BrainPlay by Bazz
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BrainPlay by Bazz Contents Thanks and Credits – Page 3 Introduction – Page 4 History and References – Page 5 Method – Page 6 Other Examples – Page 8 Making use of the Force Letter & other Forces – Page 9 Taking things further – Page 11 Closing Thoughts – Page 16 Bonus Ideas – Page 16 Further reading – Page 20 Peek Resource – Page 21
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BrainPlay by Bazz
Thanks and Credits
Firstly, I would like to thank YOU, the reader. Thank you for the interest, support and investment that you have put into my work. With the amount of ebooks and magic downloads that are available and are being released daily I am grateful that you chose to spend your valuable reading time with this offering. My door is always open if you wish to discuss anything from within these pages or otherwise.
[email protected] In my releases I will try my best to offer ideas that you can put together within your own routines. With that, you will notice that there is a lack of presentation or deeply thought out patter here. I merely give ideas, scripting where necessary and the reasoning where such things are essential - a blueprint if you will. The presentation and patter is there for you to create, which I feel is important. I would also like to thank the following people:
Kris Douglas for letting me constantly badger him with ideas. Also for the encouragement and support to put my ideas into writing. Rus Andrews for his support, encouragement and Skype sessions. Lance Sinclair for being another excellent ideas man. Michael Murray, Mick Wilson, Mike Jones, Michael Leadbetter and the gentlemen above for reading over this ebook to make sure it’s of value. Banachek for the original plot. Brad Henderson for his approach on forcing an animal. Michael Murray for the CUP. Atlas Brookings for his amazing work with words. Thank you.
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BrainPlay by Bazz Introduction During your favourite word revelation routine you ask your participation to think of a letter in their word and you are able to name that letter (a seemingly free choice). Or better still, you take full advantage from knowing the thought of letter and gain some incredible extra hits.
This is without doubt jazz mentalism.
This method is to be used once you have obtained the participants thought of word. Therefore, no methods are taught within these pages. I’m sure between centre tears, peeks, glimpses, impression devices, switches and so on there is something that you already know and use.
Check the end of this ebook for a reference regarding peeks.
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BrainPlay by Bazz History and References This is my take on Banachek's Word Play aka Brain Game plot which is found in Psychological Subtleties 1 and improved upon in PS2 and PS3. With the original routine the participant would think of a word which you would gain secret knowledge of. They would then think of one of the letters and then the performer reveals the thought of letter. The problem for me was that this wasn't 100%. Which isn't necessarily a problem. But, when you are guessing at a letter that you know IS in the word and then you are WRONG because the participant thought of a different letter then you are left with a less than impressive backup plan of saying to the participant "but that letter is in your word though isn't it?" For me this wasn't great. I also didn't want to have to say things like "you thought of a couple of letters there, you thought of a C and then jumped to the letter G. Am I correct?" This gets rid of two letters that you can do so much more with.
Instead, I struck upon a solution that works best for me. It very much has its place in jazz mentalism as you are going to have to think on your feet each time. It's a force that won't be seen as a force at all and if there is an audience watching then there is an automatic dual perception built in. The end result being that you will know the exact letter they are thinking of in the vast majority of cases or in all cases depending on how you play it.
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BrainPlay by Bazz
Method Let’s use an example word which can be "MAGIC". The participant will have wrote this word down and you will have secretly obtained this info. For those familiar with Banachek’s routine we are not going to alter the letter positions in the slightest with this version but in fact make perfect use out of the word as we know it. So with the word MAGIC we can see that the letter G is very prominent and is the only consonant in the middle of the word making it perfect to use/force. So on this occasion we would say to our participant "I want you to think of your word and I want you to think of a letter from within your word but don't just think of the first or last letters for now as that could be easier to work out but instead think of a letter towards the middle of the word if you can and please do not think of a vowel. So no A's E's I's O's or U's as there's only 5 of them and I don't want you think that this was a simple guess"
As you can see from that passage this has boxed the participant into only being able to think of the letter G. Please keep in mind that they don't know that you already know their thought of word so they do not realise that a force has happened. Yes, they are aware that they are only left with one option but this is never suspicious to them. Why would it be? After all, from their viewpoint YOU DON'T KNOW THE WORD. From a wider audience perspective no one other than the participant knows the word and it can indeed be ANY word so your forcing script means nothing at all to anyone else but the participant. It simply seems like you have asked the participant to think of a letter from within their chosen word.
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BrainPlay by Bazz Let’s quickly revisit the example script above but this time with my thoughts and reasons. "I want you to think of your word and I want you to think of a letter from within your word (immediately implying free choice) but don't just think of the first or last letters for now as that could be easier to work out ( how could this possibly be easier to work out? It’s a complete fabrication but in a weird way stands to reason. Lots of words commonly end in S or E or D for example) but instead think of a letter towards the middle of the word if you can (the restriction begins) and please do not think of a vowel (the restriction continues). So no A's E's I's O's or U's as there's only 5 of them (the justification) and I don't want you think that this was a simple guess” (Which they bloody well do assume but again it has a kind of logic to it and we’ve just implied this a lot trickier than a guess AND that it is NOT a guess)
So let's continue. You know they are thinking of the letter G and then you reveal it in whatever manner you want. More on the reveals later. Now we can move onto another letter in their word by saying "I now want you to think of another letter from within your word. Again, not the first or last letter but a letter somewhere towards the end of the word would be great and this time it can be any letter of the alphabet"
In reality, it can't be ANY letter of the Alphabet. It can only be a vowel and in this case the letter "I" of the word MAGIC as the letter "I" is the ONLY letter left that is towards the end of the word and we have ruled out the last letter. Of course we could have just as easily have said that we want them to think of a letter towards the beginning of their word that isn't the first letter and it can be any letter they like. In this scenario it could only leave the letter "A" of the word MAGIC. Furthermore, the first letter you choose to force doesn't have to be a consonant. There are no rules to this. Sometimes it will be easier to force the second letter 7
BrainPlay by Bazz or the second to last letter and a lot of the time these are vowels. You just change your patter. As long as you can force a letter who cares what it is?
Other Examples Let’s look at a tricky word that will never ever come up in performance - the word "sometimes". It is a good example of a tricky word. You could attempt to force the "T" in the middle or even one of the "m's" but frankly it might just be easiest to say - "Think of a letter towards the very beginning of your word but not the first letter (blah blah). Now as this is a little bit of a warm up could you please make this letter a vowel as there's only 5 of them which means I have a better chance of getting this right" With the last line said in a jovial tongue in cheek way. This really only leaves them with the letter "o" as the letter "e" is more towards the middle than the beginning. So, you restrict the possibilities with your words. Personally, I WOULD force one of the M’s. Which is a letter towards the beginning/end of the word and when we rule out the vowels for being “too easy” only leaves the M’s. This, in its simplest form is the method to Brain Play and the key is to keep the brain work as easy for your participant as it is for yourself. But, we will take a look at a couple more contrasting examples just to demonstrate the element of thinking on your feet and weaving around different words. The word "Aeroplane". You can quickly see that the middle group of letters would not be the easiest to force. Yes they are possible but it is about keeping it simple. As such, there are easier options. The letter N or R being the easiest on the participants' mental capacity.
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BrainPlay by Bazz With longer words you will be looking to force a letter in either the first 3 letters or the last 3 letters in a high percentage of cases. With smaller words, most letters are fair game. The word "Letters" It should go without saying that the double T is of a big advantage to us here and should be used to great effect. I personally would reveal the letter R first followed by the T. I'm sure at this point you don't need my input to tell you how to reveal the double T. Just do that in your own way or use one of the ideas found later in this manuscript. It may be of note that I don't reveal all the letters of a given word in this fashion. I merely reveal 2 or 3 letters and take it from there.
Making use of the Force Letter & other Forces Another thing I have used for a long time is something that later appeared in Psychological Subtleties 3. (Not from myself but a gentleman by the name of Brad Henderson)
Even during the times that I was using this (and I had not seen anyone else use this) I did not think for one moment that it was unique to myself and clearly I was correct. But, I'm sure many other performers had also come up with something similar. Basically, what you do is take a letter from the word/name that you secretly know and ask the participant if they can think of, for example, an animal that begins with that letter. Let’s assume they were thinking of the word “Touch”. You would do your force as describe above and force the letter C. 9
BrainPlay by Bazz You would then ask the participant if they can think of an animal that begins with the letter they are thinking of. In this case the letter C. This should lead them to a Cat. It could also lead them to chicken or crocodile and the use of Michael Murray’s CUP technique would be of fantastic value here. Also, by asking the participant if they can think of a small animal instead of just any animal then this will restrict them from thinking of a crocodile. Though this idea was limited to animals in PS3 it is actually only limited to your own creativity. In PS3 it was suggested that you then describe the animal to the participant which is fine but I’d rather do a drawing duplication where the picture only exists in their mind. How powerful is that? It’s an opportunity not to be missed in my opinion. To make this work correctly you want to be limiting all the possible answers from your participant down to one or two (another force in a sense) whilst making it seem like a very broad topic. If they were thinking of the letter Z then you can very easily ask them if they can think of an animal. Zebra should be the answer. Though asking them to think of an animal seems like a massive topic with a ton of possibilities. More so to the people watching as they will not know what the original word is. (Which, of course is what I assume Brad Henderson had also intended). Now you are in a position where it looks like actual mind reading and you are getting more reveals out of the original word rather than just naming the letters and then the word.
Though, if you just wanted to name or reveal the letters on
their own then this is also fine. You may wish to write your impressions on a pad and then turn the pad around to show that you are correct with your reveal. Or you may want to just verbally reveal the thought of letter.
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BrainPlay by Bazz If you wanted to give the participant more possible options to choose from in their mind then you can do so but you will need to fish or pump for the answer. For example, an animal beginning with the letter M could yield results such as mouse, monkey, moose, mongoose and the list goes on. If you then wanted to create a way to achieve the right answer then great but I don’t bother. I want to know the answer each and every time. So, it’s my opinion that you don't necessarily want to be giving a topic that has many different possible answers. Instead, just like the example above, if they are thinking of the letter M you could ask them if they can think of a Premier League football team. This leaves 2 possibilities. Of course, this is just an example that works well in my country with the letter M. I can’t stress enough how important it is for you to take the time and find these letter restrictions that will work best for you and your performances. It also means that you will be fully prepared for each and every letter.
Taking things further You could have a bit more fun with this if you are feeling adventurous.
Let's say this time they are thinking of the letter C and you ask them if they can think of a country and they can. (We have asked them this because there aren't too many countries beginning with this letter that they could think of quickly. You want a topic that would offer just a few outcomes) Most people would think of China, Canada or Cuba at an absolute push. The great thing about countries is that you can narrow them down with either the use of Michael Murray's Comparative Uncertainty Principle (CUP) or via gently pumping for the right outcome. Note: If you are unaware of Michael’s CUP then it can be found in his award winning book A Piece Of My Mind found over at www.mindfx.co.uk. 11
BrainPlay by Bazz
If they think of Canada. We, the performers, would at this point be expecting the answer to be either Canada or China. The CUP would work well at this point but if that isn't your kind of thing then asking them a question such as "this country isn't in the East is it?" would put you on the right lines. If the response is YES then China is our answer. If NO then Canada is most likely. I would just go with Canada at that point. A great idea that was passed to me by Jamie Badman with permission to use here (thanks Jamie – this fixed the really crappy example I had) is that you could ask the participant if the first language they speak in this country is English. Not only is that perfect for distinguishing between Canada and China but it is also a really innocent question that in the mind of the participant wouldn’t give much away at all. Another way of incorporating this is to ask the participant to imagine that they find themselves actually standing in this country and they ask a local native passer-by a question of some sorts (I will leave this up to you, the reader) and then asking the participant whether they understood the native person or not. This will secretly cue you to the country. Of course, there’s always that chance that one day you run into someone who doesn’t look like they speak Chinese but turn out to be fluent Atlas Brookings has a great piece where he makes use of the local signposts that you can see in a country. I urge people to look up his Penguin Live Lecture. There's a lot of fun to be had from making up the scenarios and thinking on your feet to get to the correct outcome. Recently I had someone who was thinking of India. I first used the CUP to rule out Iceland and was left with the most likely outcomes of Italy and India. I then 12
BrainPlay by Bazz simply asked if this was in Europe. They said NO. I then began to describe India after a few moments of "readjusting" my thought process. To throw a further layer deception in you could offer the participant an option of a few topics such as a country, an animal or even a sport. I.e. "Can you think of a country, an animal or even a sport that begins with the letter that you are thinking of?"
Once they have confirmed that they can think of something then you use this beautiful ploy. Say to them “If you are thinking of a country I would like you to
close your eyes and imagine that you are now in this country as you listen to my words”. One of two things will happen. They will either close their eyes or they will leave their eyes open. If they close their eyes then this means that they have followed our instructions and that they will now be thinking of a country or they will have left their eyes open which tells us that they are NOT thinking of a country. It’s so subtle and it flies by because it doesn’t indicate which country they are thinking of and it is that piece of information that the participant is ultimately interested in and you have only given them the instruction to IMAGINE this place. So it seems that the closing on the eyes is just a part of the build up and part of the process. But in reality it is telling us everything that we need to know. If they, do not close their eyes the first time then we move on to the next topic and repeat the same patter only asking them to close their eyes if they are thinking of an animal and then asking them to imagine this animal in its natural habitat. Again, if they now close their eyes then we have our info. If they do not close their eyes then we move our patter onto the final topic. Of course, by process of elimination if they have not closed their eyes on the first two topics then by default they MUST now be thinking of the last topic but you may as well follow
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BrainPlay by Bazz the process and keep it fluent and ask them to close their eyes and imagine themselves playing the sport that they are thinking of. Alternatively you could simply ask them which topic it comes under. Though I prefer the above method. So if we know they are thinking of the letter F and the participant gives us the indication that they are thinking of a SPORT then we can be fairly certain that they are thinking of FOOTBALL. If it was an animal then this could be a number of things such as a frog or a fox. If they are thinking of a country then most likely would be France but there is also Finland amongst others. Then see the process through as normal. However, here is a really cheeky ploy which allows you to ask them to think of something from one of a few topics as mentioned above and without asking which topic it comes under you still name what they are thinking of, even NAMING the topic they are thinking of too. How? Well it's kind of straight forward. If I know the letter they are thinking of is the letter R for example then I will give them 3 topics to choose from just like the previous approach only this time two of the topics will be impossible for them to select an option from. But, to the wider audience this offers a massive choice and even to the participant it suggests that the performer cannot know the thought of letter and therefore they can’t possibly know which topic their thought even belongs to.
Example (letter C) “Can you think of a small animal, a month of the year or a day of the week that begins with the letter you are thinking of?”
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BrainPlay by Bazz Well they certainly won't be able to think of a month or a day that begins with the letter C. So now we can tell them that they are thinking of a living thing and so this has to be an animal, in fact it's a domestic pet and it is a cat. Giving a few topics like this makes it seem like we are trying to be helpful especially as we are not meant to know which letter or even word they are thinking of to begin with. For most letters, giving the topics of a day and month will serve you well as the red herrings in this situation as they are limited topics and will work for any letters that don't represent either a month or a day. ( Which are J F M A S O N DTW) Note: My good friend Michael Leadbetter also suggested that you may as well throw in the Seasons of the year along with the red herrings of Days and Months. The reason being is that those letters are already taken up within the Days and Months and therefore do not interfere with the original ploy but gives an extra topic and appears to give even more choice. Spring Summer Autumn Winter. As you can see above S, A & W are already covered.
So if it is any other letter than the ones mentioned above, then you can think of a workable topic and then throw in the options of Day and Month and be safe in the knowledge that it can't possibly be a Day or a Month at all. Leaving you with your force topic. Once again, it is best that you sit down and find some limiting/restricting topic that you can use as your red herrings here. Perhaps things like Zodiac Signs, makes of card, sports teams of certain sports. As long as the topic is restricted this means that the participant can’t step outside of those boundaries. Other options can be created and it is best that you find something that suits you best. Some can even be made up on the fly. Though I like to keep my own brainwork on the presentation. 15
BrainPlay by Bazz
Closing thoughts:
To bring things full circle, with these methods you can force the letter to begin with and then force all kinds of different thoughts on them and reveal them all with fantastic mind reading. Be creative and jazz with it.
Bonus Ideas This idea came about during a skype session with Mick Wilson who has some fantastic uses of his own for Brain Play. The idea is this. During your word divination routine you peek the word as normal. You then remove an envelope from your pocket and leave it on the table. You begin Brain Play and reveal a letter or other info. You move on to force another letter from within their thought of word and ask if they can think of a fruit that begins with the thought of letter. They confirm that they can. You then ask them to pick up the envelope that is on the table telling them that there is a picture of a fruit inside. At this point they have never said the name of the fruit out loud but they open up the envelope and go crazy when they see a picture of the fruit that they are merely thinking of.
Method The secret is that you will not always be able to perform this miracle but will be able to a high percentage of the time. 16
BrainPlay by Bazz
Inside your envelope can be a force of any kind as long as you are comfortable that there is only going to be one real choice for the participant when the decision time comes. What you are looking for is a commonly occurring letter such as an S or T or A to appear in the participants word. Before the performance you will have placed your force picture in the envelope. Let’s say we use a picture of an Apple. We secretly peek the word and see that it is the word CAMERA.
As soon as we see the word and notice that it contains our force letter of A then we remove the envelope from our pocket and place it onto the table. We are now going to use a little time delay as an extra layer to make it seem that it has been there all the way through the routine. This doesn’t really matter as the envelope is in the play before you even ask them to think of a letter. But, layers of deception are layers of deception and I will use everything I can. So we force any letter that is NOT an A to begin with such as the letter R and reveal it in any of the ways mentioned above. Then we move to our force letter. Once we know they are thinking of the letter A we can ask a force question such as “Can you think of a common fruit that begins with this letter?” Chances are that they will think of an Apple and you can complete your routine from there with an amazing prediction.
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BrainPlay by Bazz Of course there is a small chance that someone will think of an Apricot or such. These things happen but that’s the price you pay for a miracle. The use of the word “common” should lead them away from anything other than an Apple anyway. You could just as easily ask them what fruit they thought of before going to the reveal but that kind of detracts from things a little bit for me. Though doing so will have no real detriment to the routine as from the participants point of view all they have done is to tell you that there is an A in their word.
The exact position of the letter has not been given away and
according to the participant you don’t even know how many letters are in their chosen word. So nothing is really given away.
Failing that, get a picture of an Apple and an Apricot and stick them back to back giving a prediction with a built in 2 way out. Just don’t show the other picture on the reverse when revealing your prediction. Or use the double prediction idea above be sticking a picture of an Apple to a picture of a Cat. That way you have increased your chances of being able to use the envelope routine as their word can now contain either an A or a C. Or you can have 2 secretly hidden envelopes both containing a 2 way out described above only with different pictures on each side for different letters. If your participants’ word happens to contain BOTH of your prediction force letters then you have a kicker ending where you can reveal the picture on the other side too. This may be overkill. There’s a similar approach to this 2 envelopes with 2 way outs in Beyond ESP by that man again Michael Murray. 18
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Cheers Mick for getting the brain working. Enjoy.
Another additional idea that was put before me was from all round nice guy Justin Saul. Justin mentions the use of using a little print out of something we have all seen in the past. A children’s alphabet chart. You could use this in many ways.
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BrainPlay by Bazz For example. It would make a very good practice tool before digging into the more complex side of Brain Play when you will be thinking on your feet a lot. Also, it can act a back-up if your mind goes blank. It would work perfectly well for an image replication too.
However, Justin weaves it wonderfully into a routine based around the nostalgia of learning the alphabet in the early years of school. So the image above is there for you to print out and use. Or feel free to use your own. Aside from this, Justin also references Colin McLeod’s wonderful “By Association” Routine. Naturally I cannot go into that here but those who know of it will see the additional benefit of peeking a word to begin with and then using Brain Play to list the hits as opposed to asking for associations and finishing with the word being predicted. The next tip that he suggested also made use of Colin’s By Association. But, it can actually just be used with Brain Play in general when you are performing for a group. As soon as the word has been written and before you get your peek you let the participant show the word to the group. This way they can ALL be involved in the process of harvesting the additional hits. Awesome thinking Justin. Thanks for allowing me to share this here.
Further readings to check out. Also see the last page for a peeking resource. The Searchlight Principle by Myke Philips Paralies by Joshua Quinn 20
BrainPlay by Bazz Thought Association Card by Stephen Yachanin
For information on secretly obtaining written information please do not hesitate to check out the DVD/Download of Retina by Looch which is available at Penguin Magic. It’s a great resource that features many different peeks. Check out the link below. http://www.penguinmagic.com/p/4262
Many thanks once again for putting your time, effort and money into my work. The support means the world to me. All the best, Bazz
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