Out of the Minds of Babes

Imagine

“Oh, my God, she’s so beautiful,” I say. “And you can tell, there’s a lot going on behind the eyes, you know? She’s going to be a smart one.”

I’m holding an eight-month-old named Cara, chatting with her parents, friends of mine from college.

“Did you ever do… like, one of those psychic tests with her? To see if she has anything… you know… ‘extra’ going on?”

“What?” her mother says, giving me a look that carries an unspoken “…the fuck are you talking about?”

“You haven’t heard of that? Oh, it’s fun, let’s try it.”

I pick up my phone, look something up, then set it back face-down on the table.

“Okay, I’ve locked something in. Let’s see if she can pick up on it.”

I pick Cara up and look her straight in the eyes then hand her over to her mother.

I have her mother bring her daughter over to the bookshelf and hold her out towards the books.

“Move her back and forth and see if there’s a book she grabs for or makes a move for in some way.”

We identify a book the baby seemed to reach toward.

I take the book and riffle through the pages. “We’ll see if she makes a move for me to stop somewhere.” As I gently flutter the pages near her face, the baby extends her hand out to touch them and I stop riffling.

With a page identified, I open the book on the floor at that page. We place Cara on her belly in front of the book. Her mom wiggles her fingers over the text until Cara plops her hand down on the page.

“Look for a word near her fingertips,” I say. “We’re looking for a noun. An object. Something you can touch. Do you see anything like that?”

“Hmmm,” her mom says, “well, the closest word I can see like that is luggage.”

“I’ll be honest,” I say, “luggage is pretty close.”

I pick up my phone and show her parents the word I searched for was suitcase.

“Not bad. Not perfect. But not bad,” I say, shrugging it off a little.

Her parents stare at each other, speechless.

Method

The method for this particular execution of the idea was S.A.M. by Christian Grace.

But this general premise is something I’ve used a few times in the past with any trick that uses a genuinely freely chosen word (or a number—I’ve done similar things with number blocks).

I love doing tricks for new parents that make their kid the star. I find it fairly easy to come up with ways of framing magic so that the baby is the focus of the miracle.