I've been thinking about this event quite a bit, and something brought it to my attention again so I thought, what the hell, let me tell you a story about an event I worked. Main reason - I wanted to know what you would do in my situation?
I was booked to perform a few days ago for a private garden 40th birthday party in a swanky part of London. Was very nice, lots of friendly people, a few annoying kids (as always) but these close up garden parties can be quite nice, especially on a nice afternoon like this one.
Now, I've learnt to be quite flexible when it comes to doing magic in close-up situations like this. You can never really predict what crowds will be into when it comes to magic. Some will love card tricks, others will prefer tricks with borrowed items etc. I always bring with me a wide variety of props and routines so that when I get there I can figure out the kind of thing the clients prefer and tailor the magic to them. I'll perform a few general routines covering everything, see which gets the most positive reaction then perform more in that style.
This particular client seemed to like the whole mind reading spiel. In fact I'd go so far as to say they loved it. So I started to tailor my act to focus more on the "mind reading" style tricks I know. I've had some really good pro mystic stuff that I use regularly and for this gig I brought out my trusty MiniMD. For those of you who don't know - it's a Rubik's cube keyring and you can tell which side is facing up on it. It's brilliantly subtle and it's easy to create a mind reading routine that confuses people. Combining it with a few mentalist decks makes a killer 5 minutes or so of mind reading that audiences really seem to relate to.
Anyway, near the end of the party a very well spoken lady in her mid 40's came up to me and asked "Are you ever going to show me a trick?" Clearly when I'd been doing the rounds she had managed to avoid me, but no problem! I launched into this routine, reading her mind using the MiniMD, cold reading and of course a lot of bullshit. I started off by making her select a colour and while I was looking at her basically improvised a fun reveal depending on the colour she chose. I then repeat this but this time looking away from her (which always gets a good reaction)
After I'd performed the routines, she started chatting and as these conversations often do, she started to nudge to ask how it was done. Of course I wouldn't say, but told her it's a combination of things. After a few seconds she looked at me and said "You must be psychic then...". I really despise being told I'm psychic (for reasons I think I've covered in this blog, but might have to do again another day), so I was quick to denounce it.
"Nooooo... Nothing like that. I just use common techniques that some psychics use, along with some clever magic tricks to make these effects"
"Are you sure?"
"Yep, there's no psychic powers involved at all"
"Well I'm psychic myself and clearly you've got a gift"
Well shit... I thought. How the hell could I have not noticed this. For someone whose job revolves around reading people and getting to know them how could I miss all the signs. Looking at her again it all made sense. Middle class, skinny London woman in her 30's/40's, slightly unusual name like "Marnia" (disclaimer: not real name) floral dress, complicated jewellery, long curly blonde hair. My cold reading skills were really off that day if I didn't notice all the signs!
If I told you to think of a typical middle class lady who believed in psychic powers this was her. She was dressed like a cross between a hippie and a traditional fortune teller and everything screamed "I believe in horoscopes/psychics etc"
This is probably going to sound a little horrible, but she reminded me of one of those characters from the Harry Enfield show
In fact I'd go further than that and say that if she appeared in that sketch I wouldn't even blink an eye.
----
If you're still reading and not offended by that description you are probably wondering what's the big issue with this. Why does it matter that someone believes you're a psychic (no matter how much I denied it)? I do everything in my power to entertain people, but I will never profess to using psychic powers. And I don't want people to believe I really do have psychic powers. It's an annoyance of mine because I really don't want people to think that for a few reasons.
Firstly - it's not true.
Secondly. I don't want to promote psychics and psychic powers. I'm sure you've probably come across some of my writing before about this matter and you'll see that I'm not a fan of psychics. I've been banned from spiritualist churches before (never even tried to go there, but still got banned), I've attended and dissected psychic evenings and I believe that the vast majority are frauds. They use the exact skills I use when doing shows, but for more nefarious purposes. And that just doesn't sit right with me. You shouldn't make life decisions because a psychic told you to...
This is then my dilemma. How do you respond to a client like this? Would you play along with them? Or would you be honest with them? How do you keep the secret of magic but at the same time convince someone that you're not really psychic?
So the question is, what would you do? Would you play along with the client and say yes I'm psychic/spiritualist, or do the complete opposite. Let me know what your thoughts are and I'll put them together in another post as well as my thoughts on it.