The Amazing World of Kreskin

[haroldross]

I know I have posted about this show before but I just watched Episode 4 from Season 13 with guest star Cameron Mitchell.

He starts the show out a little different that normal. He is outside and lets the TV audience in on a secret about the show. He tells them that when he enters on stage he will yawn and scratch himself throughout the first segment and asks the viewers to watch the reactions of the in studio audience. As he is doing this in the studio, many in the audience are yawning and scratching itches. For the final segment he calls two men to come forward and sit in chairs. He tickles one on the hand with a feather and he tickles the other one on the throat with a feather. Both are ticklish. He then tickles his own hand with a feather and several in the audience react as though he was tickling them. He tickles his own throat and gets a similar reaction from the audience. He then uses the feather to tickle his own foot through the bottom of his shoe. Audience members then react as though they were being tickled on their feet with a feather.

This is a great segment on the power of suggestion. I am going to try to work something like this into one of my upcoming shows.

You can catch the show on Hulu.com

[Misjief]

H-

I was going to post a similar post .... As I just started reading a book called "verbal control - A treatise on the under-explored art of equivoque" by Phil Goldstein" It is a small pamphlet with a heck of a lot of info packed into it.

If you get a chance I recommend you pick it up as it is a good read. Basically it is a couple of psychological ploys backed with a lot of suggestive patter to really sock it to 'em!

I have been playing with it and it has been sort of hit or miss for me, but I am finding that it fails for logical reasons. Perhaps I wasn't facing them or my patter was off. I did numerous tries just to see how well the ploys stood alone and found that without the patter they will flop about half the time where as with the patter you have a lot better luck. Use the power of the patter! Embedded Commands really help here!

-misj-

[David24]

Arthur Setteringtom's wrote 2 books about the power of perception and power of persuasion.
It had been edited again by Paul Hallas with some anotations from him.
I've it but honestly can't really remember the exact content but it could interrest you.
I'll give a look at it if you want as I'll watch again the video of kreskin

[Misjief]

David -

I went and looked for those books as you suggested... They are said to be overlooked and highly rated by many on other lessor (lol) forums. Thank you for the suggestion. My local shop didn't have them, hopefully I can find them online. I will have to wait a bit as I just purchased the Tarbell course in hard copy for my myself (Happy Birthday!). But I definitely will add them to my wishlist!

I have had a bogus copy of Tarbell's on my laptop (Don't tell!) - and loved it but reading it on my 'puter just about drove me nutz. When I found a copy of it on sale I had to have it. The magic shop gave me a hefty discount because A) it was my birthday and B) I stepped in for his sick shop magi and sold a ton of tricks for them. I am a terrible magi at the moment BUT I am an AWESOME salesman. LOL! I sold parents on the idea of teaching skills rather then gimmicks and picked tricks with lots of flexibility in their performance and good bang for the buck. The manager loved me because I up sold everything. Win win for everyone.

I sold...
Best Coin Trick - penny to dime sets + a book of additional instructions
Best Card Trick - Marked \ Stripped Deck + two books of instructions
Best little Kid trick - The Ickle Pickle Nickel + 1 set alternate coins.

Lots of fun, Thanks for being the impetus for such a great day, David!!

-misj-

[David24]

You're welcome Misjief.
About those books, I need to give you some informations(I gave a look to them)
When I bought the updated version(directly from Paul Hallas, this guy is very kind), I've been a bit disapointing at first.
The original texts are relatively old (respectively 1975 and 1976) so even some ideas are interresting methods looks like more magicians methods in modus operanti...
Anyway I'm happy to have those notes but be aware that you won't find in them the last psychological method for a miracle mentalism routine.
So this texts are classics but maybe not a so good buy than many are telling, you know certainly most methods used.