I once watched someone perform "The mystery of the Bermuda Triangle". A triangle is formed by putting small objects in the shape of a triangle, 10 objects in each side, a total of 30. By moving around the objects suddenly there are a total of for example 27 objects in the triangle, and the next second it´s 32 objects.

1. Do you know who invented this?

2. Does anyone perform it?

3. What´s people´s reaction? I performed it a few times, and no one seemed to be impressed, even children understood how it works. I stopped performing it after that.

Can this be one of the effects that are too poor to perform, no matter how you present it?

Mikael

Hi Mikael!
I guess you saw it at "Magiskt", the swedish program, performed by Michael Weber.

I didn't at that time like it at all, I performed it once or twice and lay people I talked to didn't think much of it either.

Sorry that I can't give you more details than that.

You can find it in Steinmeyer's latest booklet about self-working effects.

Yes, it's Jim Steinmeyer's adaptation of an earlier Weber effect called "To Feed Many", which was a presentation of an even older puzzle. Doug Henning performed a version of it on one of his shows, as well.

It is, as mentioned, in Jim's new book Impuzzibilities.

It's also not mentalism, and I agree that it looks mostly like a puzzle, not a magic trick :o1

Yes, that´s right. But for some reason I have believed for several years that it was Aldo Columbini who performed it at "Magiskt". But since you are the second person today that tells me it was Michael Weber I guess I´ll have to accept it!

The replies so far seem to support my opinion that it´s not that impressive. What a pitty, I love the method!

Mikael

Bruce Bernstein has a variation of this trick that Doug Henning taught him. It uses a square and not a triangle. I believe it's in his "Going South" lecture notes.

It's not pure mentalism, of course, but it can be framed as a "trick of perception." As such, it is mystifying, though simple once you know the trick.

Larry Becker in Book II - World of Super Mentalism developed a routine using the principle with cards. It uses 12 cards on a side of the triangle, a fairly good story, and ends with a prediction. The perfectionist should be able to tweak it somewhat and have a fairly unique presentation. Just a thot!

It depends on your style, the effects you have performed before it, etc. It can be an amazing trick. I have performed it hundreds of times with everything from blocks of cheese to people for a corporate team building excursion.