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CreativityTranscript
00:00 (train horn)
00:02 - Have you ever forgotten anything before?
00:12 Anything important?
00:13 - I forget a lot, but not names.
00:15 - Not names?
00:16 - They're important to me.
00:17 - Okay, what about your own name?
00:19 - My name?
00:20 - Yeah.
00:21 - Why would I forget my name?
00:22 - I don't know.
00:22 Have you ever forgotten anything that's important like that?
00:24 Or have you ever forgotten anything that's like normal,
00:26 like just how to walk?
00:28 - No.
00:29 - Check this out.
00:30 - Okay.
00:31 - Focus all your attention right on your throat.
00:33 Just swallow.
00:34 You can swallow, right?
00:35 - Okay.
00:36 - Check this out.
00:37 Focus all your attention right about here.
00:39 Look, do you notice?
00:40 - I can't focus.
00:41 - You just completely forgot how to swallow.
00:41 Try to swallow.
00:42 Only as quickly as completely just forgot your name.
00:44 Just like that.
00:45 You can't say your name.
00:46 The more you try to say it,
00:47 the more you try to think about it,
00:48 you just can't remember it.
00:49 It's the strangest thing.
00:51 It's just completely gone.
00:52 But look, if you just look way out there, look.
00:55 There it is.
00:56 - Jasmine!
00:56 (laughs)
00:58 (slow motion)
01:00 - I couldn't remember to say my own name.
01:03 I couldn't even swallow until he said my name.
01:06 (slow motion)
01:08 - Have you ever forgotten something that you knew
01:13 that was just like,
01:14 like something you just can't forget,
01:15 like a person or even your own name,
01:18 or like even how to walk.
01:20 Have you ever forgotten something like that?
01:21 - Don't make me forget how to walk.
01:22 - Being sober.
01:23 (laughs)
01:24 - I'm already in here.
01:24 - By being sober though.
01:25 - Um.
01:26 Yeah.
01:28 You have.
01:29 You have forgotten.
01:30 Interesting.
01:31 I want you to think about that time
01:32 when you've forgotten something.
01:33 Check this out guys.
01:34 Check this out, 'cause look.
01:35 I want you to focus all your attention
01:36 right here in your throat.
01:37 Try to swallow right now.
01:39 You can swallow, right?
01:40 Easily.
01:41 But check this out.
01:42 I want you to focus all your attention
01:43 right about there, 'cause look.
01:44 You completely forgot how to swallow.
01:46 Only as quickly as you completely forgot
01:47 how to say your name, that's right.
01:48 The more you try to say your name,
01:49 you just can't say your name.
01:51 It's the craziest thing.
01:51 (laughs)
01:52 You completely forgot your name.
01:53 - Hey, put your name in the video!
01:54 - It's weird, right?
01:55 (laughs)
01:56 - If you look right here, look.
01:57 There it is.
01:58 What's your name?
01:59 - Juanito!
02:00 Juanito!
02:01 (laughs)
02:01 - Yeah.
02:02 (soft music)
02:05 Hi guys, my name is Brian McQueen,
02:10 and thank you for purchasing this effect.
02:12 This is another one of my absolute favorites,
02:14 which again, comes from my book, Fathom.
02:18 This effect is quite strange.
02:19 It's pretty interesting and unique
02:21 in the fact that it uses absolutely no props,
02:24 and it can be done anytime, anywhere.
02:26 There's several different methods that are in play,
02:28 and there's what I would consider primary methods,
02:30 and then secondary methods.
02:31 The primary methods rely more on physiological phenomena,
02:36 and then the secondary methods rely more on suggestion.
02:39 (soft music)
02:42 In order to have better success with this,
02:48 I think it's important to introduce
02:52 the idea that hypnosis is going to happen or could happen.
02:55 And I think building this expectation of hypnosis
02:57 or mind over matter definitely plays a big part
03:01 in the amnesia part.
03:02 And what I like to do usually
03:05 is I like to do magnetic fingers,
03:07 a hypnotic technique that does one of two things.
03:10 It gauges your participants' willingness
03:13 to follow directions,
03:15 and their ability to possibly be hypnotized.
03:19 It's also a physiological thing
03:21 that happens automatically from squeezing your hand tight.
03:25 So what you do is you have them put their hands out like this
03:28 grip them together, every finger locked,
03:31 and it's important that their thumbs are down.
03:34 Put their two fingers out,
03:35 and just look in between the space between their fingers.
03:38 And you can have them imagine there's magnets,
03:40 or you can imagine that you're putting a screw
03:43 between their fingers and making it tighter.
03:46 Whatever you want to do to make them really imagine it.
03:50 What's gonna happen is their fingers
03:51 are gonna come together,
03:52 and then they're gonna touch.
03:54 And when this happens, it convinces the person
03:57 that they are under your control,
04:00 or they're able to be hypnotized,
04:02 or whatever it is that you're suggesting as they do this.
04:07 I find that this small convincer
04:09 just adds on top of the name amnesia suggestion
04:16 after the throat rub.
04:19 Now let's try this.
04:20 We'll try this with all you guys,
04:21 just so you guys can all play along.
04:23 Everybody go ahead and put your hands out like this.
04:25 Grip your hands nice and tight like this.
04:27 Bend your hands like this.
04:28 And just look at the space between your fingers.
04:31 'Cause in a moment you're gonna see your fingers
04:32 are gonna come together all on their own,
04:33 just like magnets.
04:34 Pulling them closer, and closer, and closer.
04:37 And as soon as they touch, just allow your eyes to close.
04:41 Ah, this guy's got it perfect.
04:43 There you go.
04:44 But if you just allow your hands just to drift down,
04:46 that's right, just drift down.
04:48 Perfect.
04:49 So after doing this, I usually do this for a whole group,
04:53 and I'll pick the person that responded the best.
04:56 I usually find that the person who's responded the best
04:58 to this will probably have the best reaction
05:02 to the name amnesia portion of this effect.
05:04 So going into it after doing this,
05:09 picking the participant that I'm gonna be using,
05:11 this can go several ways.
05:14 With this particular method with the throat touch,
05:16 and I do have other methods which I'll get to
05:18 in a second, I usually ask them if they've ever
05:22 forgotten something that's important,
05:24 or either important to them, or something that they
05:27 could never forget how to do, like for example, walking.
05:30 And I use walking as an example.
05:32 It could be anything that you would physically do
05:34 that you just do involuntarily, naturally,
05:37 like eating, or walking, or speaking, or whatever it is.
05:42 So I ask them, have you ever forgotten how to walk,
05:45 or can you imagine what it would feel like
05:46 if you'd forgotten how to walk?
05:48 And of course, they have the response,
05:49 either yes or no, or whatever it is.
05:52 And then I ask them if they can swallow.
05:56 So what I'm doing is, this is another part of the method
06:00 that works with it, is I ask them to swallow
06:02 without me doing anything.
06:04 And the idea behind this is if you swallow once,
06:07 it becomes more difficult to swallow again immediately
06:09 right after, because you kind of lose
06:12 all that saliva in your mouth.
06:14 And so I use that as an example.
06:16 Can you swallow?
06:17 They say yes, and they swallow, and they show that they can.
06:20 And then it's at that moment that I tell them
06:22 to focus all their attention on their throat,
06:24 and that's when I do the gesture.
06:26 So focus all your attention on the throat,
06:28 and I point, or not point, but rub at this area.
06:32 And it's at that moment that right after I touch it,
06:34 I say, and you've completely forgot how to swallow.
06:37 And at that moment, sometimes they don't know
06:41 that they're supposed to swallow in that moment,
06:42 so I'll say, and you've completely forgot how to swallow.
06:45 Go ahead and try to swallow.
06:46 And when they do, they find that they can't.
06:48 And then the moment I watch their face,
06:50 and I wait for the moment that they realize I can't swallow,
06:55 and that's when I continue with,
06:58 only as quickly as you completely forgot your name.
07:01 That's the primary method would be touching the throat.
07:07 There's another primary method that I didn't do
07:11 in the demo, which is rubbing a knuckle down the spine
07:16 or on the back of somebody's back.
07:19 So you're basically taking a knuckle
07:21 and rubbing it down, up and down the spine.
07:24 You just do it once, and that does the same thing
07:27 as rubbing the throat.
07:28 That one, I'm not really sure how that one works.
07:31 That actually was shown to me from a non-magician,
07:35 just someone that I did this to,
07:38 and it reminded them of this thing
07:40 that was shown to them by somebody,
07:42 and he showed it to me,
07:43 and I tried working with it a little bit,
07:45 and I've noticed it works on certain people, not everybody.
07:49 It's not as effective as this,
07:51 but I found that different body types
07:54 versus skinny necks or more thicker necks,
07:59 the back method does work better on them.
08:02 Some people with very large necks,
08:04 where they have a lot of meat here in this area,
08:08 if you try to rub it, you're not really getting much,
08:12 and I've noticed that the back,
08:15 rubbing down the spine works a little bit better
08:18 on those types of people.
08:20 Hi, guys, this is Ron Pink,
08:23 and he's gonna help me demonstrate speechless.
08:26 The main primary method that I'm using
08:28 is what I call the touch method,
08:30 and essentially what I'm doing is I'm taking my finger,
08:32 and I'm making a curved pointer finger,
08:35 and I'm almost like as if you're gonna pet a small bird,
08:40 and what you wanna do is gently rub on their throat,
08:44 right over their throat, right,
08:46 you're just gonna go down and then up, just like this,
08:48 down and then up.
08:49 Soon as you do that, it becomes difficult to swallow,
08:53 and alternative to do that is you can just do
08:55 just straight down and just stop right at the little,
08:59 whatever you wanna call that, the little crease area,
09:03 you just wanna stop right there and pause for a second,
09:06 and then pull your hand away,
09:08 and that's another way you can do it.
09:10 So you just go down, up, or down, stop,
09:14 and you wanna wait at least a couple seconds,
09:16 a couple beats before you get them to try to swallow.
09:20 If you do it right away and go, try to swallow,
09:23 it's more likely that they're gonna be able to do it.
09:25 If you take a couple beats,
09:27 try to swallow, it becomes more difficult
09:32 because it's actually simulating
09:33 the muscle movements of swallowing
09:36 and kinda relaxes them at the same time.
09:38 Maybe they don't wanna be touched on their throat,
09:40 or maybe the throat thing isn't necessarily working on them,
09:43 or something like that, and the way I do this is,
09:47 come on, face this way, I take my knuckle,
09:51 and I'm basically starting at the top,
09:52 and I'm rubbing it down their spine,
09:54 and you wanna push quite firmly down the spine,
09:57 just like this, and the way you disguise this
10:00 is you're basically gonna be making this gesture,
10:04 breathe in and out, that's what it looks like
10:07 from people watching in the front,
10:09 but since my right hand is behind his back,
10:11 you can't see what I'm doing,
10:13 and what my right hand is doing is I'm going,
10:15 breathe in, and then I'm making the knuckle breathe out,
10:19 like this, and I'm rubbing down his back,
10:21 so it would look like this.
10:23 Breathe in and breathe out.
10:27 And from the front, breathe in and breathe out.
10:34 The other physical method I'm using
10:35 is having him swallow twice in a row.
10:38 Now, it's very difficult to swallow
10:40 immediately twice in a row
10:41 because of how the throat muscles work,
10:43 so if I say, Ron, can you swallow now?
10:45 And he says, yeah, I can swallow,
10:47 and then once I do the move again,
10:48 it becomes more difficult because he's used up
10:50 all his saliva, and his saliva only produces so much,
10:52 and plus his muscles only swallow so much.
10:55 It's very difficult to swallow twice in a row
10:57 unless you're drinking liquid.
10:59 So that's the second physiological method that I'm using.
11:03 The third one is having him look up.
11:05 Now, I'm gonna exaggerate this just a little bit
11:07 just so you can get the idea.
11:08 So, Ron, if you were to look straight up at the ceiling
11:10 and try to swallow, it's almost impossible,
11:14 and this is very well compared to the suggestion
11:19 of having your eyes closed and looking up
11:21 and trying to open your eyelids.
11:22 It's kind of the same thing where if you're looking up,
11:25 I'm a little sick, so,
11:27 you're looking up and you try to swallow,
11:29 it's almost practically impossible, you can't do it.
11:32 So, what I'm doing is I'm doing this move,
11:35 I'm having him swallow twice,
11:37 and I'm also having him look up by directing his gaze
11:39 by telling him to look up at my finger.
11:42 Those are the three physical things that are working for me
11:44 that are gonna help this work.
11:45 Only as quickly as you completely forgot your name.
11:52 And as I say that, I continue talking and kind of,
11:55 I don't really give them a chance to respond, necessarily.
11:58 I keep bombarding them with words and thoughts.
12:01 Only as quickly as you forgot your name.
12:03 And you can't remember your name, can you?
12:05 And the more you think about it, you just can't say it.
12:08 And I keep saying things over and over again
12:10 as I look them in their eyes
12:12 and wave my hands in their face and snap my fingers
12:15 and do all these sort of processy things
12:18 that make it seem like this is actually doing something.
12:22 And it's a bit distracting.
12:25 And just before I feel like they're going to say their name,
12:29 I try to reimplant the name back into their mind
12:33 so as to give myself credit for giving it back to them,
12:36 even though they're just finally coming to the realization
12:39 that they do remember their name.
12:41 I mean, 'cause they're not really hypnotized.
12:44 It's not like they're snapping out of a hypnotic trance.
12:47 They're literally just very distracted and very suggestible
12:52 and they come to a point where they're either embarrassed
12:55 or they kind of realize what's going on
12:58 and then they say their name.
13:00 And of course, you want to take credit
13:01 for them remembering their name.
13:03 So you kind of have to gauge them.
13:06 So the first step again is you rub their throat
13:10 and tell them to focus their attention on their throat,
13:13 ask them to try to swallow.
13:14 They find that they can't swallow.
13:16 And then quickly after the very moment
13:19 they realize they can't swallow,
13:21 you say, "You forgot how to swallow
13:23 only as quickly as you forgot your name."
13:27 And then you continue, the more you think about it,
13:30 you can't remember it, it's very hazy, blah, blah, blah.
13:34 And the moment that they're about to say their name
13:37 or you think they're gonna speak anything,
13:41 then you kind of like shush them up in a sense of like,
13:44 "Wait, there's more to the effect."
13:47 And you just put their name back into their head
13:52 and have them say it.
13:53 Almost as a challenge in the sense of like,
13:57 "And now you know your name, or now you can say your name."
14:00 And of course they say the name and the effect is finished.
14:04 Now you have to go into this with confidence.
14:08 Now you do not need to know hypnosis to perform this effect,
14:12 but confidence is key to perform this effect.
14:15 Confidence is key to perform hypnosis in general.
14:18 And what you wanna do is you wanna come with this
14:20 with complete conviction that this is going to happen.
14:23 If you approach someone and you perform this effect
14:26 and you're not quite sure if it's gonna work
14:28 and you're going in it as if like you're testing it out
14:31 to prove to yourself if it's gonna work,
14:33 that really resonates with other people
14:35 and they'll pick up on that.
14:37 So if I were to say, if I do the move,
14:39 now can you swallow?
14:42 If I'm saying it like a question, then it might still work,
14:46 but it's not gonna be as impactful,
14:48 it's not gonna be as effective.
14:50 You wanna go in it with absolute conviction.
14:52 You cannot swallow, you're not gonna be able to swallow.
14:55 You'll notice when I'm demonstrating it,
14:57 I do a lot of snapping and touching.
14:59 I mean, all these things are just my personal habits
15:04 of when doing hypnosis and stuff.
15:05 It's just things that my little tics and nuances,
15:08 they don't really do anything.
15:10 They're just there, they're just there for show,
15:12 in case you were wondering what that is.
15:16 But at the same time, it does kind of play into suggestion,
15:19 being a spectator and having someone snap here and there
15:22 and touch you here and there.
15:23 All these things are strange, being touched by a stranger
15:25 and having things snap at you, right?
15:27 So it's kind of like the witch doctor effect
15:30 that Banachek speaks about in psychological subtleties,
15:33 where you're doing this dramatic thing or movement,
15:37 and therefore there must be a conclusion,
15:39 there must be a result to it.
15:40 - So as an alternative,
15:45 I'm pretty sure some people won't be comfortable
15:50 with doing a name amnesia,
15:53 considering that if it doesn't work,
15:55 there's not much of an out.
15:57 I mean, it's happened to me before,
16:01 and you have them forget how to swallow,
16:03 and then you immediately tell them,
16:05 they forgot their name, and then they say it.
16:08 I mean, of course, you can always focus on the fact
16:10 that they did forget how to swallow,
16:11 and make it more about that itself than the name amnesia.
16:18 But as an alternative, I mean, you can do a simple card trick
16:20 where you simply just show the person a card.
16:25 You can just do a double lift and show them one card,
16:29 and then have them put it in their hand and hold onto it,
16:33 and then immediately go into the swallow effect
16:36 and tell them that they're gonna completely forget
16:38 the name of their card.
16:40 And they might actually forget the name of the card,
16:44 which would be great in that moment,
16:46 but if they don't for some reason,
16:48 say, oh no, my card is a two of hearts,
16:50 and then they look at it, and then of course,
16:51 it's switched into the other card that you double lifted,
16:55 then it's a surefire method for making sure
17:00 they do forget something and justifying that swallow.
17:03 So you've made them forget how to swallow,
17:05 and then made them forget the card,
17:06 and especially if they feel so confident
17:10 that it's one card when it's actually not.
17:13 So that's the alternative handling
17:14 for a more surefire outcome
17:17 if you're not as bold,
17:18 if you don't feel like being as bold with the name amnesia.
17:21 (gentle music)
17:24 (electronic beeping)
17:42 (upbeat music)
17:45 (upbeat music)
17:47 (upbeat music)
17:50 (upbeat music)
17:58 (upbeat music)