What Else?
/I recently taught a friend of mine my version of Sum Total by Larry Becker (this isn’t something that’s released yet). If you don’t know that trick, it’s one where your friend writes down a string of numbers, and that string of numbers just happens to be the total of four 4-digit numbers you showed them earlier. (At least, in the version I do it’s four 4-digit numbers, I’m not sure if that’s what it is in the original.)
In my version, the general premise is that you do something to the other person that briefly gives them incredible mathematical abilities.
After he tried the trick out on another friend of ours, she said something that sort of tripped him up.
She said, “Wait… seriously? Did I just do that?”
I get this kind of question a lot. I think people know I’m not going to just lie to them, so they think maybe by asking the question straight-out that I will relieve them the burden of the mystery of what just happened.
In this situation, what I usually see magicians do is one of two things.
They immediately cave. “Did that really just happen?” “Ah, no. It’s just a trick.”
They make a joke of it. “Did that really ust happen?” “It sure did! Now let’s go to Vegas and have you count some cards!”
My recommendation when someones starts questioning the reality of the experience is just to ask questions in return.
“Did that really just happen?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did I really just add those numbers together…like, subconsciously?”
“What else could it be?”
“I don’t know. But is it some kind of trick or something?”
“How would that work?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, how would a trick like that work? How could you make someone write down the exact number that was the sum of four other numbers by a trick?”
At this point, they’re either going to be stuck for an answer, or they’re going to give you some kind of option that makes a little bit of sense.
If they point out some way in which it could be a trick, and their speculation makes sense, then that just gives you one more thing to account for the next time you perform that trick. So their conjecture should help you make the trick even stronger.
That’s my basic approach to things. When they ask if something really happened, my first reaction is to say, “What else could it be?” And if they suggest trickery I turn it around on them and ask them how it would work. Just ask questions.