vanishing Inc. Masterclass, but the reactions have been only so-so. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a multi-phase blackjack effect (sort of) where the spectator has a free choice between two blackjack hands and you always influence them to pick the losing hand.

Here’s the demo (it’s long).

I really like the trick, but the people I’ve shown it to have been sort of lukewarm on it. —FP

Oooohhh… luke warm. Luke Jermay. I get it. Good stuff, FP.

While I like the construction of this routine, the presentation used in the demo is not one that I would recommend to anyone performing for friends and family.

Imagine yourself as the recipient of this presentation.

First, imagine yourself in a hotel bar. You strike up a conversation with a stranger. He mentions that he studies “influence.” After some conversation about this, he offers to show you a demonstration. And somehow he causes you to pick the losing blackjack hand every time.

You might think, “That was crazy. Was he really influencing me? Could it have been just a card trick. I don’t think so. He didn’t seem to do much.” It would be the sort of encounter that would leave you wondering.

Now, imagine it’s your brother performing this. “I’m going to use subtle psychological influence to cause you to pick the losing hand each time.”

“Uhm… no you’re not, Todd. What are these… trick cards or something?”

It’s a completely different situation when you know the person.

“Influence” is the least attractive type of presentation to use with friends and family. There are a few reasons for this.

First, you’re claiming to have special powers. This, by itself, can rub some people the wrong way. (Although there are plenty of ways to present it in a palatable manner.)

Second, you are claiming to have special powers that actually exist. It’s one thing to say you can float a dollar bill with your mind. Everyone realizes that’s a fantastical premise and no one is supposed to take it seriously. On the other hand, there actually are influential people and influential techniques. So claiming you’re one of these people or you have mastery of those techniques (when they know you and know it’s not true) could be off-putting.

Third, you’re claiming to have a special power, that actually exists, that allows you to exert your will over them. You’re not just pretending to have a skill you really don’t possess, like a super-memory or the ability to do rapid math. You’re demonstrating your ability to control other people. This is the sort of thing that might be compelling from a mysterious stranger. But it’s much less attractive when it’s coming from your co-worker, Melvin. Out of all the impossible, magical “stories” you could tell… you chose the one that makes it seem like you have an incredible skill that makes you more powerful than them. You’re almost begging people to push back against this. In fact, if they’re really supportive of this presentation, it suggests they think you’re a little pathetic. “Wow! You really influenced me to lose each time. Good job, Peter! Good for you! What a clever young man you are!”

But the good thing about this trick is that you’re not locked into this presentation of influence. My understanding is that Luke goes over some other options in the download. (I haven’t seen it, so I can’t say for sure.)

I would probably do some sort of “lucky charm” type of presentation.

I’d bring out a small box, open it up, and reveal a lucky rabbit’s foot.

I’d tell my friend I know they have some big opportunities and challenges coming up and they need all the help they can get. “If you’d like, I’ll sell you this rabbit’s foot for $800.” When they look at me like I’m crazy, I’d say, “Okay, $750.”

Of course they wouldn’t take me up on the offer, and would be wondering where this joke/trick was going.

“Okay, your loss,” I’d say. “This thing is the real deal. I’ll show you.” And I’d go grab a deck of cards and use Luke’s routine as a demonstration of the power of the rabbit’s foot.

This allows an additional decision during the process of the trick. Not only does the spectator get to decide who gets which cards, they also get to decide which of us get’s the rabbit foot.

This nicely shifts the trick away from a result of: “You lose. You lose. You lose.” Now it’s a matter of the luck following the rabbits foot. So the result might be: “I win. You win. You win.” But the “you or me” aspect doesn’t matter that much. I’m not causing you to lose. This is just a fair and powerful demonstration of the luck of this rabbit’s foot. But they won’t get the sense you’re really trying to convince them of that. So they can play along and just enjoy the effect without indulging a presentation that’s about me being some psychological, machiavellian genius.

If they’re someone who’d want to keep the rabbit’s foot, I’d let them. “Why don’t you hold onto this. No payment needed… right now. We’ll see what luck comes your way. And anything you may luck into financially, I’ll take… say…10%.”