A few years ago, I learned a weird card trick. You need to have an open mind before trying this, it actually works but I don’t have a clue how. I hope someone could shed some light on this mystery?
This is a trick that requires two persons, you (person A) and someone else (person B), prefarably someone who you are pretty close with (family, friend, etc).
Person A takes 4 cards in his hand so person B can only see the backs of the cards. Person B gives person A a hand, and closes his eyes. Person A starts concentrating on one card. Person B, still with his eyes closed, uses his free hand to grab a card.
Now what are the odds person B actually picks the right card? 1 out of 4, right? Guess again. I tried this with several people, some persons actually picked the right card every time. This could be a coincidence, but if you take the right card 10 times in a row I believe it’s more than that.
I hope my explanation of the trick was clear enough, it’s not that easy to explain.
So, is there anyone who can explain this to me? I think it’s weird…
Oh hang on; you said the person picking the card does so with his eyes closed? - in that case what is to stop the person holding the cards moving them in such a way as to prejudice the pick (consciously or otherwise)?
I’m distrustful of any magic trick that requires me to have “an open mind”.
Slight of hand is entertaining, but “open mind” suggests some serious bullplop is about to be laid on me, regarding psychic ability and mystical connections and whatnot.
Mangetout had it right. While Person A is blindly groping, Person B will tend to put the selected card closest to A’s fingers if they are “pretty close” (i.e. your close friend/relative wants you to succeed, so makes it easier by putting his/her card practically in your hand). Try laying the cards flat on a table or playing with someone who hates you passionately.
You also didn’t mention any controls that might exist to ensure that person A doesn’t just say “wow! you picked the right card!” every time regardless of the result…
I tried this trick myself (so I was person A) with about 10 different people, and you are right, I could have been cheating but why would I ask about this trick if I knew the answer already? I guarantee that I wasn’t moving the cards (at least not to my knowledge, maybe I did move them without really noticing), and I also had witnesses that knew which card had to be picked.
I’m saying you have to be open-minded, because if you try this thing with an attitude like “ohh this is bullshit and will never work” and you just grab a card without concentrating, it probably won’t work.
My explanation is that people can give eachother signals in ways we haven’t really discovered. I’m not talking about telepathy, but maybe if person B is going in the wrong direction, person A’s hands start to vibrate a little which helps person B correct their movement without even noticing it. Subliminal stuff. That’s the best explenation I can think of, but I was hoping someone here could do better.
Just try it the trick yourself, ok? Maybe you’ll be amazed…
Why does person B have to close his eyes, if he can only see the backs of the cards in the first place? Classic case of unintentional bias. You can see the cards, and you’re leading his hand to the card he is picking (since he can’t see a thing), why should it be a surprise that he grabs the card you’re thinking about?
Ok, I don’t know why he has to close his eyes, maybe because otherwise I could signal him (or her) with my eyes. I haven’t tried it with eyes open, I learned the trick like this and it works.
Why don’t you try this? Take all four cards and place them face up on a table, where both you and your friend can see them clearly. Perform the same trick with a few modifications - instead of holding the cards, you just pick one from the four on the table to concentrate on. This is your card. Don’t touch it - leave it there. Now, you close your eyes and concentrate on the card. Your friend then picks the card s/he thinks is yours from the four. See if you get slightly less skewed results.
Snicks
Well, holding hands gives a way for person A to give (mostly unconscious) feedback to person B: As person B starts reaching for the wrong card, person A’s hand gets tight with tension (oh, no, the trick isn’t working!), then as person B changes direction towards the correct card, they get positive feedback from a more relaxed grip. (whew, they’re picking the right one!)
I haven’t tried this myself, but it’s a plausible explanation of why hand-holding contributes to the success of the trick.
Regarding holding hands, perhaps the person holding the cards is consciously or unconsciously very slightly firming up the grip or loosening as the person gets close to the card. It wouldn’t have to be consciously noticeable to either person either, just an anticipatory “oh, he’s getting closer!” feeling translating into muscle contractions. The person choosing the card might somehow feel “guided” without even realizing the source.
It’s easily possible to do this; I’ve seen people get a dangling chain to spin in various directions, reverse spin, and so on, as part of a fake “example” of psychokinesis, and I’ve even done it myself. It’s done with extremely minute muscle movements, and can be pulled off without an observer noticing, with some practice. I could barely tell myself that I was influencing the chain’s movement.
By the way, with your “bunch of skeptics” comment (which many of us would take as a compliment or a statement of fact), you make it sound like you didn’t really want the trick explained, contrary to the OP.
ok, I didn’t mean anything with that remark, someone must have made me type it using telephaty!
seriously, I just think this is a weird trick, which probably has a scientific explanation to it, and the explanation from Quercus and DeniseV is also what I believe…
If this is actually the case, it may actually be necessary for person B to close his eyes. If you are blind, your other senses become more developped. If you close your eyes, you start paying more attention to what you’re hearing, and also probably to what you’re feeling. So I think it is possible that you need to close your eyes because otherwhise your vision is too dominant and your unconscious doen’t feel the tension or muscle movements from the other person. Just guessing though…
There are a whole lot of “magic” tricks that involve sensing very subtle physical cues you otherwise ignore.
DeniseV, for example, mentions the “dangling chain” phenomenon. There’s an old wives tale about hanging a watch or other pendulum over a pregnant woman’s belly, and whether it goes in a circle or back and forth is supposed to tell you if the unborn child is a boy or a girl. Obviously, it’s nonsense, but if you see somebody do it, and then do it yourself, you may well be unconsciously imparting the motion to the pendulum. So when everybody watches someone do it, tries it themselves, and gets the same result as the first, it’s easy to leap to the conclusion that magic is involved.
Similarly, it’s quite possible that some amount of the “dowsing effect” – i.e., somebody wandering a field with a split stick and pointing it at a previously unknown aquifer – comes from subconscious perception of ground features the dowser has, from experience, learned can indicate the presence of underground water, such as slight depressions or softer ground. This, according to this theory, leads in turn to movement of the stick. See chapter nine in Martin Gardner’s classic Fads and Fallacies for more.
There’s also a well-known performance trick that uses this same principle, wherein the conjurer leaves the room, and lets the spectators hide something in the hall. The conjurer returns, grabs somebody’s hand, and leads them randomly around the auditorium. Whether consciously or not, the conjurer is reading the slight physical cues from the audience member’s grasp, and with experience is able to find the hidden object in a remarkably short period of time. Read Ricky Jay’s classic Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women for specific examples.
Nothing mysterious about it at all. Now, if it were done as a double-blind, where you didn’t know which card the person was intending to take from you…
