New way of mind reading enthralls, educates children

Mind reading: Blindfolded children encircle the magician during the magic show at the Summer School 2009 in Thiruvananthapuram.

Thiruvananthapuram: Summer School 2009 organised by the State Public Library here, marked a magical beginning on 20th of April. Sprinkling magic to the inaugural ceremony, was Gopinath Muthukad. ‘Magic uncle’ was there with a new experimentation of reading minds of a group of his young fans by adeptly applying psychology and mathematics.

A shallow vessel of bell-metal carrying 9999 tokens of different four digit numbers were kept in the middle of the audience. The audience comprising of children, their parents, staffs of the Library and invited guests could see on the stage three writing boards, the magician and his assistants. Six children - three girls and three boys - randomly selected from the audience, entered the stage. Blindfolded, these children formed a human chain around the magician. Magician was then in a mood of deep contemplation. A few seconds of silence prevailed.

(Photo below) The Minister examining the prediction standing near 'Uruli' a traditional kind of shallow vessel in which are heaped 9999 differently numbered tokens.



Touching on their heads, the magician entered into the most important part: writing a prediction through reading the minds of children. He apparently did it, folded the prediction paper and inserted it into a white envelop. Education Minister, M.A. Baby was invited to the stage. Adding suspense, the Minister kept the cover suspend over the audience by clipping it at the tip of a chain.

The blindfolds were then removed and children were allowed to randomly pick two tokens each, from the broad vessel. Four-digit numbers found on their tokens were then written over two black boards on two sides, by the children. There were six numbers on one side and six on the other.

Then it was the turn of the former Chief Secretary of Kerala, C.P. Nair and the State Librarian, P. Suprabha. They summed up each set of numbers to obtain 33824 on one side and 19744 on the other. The sum total of these two numbers - 53568 - was also written on a board kept in the middle.

The Minister, on request of the magician, opened the suspending cover and took out the paper carrying the prediction. Entire audience watched with a bated breath as the minister announced through mike, the numbers he found on the paper. It was exactly, 53568. A thunderous clap followed and the magician stood in a shower of praise.


Minister's praise for the successful magician.

Elated, Mr. Muthukad gave this message to the children: “What I have done is purely magic based on mathematics and psychology. I do not have any superhuman power. Next time when you come to know about a prediction, please think about the possible science behind it, magic contained it.”

The minister said that Mr. Muthukad’s magic show was appropriate to the occasion since 2009 was the year of science, when the whole world celebrated the 200th birth anniversary of Charles Darvin.