Solid Sponge

Because of all the fan mail I have been getting in relation to the sponge ball routine I mentioned in an earlier post I have decided to describe it for your own performing pleasure. You only need two balls and a piece of wrapped candy. I use a minty.

1 Put everything, including your parole card, your right pants pocket
2 At some point in the moments before you want to start this sensation of sponge reach into your pocket and secretly take one of the balls out in the famous 'Sponge Ball Palm'
3 Produce it from behind someone's ear.
4 Really place it from your right hand into your left and say "Do you know what happens when you put a ball in your and and squeeze?" Everyone says "It vanishes" or words to that effect. At this point you open the hand to show that it is still there and say "no it stays there...It's called reality" Everyone laughs and you seize the moment to perform a false transfer from the right to the left again.
5 Position check then is that the ball is in the right when everyone thinks it is in the left.
6 Reach into your pocket with the palmed ball and pretend to take another two out. One of these is the second ball and the other is simply the one you had palmed already.
7 What follows is something I have fooled loads of magicians with (including, I might add Mr Sponge Ball himself, Glenn Hamilton). You say "Another two in the pocket that makes three. OK one on the table and two in the hand" You put one of the two balls on the table and place the other on the back of knuckel that they think the 'First?' ball is in.
8 You grab this ball with the right hand and snatch the hand away to the side but in the same action you place and leave the sponge in the LEFT hand. You have to do this really quickly so that it does not register that there is actually only one ball in play. At this point (and this is a real nice psychological ruse) the audience should believe that you have a ball in each hand. Especially when you point to the left fist with a suspicious closed right fist and say "OK two balls here"
9 The point is that they have MISSED the ruse completely. Thi is because of Time Misdirection. More about this in a second. You actually only have one ball in the hands. You now say "One ball will jump from my left to my right" make a gesture with the closed fists and then open your left hand to reveal one ball. Most people will think theya are on to you (including Glenn Hamilton) and assume you just have another ball in the left. I open the left and say "Look empty. Did that confuse you?" they usually say yes.
10 False transfer the ball in the hand from the right to left again and then hand the spec two as one to hold.
11 I do a bit of a delay here. Most people who know me and know that I love to play around with the psychology of magic will tell you of the importance I place on Time Misdirection. This is a classic example of this theory at work.
12 Instead of vanishing my ball and having them find it in their hands straight away I add an extra frame to the video tape. Open your hand and say that the ball is invisible. pretend to take it with right hand and place it behind their ear (this is a throw back from producing it behind their ear at the top) reach into your pocket and say. "This third ball, the one from before that vanished, is the one that I will use. Quickly pretend to place a ball from your right into your laft. say "You don't believe I have a ball here do you? your right (open your empty left hand) it's actually in your hand" They open their hand and discover two. the delay on this is just long enough for it to sell and sell big.
13 You say "Ok let's finish with a quick observation test. One in the hand" false transfer a ball. One in the pocket. take the next ball, add the palmed one to it and dump them both in the pocket grabbing the candy at the same time. the hand comes out secretly palming the minty. "and one behind your ear" You pretend to grab the invisible ball from behind their ear and put that in the left hand too. What you really do is secretly drop the candy in there. "How many balls in the hand?"
14 Whatever they say open the hand to reveal the candy. You say "wrong you pathetic idiot. But here's some awful, month old candy for you to chew on while you think about what you are doing with your life watching a guy ij a cheap suit play with balls made out of foam"

as an alternative to candy you could of course use a large sponge load or even a poisonous insect.