Don't.
Well I am not exactly saying that but you have to be 100% certain that you want to learn this very powerful tool. The primary mistake a lot of younger people make is that, if they learn suggestion they will be able to achieve amazing feats that Derren Brown does. Rational thought and a basic understanding of mentalism will tell you otherwise, however, there are still many people who cannot accept this. Whislt on the subject of Mr. Brown many if not the majority of his performance pieces use the 'ability' of reading people more so than influencing them. So what is the fascination suggestion and influencing people.
I suppose it all comes down to control and power. I mean who would not want to be able to control people in the way that Derren appears to. But there lies the dilemma, suggestion and influence do not mean the same thing as control. If you look at Luke Jermay's book 7 Deceptions you can see some amazing pieces in there using suggestion. Stopping a spectators pulse, causing the lines on the palm of a spectator's hand to move and causing someone to forget a playing card. Whilst all of these have the primary method as suggestion they also use other (physical) methods to at least give the effect a starting point. I am not saying that you cannot achieve all these effect completely on psychological methods, but if you have something that is going to work and make your job a lot easier why not use it. That is in my mind the real power of suggestion using it to heighten an effect not create one.
So if suggestion is a tool, lets look at an other one. One that in my opinion is almost as powerful, but far and away more versatile. Ambiguity is that very tool, and it can be used to heighten effects just as much as it can be used to create them. Using this technique Dee Christopher has almost created a whole effect, with a little physical stepping stone to help with the beginning, and used it in most of his subsequent releases as hit even when he is wrong. The example can be found in Ian Rowland's Full Facts of Cold Reading, and it uses a grammatical flaw to grantee a hit. This line is as follows;
'It's not a red card is it?'
Obviously the spectator can go one of two ways with this if it was a red card they will say yes and you can proceed with an I thought so. However, if they answer no you can follow that up with an I didn't think so. So either way you are almost guaranteed at least a hit in the spectators mind when they think about it again.
Lets take the above idea a step further and give it a real context, a simple effect say you either forced a card or peeked one and you are going to 'read' the spectators tells and body language to determine the selection. In this example we are holding a break but have not done the peek yet, this will become clear in a second.
Performer: I want you to shuffle the cards as much as you want. Keep shuffling them until you are happy.
P: I am going to look away and riffle the cards like so, and when ever you want to just say stop.
Volunteer: Stop.
P: Got the card good.
P: I am going to say out loud 'black and red' and I want you to keep a poker face. Try not to give anything away, but in saying that you probably will. Ok.
Volunteer: Ok
P: Black and Red, Red and Black.
Black and Red, Red and Black.
Black and Red, Red and Black.
P: Ok, its not a red card is it.
V: No, no it's not.
P: Didn't think so.
P to Spectator: Did you see what she did? She slightly nodded when I said black.
V: Did I?
P: Yes, would you like to try? Look into her eyes take a deep breath and just try it. I also want you to hold the cards as I don't want to touch them. *Hands spectator the cards and peeks the select card.* So we know she has a black card so it is either clubs or spades.
S: Clubs and Spades, Spades and Clubs.
P: Got one?
S: Is it clubs
P: Is it? *looking a little confused*.
V: Yes it is.
P: Great, now I am going to count through the values of the cards Ace to King.
Ace, two, three, ... , jack, queen, king. King, queen, jack, ... , three, two, ace.
P: You saw it right.
*Performer now massages spectator to name the peeked card*.
V: How does that work? Was I really doing that?
There are a few things I want to talk about on an aside the first of which is the timing of the peek. Personally I like to distance the action of riffling the cards as much as possible, and the best way I found to do this is to do the glimpse quite a bit later in the effect. By asking the spectator to look into the eyes of the volunteer and take a deep breath you are focusing their attention away from you so a prefect time to do the glimpse. Also by asking them to hold the cards you have a perfectly good reason to look at your hands as you are halfway through the motion of handing them the cards when you say this. By that stage you have the glimpse and destroyed the evidence of the break you were holding. The second point I want to mention is that although the effect is merely peeking a card and revealing it by giving the second person the moment to shine it does two primary things the first is that it gives what you are doing some real validity. Secondly it doesn't make you seem as egotistical as many magician and this is always a good thing.
There are a few other parts of the script that use ambiguity in an other light. By saying things like I want to look away the whole time and I don't want to hold the cards. Even though they are half true the audience will remember them however they will not remember when they occurred in the performance. This leads me to the most powerful use of ambiguity, suggestion. If you can suggest something did not happen when it really did in this case you holding the cards. Or the other way around suggesting something happened when it really did not in this example looking away the entire time. The audience will remember this and it creates a more powerful effect in their eyes. More often then not they will remember it as me turning away as they shuffle the cards and riffling them so they can think of one (sometimes they won't even remember that). And the other spectator holding the cards the entire time and them reading each others body language.
Other Points
1. I do perform some effects that have nothing but psychological methods, Luke Jermay's Out of (t)His World is a favourite.
2. If you want to learn a lot more about causing spectators to mis-remember effects as well as a wealth of other information look into Paul Brook's The Alchemical Tools as it is worth far more than the high price tag that has been placed on it.
Well I am not exactly saying that but you have to be 100% certain that you want to learn this very powerful tool. The primary mistake a lot of younger people make is that, if they learn suggestion they will be able to achieve amazing feats that Derren Brown does. Rational thought and a basic understanding of mentalism will tell you otherwise, however, there are still many people who cannot accept this. Whislt on the subject of Mr. Brown many if not the majority of his performance pieces use the 'ability' of reading people more so than influencing them. So what is the fascination suggestion and influencing people.
I suppose it all comes down to control and power. I mean who would not want to be able to control people in the way that Derren appears to. But there lies the dilemma, suggestion and influence do not mean the same thing as control. If you look at Luke Jermay's book 7 Deceptions you can see some amazing pieces in there using suggestion. Stopping a spectators pulse, causing the lines on the palm of a spectator's hand to move and causing someone to forget a playing card. Whilst all of these have the primary method as suggestion they also use other (physical) methods to at least give the effect a starting point. I am not saying that you cannot achieve all these effect completely on psychological methods, but if you have something that is going to work and make your job a lot easier why not use it. That is in my mind the real power of suggestion using it to heighten an effect not create one.
So if suggestion is a tool, lets look at an other one. One that in my opinion is almost as powerful, but far and away more versatile. Ambiguity is that very tool, and it can be used to heighten effects just as much as it can be used to create them. Using this technique Dee Christopher has almost created a whole effect, with a little physical stepping stone to help with the beginning, and used it in most of his subsequent releases as hit even when he is wrong. The example can be found in Ian Rowland's Full Facts of Cold Reading, and it uses a grammatical flaw to grantee a hit. This line is as follows;
'It's not a red card is it?'
Obviously the spectator can go one of two ways with this if it was a red card they will say yes and you can proceed with an I thought so. However, if they answer no you can follow that up with an I didn't think so. So either way you are almost guaranteed at least a hit in the spectators mind when they think about it again.
Lets take the above idea a step further and give it a real context, a simple effect say you either forced a card or peeked one and you are going to 'read' the spectators tells and body language to determine the selection. In this example we are holding a break but have not done the peek yet, this will become clear in a second.
Performer: I want you to shuffle the cards as much as you want. Keep shuffling them until you are happy.
P: I am going to look away and riffle the cards like so, and when ever you want to just say stop.
Volunteer: Stop.
P: Got the card good.
P: I am going to say out loud 'black and red' and I want you to keep a poker face. Try not to give anything away, but in saying that you probably will. Ok.
Volunteer: Ok
P: Black and Red, Red and Black.
Black and Red, Red and Black.
Black and Red, Red and Black.
P: Ok, its not a red card is it.
V: No, no it's not.
P: Didn't think so.
P to Spectator: Did you see what she did? She slightly nodded when I said black.
V: Did I?
P: Yes, would you like to try? Look into her eyes take a deep breath and just try it. I also want you to hold the cards as I don't want to touch them. *Hands spectator the cards and peeks the select card.* So we know she has a black card so it is either clubs or spades.
S: Clubs and Spades, Spades and Clubs.
P: Got one?
S: Is it clubs
P: Is it? *looking a little confused*.
V: Yes it is.
P: Great, now I am going to count through the values of the cards Ace to King.
Ace, two, three, ... , jack, queen, king. King, queen, jack, ... , three, two, ace.
P: You saw it right.
*Performer now massages spectator to name the peeked card*.
V: How does that work? Was I really doing that?
There are a few things I want to talk about on an aside the first of which is the timing of the peek. Personally I like to distance the action of riffling the cards as much as possible, and the best way I found to do this is to do the glimpse quite a bit later in the effect. By asking the spectator to look into the eyes of the volunteer and take a deep breath you are focusing their attention away from you so a prefect time to do the glimpse. Also by asking them to hold the cards you have a perfectly good reason to look at your hands as you are halfway through the motion of handing them the cards when you say this. By that stage you have the glimpse and destroyed the evidence of the break you were holding. The second point I want to mention is that although the effect is merely peeking a card and revealing it by giving the second person the moment to shine it does two primary things the first is that it gives what you are doing some real validity. Secondly it doesn't make you seem as egotistical as many magician and this is always a good thing.
There are a few other parts of the script that use ambiguity in an other light. By saying things like I want to look away the whole time and I don't want to hold the cards. Even though they are half true the audience will remember them however they will not remember when they occurred in the performance. This leads me to the most powerful use of ambiguity, suggestion. If you can suggest something did not happen when it really did in this case you holding the cards. Or the other way around suggesting something happened when it really did not in this example looking away the entire time. The audience will remember this and it creates a more powerful effect in their eyes. More often then not they will remember it as me turning away as they shuffle the cards and riffling them so they can think of one (sometimes they won't even remember that). And the other spectator holding the cards the entire time and them reading each others body language.
Other Points
1. I do perform some effects that have nothing but psychological methods, Luke Jermay's Out of (t)His World is a favourite.
2. If you want to learn a lot more about causing spectators to mis-remember effects as well as a wealth of other information look into Paul Brook's The Alchemical Tools as it is worth far more than the high price tag that has been placed on it.
