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The Magicians Choice

The Magicians Choice is a standard force that takes advantage of an information gap between you and then spectator.

With the Magicians Choice you give the spectator a completely free choice to make, and no matter what they choose the end result is always the same, although they are not aware of this.

Example

A classic exaple of this was a piecce of magic I used to do many years ago where I would rub a small pile of ash into my palm, and it would appear in the spectators left palm.

It was always the left palm.

At the start of the magic I would ask the spectator to hold both hands out palm up and ask them if they were left or right handed.

If they said left I would say "then we use your left hand" and take their left hand with my right and turn it down, closing it into a fist.

If they said right I would say "ok put the right down" and I would take their left and close it.

You see that they feel they made a free choisce, but whatever they choose it makes no difference.

The information gap

The force works because of the information gap between what the spectator knows, and outcome of the choice. For this reason the force can normally not be used more than one time in any context or the spectator may wonder why their choice was taken the first time, but discarded the second.

It can often also require careful framing of the question. "Which would you like, A or B?" leaves no room open for the magicians choice to be utilised, but just "A or B?" leaves the resul tof the choice open.