Salvage Yard: Black Pearl
/The only thing I bought from Blackpool this year was Black Pearl from Victor Zatko.
So far I’ve had two types of reactions:
A shrug.
A good reaction followed by “Can I see the bracelet?
AGGHHHHHHHHH!! It’s the ONE thing I bought. Any idea how to make this work? —CA
Okay, for those who don't know what this trick is and you're reading this during a work meeting so you can't watch the video, the trick is you're wearing a black beaded bracelet with one white bead on it. You ask your friend to name a number between 1 and 20. When you unclasp the bracelet, the white bead is found the selected number from the end of the bracelet.
(By the way, if you are in a work meeting and reading this site instead of paying attention, just look up right now and say, "At the end of the day, it's about execution." They'll think you're really engaged.)
The two reactions CA describes in his email don't surprise me.
In fact, they're not two reactions. They're one reaction: "I bet that's a trick bracelet."
The non-reactors just sense it earlier. The people who react well just come to the "trick bracelet" conclusion a little later. But 100% of people who watch this will assume it's a trick bracelet. And, I would guess, most will have a good idea exactly how it's gimmicked.
How would I salvage it?
Hmm… give me a minute.
[Four days later.]
Okay, a little longer than a minute.
Here's what I'd do.
"I want you to imagine looking out a window."
I draw a square in the air with my fingers in front of them.
"You're looking out on a street in front of your house. It's quiet. Then, walking into the frame is a parade of black cats. Twenty of them. All in a row. Can you see it? Okay, now you notice something. The cats have a guest in their parade. A pure white bunny is in the row of animals as well. Can you picture that? Perfect. Tell me, what position is the bunny in the cat parade? Where, from 1-20, is he located?"
Eight.
"That's right. That's exactly how the cat parade played out. Let me show you something."
I open my Notes app to a note called The Cat Parade.
"Want to know how that works? Okay… when we went through that focus exercise earlier, I was trying to heighten your sensitivity to pick up external stimuli. When I was drawing the window in front of you, and when I was pointing out the parade of cats, there was something in your periphery that I was hoping you'd pick up on."
I give them a moment to get ahead of me if they can. Either way, I smile and say...
"Let me undo this."
I "unhook" the bracelet and hold it up.
"One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven… and the white rabbit."
I think by making this an ancillary effect (combined with DFB) it might help with the "trick bracelet" explanation, because that's no longer a complete answer.
In the write-up I refer to a "focus exercise." This is something you would do before the "visualization" exercise of them thinking of the cat parade. You want to do something—some kind of Imp—to suggest their mind was prepped to pick up on information it might not have otherwise and that's what happened here.
Don't call it "influence."
I mean, go ahead, do whatever you want. But that's just beyond corny. "I influenced you by wearing a bracelet!" Okay, goofball. (Ctrl+f and search for Influence for a lot of posts on the influence premise and why it mostly sucks and alternatives to it.)
It's not influence. They're walked through a process, or some other type of Imp, that temporarily heightens their perception. And that's how they were able to pick up on this subtle cue without knowing. You guided them through the process, but it's something they accomplished. The list on your phone is proof that they did and the bracelet is the explanation for how it played out.
There you go. I think I might have talked myself into buying this dumb thing.