irrelevancy

I was listening to a Loveline episode from 2005-10-19 with Criss Angel as a guest. He had male listeners think of an odd number between one and ten (I chose seven). Then he associated a word with the number (sharp). Then he listed some things and said to think of the one that matched the word (carving knife). Then he said to imagine the object, then to imagine the object falling from the sky (at which point I was a little afraid of a knife falling), then he says something like “and you should be careful because you’re thinking of a carving knife” (at which point I wet myself).

Four callers and the two engineers they asked all picked the object he said. I don’t believe in magic, but I still get a sense of child-like wonder when a trick works.