The Experimentalist
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[Music] next we introduce all 630 of you in this room to a mystery man New Yorker magazine writes "If a man combines alchemy soothsaying and a cheerful disregard for gravity in his act he can't expect to be left alone when the show is over Inevitably someone is going to come up to him and buttonhole him and insist that he repeat some trick or another I guarantee you you're going to want to do this when our next guest finishes Gerard Sahe calls himself the experimentalist He makes pens and eyeglasses and long stem roses jump seemingly of their own accord Out of people's hands he changes the times on their watches He bends keys and coins while they are still in their owner's suspicious grip At dinner the other
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night he asked me to take my glasses off and hold them in my hand and I did Just like this he waved his hands on either side of mine and my glasses tipped up just like that Out of nowhere I did nothing It was astonishing So please you're about to enter the zone of the experimentalist Please welcome Gerard Sanhei [Music] Wonderful Thank you Good afternoon I think time is a mystery So we're in the afternoon now I guess um it's hard to follow everything that's followed because my theme is that I'm exploring today is life is not a transaction So I'm trying to be here and I'm also trying to let in everything
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that's come before especially this last presentation So but I think it relates to what we're going to go into So and I'm a man of mystery because mystery is the ground of existence It's what allows us to do all the things we do to have hope and for it to be real because mystery is that place where everything is possible and life is going into the future Uh I'm an educator actually Um and I'm a mentalist it says here um and as an educator um I want education not to be a transaction for students So today here as well I'm going to inspire for us to contemplate that with a little mystery So I would like a volunteer someone come up and come on up Yeah Very good Um I've asked for some uh spoons
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and some wine glasses Come on up There's some stairs there Oh very athletic Thank you Gerard Hi Um come on up Stand right here Um uh hold this between your hands like this Do you believe in telekinesis Yes Yes That's great All right But I don't know if I believe I'm just in the mystery you know Could be real it could be not real but we'll try something This is um if you Oh was that you or no Was that me Uh how many of you believe in telekinesis Maybe not Let me just show you something All right that's good Here Uh you can keep that Um do you want to bend it back or Oh you're strong Okay let's try something harder then All right I put that back I hold it again like this between your hands Elbows straight Now imagine energy coming out
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from your feet into your hands And uh you might feel a little something I'm going to try and twist the glass And you've heard that glass is liquid So we could bend it It's hot It's liquid right Uh I'm not going to make it hot Don't worry Uh let's try this I'm going to try and bend it Do you feel it bending No No Yeah No Yeah Yeah It's bending Yes Relax a little bit It'll bend more if you relax Okay Let go Let's see Could we have the camera on this Let's get a little magnification Uh no cameras I want people to be able to see it All right keep that We'll actually Here we go Here's the camera Uh can we get the Ben in there All right Uh it's bent
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Thank you very much Sorry I thought the camera was on Thank you Um in education um what makes us human is uh you know as Jod was laying out the dangers of alternate realities We already have alternate reality and social media Imagine these bots that are going to create a whole new reality that may seem much more attractive to our current reality to young people's current realities And the antidote to that for me is what makes us human but not reduced to a set of skills It's the depth of what that means Like for instance as Ken laid out this museum that paints the big picture of history and civilization that is a part of what makes us human that connects us to something bigger than ourselves For instance um I'd like um to try Are there
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any families here Okay back there Could you come up please And then while they're coming up I'd like all of you to think of a number I'm going to try and project a number out there uh between uh it's an even number two digits both even And it's between 50 and 100 Now I'm going to throw this airplane out And whoever this airplane comes closest to I'm going to reveal your deepest darkest secret All right The ones who clap are the ones with the biggest secret So I'm going to come aim in that direction Oh she's ready Okay let's see what the universe I let the universe decide because if I chose somebody and reveal their secret that would be really rude right All right let's do this Here we go Oh he ducked All right Could I have the family
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come on up Come on up We're just All right Do you have a number sir in your mind Did you think of a number What number did you think of 66 Oh very close Open it Look it was 68 How many of you got it All right 66 Very close though All right Hi Gerard Nice to meet you All right Um do you like the theme so far Yeah If I ask you as a young person how old are you I'm 16 16 If I asked you in a little bit to say why it's important that life is not a transaction will you be willing to say something Just think about it If you want to you can All right Uh come on up I I'd like you both all three of you I want to this is a synchronicity experiment that I'm doing with them We have husband and wife and daughter All
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right Beautiful So um I'll give you a couple of these Couple for you a couple for you and uh take a marker So I want you to hold two things that inspire you in your mind I'm going to ask you in a minute to write the first one down and I want you to uh draw the picture that that inspire That's something that you were inspired to picture in your mind All right So um as a synchrony experiment mom dad if you all think about something that really inspires you in life can you share something Art Art Beautiful Could I hear something else Picture Future Nature All right That's enough All right That's not what you guys are thinking right Interesting because
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there's a synergistic component here So I'm getting that and you don't know what each other are thinking I'm getting that I just want to focus on the first thing that came to your mind I'm getting that it starts with a letter F for both of you The second letter is A Right So but you're not thinking of the same thing It's just the synergy that you both thought of people in your lives Did you think of your father You thought of your father and you thought of your family Is that right Yes Okay Isn't that interesting the connection between the two of you What else did you think of What was the second thing Uh Mike uh the second thing I thought of was
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mankind's ability to create acts of kindness Beautiful So we're going to translate that into your daughter now Mankind's ability to create Do you have Have you created something already No don't start yet then Um can I have a uh Don't start yet I'm going to draw Turn around Don't look All right So man's ability to create and okay you can start but face me so I can't see what you're doing Um all right Do we have action here Yeah Very good Now wouldn't it be amazing if somehow this all came together in one synergistic moment revealing the hidden nature of existence All right I'm just an artist so don't
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take it too seriously Um how are we doing You ready Shall we Do you want to see what I did Did I do well Yes Yes Wow All right So um as a representation we have creation and isn't this a really reflection of kindness Doesn't she look like a very kind young woman Right All right Give him a hand So lastly um if you choose not to say anything about why a um life is not a transaction I'm going to have to put one of your parents on the spot You prefer that All right So it's up to to you Oh honey Oh honey Um see this is part of the beauty
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of Think about it for a second This is part of the beauty of this is what makes me really nervous about doing what I'm doing because I I don't feel authentic representing this theme if I lay it all out and I have it all planned out in a way that you're going to get exactly what I'm thinking So that's part of the beauty of the nontransactional dimension of life So you taking a risk to share what you will be an expression of that Well I think it was just amazing how you knew exactly what we were thinking without knowing you know us at all Um and so to me that just leads to life is not a transaction Just things come out of anywhere to surprise you Ah that's really beautiful So thank you very much for coming I think that was an incredible message that I'm going to build on Thank you Please give him a hand
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things come out of anywhere What a beautiful expression of what makes life not be a transaction because it is the room that we make for things that might come out that we didn't expect for the vastness of life for the mystery of life for the mystery of who our kids are if we um part of um my own experience in relationship is when I I got married late in life I got married at 50 Um but I was like I had gotten mature a little bit by that time You know you have time to figure out life a little bit So I realized I've always related to women in my in a relationship where I felt like I basically knew who they were I knew what I loved about them and I knew what I didn't like about them And I decided this time when I was going to
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get married I made a commitment to myself I'm not going to put my wife in the box And it's an amazing journey now because I'm constantly uncovering new things things are coming that I didn't expect Things are coming out of me also that I didn't expect and things are coming out of her So that's part of the beauty of not holding everything as a transaction Of course we need those but we also need to be free Let the spirits soar We need our kids to be free and let their spirits soarses We don't want them to go to school just to do this transaction of knowledge We want them to go to school and also embrace life Embrace who they are Embrace the future All right So now we need a little more mystery because I'm getting a little too serious So who caught the plane there I said yes Proudly he shows it I said I was going
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to re reveal your deepest darkest secret Come on up you are um coming to contribute to the non-transactional dimension of this experience Gerard nice to meet you Nice to meet you too Paul All right Um is there anything you want to add to the theme I just can't wait Okay that's great Oh you can't wait for me to reveal your secret Give it your best try Really Okay All right This is a challenge I accept Um but um I'm serious It's a secret So what I want you to do just to respect you know we we we have to respect boundaries Um but come close to them like we did in the opening this very moving opening this morning the boundaries of the Rio And so I want you to just to respect your privacy come on over here Um I want
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you to share like a code word for your secret Like give me like a word like a code word for your secret Something that wouldn't reveal what your secret is about So like I asked Kissinger once and he said gate I was like really You know like try to pick something that's not obvious Child Child All right Now some of you are probably wondering out there I can already hear you thinking like Jesus what is his secret Uh don't worry I'm not going to reveal it But I am going to give you evidence that I know what your secret was May I Here I have a card and I wrote something secretly on the back of it to indicate to you that I know your secret Read it to yourself Do I know your secret Okay Yes Don't say anything Thank you very much I appreciate you Uh my thank
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you Yeah All right Ah I know Uh this is the boundaries where reality So uh somebody told me once they say you should tell people during the day you help kids figure out reality embrace reality and at night which is usually when I do these kinds of things I had to figure out a way to make a living you know in the nonprofit world So at night I mess with people's reality But I'm not But it's not entirely true because in the space that we have for what we don't know is where we can discover so much more So I'm actually making more room for reality here because reality is bounded by our fixed assumptions and our static ideas and values the way
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we interpret our values Obviously kindness is a beautiful value that I embrace But what that means is not static in different situations It's going to come out of me differently sometimes with more maybe annoyance or whatever is appropriate to the moment All right we should try maybe I think we have time for another thing We should try something else here Um is there uh are you somebody you're pointing to Okay send them up And since you pointed at them you come up too The woman next to you Yeah Both of you come on up This is really beautiful Yeah All right I had a feeling I was kind of waiting for them to do that because I knew I'm a mentalist I know things that happen Look at this You guys are friends or mother daughter I can't tell Mother daughter Mother daughter No we're not We're friends We Okay
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All right They're friends They work together Well you're very good friends because she like got you to come on stage and you're shy and she's outgoing Yes All right Come on up Uh here Um very um let's come I don't know here Let's um let me move this table so in the way All right So um I have the Since you're outgoing are you more of a skeptic or a believer Believer and you skeptic All right So the skeptic um I'm going to give you free range to think of any word in any language Is that fair All right And with you I'm going to narrow your mind down to one word from that book Check out the book Make sure the words are all different She's a believer but I want the skeptic
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to be satisfied too All right Um you're going to choose one word and and don't pick a short word I want you to pick a word with a lot of letters to make it harder because she's going to try and guess your word So I'm going make it harder for her Just so open the book and choose one word Um when you have it close the book I don't want to see what page you're on You don't like that page Go to another page Whatever word you want When you have one tell me You have one All right Step forward into both of you All right Uh your name is an I I figure that name tags I do anything to create a little mystery you know like disruption of reality But I have to be careful because if I do it too seriously you know like I did one of these things in schools when I was early on and uh a reporter came and he said "School hires psychic to boost students self-esteem."
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And I was like "Oh my god." All right So you have a word I do Um think of the first letter uh S No I'm sure it says I can see it clearly Really What's your first letter C No I I I All right I'll come back to you This is not working Um your turn Uh you picked another language or Oh yeah Really Okay Um can I ask what language that is Is that is that too much Okay don't tell me That's fine All right that's fine Um that sounds like I don't know what language that is I I speak French Do you speak French That's
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unfortunate All right Okay Hold this Don't look at it just yet See that's when when things are about to go really bad that's when things jump all over the place All right Um uh what was your word Adios Oh that's Spanish Okay Don't open it yet Don't open it yet And you think of your word I still want to get yours Okay Got it All right It's really weird because it's a long word I'm getting a lot of Yeah Oh my god It's more like two words Whatever Um I got two words Does that make any sense to you Okay So hold this All right So um do you want to put any money on the line since you're a skeptic Huh No No All right So let's look at
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yours first The first one Your word was Oh this is your word was candlestick Well I didn't get candlestick exactly but I got a stick with a candle Candlestick That's close enough right Woohoo All right And uh your word was adios Well I didn't get adios exactly Uh but I got Ari All right Thank you very much That's my time but it's not time is a concept And uh with infinite space we can also bend time which I'm not going
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to do right now because I'm detecting some hunger But uh thank you very much for having me And remember the point here is we've had fun but it's about life is not a transaction My way of doing that is to bring myself into the present and not impose my agenda Thank you very much Before you go I said at the beginning that the other night you made my glasses move Can you do that now Yeah I want Larry in the back Can you come in close on my hands You said what Put my glasses in my hands Let's come here so people can see Okay So people can see Here are my glasses in my hands We need to flip them the other way Oh we need to flip them the other way Yeah Oh that's important Yeah because then they'll move Okay Oh wait Watch Ready Yes Did we get that We do it again No no no Only once Wait How about your handkerchief here Sure No I better not
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Thank you very much All right How about my zipper No wait I knew it was going downhill I better quit Not Gerard thank you so much I appreciate it
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