Banachek
[The following is reprinted with encouragement and permission from Banachek’s Psychological Subtleties, Houston, Texas: Magical Inspirations,1992, pg. 105]
Someone approaches me and asks me how I do what I do. “Nothing supernatural, I simply use my five senses to create the illusion of a sixth, kind of like when Sherlock Holmes was able to tell whether someone had recently come from Africa, left the Army, had sausages for breakfast, or was a recovering alcoholic. Had Arthur Conan Doyle not explained the methods in his writings, you would have been left believing Holmes was psychic. He wasn’t. It was deductive reasoning plus the fact Holmes was a master at Psychology. That is what I do. I can psychologically direct someone (much better than saying manipulate) to do what I want, and I can read people like a book.
“If someone comes up to me and asks me to read their mind, I can’t. However, if I take control of the situation, ask them a few questions, maybe have them write down their thoughts, I can tell them what they are thinking. That’s right, I read thoughts, not minds. As a very famous thought-reader once said, ‘if someone asks me to read their mind, I can’t, but if someone punches me in the face, I know what they are thinking.’ Actions speak louder than words. Let me show you what I mean. I will take control of the situation. You must listen to me carefully and do exactly what I ask, and then I will be able to read your thoughts and tell you if you are lying to me or telling the truth.
“I will need the help of yourself and someone else.” Two people are used for this effect. Remove your ring or charm and hand it to one of them. “I will turn my back and one of you two are to put it in your back pocket so I don’t know who has it and I can’t see it/” Performer turns around as they do this, then turns to face them after being assured they are done.
“Now, there are three types of people in this world: those who tell the truth all the time no matter what; those who lie all the time no matter what; and, those who do both. For this experiment we will deal only with the two extremes.
Those who lie all the time, and those who always tell the truth! I want you both to decide in your own mind as to
whether you want to always tell the truth all the time or lie all the time. Please keep in mind that this is only a game, whatever you decide to do does not in anyway reflect upon your own true character. Do you have it in your mind?
Please don’t answer because if you have chosen to be a liar you would have to say no!
“Now, for this experiment to work it is imperative that you both know what the other has chosen to be, a liar or an honest person. This is the only time the liar will be allowed, and has to tell the truth. I will turn my back and you will let the other person know what you have decided to be. So that I will not hear, you are to simply use a hand gesture.
Thumbs up to the angels if you decided to be honest, thumbs down to hell if you are a liar. I will turn my back.”
Performer turns around then back to face them again. “Now let’s recap. One of you has the ring in your pocket . . . no way I could know who has it. On top of that, you both freely chose whether you would be a liar or always tell the truth. No way for me to know what you chose. Only you two know what you chose to be and only you two know what the other person chose to be.
“There are numerous choices you could have made. You could have chosen to tell the truth and you could have chosen to be a liar, or it could be the other way around. Then again, you could have both chosen to be the same thing, either liars or both honest people. Asking what you are would not tell me anything because if I ask whether you are telling the truth and you are, you will say yes, if you’re not, you will also say yes. There is no way for me to know who is telling me the truth or not. Yet, I can tell, by your body, by your eyes by the way you move or speak, if you are lying to me.”
Turn to the first person and say, “Remember, if you chose to be honest, tell the truth, if a liar you have to lie to me.
Only answer with a ‘yes’ or ‘no!’ Do you have the ring?” Then turn to the second person and ask the same question using the same lines.
Continue with, “Great, now I know who has the ring! But I want to ask one more question.” Turn to the first person and say, “Remember, if you chose to be honest, tell the truth, liar you have to lie. Again, only answer with a ‘yes’ or
‘no!’ Did you both decide to be the same type of person?” Turn to the second person and ask the same question.
“I know who has the ring and I know exactly what type of person you decided to be. You see the lady moved her left forefinger slightly when she told me she did not have the ring. She does have it, she was lying to me. She did the exact
same thing when I asked her if they both decided to be the same kind of person. She said ‘yes.’ That in turn told me that the gentleman was telling the truth when he said he did not have the ring and when he said they were not the same kind of person. But I wanted to check it. So I asked the gentleman the same question, he blinked each time and looked straight into my eyes. I knew he was telling the truth. Madam, did you choose to be a liar? Please tell the truth now as the experiment is over.” She replies, “yes.” “And sir, did you choose to take the path of an honest person?”
He replies, “yes.” You turn to the lady and say “May I have the ring please?” The lady removes it from her pocket proving you were indeed correct.
How? When you ask the first question, you remember the first reply. It will not tell you who has the ring until you get the answer to the second question. When you ask the second question, “did you both choose to be the same type of person?” the answer tells you what the other person is. If they say “no,” the other person is a liar and if they reply “yes,” the other person is telling the truth. That’s why you need to ask both people the same question. You now know if the first person has the ring or not and what they both decided to be. It sounds impossible but work it out on paper, you will find out that “no” means the other person is a liar and “yes” means that the other person is honest. The rest is showmanship.
ROTVARI
Ryan Frame
[The following was contributed by Ryan Frame and is explained in his own words]
“ROTVARI” means Ring Of Truth Variation. It by and large follows the original presentation of “Ring of Truth,” but with some twists. It is still totally impromptu.
Two volunteers agree to participate in a lie detector test and agree to secretly choose to be opposite characters (one a liar and one a truth teller). They turn around and huddle to accomplish this secretly. They also take a ring or other object, hiding it IN ANY ONE of their hands. They are then to pretend to be holding something in the other three hands as well. The performer turns his as they do this and so there is no way to know who is lying or telling the truth and no way to know which of the four hands holds the ring.
The volunteers turn around and hold up all four fists. The performer now proposes to find the ring based their answers to two questions where they are to lie or tell the truth according to their secretly chosen characters, and he will read their body language and find the ring.
The performer asks each, “Do you have the ring?” Both answer ‘in character.’ He continues, “I am pretty sure I know who has it but I’m not positive and I still need to know which hand.” He then asks each, “Do you have the ring in your left hand?” They again answer according to their chosen character. The performer then finds the ring.
Explanation
“ROTVARI” is close to the original “Ring of Truth” in presentation, but both questions are reasonable ones that one WOULD ask in demonstration of this sort, and the ring could be in any of four places instead of just two; a more difficult test. Like the original “Ring of Truth,” the performer must listen to their answers to solve the logic puzzle. In this case, the logic tells you exactly where the ring is ½ of the time and the other half of the time, the logic reduces the ring location to only two possibilities and a double out finishes the task.
Both participants will answer the first question exactly the same (yes/yes or no/no) and you will note the
response. With the second question, “Is the ring in your left hand?” either of two outcomes might be forthcoming:
1. 50% of the time you will get the exact same two responses as you got with the first question (resulting in all four yes’s or four no’s). In this case, the ring is in the left hand of one or the other of the participants. A ‘double out’ such as the “BOHT” double out from The Safwan Papers will get you the rest of the way home.
2. The other 50% of the time, one of the participants will answer differently the second time around,
resulting in three no’s and one yes, or three yes’s and one no. In other words, one of the two will have given a different response from one question to the next (a yes to the first and no to the second or vice-versa). If this happens, that participant has the ring in the right hand.
Final Thoughts
Some may still prefer the original “Ring of Truth” because it does not require any outs and allows for free choice of character. I believe that mixing techniques makes it harder to reconstruct and it removes the effect from the realm of the straight logic puzzle which some feel are a bit suspicious for modern audiences.
“ROTVARI,” like the original, asks two questions to each participant, but there are four possibilities of where the ring might be instead of two and the second question, “Do you have it in your left hand?” is a much more logical question to be asking than the second one in the original “Ring of Truth.” Another personal problem with “Ring of Truth” is that, after a few weeks of not performing it, I forget the formula! In this variation, the two questions,
“Do you have it?” and “Is it in the left hand?” are easy to remember, and the solution “All four of the SAME answers
= the SAME hand that was asked about…” And, “Anyone who answers differently has it right…” is also easy on the memory banks. But if you like the original you have lost nothing by being exposed to this one.
By combining this with Patrick’s “Prevaricator,” this routine gives you a fail safe way to practice it or to be used as a backup that can bring the routine to a successful conclusion if “Prevaricator” does not work. In “Prevaricator,”
Patrick uses a clever psychological technique that is not 100% and a bit difficult to get you mind around when you are just starting to do it. The set up for both is the same and the first question is also the same for both.
When you ask, “Do you have the ring?” if you are comfortable that “Prevaricator” has worked, you know who is lying and who is telling the truth and so can figure out which hand the ring is in after the second question and
can go right to it without any ambiguity. If you are not sure after the first question whether “Prevaricator” has worked, with “ROTVARI,” the demonstration still finishes with the performer finding the hand with the ring.
“Prevaricator” is certainly cleaner and more direct, but the above routine makes it 100%.