A Theoretical Bifurcated Trick

Here’s a theoretical idea for a trick. I say “theoretical” because it’s not something I’ve ever done. And it’s not something I would guess anyone would find themselves in the circumstances to do. But I find it interesting to think about. And part of my enjoyment in magic is thinking about “interesting” methods and techniques.

The original idea comes from an email from Pete McCabe. I’ll include that email at the bottom of this post.

Here’s what it would look like.

You’re sitting with two friends at a table.

“I’m going to ask you both to do a simple task. You will have no trouble doing your task. And yet you will be doing something incredible. Never in your life will the disparity between what you do and what you accomplish be greater than it will be right now.”

You give your friend Amanda a piece of paper and a pen. You give your friend Bob a deck of cards.

“Amanda, your task is this… I’m going to turn around. While my back is turned, I want you to just try and open your mind for a moment and then write down any word on that piece of paper. Then fold that paper up and put it in your pocket. Okay?”

You turn your back. She writes down a word. And puts it in her pocket.

You turn back around.

“Okay, Bob, your task is this. I want you to deal that deck of cards into two relatively equal piles. You don’t have to deal back and forth. You can deal however you want. Just end up with two piles about the same size at the end.”

Bob does this.

“Easy, right?” you say. “I know that felt like nothing. Writing down a word. Or dealing a deck into two piles. A five-year-old could do these things. But I’m being honest when I tell you that I think you’ve each done something amazing. Let’s see….

“Amanda, when I turned around earlier I was trying to send you a word with my mind. I didn’t know what word to send at first. I didn’t want to do something too simple like ‘house’ or ‘tree.’ But I wanted it to be a significant word in some way. So I chose something that is the building block of life itself. I chose the word… carbon. What did you write down?”

Amanda goes nuts because that’s what she wrote down.

“And Bob… you dealt these cards out completely blind, yes? You didn’t look at any of the faces or anything? And yet, look what you managed to do….”

You reveal that Bob has dealt all the red cards into one pile and all the black cards into another.

Method

Okay, don’t stop reading when you read the initial part of the method, because then you won’t get to the interesting part.

Amanda’s word is written down with any writing implement on any piece of paper and it goes straight into her pocket. You never see it.

But Bob does see what she writes.

And Bob codes you the word via Morse code as he deals the deck into two piles. So one pile is the “dot” pile, the other is the “dash” pile. Between letters he just needs to break his rhythm and pretend to “consider” where to place the next card. Once he’s spelled out the word he can speed up and deal out the rest of the deck.

So the “mind reading” of Amanda is very clean.

But think about the effect on Bob. He thinks he’s just coding you the information. He doesn’t know where his part of this is going. So that will be pretty mind-boggling when he sees—somehow—he dealt the cards into piles of red and black.

Now, the reason why this is more of a theoretical trick is because it depends on someone being willing to learn Morse Code for the sake of doing magic tricks with you. But also that person has to be not versed enough in magic to know about Out of This World. You’re probably not going to stumble across too many people like that. But hey, maybe you’ll run into a total newbie in magic who wants to learn stuff and you can convince them to learn Morse Code and pull this on them.

Here’s Pete’s original email…

I loved JFC’s idea of hot and cold.

Here’s an idea that popped into my head.

You are going to do two different tricks on two different people. One of them is your friend/stooge, the other is the audience.

First you do the trick for your friend, which is Out of This World. The order of their red-black guesses keys you to whatever you need.

Now you do the second trick, using the info your friend coded to you.

The best part is that, in the world of the trick, it’s impossible for their red-black guesses to have been a code because they all turn out to have been correct.

Second best part is that although your spectator helps you with the second trick, they will still be fooled by the OOTW.

Biggest drawback is that now your friend needs to memorize the morse code.