Paranormal vs. Artifacts – October 14, 2002
Part three.
Another “experiment”. I take a glass with a stem. I ask you to pick it up and examine it carefully. It’s not rigged in any way. You will yourself take a pitcher of water from your own cupboard and fill the glass with water from your own faucet. I won’t touch anything and will stay at a distance. I ask you to take your own handkerchief from your pocket and a coin that belongs to you. Then I place the coin under the handkerchief and hand both items to you. I ask you to put this coin, now hidden under the handkerchief, on top of the glass. I stay at a distance and ask you to let go of the coin. You hear the clinking sound it makes when it falls to the bottom of the glass. I ask you to remove the handkerchief. You do so… and the coin has disappeared. I ask you to pour out the water. You do so; nothing remains. I ask you to break the glass. You do so, and all that remains on the floor are glass shards.
Obviously, I “dematerialized” the coin, right?
Let’s go over the trick again. In magic tricks, this kind of effect often relies on a moment of inattention. When did I intervene myself? When I took your handkerchief and coin, placed the coin under the handkerchief, and returned both items to you. That’s the only moment I touched those objects. So?
I simply replaced the coin with a glass disc of the same diameter and almost the same weight. It was this glass disc you felt through the fabric of the handkerchief, thinking it was actually the coin. When you poured out the water, this otherwise “invisible” glass disc remained stuck to the bottom of the glass due to capillary action. When you shattered the glass into a thousand pieces, you even erased all traces of this trick yourself!...
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