How might fortune teller have guessed someone's age and flower?
July 6, 2011 8:25 AM   Subscribe

A friend was approached on the street by a self-proclaimed fortune teller. To prove his abilities, he gave my friend a piece of crumpled paper to put in his pocket, then asked him for a favorite flower and his age. Both were on the piece of paper (daffodil, 35). Friend didn't buy this guy's services and they parted. Friend claims there was no time for sleight of hand. How might this trick have been done?
posted by shivohum to Grab Bag (25 answers total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
Option two: Friend was wrong about the sleight of hand.

(I mean, c'mon, that's a standard trick used by how many stage magicians... Usually the person's answer is inside the sealed envelope, written on the card/bullet, etc..)
posted by k5.user at 8:28 AM on July 6, 2011 [3 favorites]


Option 3: the guy was a stalker who had done some homework.
posted by epo at 8:28 AM on July 6, 2011 [1 favorite]


What exactly did the person say to your friend? Odds are he subtly forced "daffodil" and guessed the age (probably has a lot of age ranges, and if he's a year or two off, then he says, "Well, I got it pretty close.").
posted by Etrigan at 8:29 AM on July 6, 2011 [2 favorites]


The fact that it was a crumpled piece of paper would make it hard for your friend to tell if it was switched with a different crumpled piece of paper.
posted by quiet coyote at 8:31 AM on July 6, 2011 [3 favorites]


Isn't the point of sleight of hand that the victim doesn't think that it happened?
posted by villanelles at dawn at 8:31 AM on July 6, 2011 [9 favorites]


Best answer: The guy does this to 100 people a day who look mid-30s. One of them ends up being 35 and liking daffodils. 99 of them aren't.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 8:32 AM on July 6, 2011 [17 favorites]


Addendum: Maybe after a while he knows what men's and women's most popular flowers are, has gotten increasingly good at guessing ages, and has various bits of paper with different ages/flower on to fit different people.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 8:34 AM on July 6, 2011 [5 favorites]


I would probably suspect a bit of slight-of-hand and reverse pocket-picking, a la this card trick.
posted by xingcat at 8:36 AM on July 6, 2011 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Odds are he subtly forced "daffodil" and guessed the age

This.

I have sat through a James Randi session where he explains the process of planting the word you will think of, tells you exactly how he's going to do it, and still had a hard time noticing when he did it. It's kind of like the science experiments where they show how people can ignore a guy in a gorilla suit if they don't expect it to be there. It's an easy skill to pick up and surprisingly effective.
posted by nomisxid at 8:49 AM on July 6, 2011 [14 favorites]


Isn't the point of sleight of hand that the victim doesn't think that it happened?

Exactly. Back when I did a lot of sleight of hand close-up magic, I can't tell you how many times the subject told someone else what I did, but got the facts all wrong, which was my intention. "He never touched the card!" "I kept my keys in my pocket the whole time, but one of them bent!" "There was no way he could have seen what I wrote!" etc.

A properly executed trick intentionally leaves the subject/victim with a false memory of what actually happened.

There are many ways to do the trick you describe, but don't rely on the description to tell you what really happened.
posted by The Deej at 9:01 AM on July 6, 2011 [9 favorites]


Odds are he subtly forced "daffodil" and guessed the age

Nah. There's too many easier ways to hit 100% to mess with that.
posted by The Deej at 9:03 AM on July 6, 2011 [1 favorite]


"Magic is the only honest profession. A magician promises to deceive you, and he does." – Karl Germain.
posted by mhoye at 9:19 AM on July 6, 2011 [7 favorites]


The fact that he supplied the paper gives you the key - it's fake. He has more than one of those pieces of paper, and either an accomplice was nearby to write down the flower and number and set up the paper switch, or in a solo operation the guy could have written the answers himself with a bit of pencil stuck under a fingernail and then made the swap.

(Thanks to Jonathan Creek for showing me how both those methods work ;)
posted by L'Estrange Fruit at 9:38 AM on July 6, 2011 [2 favorites]


Pick a number between 1 and 4:

Did you pick 3? For whatever reason, that's what most people pick.

Imagine a basic geometric shape inside another basic geometric shape:

Was it a circle inside a triangle? Again, what most people come up with.

People tend to be very predictable, and it would not be surprising to me if the 'fortune teller' regularly got this stunt wrong. But as your friend can attest, it's a pretty neat trick when he gets it right.
posted by Gilbert at 11:37 AM on July 6, 2011


Asking someone to put something in their pocket (rather than just holding it in their hand) seems to indicate that it involved some kind of sleight of hand.

I have sat through a James Randi session where he explains the process of planting the word you will think of, tells you exactly how he's going to do it, and still had a hard time noticing when he did it.

That sounds really interesting - do you think there's a version online?
posted by one little who at 11:39 AM on July 6, 2011


Best answer: I sometimes volunteer at a farmer's market selling seasonal/organically grown flowers from a local farmer.

No matter what we have on any given day, chances are like 97% of people who walk by our booth will be overheard to say, "ooooh, [$FLOWER], that's always been my favorite!"

I've discerned that, mostly, people just like to see flowers. Very few people have a particular favorite that they actually like above all other flowers.

Even for those people who actually have a favorite flower, there's a strong chance that it's one of a few popular choices: rose, daffodil, peony, tulip, maybe one or two other choices (daisy? lily?). A vanishingly teensy minority of people are going to say lisianthus or freesia or impatiens.

It's really easy to lead people on that particular question.
posted by Sara C. at 11:46 AM on July 6, 2011 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Did the reveal go like this:
Ok, tell me what your age and favorite flower are
35, and daffodil
Now take out the piece of paper from your pocket and read it.
Wow, the paper says the right answer!

Or did it go like this:
Take out the piece of paper from your pocket and read it, without telling me your age/flower.
Wow, the paper has the correct answer!


Also, I am guessing that if you ask men especially to name a flower, there are only a few options. Rose, but roses might read as too "girly" so they won't want to say that. How many other flower names can most people - men especially - bring to mind easily? I'm guessing not many.
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:08 PM on July 6, 2011


Plus it would be easy to only do this act near a public planting of daffodils, or near Daffodil St, or some other subtle environmental priming that you wouldn't notice. Or wear a daffodil in your lapel, etc.
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:09 PM on July 6, 2011 [2 favorites]


Small piece of pencil attached to thumb. David Blaine did the worst example of this in one of his shows (Basically, the mark is asked to think of a number, and the magician "writes it down" only he doesn't actually write anything. Then when asking what the number was, a small piece of pencil attached to the thumb notes it down. Blaine's writing was spidery and heading northward!)

If you are ever asked to think of a number between say 1-10000, watch them pretend to write a complex 3 or 4 digit number, then when asked, say "1" for grins.
posted by nicktf at 1:03 PM on July 6, 2011


Fortune teller =/= mind reader.
posted by JJ86 at 1:39 PM on July 6, 2011


Both were on the piece of paper (daffodil, 35).

So your friend took the piece of paper out and read it? Or did they take it out and give it to the 'psychic'? Did the psychic keep the piece of paper afterwards? Did your friend see the pyschic write on the paper before it was handed to him?

Nah. There's too many easier ways to hit 100% to mess with that.

Agree. From the description, it sounds like the psychic:

- scribbled 'daffodil, 35' on a piece of paper
- spent five minutes approaching men who looked like they were in their mid-30s
- waited for the inevitable 'hit'

...unless the paper was handed, still crumpled, back to the psychic to open, in which case it was just slight of hand to switch to the 'right', identical looking bit of crumpled paper.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 5:59 PM on July 6, 2011


Response by poster: These are great answers. I'll have to ask my friend to confirm the precise sequence of events later.
posted by shivohum at 6:28 PM on July 6, 2011


I'm impressed at these answers! I had a friend who was very into stage magic a couple of years ago, but it never seemed this interesting when he did it. I think this may be because I didn't come into contact with the "forcing" idea until rather later. I really want to learn now how to subtly nudge people to pick certain answers!

I know the "3" thing. A rather amusing gentleman showed that one to me on my honeymoon (and yes, I had picked 3, much to my chagrin). But if anyone has any sources to recommend that would tell me anything about this stuff for which I will NOT have to become a Devoted Disciple of Stage Magic, I would love to know about them!
posted by Because at 7:35 PM on July 6, 2011


Here's an explanation of a related street-psychic trick, in case it sheds any light at all...?
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:46 PM on July 6, 2011


Best answer: yeah, check the exact sequence of events....

I had an Indian bloke approach me on the street and do the "I'm a psychic" routine, that started with him writing some stuff on a piece of paper and crumpling it up then giving it to me and telling me to hang on to it... then there was some random patter for a while, and then the questions...

think of a flower for my girlfriend? I don't have a girlfriend. OK, then a flower for my mother? my mother is dead. but a flower for her memory? banksia (she loved Australian natives). a flower for a good friend? Orchid. a flower for an unrequited love? blah, blah... eventually I got to "rose"... OK, so remember that!

then numbers... pick a number from 1 to 10 for luck... obviously he's after "7", so I think I went with 3... then another number for happiness... on and on, I made him come up with 4 or 5 other reasons to pick a number before I gave him the 7...

some more patter, then back to the answers I gave, reinforcing that I had picked "rose" and the number "7" myself, in response to the questions he'd asked me...

then the big reveal! oh my god, what was written on the paper?? strike me dead, it was the word "rose" and the number 7...

then came the "I can show you more truths in your life" and the hard sell for money... I think I gave him $5 for his effort - it was a pretty well done routine, and I certainly didn't make it easy for him...


without knowing the details of the routine your friend's bloke used, who knows... but I'll bet you a week's wages it was a similar scam...
posted by russm at 1:10 AM on July 7, 2011


« Older Looking for a traveling case for two small...   |   A friend of a friend is pregnant. She lives in NY... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.