Audience standing up for the Magician

[MagicalSleight]

So earlier today I was performing Indececent by Wayne Houchin for some classmates (about 15 total) and I messed up the trick. I didn't screw up during any of the sleights so nothing got exposed, but the card simply did not appear in the bag. So I tried it again and made the same mistake (I recognize now what it was), still no exposure, but rather embarrassing. Before I could explain myself though, most of the audience started to blame the guy whose card was supposed to be in the bag because he didn't "think" of his card hard enough. They didn't blame me but rather him. I'm not saying that it is exactly nice that they blamed a guy who had no idea what was going on, but it was quite unexpected. The audience legitimately believed that the trick didn't work because the card had not been thought of well enough.
What I am wondering is if you guys ever had something similar happen. When the audience thinks that the most likely solution to why a trick didn't work is not that the magician screwed up, but someone else did.

 

[joshrobarts]

its a common tool in mentalism. Should something go wrong, a lack of focus or concentration is attributed. Its a fine line. You don't want to embarrass the spectator so its best to simply play it off as a first attempt and find a way to rectify and make it look like they finally succeeded.

 

[Craig Browning]

its a common tool in mentalism. Should something go wrong, a lack of focus or concentration is attributed. Its a fine line. You don't want to embarrass the spectator so its best to simply play it off as a first attempt and find a way to rectify and make it look like they finally succeeded.

"Embarrassing" the participant has never been the rule of Mentalism; the "rule" is that the two of you are working together and prior to moving into the "experiment" it is understood that you are merely helping them (using whatever ruse you are working with). For me, the goal is to help guests realize their own mental potential and/or intuition, if things don't work out then they are either distracted, trying too hard, or the two of you aren't on the same frequency. I love the latter in some cases in that you may be able to have someone else in the audience REPLACE YOU (at least, in appearance of things) and because the two participants have a better sense of harmony going for them, the effect works. . . OR, a seemingly tougher variation to the original bit works out.

There are other ways to use apparent failure; Gregg Arce's "6 Degrees of Separation" is one of the most devastating examples of this; you (the performer) hang your head in shame over the seeming miss and yet, as the evening progresses members of the group start to piece together the fact that you did hit and get the information right, you just explained it in a manner that didn't give a perfect match. When you think about real world psychics and how often they find themselves in this same position, you begin to recognize the fact that this is powerful psychology that can prepare you for Sainthood in the mind of the typical citizen.

 

[formula]

I usually blame the spectator if the trick goes wrong. The audience doesn't have to.