Last night, March 1, I performed for a family's celebration of their patriarch's 80th birthday.
When I was initially contacted, it was to do either my hypnosis show or, possibly, my close-up show on a "formal" basis, where the guests would sit around a central table and I would perform, using a couple of people from the group to interact with.
Well, the next day, I got a call from the very nice lady who was organizing the event saying that my program "just wasn't quite what she wanted" for her Dad. "He's been an observer all of his life - an avid reader on a wide variety of topics and really not a participant, even though he gets a kick out of watching everyone else participate in literally everything!"
Well, I actually have a program for something like that! I do a lecture/demonstration on Perception, Memory and Persuasion that uses magic to illustrate how everyone perceives things differently using everything from a routine where I cut to the Aces using only one hand, illustrating how someone can overcome the limitation of the lack of sight, or the loss OF a hand by compensating by an increased sense of touch and dexterity to someone not being able to see something obvious (a card stuck in my eyeglasses) due to their being "too close" to the situation!
Well, this was EXACTLY what she was looking for and, when I got there, the reception that I got was nothing short of amazing!
In one segment, I do a demonstration of reading someones "tells," the subtle body language cues that we all give away, to reveal a chosen playing card. In fact, they had me repeat this demonstration not once, not twice, but THREE times, each time, under more difficult circumstances until I did it with what amounted to a card that the volunteer simply thought of as she looked at the deck!
When I told her that I actually persuaded her to select that card, she didn't believe me, until I had her take out my Palm Pilot and turn it on. There, staring at her from the screen, was the name of the card she thought she had merely THOUGHT of! Hidden persuasion at its best, it would seem!
When this was followed by the revelation of a freely-chosen word from a novel, using muscle-reading (the tension and relaxation of the muscles of the body), they were stunned.
It was a night to remember and even the man celebrating his 80th birthday made it a point to seek me out after the demonstration and say, "That was one of the most remarkable things I've seen in all my years. You really made this a wonderful night."
Sometimes, things just go perfectly. This was one of those times.
