I know there is substantial disagreement whether the PATEO force actually fools anyone. It’s one of those things that shot by me the 1st time I saw it and then I later wondered how it ever fooled me.
Anyway, there’s a neat trick in the December Genii by Max Maven called Electile Dysfunction. Although I’m seldom enamoured with topical presentations, this appealed to me. A neat little trick for election year to have in your arsenal.
and…….
Happy Thanksgiving!!!
One of the nice things about PATEO is that the process does allow for some extra levels of deception. For instance, you can use equivoquish techniques on the first selection.
“Do you want to go first, or shall I?”
“I’ll go first.”
“Ok, you’re going to make the first elimination. I’ll just cover two items like this and you choose one to eliminate.” etc.
“Do you want to go first, or shall I?”
“Uh… you go first.”
“Ok. Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to choose two items like this. You’ll do this next turn, ok?” etc.
You can use something similar to handle the final item as well. A nice guy by the name of Harish Jose did some official work on this — he’s not the first to play with those sorts of convincers on the final item, but he did put out some good ideas of his own.
Osterlind does a demonstration of the PATEO force on Easy to Master Mental Miracles in which the final item matches a prediction. I think this is inherently weak, since you could easily manipulate the process to favour one of the items. There are subtler ways to use it.
Some nice thoughts there.
I have a basic problem with virtually all prediction routines. There’s an assumption by the audience that the magician will get it right and that takes away the mystery.
The more we can hide this inevitability – the better.
Thanks for your input…..
i/m