UnveilProMetheus

ProMetheus
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Effect
The performer sets a box down on a table positioned center stage and
invites two random audience members to play a simple game.

After being handed a coin, the participants are instructed to hide it
within one of their hands. Once the coin is concealed the performer
faces the participants and asks them each a simple question to which
they can lie or tell the truth. The performer then decides to take
things a step further and invites the participants to think of a couple
of different words, depending if they have the coin in their hand or
not.

At this point, the performer reveals the word that each participant is
focused on – which in turn helps him identify the exact location of
the coin. As a kicker, a prediction is withdrawn from the box that
undeniably proves the performer had always known what choices
the spectators would make.


Performance
The performer walks on stage and sets a box down on the table
positioned center stage.

“I’ve always been fascinated by two skill-sets in particular: the ability to
influence someone’s decisions… and the ability to read people.

At times it is enough for me to simply identify if someone is lying or telling
the truth… other times I find it necessary to learn exactly what they are
thinking. I would like the help of two gentlemen to demonstrate the latter.”

The performer identifies two men from the audience.

“Please join me on stage as the rest of the audience gives you a warm round
of applause.”


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They make their way to the front. Once the men are in position, the
performer removes something from his pocket.

“We are going to play a very simple game with this coin. You are going to
hide the coin in one of your hands and I am going to try to find it. I will
leave it here on the table for now.

When I turn my back, you are going to do two things. First, one of you is
going to take the coin and hide it in one of your hands. When I turn back
around I am going to ask you where the coin is and one of you is going to
tell the truth and the other one is going to lie to that question. So the second
thing you must do is decide who will lie and who will tell the truth. To do
this secretly, signal each other with a thumbs up if you want to tell the truth
or a thumbs down if you are going to lie. It’s important that you each choose
a different option so that I can attempt to spot the difference in your
responses.

Do you understand what you need to do? Great! Please do everything in
secret so even the audience doesn’t know what decisions you have made.”

The two spectators turn their backs to the audience so that no one
can follow along and the performer turns away from the men to face
the audience.

“Okay, so remember – first, one of you takes the coin and hides it in one of
your hands; then, show a thumb up for “truth” or a thumb down for “lie.”
Finally, place both your hands behind your back and ask me to turn around
when you are ready.”

The participants indicate they are ready and the performer turns
around.

“Great! In a moment, I am going to ask you if the coin is in one of your
hands. Hopefully I will be able to understand if you are lying or telling the
truth and that will help me find where the coin is hidden.

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Before we begin I want to explain that, usually, the people who tell the truth
tend to respond immediately while people who lie take some time to think
about their answer before they say anything. I tell you this so that you don’t
make it so easy for me. Please both think about your answer for three or four
seconds before you say anything – and remember to answer in character.”

(For explanation’s sake, from this point forward we will differentiate
between the two spectators by referring to them as “Spectator A” and
“Spectator B.”)

“Right then, let’s start with you sir.”

The performer touches Spectator A’s right arm and asks,

“Is it in this hand?”

After three seconds of silence the spectator responds, “Yes.”

“Very well, that sounded quite confident and honest… maybe too honest
though.”

The performer now approaches Spectator B, touches his right arm
and asks,

“Is it in this hand?”

Again after a few seconds of silence, the second spectator responds,
“Yes.”

“Alright, I think that response told me a lot!

Let’s try and take this a step further. Forget about lying or telling the truth,
I will try to pick up on an actual thought locked away in your mind.”

Now the performer touches Spectator A’s left arm and says,

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“If the coin is in this hand, I want you to imagine holding a full grown
elephant. If this hand is empty imagine a delicate cloud resting on your
palm. Okay, hold that thought… Great!”

The performer next approaches Spectator B, touches his left arm and
says,

“If the coin is in this hand, I want you to think of a heavy rock pulling your
hand down. If it’s empty think of an enormous helium balloon trying to lift
you off of the floor.”

The performer takes a good look at both spectators and then says,

“Okay, both of you please bring your hands forward. I know that you
(motioning toward Spectator A) are thinking of a cloud and you
(indicating Spectator B) are thinking of a balloon.”

Both men react to this statement and confirm it to be true. Without
skipping a beat, the performer continues by saying,

“This tells me which three hands are empty – so now I know exactly where
the coin is.”

He immediately touches Spectator A’s right hand and instructs,

“Open this hand.”

The spectator opens his hand and reveals that the coin is, indeed,
hidden in this hand at which point the audience rewards everyone
involved with a round of applause for the entertaining performance.

After the applause quiets down the performer continues,

“I did say in the beginning that two of the things that fascinate me are the
ability to read people and the ability to influence their thoughts. I managed
to read both of you correctly and discern that you (addressing Spectator
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A) were telling the truth and you (speaking to Spectator B) were lying. I
also knew that you were thinking of a cloud and you were thinking of a
balloon… but I never showed you how I can influence your thoughts.”

The performer opens the box that has been on the table since the
beginning and reveals a helium balloon in the shape of a cloud. The
spectators are amazed and reward him with an even more
enthusiastic round of applause.


Method
There are two strategies employed within the method of this routine.
The first allows you to locate where the coin is hidden; or to be more
precise, where it is NOT hidden.

The method for this was shared in my last book V² within the routine
“Verbalist 2.0” and it is based on a logic puzzle that I created. In
order for this to work you need to set the premise as was described in
the performance – specifically, that one of the spectators will lie and
the other will tell the truth. You then ask the question, “Is it in this
hand?” to both spectators while touching their right arms. If both
spectators give the same answer (“Yes”, “Yes” or “No”, “No”) then
you know that the coin must be hidden in one of the hands that you
touched. If their responses are different (“Yes”, “No” or “No”, “Yes”),
then you know that the coin must be in one of the other hands that
you didn’t touch (the left hands in this case).

The reason you touch their arms and not their hands is because the
spectators have both hands behind their back. This is a far more
comfortable position for the spectators than holding their hands
outstretched for an extended period of time and I believe it adds a
little to the impossibility of the routine by eliminating the thought
that I’m somehow able to tell where the coin is by the way they are
clenching their fists. Bear in mind that you could, of course, touch
their left arms but I choose to always touch their right arms because


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later in the routine when it’s time for the revelation of the coin I don’t
want to struggle to remember which hands I touched.

If you want to know exactly how this logic puzzle works you can
study the following tables, otherwise skip ahead and just remember
that all you need to know is if their responses are the same or
different.

                      Spectator A - Truth teller       Spectator B - Liar
                      (has coin in RIGHT hand)      (both hands are empty)
                       Left hand   RIGHT hand       Left hand   RIGHT hand
Is it in this hand?       No            YES            Yes           YES


                      Spectator A - Truth teller       Spectator B - Liar
                       (both hands are empty)      (has coin in RIGHT hand)
                       Left hand   RIGHT hand       Left hand   RIGHT hand
Is it in this hand?       No            NO             Yes           NO


The tables above show the possible responses from each participant
when the coin is hidden in a right hand. As you can see, no matter
who has the coin, the answers must be the same when you touch
their right hands (Yes/Yes or No/No).

Alternatively, as you can see from the tables on the next page, if one
of the participants has the coin in his left hand, the answers must be
different when you touch their right hands (No/Yes or Yes/No). In
this case you have an extra bit of information – the spectator who
says, “No” must be the truth teller.

At this point in “Verbalist 2.0” I would use Max Maven’s linguistic
ploy from “Kurotsuke” to reveal where the coin is hidden. The exact
script I use after revealing the thought each person has in mind is,
“This tells me which three hands are empty – so now I know exactly where
the coin is… Open this hand.”


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                      Spectator A - Truth teller      Spectator B - Liar
                      (has coin in LEFT hand)      (both hands are empty)
                       Left hand   RIGHT hand      Left hand   RIGHT hand
Is it in this hand?       Yes           NO            Yes           YES


                      Spectator A - Truth teller      Spectator B - Liar
                       (both hands are empty)      (has coin in LEFT hand)
                       Left hand   RIGHT hand      Left hand   RIGHT hand
Is it in this hand?       No            NO            No            YES


As I explained earlier, the logic puzzle allows you to narrow the
location of the coin down to two hands so you simply need to touch
one of those hands and deliver the line in a commanding manner
(without exaggerations in the tone of your voice). Said correctly, this
instruction will prompt to the spectator to react without any
hesitation.

If the coin is in the hand you just specified you have accomplished
your objective and the script makes perfect sense.

If the specified hand is empty you should immediately continue by
saying, “… this hand is also empty; as is this hand. That’s how I know that
the coin is in that hand – please show everyone!” In this scenario you
identify the other two hands you know to be empty (based on the
logic puzzle), leaving the hand holding the coin for last. The script
again makes sense because you stated that you know which of the
three hands are empty (thereby learning the coin’s location via
process of elimination) and that is exactly the procedure you use in
the revelation sequence.

If for some reason you prefer one outcome over the other I encourage
you to think of the following: Imagine that you are 100% certain that
the coin is in Spectator A’s right hand. I repeat – you are 100% certain
about this! Do you reveal this by saying, “Open this hand!” or by
saying, “This hand is empty, this is empty, this one is also empty. The coin
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is in your right hand.” Hopefully you realize that if these two
revelation styles don’t appear all that different to you, your audience
will feel the same – both effectively prove that you located the coin.

I said earlier that there are two elements to this routine. The first
(explained above) is the core method for my routine “Verbalist 2.0.”
The second is based on the works of Colin McLeod and Michael
Murray. Colin McLeod has used the concept of forcing information
using the spectators’ hands in his “Perfect Prediction” routine (an
explanation of which can be found in Colin’s Penguin Live lecture as
well as his book Divine) and Michael Murray uses his “Universal
Force Technique” which can be applied to anything, not just hands,
in his book A Piece of My Mind. Although the prediction is achieved
in a similar manner to Colin’s routine, the method within
“ProMetheus” is quite different on two accounts: first, it uses my
location method from “Verbalist 2.0”; and second, instead of forcing
the information based on which hand holds the coin, you force the
information based on which hands are empty.

More specifically, as was explained earlier, the logic puzzle allows
you to identify if the coin is in one of the two right hands or if it is in
one of the two left hands. As soon as you know that, you use that
knowledge to force the two words on the hands that are empty.

In the performance example I’ve provided, the two spectators gave
the same answer (“Yes” and “Yes”) when the performer touched their
right hands. Based on that we know that the coin is in one of the right
hands (and both left hands are empty). The performer then forced the
words “cloud” and “balloon” by touching the left hands (knowing
they are both empty) and saying to one of the men, “If the coin is in
this hand, I want you to imagine holding a full grown elephant. If this hand
is empty imagine a delicate cloud resting on your palm…” and to the
other, “If the coin is in this hand, I want you to think of a heavy rock
pulling your hand down. If it’s empty think of an enormous helium balloon
trying to lift you off of the floor.”

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It goes without saying that if you get two different answers when
touching both right hands (“Yes”, “No” or “No”, “Yes”) you proceed
to the next phase where you force the information by pointing to
their right hands (again because you know that they are both empty).


Final Thoughts
The reason I do not want the audience to see the choices the two
spectators make on stage (where the coin is hidden and who will tell
the truth vs. who will lie) is because I want the audience to feel the
uncertainty of where the coin might be and if the spectators are lying
or telling the truth. If the audience feels like nothing was given away
during the procedure, this feeling adds to the impossibility of the
effect. This is a similar strategy to what some escape artists use when
they ask the audience to hold their breath while they are underwater.

As mentalists we have associated certain coins with certain methods
so you might be thinking, “If this is an un-gimmicked version why use a
coin and not something else?”

The reason I use a coin is because I want to frame this routine around
the abilities I wish to demonstrate (reading people and influencing
their choices) and not the object itself. I am using a coin because, for a
lay audience, it is something trivial and ordinary. I didn’t want to use
another object that calls too much attention to itself. Having said that,
you are free to use whatever object is small enough to be concealed in
a closed fist.

Obviously the final revelation in this routine is a nod to Colin
McLeod. Bear in mind that I have had great success with this routine
even when not walking around with helium balloons in my pockets.
I will often find something in my surroundings that I want to force (a
painting, a sign, etc.) and then write down a prediction saying, “Look
at the painting…” or “Look at the sign…” which I leave in full view. I
then perform “ProMetheus” using a coin (or even just the folded


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prediction paper). I have also considered having two words
engraved on the coin itself so that it can act as the final revelation.


Credits
Gerald Kosky: “To Tell The Truth” from Apocalypse (June 1978).

Max Maven: For the linguistic ploy from his routine “Kurotsuke.”

Atlas Brookings: “Imbalance” from his Penguin Live lecture.

Michael Murray: “The Universal Force Technique” from his book A
Piece of My Mind.

Ryan Frame: “ROTVARI” from the Prevaricator DVD project.

Colin McLeod: “Perfect Prediction” from his Penguin Live lecture and
book Divine.




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