Criss Angel

Yesterday Oprah had on Criss Angel. I had never heard of the man before. He is an illusionist and his first trick was right up my alley. I rather enjoyed it, and I will have to give it a try myself.

For his first trick, Criss asks Oprah to choose a number between 1 and 100. “I’m a student of humanity, of behavior, and I’m going to show you how I use psychology and your mannerisms to get inside your head, Oprah, and tell you what you’re thinking,” he says.

As Criss closes his eyes, Oprah writes her number on a piece of paper and shows it to the audience. Once she hides her choice from his sight, Chris studies Oprah closely, while talking through several numbers. Then he announces his pick. “It has to be eleven.” And, he’s right!

Thankfully, the camera zoomed into Oprah’s face enough that you could actually see her eyes grow wider when Criss said the number 11.

Criss told Oprah that he was going to asked her outright what the number she wrote down was BUT HE TOLD HER not to respond to him. He even told her she could try to throw him off, if she wanted. Adding more stress to Oprah only adds more clues, if she so tries.

“Is the answer 1-10, 11-20, 21-30,” he asked. As he asked Oprah, he studied her face. He used non-verbal clues to guide him.

He then narrowed it down to 11 to 20. He verbally said while watching her face, is it 11, 12, 13, 14…and as he said “11” Oprah’s eyes grew open wide for a second. It was all Criss needed.

He talked about Oprah blinking as well which was a clue for him (I don’t quite understand that) — but I certainly saw Oprah give a non-verbal clue to the number 11. So much so, I am dying to try this trick on someone!

It’s fun and fascinating — even if I don’t master this one — I love some of the “magic” behind it! Good old psychology and facial expressions. They speak volumes.

Do know that I don’t think this is fool-proof. I do realize this man is an illusionist. But some people will leak clues. How many and how often, I have no idea.