Free The Magic Square - Tricking Your Way to Mental Superpowers by Lewis Smile Page A

Square, Step by Step
    YOU: Hey buddy, think of a number between 1 and 50.
    FRIEND: OK. I've got one.
    YOU: 37?
    FRIEND: No, 39! Close!
    YOU: OK, watch this...
    [You grab your pen and a bit of paper, while you work out that 39 - 20 is 19, minus another 1 is 18. Magic Number = 18. You write 18 in the correct spot, and start filling in the other numbers in a random order. When you've filled in all 16 squares, hand them the magic square and look proud. They will have no idea what's happening.]
    FRIEND: I have no idea what's happening.
    YOU: Check this out... The top row, 11 + 8 + 18 + 2 adds up to your number... as does every other horizontal row...
    FRIEND: OK.
    YOU: And every vertical column does too! See? 11 + 19 + 4 + 5...? 8 + 1 + 20 + 10...? 18 + 12 + 6 + 3...? 2 + 7 + 9 + 21...? It's all your number. This square IS your number!
    FRIEND: What...
    YOU: Let me show you what else it does... the diagonals... the corners... each block of 4... each mirror...
    FRIEND: You're an alien.
    YOU: [GRINNING]
    FRIEND: My children's children will be hearing about this. I want to have your babies.

SOME BULLSHIT EXPLANATIONS
    Lies. Damn lies. I don't want realism. I want magic!

When you start using this trick to impress everyone you ever meet, you will have people begging you for an explanation.
    Do you want to teach them how to do it themselves? Do you want to give a magician-style answer and keep the mystery? Do you want to pretend you have superpowers? Do you want to pretend to be a maths genius?
    Here are some suggestions:
    "I mostly just go with my gut, and check it as I go along, but mostly I just go with the numbers that feel right..."
    "I just see it in my head, I don't really know how I do it."
    "While it does look good, I guess it's not that impressive. I've been able to do it ever since I was a kid."
    "Perception is rooted in the back of our minds. It's inaccessible. I'm not really sure how I do it."
    "Pythagoras said that number is the origin of all things, and certainly the law of number is the key that unlocks the secrets of the universe. A magic square seems to me to contain a lesson of great value in being a palpable instance of the symmetry of mathematics, throwing thereby a clear light upon the order that pervades the universe wherever we turn, in the infinitesimally small interrelations of atoms as well as in the immeasurable domain of the starry heavens, an order which, although of a different kind and still more intricate, is also traceable in the development of organised life, and even in the complex domain of human action."

FAKE BEING SMART
    "Wear the old coat and buy the new book."
- Austin Phelps

The Magic Square is part of the 'Fake Being Smart' series...
    Why actually be smart, when you can just fake it . Only kidding. (No I'm not.) (Maybe...)
    Other titles in this series so far include:
    * The Memory Palace - Learn Anything and Everything (Starting With Shakespeare and Dickens)
Half an hour from the instant you start reading The Memory Palace you will be able to recite, forwards and backwards, the titles of all of Shakespeare's plays, then Dickens' novels too, for good measure. Through actual demonstration, you will have mastery of the Memory Palace technique that will allow you to do this with any topic of your choosing. Marvellous.
    * The Human Calendar - How To Calculate The Day For Any Date (In Your Head)
Like mentalists, magicians, and some autistic savants, in 'Human Calendar' you will learn the most unfathomable party trick of all. Someone tells you a date (their birthday, anniversary, historical event, or even dates into the future) and you announce, after a few seconds, the day of the week the date falls on. It's a seemingly untouchable level of odd genius , and with a bit of practice you can make it seem almost automatic. Great for making people gape at you.
    More titles will be added over time, but you can download these two right now while the prices are still low.

GOODBYE
    "Oh oh it's magic,