Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions - James Randi [143]
She shuffled and cut the deck many, many times, commenting at one point with a cute smile that she was "not very good at this sort of thing." Martin and I did not smile, recognizing a put-on at first flush, and Suzie dropped the inept act from then on. She fussed endlessly with the cards until the moment of truth came. Suzie then asked for a piece of paper, wrote something on it, and continued. Martin and I observed the necessary moves being made, then watched as she suddenly slapped the deck flat on the table and began spreading the cards wildly about with both hands in a circular fashion, rearranging them repeatedly and patting them into seemingly random patterns. She pushed them into various configurations while she spoke, asking that her subject, a young woman she'd chosen to sit opposite her at the table, reach into the spread and select "any five cards." As each card was slipped out of the spread, Suzie rearranged them somewhat, seemingly at random. At one point, however, she stopped doing this and backed away from the table.
The subject had five cards face down before her. Suzie then eliminated some until one was singled out (more about that later) and announced it was the required card. In the four times she performed for us, she was right three times! Odds of this being done are a whopping 1 in 36,000—assuming, that is, that no trickery is being used.
But the trickery was quite obvious to Martin and me. The routine was one that is well known to card magicians and has been in print and available to the public for many years. Suzie's fussing with the cards was quite haphazard until, at one point, she gathered the pack and straightened it out. At that time—the "moment of truth"—she glimpsed the top card as it fell into place. This was the card she then wrote upon the piece of paper as the one that would be chosen. Further shuffling become more orderly, and each shuffle and cut retained the top card in place. Suddenly the deck was slammed on the tabletop and a rapid spreading commenced, with the curious circular motion. But, we noted, the top card almost immediately was pushed off to one side, close to Suzie and near her arm, which would cover it during the fussing about. She would then press her thumb to the card and slide it about a bit, then drop it off again in a different position but always accessible.
Finally, Suzie introduced the chosen card into the main mass of cards, arranging it all by patting and pushing so that the one important card lay in a position where it was most likely to be chosen. Then the selection process began. If the card was not chosen right away, additional patting served to push it into a spot immediately within reach of the subject.
After all, she had five chances in fifty-two of having the required card chosen. Furthermore, most of the cards were in motion or under her reach, and so kept out of contention. But even with the correct card among the five selected ones, how was she able to force the final selection of that one from the five?
Here is where the demonstration really fell apart. Suzie used almost any means to arrive at the correct one-out-of-the-five, and seldom the same means. Suppose the desired card was in the fourth position. She would say, for example, "Name any two numbers between 1 and 5." If the answer was "1 and 3," she would brightly suggest that 1 plus 3 equals 4. A winner! Or, if the numbers given were 1 and 2, she would promptly eliminate card numbers 1 and 2 and narrow it down to the remaining three cards, telling the victim to choose "another number" and cashing in if the number named was 4. Otherwise she would continue to play around until only the desired card was left. Or