The Ghost Key

This is a spooky effect best performed late at night when the talk is likely to
drift towards things of a supernatural nature.

A discussion of the supernatural (maybe initiated by the magician) leads to the
magician claiming that although he doesn't believe in spirits, he happens to have
an object that appears to be possessed. He pulls out his key ring and hands it
out for inspection. He says although it looks normal, it's anything but. One
particular key was said to belong to an elderly person found dead on their
doorstep in the freezing cold. The key had apparently fallen out of their reach and
they expired before they could retrieve it.

The magician lays the keys in the palm of his hand. He explains that it's not too
difficult to spot which key belonged to the person if you look closely enough. He
gestures over the keys. He explains that one key almost wants to jump into your
hands. As he says this, a key in the middle of the ring slowly begins to lift up and
stick out from all the rest. The magician says he'd be spooked out by this if he
actually believed in that sort of thing.

Secret
I discovered this effect by accident playing with my own key ring. I easily have 10
or more keys on it. I found that if I laid the keys on my palm with the ends
between the pad of my thumb and the pad of my first finger, a slight squeeze
would make one of the keys in the middle stick out (figure 3). Usually it's the one
that has colored plastic on either side. Try it with your own set of keys and you'll
find that one key likes to pop out more than the others.

This works because squeezing the keys acts like a kind of vice. Because the
keys are squeezed at a slight angle, one key will want to pop out as it's squeezed
(figure 4).

Performance

1. Bring up the subject of haunted house and objects.
2. Tell them your creepy story.
3. Let them inspect your keys.
4. Lay the keys in your palm (figure 3).
5. Gesture at the keys (figure 5).
6. Slowly squeeze the keys.
7. Watch their reactions as the key pops up.