Thomas Baxter - Rps Entity

RPS Entity

A Close – Up Routine for The Modern Mentalist

By

Thomas Baxter

Copyright @ June 2007, by Thomas Baxter

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RPS Entity Introduction Good, entertaining close-up Mentalism without playing cards is not easy to come by. For the strolling entertainer or for the hobbyist who wants something to show his friends, RPS Entity is a new and worthwhile addition to the repertoire. This effect was inspired by an effect called CHILD’S PLAY, by Simon Aronson, and can be found in his wonderful book, SIMPLY SIMON (Apparently HIS effect was inspired by an earlier effect from Robert Neale, with which I am not familiar). In Simon’s version, he used actual objects, small toys in the shapes of a Rock, Paper and a tiny Scissors, along with three different colored poker chips. He would have the objects and the chips mixed, an object places upon each chip, and then the participant would call out any two of the chips. Simon would tell the participant which chip would win. At the end of his routine, Simon would predict the placement of all of the objects on the chips. I’m told that Neales version also used 3 actual objects and three chips. While the thinking and methodologies behind these effects were fascinating, I found that I didn’t want to have to deal with 6 props rattling around in my pockets for one effect, nor did I want to do the prep work necessary for the prediction ending of Aronson’s effect for a strolling situation. I set about to re-think the basic concept and to change it so that it could be done with just 3 bits of paper or business cards, or the more formally prepared set of 3 poker chips if desired. I’ve eliminated the need for the special toys, and simplified things to make what I think is a quick, entertaining and mystifying 3 part routine with an optional kicker prediction ending. RPS Entity can also be done over the telephone or online on the Internet, by email or on chat lines. It is a versatile little routine, and while it may not be the earth-shaking Holy Grail of Mentalism, the universal popularity of the game of Rock, Paper, Scissors (also known as Roshambo) brings with it an immediate audience recognition and interest. I’ve used this routine in many situations and performances, and the reaction has always been positive and rewarding. I hope that you’ll use it and get as much fun out of it as I have. Thomas Baxter

(July 4, 2007)

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RPS Entity Effect: You explain to the participant that the two of you will play a unique version of the game, "Rock, Paper & Scissors". You ask if they are familiar with the game, which is a worldwide phenomenon, and has become so popular that there are now huge conventions with World Title RPS matches held in front of thousands of cheering fans. If they don't know the game, you give a brief demonstration, showing the 3 hand signs: A Clenched fist represents Rock; your extended pointer and middle finger represent scissors; and all your fingers held out with a flat palm represents paper. The rules of the game say that Rock breaks Scissors, and therefore would win. Scissors cuts Paper, and so would win in a match between those two. Paper covers stone, and so paper would win in that case. (The rules and objects vary slightly in different countries. For a worldwide perspective on the game, check out: RPS AROUND THE WORLD at http://www.netlaputa.ne.jp/~tokyo3/e/janken_e.html )

The Game Three white poker chips are shown. You could also use just slips of paper or 3 quarters or 3 business cards (a good excuse for handing them out later!). You write "Rock" on the first chip, "Paper" on the second chip, and "Scissors" on the third chip. You line these chips up in front of the participant reading: Rock, Paper and Scissors from his left to right. From your pocket you take out a $20. bill, which you state, will be the risk factor (your risk, not the participant's). Fold the bill in half.

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RPS Entity Act I The game is about to begin. If you lose, they keep the $20. If you win, you'll try again, making the game more challenging each time. If you succeed, then everyone wins, as you keep your money and the audience has experienced something infinitely more valuable -- an unfathomable Mystery. You explain that, once you turn your back so that you can't see what they will do, then the participant will use the "objects" to make a series of moves. A "move", you explain, is defined as switching the positions of any two objects. The participant has a free choice of which objects to switch... He can switch objects that are side by side, or he can switch the two end objects if he wishes. It is entirely his decision. He can also make as many "Moves" as he wishes, so long as he pauses to think between each "move". Once the moves are made, the participant takes the folded $20. and covers up one of the objects, hiding that object from sight. That places that object out of play. The participant then will place one of his hands on each of the remaining two objects, hiding them. Only then does he direct the performer (you) to turn around and face him. You look into the participant's eyes, ignoring his hands completely. You ask him a series of non-sequitur questions, such as, "If you were to order fries at MacDonald's would you order the small, medium or Biggie sized fries?" and, "If you sat at a table with Gandhi, would you prefer him to be on your left, or your right?" You pretend to make judgments from his answers, and also point out that his right eyebrow is slightly higher now than it was before you began. You tell the participant that all of this leads you to believe that the winning object is under his right hand. Ask him to raise his right hand, then his left, to confirm that you are 100% correct. Most people will remember which object was under which hand and react strongly as soon as you name the winning hand.

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RPS Entity Act II You offer to repeat the effect, going from the position where the objects now lie on the table. This time, however, you will turn the objects over so that the names are unseen by even the participant. You ask the participant to challenge you, and himself, by this time trying to keep track of just one of the objects as he mixes them during the "moves". Again, you turn your back, the participant makes the moves, covers one of the objects with the bill, rendering it out of play, and places his hands over the other two objects, hiding them from view. You turn to face the participant, stare into his eyes, and ask him to say "NO", 3 times in a row, to the questions you are about to ask. Direct him to do his best to keep a poker face, because two of the times he says, "NO", he'll be lying. Ignoring the objects and staring into his eyes you ask: "Did you keep track of the Rock? Say NO!" The participant will say, "no". You immediately ask: "Did you keep track of the Paper?" Again, he'll answer, "no". Ask, "Did you keep your eye on the Scissors?" The participant will again answer, "no". Immediately you tell him that the winning object is under his left hand. He raises his left hand, and then his right, and you are again correct.

Act III For the last game, you explain, you want to conduct what is known as a "Double Blind" experiment. This time the objects are placed writing side down and you randomly mix them so that at the start, no one, not even the participant can possibly know which object is which. You turn your back again; the participant does his mixing moves, covers one object with the bill, and places his hands on the remaining two objects. While he's doing this, you visibly take a post-it notepad from your packet, along with a pencil, and say: "I have a strong feeling about this, so I'm going to make a little prediction about what

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RPS Entity your final choices will be." You appear to write something quickly on the pad, but don't show what it is. You turn to face him, drop the pad face down on the table with the pencil, look him in the eye and say, "This time, I tried to direct your actions, to control your thoughts. If everything has gone according to plan, my prediction here... (you point to the pad, but don’t touch it) ... will be correct. Lift up your hands. " He looks, and the participant’s left hand has covered the winning object. You ask him to turn over your prediction, and he finds that you've predicted his choices.

The Method In this routine, there are no marked chips or pieces of paper, no peeks, no switches. It all relies upon a simple attribute that is peculiar to the circular properties of the possibilities within the game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. If you place the chips or pieces of paper in front of yourself so that they read from left to right, Rock, Paper and Scissors, then you are halfway home. If you'll look at the objects as they lay, you'll notice that each right hand object will beat the object immediately to it's left in the game of RPS. In other words, the scissors chip on the far right will beat the Paper chip to it's left. As well, the Paper chip will beat the Rock chip to it's left. So, in the start position, the right hand chip will win.

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Let's make a "move" and see what happens. Remember, a "move" is switching the positions of any two of the objects, one time. For demonstration purposes, switch the Rock chip with the Paper chip.

Before this move, the right hand chips beat the objects to their left. Now, you'll now notice that by having made that one move, the left hand chips will now beat the objects immediately to their right. This entire routine is based upon that simple, yet beautiful principle. If you start with the chips ordered R P S in Left-to-Right position, when the participant makes an odd number of moves, then covers any one of the chips and places his hands down on the remaining two chips, the chip on the left will always be the winner, no matter how many odd-numbered moves the participant makes. If they make an even number of moves, no matter how many, they will end with the right hand chip winning. Once one of the chips is covered, the convention is for people to place their hands down on the two remaining chips without crossing one wrist over the other, as that feels awkward. Even if someone tries to be clever, though, and does that, it doesn't matter, as you know which chip position wins, and can name the winning hand accordingly. The one instance where there is a change in your procedure is if, when you turn around, you see that they've placed the bill covering the middle chip. In this case, the results are reversed. Odd number of Moves = Right hand chip. Even number of Moves = Left hand chip.

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Knowing this methodology, if you read through the routine again, it should be all self-explanatory. The examples I've given in the description of the routine regarding the final positions of the winning chips were purely for demonstration purposes. In the game you play, the results, obviously, may be different, depending on whether the participant makes even or odd moves. Rather than have the person call out when they've made a move, or rather than direct them when to move, I use the subtlety of having them pause to think and decide before each new move. I talk to them, asking them to really think and to even change their minds about the objects they are about to move before they go ahead and do so. They will actually let you know when they are making a move or have done so, by telling you without your having asked. I think this is a strong point later, when they are remembering the effect and talking about it to others. They will remember that they made multiple moves without your knowing where or what or how many. When first attempting this routine, until you feel confident, you may wish to have the participant actually call out when they have finished a move. With my back turned, I keep track of each time they move by pinching either my left finger and thumb, or my right finger and thumb as they go. One move, left. Two moves, right. Three moves, left, and so on. When they're done, I simply see which hand's fingers are pinched to know the winning hand. In the second and third parts of the routine, to continue the play from where the previous game left off, you must simply remember whether the left hand or the right hand won from the previous game. Pinch the fingers of that hand together before they start the next moves. Now alternate with their new moves. So, if the left hand had the winning chip in the first game, as they make their first move in the second game, pinch your right fingers; second move, left fingers; and so on.

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RPS Entity The finale of the routine is the prediction on the pad, placed on the table before they lift their hands to reveal the winner. In this, the third game, if you'll remember, you mixed the chips so that the starting position was a completely random. Well, not really. It's an easy matter, when the chips are writing side down, to do a false shuffle of the chips by pretending to mix them randomly on the table. In reality, you keep track of them, placing them back into the RPS left-to-right order that you started in. Continue the game as before, and as they are making their moves, take out the pad and pencil, at the same time wedging a nail writer into your thumb. Pretend to write the prediction, but in reality write only: "This time your _________ hand covers the winning object”. As you turn around, place the pencil on the table. To the participant, that means that you can't change the prediction. In the act of placing the pencil on the table, you spot where the bill is covering a chip, and you now know for certain where the winning chip resides. Add an "L" or an "R" at the appropriate spot on the pad with your nail writer, and then place the pad on the table next to the pencil. This is an interesting psychological touch, since to the participant no one yet knows where the winning chip will be. Your prediction is thus made more believable, since the pad is on the table, and the writing, as far as the participant knows, was made while your back was still turned. For Internet or phone use the nail-writer prediction doesn't come into play, of course.

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RPS Entity Over the Internet/Telephone When I was putting this routine together, the first people I tried it out on lived in England. I live in Canada. I performed the effect by email. I wrote asking when a good time would be to demonstrate the effect, and asked them to get three small pieces of paper, marking one with the word ‘Rock’, another with ‘Paper’ and the third with ‘Scissors’. They should also have a coin handy. I have them use a coin instead of a bill in this case, since I can’t see the objects anyway, so there’s no need to cover one up completely, as there is when performing this in person. Once they were ready, they were to email me back. When they did, I replied, stating the premise of the experiment. I explained the game of Rock, Paper and Scissors, in case they weren’t familiar with it (everyone was), and I asked them the place the objects in R P S order from their left to their right. Before we began, I clearly outlined what a single “move” consisted of, as explained earlier in these notes. I told them they could make several “moves”, but to pause between each one and concentrate on what they wanted to do next. They were to keep track of how many “moves” they made, and at the end, place the coin on one of the objects, rendering that object out of play. They were to then email me again, telling me that they were ready and how many moves in total they had made. To the participant, it seems completely impossible, despite the Performer knowing how many moves they’ve made, that you could have any idea which of the objects were moved. There is no way you could know when or where or how many times the participant moved any particular object. You are continents away, with no possible means of looking over their shoulder to watch what they do.

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RPS Entity Once I’ve received their email, I know the number of moves they’ve made, and I sent them the following email: “You’ve certainly made a lot of moves! I think it will be almost impossible to do this successfully, but I’ll give it a try. By the way… It’s not a part of the actual experiment, but just for fun I’ve been sending you a subliminal message to try to influence you to place the coin on the middle object. Did it work?” This, of course, is a ruse on my part. They will either answer back saying, “Ohmigod, I DID put the coin on the middle object!” – in which case you are now an acknowledged Master of Mind Control in the participant’s eyes -- or they will say, “No”. If they say no, just move along; make light of it, say, “Yeah that never works!” After all, it wasn’t a part of the actual experiment. People forget about it. You know the number of moves they’ve made. Now you also know whether or not they put the coin on the middle object. You now know the hand that covers the winning object. Remember, if it’s an even number of moves, their right hand covers the winning object. If it’s an odd number, their left hand covers the winner. If they’ve placed the coin on the middle object, these results are reversed. The impromptu, homemade nature of this effect when performed over the phone or on the Internet, with them marking the bits of paper, etc., lends to the mystery and impossibility of the experience for the participant.

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RPS Entity A Slightly Darker Roshambo For those more into a “Bizarre” frame of Mentalism, I’d suggest the use of a Pendulum to reveal the winning hand. The pendulum could be an actual brass or crystal type as sold in the various New Age or Psychic shops, or it can be something as simple as your finger ring tied to a piece of thread. Bizarre practitioners seem to delight in using actual strange objects, so in this case it’s possible to purchase small charms or tokens in the shapes of a stone (perhaps a gold nugget), Paper (a scroll) or a tiny scissors. Personally, were I to turn Bizarre, I would opt to use business cards for this. I would explain about the game of Roshambo, or Rock Paper, Scissors, and invent a story that the origins of the game go back to ancient times when someone who had flaunted the rules and laws of society was condemned to death and was about to be executed. On one card I would write “Rock”, and say that one of the most primitive means of public execution was Stoning. There are many recorded references to this in the history texts, the Bible, etc. On the Second business card I would write the word “Paper”, and tell the participants that during The Inquisition thousands of people were burned at the stake as a means of purging their sins through the heat of the flame. Each fire required kindling. The Paper will represent the fuel for the fire. On the third card I’d write the word “Scissors”, and say that in countries such as France, right up to the early 1900’s, beheading was the preferred method of execution. The Scissors represents the Headsman’s blade.

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I would then show an ancient coin (perhaps an old English Penny), and explain that often the executioner would be given a coin by the intended victim to assure that the executioner did his job well and quickly, with a minimum of pain to the victim. Present the effect as described earlier, but once you turn around and see which business card they’ve placed the coin upon to render that card out of play, you can bring the Pendulum into play. Ask the person with their hands on the two cards to imagine which of the two cards would win in the game of Rock, Paper and Scissors. Then ask them to imagine that they are actually facing the form of execution depicted by that object. In their mind they watch as the crowd gathers to witness the spectacle. Direct the participant to imagine people picking up stones, or the heat of the torched paper, or the Headsman’s blade glistening in the Sun. You know which hand covers the winning card. Place the Pendulum over the other hand first. Nothing happens. Then place the Pendulum over the other hand. It first swings up and down rapidly, then suddenly changes direction and goes side to side. A cross has been formed over that hand. (Those with religious objections might wish a circle to form, as a circle of protection). Tell the participant that the powers of the Universe have smiled on him today, and offered a sign of blessing and protection. Tell them the winning hand, the one where the Pendulum reacted, and repeat as desired. Note: Once you’ve shown the participant how the Pendulum reacts when over the winning object, you can actually hand the Pendulum to them. You’ve reinforced the notion that the Pendulum will move over the winning object but not over the others. Now, when they try it themselves, the same thing will happen. Many moons ago in a discussion with my good friend (and top California Professional Magician, Writer, Man-About-Town) David Alexander, the subject of Pendulums came up. David once owned and operated a publishing company that dealt almost exclusively with

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books concerning what is called “The Alexander Technique”. Those who have taken formal acting training will no doubt be aware of this technique (no relation to David Alexander, by the way). FM Alexander (1868-1955) demonstrated that the difficulties many people experience in learning and in physical functioning are caused by unconscious habits. The Alexander Technique provides a concrete means for overcoming these habits by teaching clients how to stop interfering with their body's innate coordination. Clients are guided through simple movements to become aware of proper physical function. Anyway, David has undergone the training and is very well versed in all aspects of The Alexander Technique. He mentioned to me during our discussion that it is entirely possible to have an independent third party hold the pendulum string, and by placing the performer’s hand on the shoulder of the arm that holds the string, you can actually “remote-control” the person’s reaction. By merely THINKING of the motion that you want from the pendulum, you can cause it to move or not move without the person holding the pendulum actually feeling any pressure or movement from your hand on their shoulder. I’ve tested this out many times, and while it doesn’t work for those who deliberately resist or go out of their way to foil the motion of the pendulum, it will consistently work with those who enter the experiment with an open mind. There is nothing psychic or supernatural about this. It’s simply the same involuntary muscle action that makes the ouija board work, or indeed, makes the pendulum swing this way or that in the hands of a believer. It does take the Performer a while to get the knack. It’s about THINKING the motion, rather than feeling it or actually physically making the motion. David says that actual lessons in Alexander technique will make the notion clear to people. Try this for yourself. If you don’t you’re missing something that is potentially extraordinary in the hands of a good showman.

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THANKS This routine is an amalgam of several ideas from several sources. Thanks to Robert Neale for the original observations about the cyclical nature of RPS, and to Simon Aronson for taking the next steps in creating his routine. Thanks to my friend and fellow Canadian Tom Ransom (creator of the Needle Thru Balloon effect, by the way) for his inspired suggestion of using a bill to cover the third object. More thanks to David Alexander,Tony Iacoviello, Richard Colley nd the U.K. guys who can’t be mentioned, Patrick Redford and anyone else who sat through early demonstrations over the internet. Their thoughts and suggestions helped to make the routine flow. Finally, thank you, the reader, for buying this little routine. I hope you’ll feel that your investment was a wise one. Cheers, T. Baxter (aka: entity)