AU Professor Controls Students Minds Through Magic

Professor Barry Gordemer waves his hand over the five piles of cards as performs the magic trick "Mental Poker" for his Writing for Communication class as Kirsten Khlor (left) and Chloe Deschellis (right) watch. (Photo by Jaclyn Merica)

“The force is strong with this one.” The Sort of Amazing Barry, also known as American University School of Communication professor, Barry Gordemer amazes students by performing the Scottish magic trick, mental poker. Gordemer came into his Writing for Communication class and told his students that they were going to experience a “magical” or mind blowing” event in class that Thursday.

Before Gordemer worked for National Public Radio, found his own puppet company and became an adjunct professor at AU, he was a professional magician. Gordemer says he wanted to become a magician because he “wanted to learn how to control people’s minds.” He got this inspiration from the original “Star Wars” series. He wanted to perform Jedi mind tricks like Obi Wan-Kenobi.

So, Gordemer performed one for his class. He first split the class up into four separate groups. Then, each group was given five cards. They then had to silently select one and memorize it. When the group was selecting their cards, the professor’s back was toward the students. Then, Gordemer collected the cards and shuffled them in no particular order and placed them into separate rows. He then called out one member from each group ask asked him or her to tell him which pile his or her group’s card was in while Gordemer waved his hand over the cards. When the member of the group said, “stop,” Gordemer took a guess at which card the group picked. Then he asked the group if a certain card was the card they selected. Every time Gordemer guessed the card, he was right.

But, the most magical part of the whole trick was the last group’s card. When it was time for Shavawn White, who was the third group’s representative, to select the card which was an ace of clubs, Gordemer said “Can I come back to you?” and gave White an envelope to hold on to. The rest of the class was confused. I thought that he messed up the trick. But, Gordemer was able to guess the other group’s cards correctly. Then after he finished guessing all of the cards, he asked White to open up the envelope. White opened up the envelope and found a piece of paper. On that piece of paper, had a drawing of the card that they chose. That was the trick. 

But after he performed this “mind blowing event”, Gordemer talked more about his personal reaction to the trick. The class asked how he does the trick. But, like a good magician, they never ruin the magic. He was happy to talk about why he performs this moment of magic. “This trick has no logical explanation. I’m still amazed it works. How could I know what you’re thinking?” The fact that Gordemer still doesn’t know how he does the trick is the magic behind it all.