Webster Hall, which usually hosts speeches and concerts, was filled with some distinctly different vibes Friday night. Psychic Craig Karges drew a large crowd to his unusual show.
Karges, who called himself a "psychic entertainer," openly admitted the acts he performed were enhanced for entertainment purposes.
His most believable act was one in which he asked for information from four audience members about their favorite car.
The first student gave the make of the car - an Infinity G20. The second student offered bright red as the color. LL1111 was the license plate number the third student gave. The last student, probably looking for a bargain, set the price of the car at $16,767.
Karges then asked another audience member to take a sealed envelope Karges had in his wallet, open the envelope and read the paper in it.
The information on the paper was identical to the information given by the students.
An uncomfortable laugh came form the audience.
In another act, which seemed much more like an experiment one might do in psychology class, he asked everyone in the audience to think of a two-digit number above 50 in which both digits were even, but not the same.
He said statistically one in eight people should have chosen the number he called out, but when he asked the people who had chosen 68 as their number, over half the people in the room raised their hands.
Another act involved the audience members' writing down some personal information on a slip of paper.
He told audience members to write their name, a personal number like a phone or social security number, and a thought.
Karges called out the initials D.M. and three male students stood up. He then called out whatever came into his mind. He said the name of one of the men's fathers.
In a similar exercise later in the program, he told each member of the audience to think intently about one thing. Karges called out people's names or initials along with what they were thinking about. The thoughts ranged from family members to guacamole.
He also pointed out that the people who chose 68 tended to be in groups around the room.Karges also bills himself as a psychic magician.
In one of his magic tricks, Karges asked an audience member to punch several four-digit numbers into a calculator. After awhile, he asked her to guess how many numbers she had entered and then divide by that number to get an average.
He asked another audience member to hold a folded, hinged slate that had a piece of chalk sandwiched between it.
Concentrating, Karges, got the chalk to write the number, that Karges had not seen, on the slate "by itself."
His final act was impressive. He called upon an audience member to put his paycheck in an envelope and put two pieces of white paper in two other envelopes. The female audience member then numbered the envelopes.
She then shuffled them behind her back. Karges chose two envelopes and ignited them. He said he had been wrong only three times before and each time, the schools where he had performed ended up with a free show.
But this show did not become the fourth. He opened the last remaining envelope and within it was the check.
The show, sponsored by the College Programming board, was put on in a nearly crowded Webster Hall on Friday at 8 p.m.
