Revelations Follow-Up

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I was asked:

When I see products or tricks that have very specific forces built in (the jack of spades is holding the 3 of diamonds, the four of clubs hidden the Sharpie logo, and the like) I pull back.  Because of the magician's brain I am thinking it's just a force and the audience is going to think it is a force. OR even if they don't know that it is a force it feels less magical because it was preordained.

For example, I have no problem at all using a cross cut force. When I see another magician use that it doesn't cause the same response. I think that is because that is the method, where the reveal being etched in stone is effect and maybe(?) that is why I am bristling.

I'm not looking for convincing on the merit of any particular method or effect. Instead I'm asking how to manage this blind spot so I'm not missing out on something that creates a real sense of wonder for those I am performing for. —GM

The subject line of this email was: "How to get out of magician brain?"

The truth is, this is not "magician brain." This is just regular human brain.

We did focus-group testing of revelations back in 2018. Here's what our results were.

If you have a seemingly immutable revelation, then people are always going to assume the card was forced on them.

And if the force you used was a Riffle Force or a Classic Force or some other quick force that doesn't emphasize a genuine choice for the spectator, then that's all the trick is going to amount to in their head. "He must have made me pick the card that was embroidered on the back of his jacket."

The problem here isn't that they didn't believe the embroidering magically appeared on your jacket after they selected the card. They're never going to believe that.

Even if you spread an ungimmicked deck on the table face-up and let them select any card, they're still not going to think the embroidery popped into existence after their selection. They're still just going to think, "How did he make me pick this card?"

That's okay, because that's still a trick. There's still a mystery there.

The problem comes when you use a force they can easily brush off as a force (Slip Force, riffle, classic). If they don't have any conviction that their decisions made a difference along the way, then they will brush off the whole thing as a force.

You can't eradicate the idea of a force completely. You can't keep them from saying, "He must have made me choose that card." But with the right techniques, you can make them follow that thought with, "Wait… but how could he have made me choose that card?"

You can make “It must have been a force” an unsatisfyingly incomplete answer to what they saw.

Even then, as I said yesterday, I don't think Card Selection —> Card Revelation is that strong of a trick.

But if you're committed to doing one (or if you've invested in one of those props with the baked-in force), here's how to make it as strong as possible:

  • Look for forces that involve genuine selections and free choices along the way.

  • Consider Bi-Reveals

  • Add trickery to the reveal itself. If I can show you the back of my jacket at the start of the trick and there's nothing on it, then you can't just brush off the whole thing as a simple force. Now we're approaching an actual strong trick (if still a kind of stupid one).