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to be no evidence of what could accomplish
the effect. Therefore the Level of
Believable Impossibility is high.
A coin traveling across stage is another
matter. Everyone knows that magicians
are quick with their hands. And they know
there is no such thing as real magic. Thus
when a magician makes a coin disappear,
it could go up his sleeve or simply be
palmed. A coin that disappears in the
hands can look like magic. On the other
hand a coin traveling from one person to
another is difficult to believe. This problem
is solved by marking the coins
What about two Fickle Nickels with two
people standing side by side? Since the
hands are shown totally empty during the
performance, the transposition of a nickel
from one person to another could seem
impossible yet believable. Perhaps some
way could be devised to have a nickel
marked, given to one person to execute a
Fickle Nickel disappearance, the other
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person performs a Fickle Nickel
appearance and a spectator immediately
verifies the mark. Perhaps this could be a
minor miracle. Would the cleanness of the
handling and the mark present an effect
that is impossible yet believable? Could it be
so impossible that the audience would
suspect the person verifying the mark
might be a stooge?
Perhaps this indicates a real problem
here. The only way to determine if
something is impossible yet believable is to
try it out on real people. There is no
standard way to develop believable
impossibilities.
At least we have an idea of what makes a
trick great. One would think that coming up
with an impossible trick is the real art.
Perhaps the real art is coming up with an
effect that is believably impossible. When
performing the Brainwave effect, one sees
all the cards spread out and one card
reversed in the spread. That card is the
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