D'Lite'd

D’Lites are probably the best selling magic trick of all time. This, I’m sorry to say, is just a fact.

For undoubtedly some legal reason that I’m not all that interested in, Rocco (the inventor of the D’lite) rebranded and came out with Prisma Lites a few years back. They’re the same thing.

At the end of the download for Prisma Lites, Rocco is talking seemingly off the top of his head about the “millions” of things you can do with Prisma Lites. And then offers three examples…

Let’s rate these examples.

“Maybe you wanna take ‘em on a dance floor next time you go dancing.”

Pros: The idea of lights and a dance floor go well together.

Cons: He doesn’t exactly suggest a trick with these. Just that you would take “em” on the dance floor. Also, I don’t spend a lot of time on a dance floor. I guess maybe at a wedding? Do I want to be the guy who brought two d’Lites to a wedding? Hmmm…

Rating: 5/10

“Maybe you wanna show your friends how you can take a light out of their ear and blow it and make it disappear.”

Pros: Simple. And pulling something from someone’s ear is classic.

Cons: Pulling something from someone’s ear is also shorthand for what a hackey magician does.

Rating: 4/10

“Go up to your mother and tell her, ‘Look, you dropped something on the floor.’ She looks down, you reach up and pull a little red light and make it disappear in frunna ‘er eyes.”

Pros: An absolute masterpiece of trick structure. Your mother will be amazed.

Cons: None.

Rating: 10/10

It’s clear from these examples that the d’Lite has many uses. It can be used to make a light appear on the dance floor, with your friends, or in front of your mom.

Andy, isn’t that all essentially the same thing?

No. Shut up. Those are all wildly different applications of what must certainly be the greatest gimmick of all time.

In fact, I just thought of another great trick in the spirit of Rocco’s ideas. Maybe you go to your grandma’s for Sunday dinner and you say, “Grandma, there’s something in the marinara.” And you reach in and pull out a light and make it disappear right in front of her fat face.

See? Like Rocco and Einstein said, use your imagination.

If, for some reason, Rocco’s ideas aren’t enough. Here are some other uses for d’Lites/Prisma Lites that I’ve written about.

Make snow glow

Prove you had your brain removed

Freak out your girlfriend

Swingin' Enigma

Here’s an idea for Christian Grace’s Enigma effect. This isn’t an effect I do, and I’m not in the Facebook group for it or anything, so if a similar idea has been expressed somewhere, let me know, so I can add crediting.

The idea was inspired by an email from Alexandre M. who was writing to me about performing Enigma using some divination tool that is outside of the performer’s control. That way, you as the performer don’t have to justify the more “process-y” aspects of the trick. They’re just part of this “ritual” or this “system” that exists outside of you.

That gave me this idea.

So you would start by having your friend think of a word.

Now you spin a story about this pendulum you bought at… whatever your story is.

You mention the interesting thing is that this pendulum can supposedly harness actual thoughts.

You draw this on a piece of paper.

You have the spectator imagine their word letter by letter. They dangle the pendulum over the drawing and see what direction the pendulum starts swinging in order to see if this pendulum can really pick up on their thoughts.

Three things will happen, and they’re all equally good.

1. It will work perfectly.

The spectator’s ideomotor response is strong, and the pendulum will swing in exactly the direction it should on each letter.

If they don’t understand how pendulums work, this will be completely inexplicable and already something of a miracle.

You say: “I know! Isn’t that insane?! But wait… check this out. I’ve been working with this pendulum for a few weeks now and have become really attuned to it. Let me show you something….”

2. It doesn’t work at all.

Either it swings randomly or barely swings at all. You do your best to interpret which direction it’s swinging for each letter, but sometimes it’s right and sometimes it’s wrong. There’s no real rhyme or reason to it. It’s just random.

You say: “That’s weird. I’ve had much better results than this so far. You know, what sometimes happens is because you know the direction it should move, and you’re holding the pendulum, that sometimes you subconsciously prevent it from moving in that direction. Let me try holding it, and it might be able to move more freely since I don’t know your word at all.”

3. It does work… but they sort of understand how pendulums work and that they’re controlling it, so they’re not that impressed.

If they imply, “Yeah, it worked. But it’s just me moving it subconsciously,” this is may be the best case scenario.

You say: “Yeah, I’ve read that idea too. That you’re just moving it without thinking about it. There’s a name for the phenomenon, but I forget what it is. Anyway, I don’t think that’s what going on here. Because… look… I don’t know what word you’re thinking of. But let me try holding it.”

For the second part, you’ll take the pendulum and hold it over the paper in one hand, while you hold a pen below it in the other.

You act as if you’re going to try and follow along the swinging of the pendulum with the pen. At first, you’ll just draw back and forth as the pendulum swings. Then you’ll act as if the pendulum is moving in more distinct orientations and you’re doing your best to mimic it with the pen.

If you want to build up the reveal, you can sort of block what you’re writing with your arm and hands as you hold the pendulum over what you write.

Try to interpret what you wrote…

“Is it…hmmm… I don’t know what that is. A C? C-O-N-O-T? Or…hmmm….”

They—as seemingly the only person who knows what the word is—will see their word immediately in the scribble. Comet.

You: “Oh yeah, yeah, I can see that now. I wish I understood how this works.”

NOTES

1. The first phase with vowels and consonants can either be played as a demonstration of the pendulums abilities, or as almost a “tuning” exercise to get the pendulum “aligned” with their mind.

2. If, after the first phase, you still need to narrow down their selection, you can add a second beat where they think of specific letters or shapes of letters. You ask them to try to not let the pendulum swing, and you try and interpret what you’re seeing based on the tiny movements of the tip of the pendulum. “It seems like a curved letter at the start. Yes? An O or a G or a C or something?” And so on.

3. Obviously, as they’re futzing around with the pendulum, you have a bunch of freedom to do what you need to do to get their word via the Enigma process.

Update: It looks like the earliest reference to using a pendulum with Enigma can ve found in a March 30th post in the Facebook group for Enigma by Gordon B.

Mailbag #124

[Re: The Delayed ESP post]

After the person chooses an esp shape, you can tell them to look for things that are that same shape during the day.

Then, when you are reading their mind, you can ask them to send you the image(s) they saw during the day.

This way, instead of reading their mind to learn an essentially random shape, you’re reading their memory of what they saw, and you can also see it, well enough to get the basic shape.—PM

You could definitely do it like that, but it might be of limited effectiveness because in the end you can’t actually tell them the objects they’re thinking of. You’re still just revealing the shape. And I think they might be expecting you to say what they saw earlier in the day.

Instead of using “real objects” as part of the set-up, it would probably be stronger to use them as part of the reveal.

You talk about how they’ve been focusing on their shape all day, and in particular how to transmit that shape to someone else.

You then take their hand or have them rest their hand on your shoulder and you’re “guided” to different objects in the room, which turn out to be the shape they had in mind.

This would be super straightforward with a circle or square.

The plus sign could be “found” in any two intersecting lines you find.

Wavy lines might be tricky, as you won’t find exact representations of that in most places. But that imagery could be found in the drapes, or anything fabric. Or in anything liquid in the room. Or let them guide you to the fridge where you pull out a package of bacon.

The star could be difficult if there’s nothing star-themed in the room. Here’s what I would do. I would let their mind guide me to different objects all over the room. And I would act like I don’t get understand why I’m being drawn to those objects. A soda can. A picture on the wall. A book on the shelf. The door. A birdcage. Again, I’m drawn to those objects. And again. Soda can, picture, book, door, birdcage.

Ah! Then it hits me. I’ve essentially mapped out the shape of a star on the floor by walking from object to object in the pattern I’ve been guided.

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In [this post] you wrote about having a “small display” of decks in your house. What constitutes a “small display” in your mind? Is there a minimum or maximum you shoot for?—SL

Hmm… I don’t know that it’s that important generally.

But personally I’ve made a change to my deck display in recent years. I used to display all my decks (like, all my ungimmicked decks, I mean). But now I’ve cut that down to about a dozen or so decks. 

Why?

Well, when I had 70 or 80 decks on display, it was because I wanted people to notice them and be drawn to them, which would naturally allow me to transition into an effect. 

But I asked myself if I would have such a large display if I didn’t want to use it to transition into a trick, and the answer was “No.” Large collections of objects aren’t really my thing. It suggests a sort of obsession that I don’t really feel for objects. 

A small display of a dozen or so decks will still draw people’s attention. But I feel like it implies a relatable level of interest.

Most guys probably have one bottle of cologne. I have a half-dozen or so. So you might say, “Oh, this guy likes cologne.” But if I had 50 bottles, that might come off as “weird cologne guy.”

A dozen decks represents a slightly outsized interest in playing cards without seeming goofy.

Of those dozen decks, half are normal decks (some of which are stacked in some manner) and the other half are decks that are unusual in some way (e.g., they’re not typical playing cards, or they’re playing cards that supposedly have some strange history, or something like that). This is the other benefit of a smaller deck display. It allows me to more easily funnel them towards a deck I want to do something with than if I just had these dozen decks mixed in with 50 other normal ones.

Dustings #117

I don’t usually ever go back like this, but for supporters who have the most recent newsletter (LL#27), I have to double-down on my recommendation for the first trick I discussed in that issue. I had only performed it a few times before that write-up and I’ve gone on to perform it a bunch more since then. The variation written up there has been really messing with people in a good way.

And, while I described my handling as “clumsy” (or something like that), it all happens when their back is to you and they’re concentrating on something else, so it doesn’t matter in the least.

I was high on the trick before, but now it’s one of my favorites of the year.

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Great Moments In Patter

“In your head, you focus on what this word is. If it’s a small word, imagine whatever the word is. If it’s a large word… imagine whatever it is.”

And if it’s a medium-length word? WHAT THEN???

Obviously, Pete is making the distinction so he can gesture in that way to get his peek. But the fact that there is actually no distinction between the two things, sort of struck me as funny, especially from Pete who I think of as being pretty precise with his wording.

If you want to keep the same gestures, I would say something like, “You can either imagine the object itself in front of you [peek gesture], or imagine the word spelled out in front of you [wide gesture].”

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If you do the trick Inverto by Liam Levanon, and you do the trick as described in the instructions (where you’re using your phone to reverse the image of a selected card), here’s an idea you might want to use…

As you disccuss the different filters on instagram (or snapchat or whatever) you talk about the mustache one and show how it gives you a mustache on the screen. Then, as they turn to you, you have the mustache in real life.

It would just be a matter of positioning them and choreographing it so you can slip the fake mustache on while their back is to you and before you lift up the phone for them to look into.

It would make a dumb lead-in to Inverto, or a goofy follow-up as another example of you manifesting the effects of photo filters in real life.

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Pseudo Chatbot Update

There’s been an update to the pseudo-chatbot feature in the Jerx app. In the settings, you can enter whatever name you want to use for that chatbot.

There are two benefits to this.

1. Now you can come up with a name that is completely ungoogleable, should anyone decide to try and look into it further.

2. You can use a name that goes along with whatever story you want to spin about this supposed chatbot that exists on the dark web that you have access too.

You don’t have to make it jokey. You could name the program DeckSorterH6 and do ShuffleBored and place the phone on top of the deck and write, “What is the orientation of the cards in the deck?” Then it will shoot out its response as if it’s somehow reading the cards in the deck.

If you use your own deck, you can claim they’re special cards that the program can “read” via RFID chips, or something.

To me that’s a bit too on the believable side of technology.

So I will probably do something simpler with a borrowed deck. I’ll name the program CardFinderTX4 or something. Borrow a deck and do some type of Automatic Placement trick where the spectator seemingly mixes and loses a chosen card in the deck. Then the phone is placed on top of the deck and they type in, “Where is my card?” and it spits out:

Your card is located at the 37th position in the deck.

Or whatever the case may be.

This will be a good impromptu piece for when I can use someone’s deck at their place. With the right method, there will be no explanation.

It also allows me to play dumb. It’s the bot that’s doing it. Not me. I wish I knew how it worked.

I just need to find a good Automatic Placement trick. If you have a favorite I should check out, let me know.

I might use it as a reveal for the Trick that Fooled Einstein. Again, I would make it seem like somehow the program is “reading” the number of matches in our hand (or whatever) by waving the phone over our closed fists.

This also provides a little justification for why the revelation is so strangely worded. It’s AI. Who knows why it says things the way it does?

Of course, the app can be used to reveal anything that’s forced. It’s just a matter of finding the right trick to use it with. I would save it for a trick that would otherwise be a dull prediction. One of those tricks that you like, but you just don’t have a particularly good premise for. In that case, the AI premise will add an element of interest to it. But if your trick already has some interesting or charming aspect to it, then it would probably be a step backwards to use this particular reveal.

(Thanks, as always, to Marc Kerstein for his continued updates and maintenance on the Jerx app.)

Mailbag: Planned Failures

How do you feel about the idea that getting some wrong in mentalism will strengthen the other tricks around it by making them feel more legitimate? Some performers suggest inserting misses on purpose while others say you don't need to do that because you're bound to get things wrong anyway.  What do you think? Do you put them in intentionally? —EF

We tested misses in mentalism about 5 years. My takeaway at that time was that a near miss was productive, but being totally wrong wasn't.

I would say that's still my theory.

I just don't buy the idea that being wildly off is convincing of anything. 

For example, if you were skeptical that someone could read, and you decided to test him a few times, and he got the words right that you were showing him, you might think:

"Well, I guess he can read." 

or

"Somehow he's tricking me. Someone is telling him the words I'm going to test him on or something."

So let's imagine he gets a few words correct, you’re still not sure what to believe, so you test him again.

"What does this say?" you ask

WATER FOUNTAIN

He looks at it for a moment and then replies, "It says, 'Boot.'"

Would you think, "I knew it. This bitch doesn't know how to read. He was faking it before."

Or would you think, "See, him getting this wrong proves that he wasn't using tricks the other times, or he would have got it right! He can, in fact, read!"

That would be some bizarre logic. But mentalists often think a totally wrong guess will generate that reaction.

I think it's unlikely. I think it's more likely they'll think you messed up your trick.

But a near miss is helpful. If the guy said, "Water mountain." You would think, "Ah, yes. He can clearly read. He just didn't see it accurately or he slightly misspoke."

When I want to up the believability of something I'm doing, I don't include a near miss. 

What I include is a minor almost believable impossibility. As talked about in Monday's post. 

That gets people thinking, "Okay, sure. That thing he did with his 'invisible friend' was just a trick... but was this real?"

That's my way of keeping people off balance rather than a planned miss.

More Fake Business Card Billets

Read this post for the idea behind using these.

Here are some additional fake business cards from A. Cousins, along with the ones Myles Thornton provided us with a few years ago.

Here they are formatted for this size printable business cards in the U.S.

And here they are formatted for this size in the U.K/Europe.

While many of the numbers/addresses are UK-centric, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. If it doesn’t make sense to say that you were traveling to the UK, then say that you met that person, or a representative of that institution, while they were visiting your area. Or while you were both at some conference. Whatever makes more sense.

Thanks to Andrew and Myles.

“Rediscovering” one of these cards in your wallet (or using it as a bookmark), letting that lead to the story of how you ended up with it, and letting that story transition into a trick, is a much more interesting and natural way to roll into an effect rather than pulling out the blank business cards that you’re carrying with you purely for some trick you want to show them.