I've recently had the privilege of reading one of Dee Christopher's (one of our Mods here) work called Belief. It's a PDF download on the subject of mentalism and contains some interesting essays on the subject of mind reading. While this isn't a review of the material, that will come in time, this is to discuss an interesting point Dee makes in his book. Why have audience members sign things?
Taken out of context this loses a lot of the value Dee had put into it. Of course Dee was discussing the pros and cons of signing a coin during a mentalism routine in order to prove that the coin is legit, and not switched out. Actually the point of signing anything is to prove that the object isn't just switched out of a duplicate in order to accomplish the miracle, but Dee goes on to further say that you NEVER see anyone borrow a spoon, and have it signed before being bent. So why sign a coin?
For that matter why sign anything? Is the act of signing something really add THAT much value to the effect, or is it or less subtle eye candy for the magicians to signify that there is no dutch involved?
Taken out of context this loses a lot of the value Dee had put into it. Of course Dee was discussing the pros and cons of signing a coin during a mentalism routine in order to prove that the coin is legit, and not switched out. Actually the point of signing anything is to prove that the object isn't just switched out of a duplicate in order to accomplish the miracle, but Dee goes on to further say that you NEVER see anyone borrow a spoon, and have it signed before being bent. So why sign a coin?
For that matter why sign anything? Is the act of signing something really add THAT much value to the effect, or is it or less subtle eye candy for the magicians to signify that there is no dutch involved?