Kennedy - The Natural Lottery

Ken Dyne’s

The Natural Lottery

“Sometimes chance CAN be controlled”

© 2007 Ken Dyne, All Rights Reserved

Within This e-book is divided into several sections: Within ................................................................................................................... 2 Ken Dyne .............................................................................................................. 3 Hello from Me...................................................................................................... 4 The Gamble in Mentalism ................................................................................. 5 My Presentation .................................................................................................. 7 Tell Me Your Secrets ........................................................................................ 10 Explain Yourself ................................................................................................ 13 Colour By Numbers........................................................................................... 17 Credits ................................................................................................................ 18 Thank You Again ............................................................................................... 19 Also From The Author ...................................................................................... 20

© 2007 Ken Dyne, All Rights Reserved

Ken Dyne Began in mentalism at 15 years old, Ken has performed around the world where he has read the minds of complete strangers, been blindfolded in the street and played ‘Russian Roulette’ with five revolvers, live on stage in his UK nation-wide theatre tour. In the past two years Ken has been concentrating his performances in the corporate market where he has entertained right across the UK at corporate conferences and functions of all sizes. In the world of magic, Ken has released a number of past works. His first was Thoughts So Far which he published under his real performing name. The book was a collection of his thoughts and routines on mentalism up until that date and contained some 36 routines from his past performances. The book had a Forward from none other than Richard Osterlind that stood him in great stead for his second. Tell Tale Factor was a limited release booklet that detailed a brand new, revolutionary technique for reading a spectator’s mind under conditions that were only dreamt of. This had two forwards, one by Kenton Knepper and a second by his close friend Alain Bellon. Ken’s third release was an e-book entitled Killers in which he allowed readers in to some routines from his existing repertoire and is now available from Alakazam magic. Following the success he seemed to gather, Kennedy continued to create and develop his work. After being asked to perform a publicity stunt in York city centre (England) Ken came up with a truly amazing headline prediction that meant he NEVER had to touch it. Sold under the name Future Visions as a strictly limited release it gained high praise from the fraternity. Now Ken’s latest excursion is to reveal a piece that has been set in pride of place in his shows for around a year now, he calls it Natural Lottery.

© 2007 Ken Dyne, All Rights Reserved

Hello from Me A great big hello and welcome to Natural Lottery. I’ve been performing this in my shows for around a year now and have had great success with it. I think the strength of the routine is that there is so much going on that it would be extremely difficult for anyone to keep track of everything and thus makes the method(s) really hard to discover. I have performed the routine in all kinds of cabaret, parlour and stage settings from 16 people at a company dinner up to 2000 people in a theatre. I personally wouldn’t choose to use it as a close up piece, but then again I rarely perform close up at all now. Some of the methods used here are a little bold but not half as bold as some of the things I’ve released in the past nor are they as bold as some of the things I do in my shows. I hope you enjoy, Natural Lottery.

© 2007 Ken Dyne, All Rights Reserved

The Gamble in Mentalism There are a lot of plots in mentalism that involve the performer betting money on his accuracy. Saying things like “in fact I’m so confident I will bet the contents of my wallet on it” or “here’s £20.00 in case I’m wrong”. I have to say that I absolutely hate that premise. First of all this set-up makes the performer look like an arrogant, over sure ass. This sets him up for a fall, the audience don’t want you to succeed, they want you to fail. In my performances I much prefer my audiences to want me to be successful, therefore when I have a near miss (whether on purpose or by accident) the audience will sympathise with me and let me off. In this ‘letting me off’ I also build rapport with them on a whole new level. Often the reason that the person makes this statement of ‘betting their money’ or ‘putting their money where their mouth is’ is due to the fact that they need the wallet or the currency as part of the modus operandi and thus have no choice. I decided around a year ago that I didn’t want to perform anything that wasn’t 100% logical and gave the impression that I am a nice guy and that I can do this amazing stuff, leaving a lasting impression on my audience. So I looked at what I was doing and streamlined it. I took out anything that gave a negative impression of me and replaced it with something that made the audience like me. This whole thought process began when I was considering a bank night routine. I’ve seen many, many bank night routines and still haven’t seen one in print that eliminates the smugness of the performer. If you’ve seen me lecture or some of my shows last year you will have seen my approach to the bank night that totally eradicates the ‘I’m cleverer than you’ under tone and actually empowers the audience. This piece will be my next e-book release so keep you eyes open for it. However a lot of people argue that gambling and games of chance are inherently interesting and these Bank Night routines serve that craving in your audience. Of course people are interested, everyone wants to know how they could win at the races, the free holiday in the paper and even the national lottery. Most people would saw off their left leg to know the secrets of how to win the big draws. However the problem with most Bank Night routines is that the routine again illustrates and dotes on the fact that they can’t win, but since you’re cleverer than they are, you can. The winning has to be about how they can win. They already know they can’t so don’t go re-enforcing that message. I got to thinking about this and that is how I came up with Natural Lottery. I wanted a way of showing

© 2007 Ken Dyne, All Rights Reserved

people that they have the strength of mind, they have the ability in themselves to cause these amazing occurrences. If they just open their minds up to the idea that it is possible then they really can achieve this stuff. So Natural Lottery came from the idea that yes they can and do win.

© 2007 Ken Dyne, All Rights Reserved

My Presentation I’ve used this in my inspirational and motivational performances for around three months now and I am going to continue to use it as a really strong illustration of what you can do if you believe it’s possible. Even when the odds are against you. A large prediction lies against my table, its 4 foot high and just over 2 feet wide. Facing the audience at the moment is the well known National Lottery logo. Across the centre of the stage is a row of six empty chairs. The performer talks about his obsession with the lottery. How since the day it launched across the UK he has always put on three lines. One for himself, one for his sister who at the time couldn’t afford it and one for his mother. Even now they’re all older now, he still puts the same three lines on week in, week out. “Their mesmerising. Incredible things. The buzz you get every Saturday night when they start up that machine and the balls get churned about. I’m getting goose bumps just thinking about it. There are 49 coloured balls, fizzing about right in front of your eyes and they swirl around that big glass dome. The tense music in the background and you’re sitting on the edge of your seat. Then, “shhhhooop”, the first ball comes out. You check your ticket, as your eyes rise from the red paper you’re holding in your hand the next ball shoots out the top of the machine. The excitement builds as each ball comes out of the top. Then eventually you look at the row of numbers, then down at your ticket. Back at the numbers again and down to your ticket. You stand...arm in the air. Opening your mouth wide... Aaaaaahhhhhhh SHIT!” You screw up the useless piece of paper and slam-dunk it in the bin! As you can imagine, this climax is quite funny since you’ve built it up for so long they expected you to win. Continuing with his presentation; “How many of you play the national lottery?” Hands shoot up all over the place. “Don’t worry, we are all suckers together”

© 2007 Ken Dyne, All Rights Reserved

Believe it or not this is another funny line but also serves the purpose of building rapport. I have grown out of the persona of being the smart-alec know-all who has superior knowledge to my audience. Instead I like them to feel that we’re all the same. Hence why I preach that anyone can do what I do, with the right training and commitment. I tend to build in this ‘kind’ of line throughout my show in order to maintain the likeability and sustain rapport. “I have a black bag here, it will serve as our lotto machine for tonight. Inside there are the famous lotto balls, each with a different number on it. I’m hoping that we’re going to be lucky tonight and win the BIG prize by picking the matching combination that will match my BIG ticket.” Here I draw attention to a jumbo sized lotto ticket. The audience can only see the back of the ticket at the moment, with the big lotto logo on it. I have it printed on a heavy duty foam board by a printer (if you’re in the UK go to www.ukflyers.com and tell them Kennedy sent you). I approach a person in the front row, “I noticed you raised your hand when I asked who played the lottery, so would you please act as the hand of fate itself by reaching in to this bag and removing any one of the balls. Only, when you do please keep tight hold of it so that no one, not even you know which ball you took. Go ahead, dig deep.” She shoves her hand in side of the bag, after a moment her hand reappears from the bag, fist clenched tightly. I then direct her to take a seat in one of the six chairs on the stage, reminding her not to look just yet but to keep the surprise for a little longer. I then approach a second person, this time a gentleman. I talk briefly about how I noticed that he too raised his hand earlier. After some nice byplay around the biggest win he ever made on the lotto I have him too reach in to the black sack, remove a ball and then take a seat on stage. I repeat this process until all six chairs are occupied on stage. What I find great about this is that you don’t really run in to the danger of the people refusing to come up and join you (there are ways of dealing with that and a great resource is Andy Nyman’s DVD ‘Get Nyman’ where he talks about his strategy for dealing with and avoiding this). I now talk about how fair the conditions of the test were, how they could have chosen any ball at all and that no one, not even the person holding it knows which ball they hold. Now this is an important presentational moment. I have played around with different ways of revealing the prediction and found that what I’m about to show you, is the way I receive the greatest reaction.

© 2007 Ken Dyne, All Rights Reserved

I bring the jumbo lotto ticket downstage, against my body so that the people on stage can not get a premature glimpse at what it says. At this point I turn the lotto ticket around so that the audience at large can clearly see the numbers, but the on stage spectators can not. The numbers are, for example:

19 , 1 , 32 , 11, 3 , 7 (N.B. I realise that on a normal lotto ticket these will have been put in to numerical order. However in this prediction I am also predicting the order. My experience so far with this tells me that the discrepancy doesn’t matter a bean to the audience) Addressing the first person in the row I say something like, “Now Marie, I’d like you to open your hand for the first time and read out loud the number on the ball you chose.” She does and it’s the number 19. The audience sit up in their chairs. Each person in the row reveals their ball and yes, they have chosen the correct ball and are sitting in the right order on stage. A major strength of this is that the audience at large are able to witness the fulfilment of the prophecy essentially AS IT HAPPENS. It really is a very strong effect. So to summarise, the audience have just witnessed: The performer introduce a bag of lottery balls, 49 in total. He has six people select a ball each and stand in a random order. The performer doesn’t know who has which ball as they are concealed in the hands of the volunteers throughout. The performer accurately predicted which balls would be removed and in which order the people would stand! Before I move on to the explanation I want you to think about how you would achieve this. THEN consider the following conditions under which my method allows us to work: -

There are NO secret compartments in the bag. There are NO balls added or taken away at any time. The choice of balls is COMPLETELY fair. The balls may be kept by the volunteers. There is NO pre-show. There is only one prediction and it is un-gaffed.

© 2007 Ken Dyne, All Rights Reserved

Tell Me Your Secrets When I came up with this I was very excited. There are two methods at work here. One of them is my time tested, favourite method of dual reality and the other is a physical method that makes it impossible for everyone. I will admit that the piece is marginally more incredible for the audience than for the spectators, but believe me they will still be very impressed. The reason I know this is because originally I performed it without the dual reality and added the DR later. First I will deal with the dual reality, so that you can see what is REALLY going on here. The audience at large are witnessing something that they believe to be true down to their own assumptions, that in actual fact is not the case at all. That ‘thing’ is that they believe there are 49 balls in play. In fact there are only 6. The effect for the audience has been outlined on the previous page, the effect for our participants is still as puzzling; They believe the effect is simply that they are removing one of the six balls and some how you are able to know which ball they have taken. The reason the audience believe there to be 49 balls is because of a few small factors which nudge them in the right direction: 1. The presentational premise of the National Lottery that this entire piece is built upon. You even bring attention to the fact that there are 49 different balls, during the presentation. This sets up the idea in their minds that since you are attempting to apparently influence the lotto draw, then you too must be using 49 different balls. 2. The bag. The material my bag is made from is heavy duty theatrical drape material. It is thick woollen cloth that they use for black out curtains and the ‘legs; of the stage. When sewn in to a bag it looks like it contains a lot of balls. In addition, the bag is of a good size, large enough to easily hold 49 of the balls. Put both of these factors together and your audience will jump to the conclusion that there are 49 balls in that bag, even though you never outwardly say that. You simply suggest it. So that is mystery one out of the way. Of course it is not THE biggest mystery of them all. It’s all well and good that the bag only contains balls numbered 1, 3, 7, 11, 19 and 32 but how on earth do we get the right people to stand in the right order to match the prediction?

© 2007 Ken Dyne, All Rights Reserved

Simply put, the placement of the people is a bold manoeuvre by the performer. You tell them which chair to sit in to match the prediction. I realise this may sound daunting, but as soon as you lose that magician’s guilt it wont matter at all. It REALLY doesn’t matter that you tell them where to sit because you can not possibly know which numbered ball they have. After all it’s being held tightly in their fist all the time. That is where the real physical mystery occurs. This mystery works for both the audience AND the people on stage. In fact to the participants it may very well be what the effect is about. For this we go back to the original routine I performed. In the original routine I took a black bag and five different coloured balls. After dropping the five balls in to the bag I had five volunteers take a ball each and hide it in their hand. After some by-play about reading body language I would reveal who had what ball. Of course I much prefer the Lottery presentation as it has so much more to offer, the dual reality, the idea of 49 different balls AND perfect rational for the original method. Have you worked it out yet? Each of the balls, as well as having a different number printed on it, each one is a different colour. It is the colour of the ball YOU are going to be interested in, but the audience will not pay a single bit of attention too as the attention and focus is placed on the numbers. So, if you were to know which colour ball a person removes from the bag (which is much easier than noting the number) then you would be able to simply direct that person to the correct seat to fulfil the prediction. The problem is, how on earth do you find out which colour they took? Again that’s the wrong way to be looking at it. You are not going to be interested in which one they took, but rather which balls remain. If you know which are left in the bag you can easily work out which colour is missing. I played with several ways of doing this, I would peer down in to the bag to have a look. I wasn’t comfortable with it, in a mentalism performance you can not afford to be getting caught when you’re apparently the real deal! The method I use goes back so far that I can’t find an original source, so it’s a classic. The bag has a window cut out of it across in the side that’s facing the performer. The window goes the full width of the back-side of the bag and is around an inch and a half high. (see illustration on next page)

© 2007 Ken Dyne, All Rights Reserved

Now you are easily able to see the six coloured balls lying across the bottom of the bag. To make the window on my bag I cut out the rectangle on the one side in the correct position and then stitched a panel of mesh material over it. This way the balls will not fall out yet I can see straight into the bag. So let me run through the routine as far as the explanation is concerned.

© 2007 Ken Dyne, All Rights Reserved

Explain Yourself The wonder worker talks about the National Lottery, with a presentation that suits him (or her). It’s important for the dual reality that they mention the number of balls used in the Lottery draw as this will leave the indirect suggestion that since you are going to attempt to influence a lottery just like that, that you too are using that number of balls. “There are 49 coloured balls, fizzing about right in front of your eyes and they swirl around that big glass dome. The tense music...” And then “I have a black bag here, it will serve as our lotto machine for tonight. Inside there are the famous lotto balls, each with a different number on it. I’m hoping that we’re going to be lucky tonight and win the BIG prize.” I hope you can see how you indirectly refer to the black bag as the lottery drawing machine, that you just stated contains 49 different numbered balls. When you say “inside are the famous lotto balls” the audience are interpreting that as “the same 49 that we see in the National Lottery”. That is what you are simply SUGGESTING, thus when your participants plunge their hands in the bag it makes perfect sense that there are only 6. The first person is asked to put her hand in to the bag and “give the balls a jiggle”, this is a funny line. The reason I like to use a comical line when they put their hand in the bag is because when they put their hand in the bag they are going to find there are only 6 balls and I don’t want that showing on their face. So I cover that with a joke, it makes them forget about what they’re doing and also means I control their facial expression to something I want. I tell them to keep tight hold of the ball so that no one can see which one they got. As I say that I pull the bag away from her, forcing her to quickly grab a ball if in fact she hasn’t yet. As I move back I have ample opportunity to tip the bag, settling the remaining balls on the bottom, and look at which ball is missing. I’ll come on to how I remember which colour has what number on it, in the next section. Now I know which numbered ball she has. I then simply take her by the hand and sit her in the position she needs to be in. For example if my prediction is 19, 1, 32, 11, 3, 7 and I know the participant is holding ball number ‘1’ I will sit her in the chair second from the left. Similarly if I know that she’s holding number 11 I will sit her in the 4th chair from the left.

© 2007 Ken Dyne, All Rights Reserved

You may well think that placing them in this strange way might arouse suspicion, in reality it can not because how on earth could you know the number she is holding? You can’t. However so that this is adaptable to more people’s styles, here are some ways I cover placing them: As I escort her to the stage by the hand that is not occupied with a ball, I point to two chairs – the one that I want her to sit in and a random one. I point to them one at a time and say “what’s it to be, electric chair or a weight falling from the sky?” Again this is a comedy line and she will make a choice. Fifty percent of the time (in fact I have found more frequently than that) she will choose the right chair and you have a wonderful moment where she chose the chair herself. On the occasions that she chooses the wrong chair I just say something like “you’re not getting off that easily” and point to the chair I want her to sit in. Now to the second participant. Again I approach him, ask him to shove his hand in to the bag and make a comment about mixing them. Depending on the audience I might say “do you always swish a man’s balls on the first request”, of course that’s too crude for some audiences, but for comedy clubs it’s a perfectly fine piece of business. Again he takes one of the balls out of the bag and as I go to take him by the hand I make a jovial comment like “You can come yourself...”, again the comedy covers the fact that I look down at the window in the bag to note which ball he has taken. I take mental note of that and have him sit in the correct seat. Approaching the third volunteer I take a deep breath as if to go in to the same patter again then spurt out “you know the drill!”. Again a laugh. She takes a ball, I note which one and have her sit in the correct position to match the prediction. A little subtlety I often add in to sell the fact that there really is a choice of balls in the bag for each person is to have them change their mind. Offer them the chance to throw their ball back in and take one of the others. And so it goes on until five of the chairs are occupied. When I originally came up with the routine I considered dropping in an extra ball so that the final spectator would still have a choice, I thought about having some kind of change bag system in the bag that would allow me to give her the choice of two balls. All of this went through my head and in fact this sticking point meant that the routine stayed on the shelf for around a year. I was working on a new show where I wanted the material to be pretty much original and thought back to the Lottery routine. Then I came up with the solution and it’s so simple I don’t know why I didn’t think of it.

© 2007 Ken Dyne, All Rights Reserved

There is no need for an extra ball, change bag or anything like that at all. It’s all in the words. As you approach the final spectator you simply say, “You have a lot less choice than everyone else, will you please reach in and take your ball”. She reaches in and takes it, no questions asked and no discrepancies in the dual reality. The audience can still believe that she is reaching in and choosing a ball for herself among all the others, yet she hears me saying that’s he should reach in and take the ball that the others left her. The fact that I even precede that with “you have a lot less choice”, she just thinks I’m being kind. The audience acknowledge that of course she has less choice, because five of the balls have been taken out already. I’ve even been so bold as to say “and you have least choice of all”. The audience can see how that makes sense and when she reaches in she can see that you were just being witty as she really has no choice at all. It’s very simple and I like simple because less can go wrong. Once she has taken the ball I gesture to the stage and say “you can sit in any chair you’d like,” said tongue in cheek this is pretty funny. Now the situation is this: You have had six people take a ball at random from your black bag. As they have taken them you have looked at the balls that remain in the bag and deduced which ball they took. Then, based on that information you positioned them so that they are in the correct place to match the prediction. All that remains is to reveal your prediction. Quick aside: Throughout the presentation I am constantly telling them all to “hold your balls tight”, “clench your fists, I don’t want anyone knowing who got what” and things like that. The reason I do this perhaps to the degree of overkill is because that is what I want people to remember. I want them to recall that everyone was holding the balls tight in their hands. PLUS by drawing attention to the people’s hands in this way of apparently creating ‘security’ or ‘test conditions’ as I like to call it, I am misdirecting everyone away from the method (the bag). It’s important that we as performers remember that we apparently do NOT know which number each person is holding in their hand. So when you go in to the ‘reveal’ phase of the routine you need to remember that you must act as if you are hoping it all worked out. I tried all ways of revealing the prediction; I had it on the back of their chairs. It looked messy, people trying to turn their chairs around with one hand, dropping the balls, picking up each other’s balls and just generally screwing up the effect. It didn’t work.

© 2007 Ken Dyne, All Rights Reserved

So I settled on the idea that after having them all stand, I move my jumbo prediction down stage, keeping it close to my body so that the on stage volunteers can not see it prematurely, then turn it round for the audience to see. The on stage assistants still can not see the prediction. Diagram below illustrates this better:

Volunteers

Performer Prediction

- Audience -

Now the audience can clearly see the prediction I have the first person on stage open their hand “for the very first time and read out the number on the ball that you chose” the audience then realise that it is the same number that is in the first position on the prediction. This then continues, getting more and more rapid as we near the end of the row, finally the whole thing matches, I ask them all to take a well deserved round of applause and re-take their seats. I always give them the balls to keep as souvenirs of their good work.

© 2007 Ken Dyne, All Rights Reserved

Colour By Numbers There are two ways to remember which number is on which coloured ball and thus ensure you place the right person in the right place for your final revelation. Before I go in to detail about which colour has what number on it and the memory method I use I just want to look at another subtlety. Although the balls are coloured I don’t make them bright colours as I don’t want to bring attention to the fact. So instead if using bright red, bright blue and green I have painted the balls with more pastel shades that from a distance of any sort make the whole set look white. What’s great about this is that the audience don’t recognise the fact they are different colours. PLUS since the bag you are using is black, the colours will be easier to distinguish between when inside due to the high contrast. Now for the memory work. The numbers I use are 19, 1, 32, 11, 3, and 7. 1 rhymes with scone. You imagine a freshly bakes scone on a plate, its bright golden yellow pastry. 1 = yellow 3 rhymes with tree, trees have green leaves. 3 = green 7 rhymes with heaven. You imagine going up to heaven and seeing the pale blue sky as you ascend. 7 = blue 11, rhymes with Kevin. I have a gay friend called Kevin who always wears a purple shirt. 11 = purple 19, rhymes with fighting. You imagine a boxing fight and deep red blood everywhere. 19 = red 32, rhymes with dirty shoe. Imagine you’ve walked through a muddy field where there’s been a lot of clay in the soil. 32 = grey. At a glance: 1 = Yellow 3 = Green 7 = Blue 11 = Purple 19 = Red 32 = Gray Of course if you have better ways of remembering each of the colours and numbers you do what you feel best. Similarly if you want to use different numbers for your final prediction that’s advised too, otherwise there will be a lot of us predicting the same things and that WOULD be weird.

© 2007 Ken Dyne, All Rights Reserved

Credits I’d like to thank: David Berglas, it was he who inspired the idea of making them sit where I wanted them too.

© 2007 Ken Dyne, All Rights Reserved

Thank You Again Thank you again for your interest in this, I really hope you enjoyed it and get as much leg work out of this routine as I have done and will continue to. In the coming weeks and months I am going to be releasing my version of the bank night routine that up until now I’ve kept only for my lectures, as you can tell I am very excited about it. Once again, thank you. Best thoughts, Ken Dyne

© 2007 Ken Dyne, All Rights Reserved

Also From The Author Thoughts So Far Tell Tale Factor Killers Future Visions Natural Lottery

© 2007 Ken Dyne, All Rights Reserved