Moving Minds
Before you move any minds, be sure you have read this article: The Stage is Set
It will make it much easier to understand this article if you do. Otherwise, press on!
Now that you’ve established dominance in the performance of your magic as seen by your now focused spectators, it’s time to learn how to move them into the next phase of your routine. What? You don’t have a next phase? There’s always a next phase even if it’s the one where you get the applause. Rather than just waiting for the spectator to notice your latest miracle, you’re going to learn exactly how to force them to see it and do it when you want them to. It’s not easy and certainly not intuitive but you can make it happen.
First, you need to be sure that you have their attention focused on the frame you created. Once you do, you can move their focus around inside that frame with nothing more than a small shift in your own attention. Try it. Let’s say you have a coin which you have placed in your right hand from your left fingertips. Bouncing the coin on your palm will focus their eyes and attention to the coin which allows your left hand to steal another coin. Your exemplary use of absolute direction (often called misdirection) applied to the framed area allows you to do the steal. Now you must force them to become aware of a miracle. Yes, you could just tell them to look there but the miracle really takes hold if they suddenly see the coin there on their own. How to get their eyes there without words or extremes of motion (like pointing) is the true skill of the magic practitioner.
After you steal the coin, continue to bounce the exposed coin and slowly bring your left hand into the frame again. As you hold the stolen coin in your left fingertips, stop bouncing the coin on your right palm. Freeze all motion with both coins in plain site. Ever so slightly elevate the left hand while turning your gaze towards it and your spectators will see it in a shock of realization that a magical appearance has occurred. If you don’t think that will work, try it out. It can be especially helpful to your learning process if you do it for magicians and even tell them what you plan to do. The odd thing is, if done right, they will be just as shocked as anyone else even though they are expecting it. When you fool people who are expecting it, your confidence level in the realm of ordinary mortals increases and you will be on your way to becoming a true miracle worker.
You may apply this to any change inside the framed area. Anything done outside the frame is hard for the spectator to see. It’s not because they’re unable to see but because you have focused their attention to that tiny stage inside the frame and are holding it there with something like the bouncing coin. Other actions such as reading the words on a piece of paper on your palm out loud will focus attention to that paper. Tapping a cup on the table focuses attention to that spot. You get the idea. The rest of the "off focus" area is available for you to do your misdeeds.
Shifting the focuse of spectators to an entirely new frame is just as easy. Imagine that you have produced that second coin and placed it on your right palm along with the other coin. Shifting your gaze back to the left hand and moving your hand towards a box on the table will redirect all eyes and all attention to that box. At that moment of completely directed attention, you could place the two coins in your right hand on the table unnoticed. Again, try it in front of magicians and see what happens. Opening the box and lifting the open box back into the original frame while pretending to be holding the coins while turning your hand into the box gives the unmistakable appearance of placing the coins into the box.
Those are just a few examples of how you can move the spectator’s focus around without them realizing you have done so. Practice doing it even when you have no reason to do it and soon you will become a skilled practitioner of absolute direction.
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