Peter Turner - Vol. 1 Psychological Playing Card Forces

February 13, 2017 | Author: Rivan Kapreliants | Category: N/A
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In Volume 1 Peter Turner teaches you all the nuances of psychological card forces and most importantly how to make it hi...

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Vol#1 – Psychological playing card forces

Welcome Firstly thank you for purchasing this document, please refrain from sharing this. Enjoy it and be selfish - You know you want to. Before we get to the introduction I would like to quickly talk about what this series is about and what it is not about. It is a series of ideas pertaining to particular areas of mentalism - The areas I find interesting. It is an outlook on the way that I do things and the opinions expressed in this pdf are purely my own (or if there is a contribution made the other artists own) and should be taken that way. I am by no means saying that this is how it should be done. I would really love to see your take on the materials portrayed in this series. This series will start with simple playing card forces (psychological) and then move onto other areas of mentalism. I will cover how to read someone (cold reading), drawing duplications, billet work (which is something I have never talked about in depth), how to create premise and tell stories and many other subject areas. So here is the first in the series -

Introduction I’m sat in the Ring ‘O’ Bells public house in Queensbury age 12, it was the night I passed my 3000 meter swimming badge. I was celebrating with a chip butty (for my American friends a fries sandwich) and a panda pop (a small blue coloured soda) being congratulated by all of my aunty Del’s friends the night I saw it. By it I mean one of the most baffling pieces of magic/ mentalism I had ever witnessed. I had been performing card tricks on the locals and had a deck of EMU playing cards sat on the table when I was approached by one of the locals and asked if I wanted to see a trick. Of course I jumped at the opportunity – Watching magic effects at the time was almost impossible. My nan/ aunty didn’t drive so wasn’t able to take me to shows and the only effects I had ever seen were the ones I had seen on VHS which I had borrowed from the magic stall I worked at. The chance to see an effect in person for me was as exciting as Christmas coming!

He picked up the deck of cards went through them and laid one card facedown. He explained that he was going to get me to guess the card on the table – Yeah right I thought. He asked me the no equivoque or from ear to ear it – It was the

colour of the card, the suit and finally the value procedure just as fair as fair gets. He was grinning and asked me to turn it over, I did and you guessed card I had named!

It was inexplicable, unexplainable - incredible! It was like a symphony of fireworks going off inside my head, I had nowhere to go. You all know the feeling, that feeling of wonder, awe and shock that reminds you why you got into magic in the first place. I looked across the table, with a dumbstruck look on my face and stuttered...HOW? He said whilst walking away, “A magician never reveals his secrets”. I never did work out how he did it. Years later I have finally got around to compiling a way to do this for each playing card in the deck thus bringing everything full circle. Inside this booklet you will find an array of different ways to psychologically force any playing card inside the deck, make it seem like you have psychologically forced a playing card, performance tips, premises and mechanical/psychological outs. Peter Turner 2015

Frequently asked questions Let’s start by answering questions about psychological forces;

What is a psychological force? Also known as a psi force, psy forces, mental forces or a nonmechanical forces. The best way to describe what a psychological force is, is to compare to a mechanical one. Let’s take the ‘Classic force’ – for those reading that don’t know the classic force, it is essentially a way of spreading the deck and ensuring that whatever card you want the spectator to choose from the spread they will. Whilst there is an amount of psychology involved in the classic force, in a nut shell it is essentially pacing the spread and pushing the card you want subtly into the participant’s hands without them suspecting a thing. Note** In short, the classic force doesn’t sound in writing as beautiful as it is in performance so please forgive my brief description of it. A psychological card force relies on nothing more than subtle verbal guidance, there is no deck of cards, they never take one out, they simply think of it and you can choose how you want to reveal the card.

Are psychological forces 100%? The honest answer is no, but with practice you can be close – All of these forces are carefully crafted in order to enable you to be as close to being sure fire as possible. I have also provided outs so that you never need to worry about these forces failing. I also feel this is where the fun is, trying and seeing how close you get. If at first you don't succeed all you have to do is try again. I often find with these type of routines the best out is the age old line - "I think from that, I can see exactly how you think". Then you move into something that you know is 100% sure fire. When these do hit, you have inexplicable miracles that I guarantee people will talk about. The biggest lesson to garner from this subject is that it really doesn't make a difference if these miss and not to worry because you’re out is solid.

Do I need to practice to be able to do this? Of course! Every effect, premise or script should be practiced to a T. The only way to get good at anything is to practice it, the more you do it, the better you will become at it. That is the real secret to everything inside this booklet; you should be practicing whenever you get the chance. I practice the scripts to all of my effects when I am in the shower, in the car, I rehearse them in my head long before I ever try and test them out on an audience. One thing I hate is takeaway mentalism – too many advertisements these days read “perform straight out of the box”. Whatever happened to rehearsing? Imagine a group of musicians who have never practiced solo or in a group setting, placed together to perform a gig and you were trapped in a room with them having to hear it. That is a very fitting analogy of how people will feel when you don’t want to rehearse and go out and perform from the box. Take note – This is not the type of routine to practice on your spouse, they have a way of purposefully being awkward and it doesn’t make for good practice.

Can playing cards be used in mentalism? This is the age old question, I have answered this question in the past and I will briefly outline what I have expressed before – Don’t worry I will keep it brief as I know you will want to get into the content. I think using playing cards in mentalism you have to metaphorically change the relevance from the audience’s perspective in regards to playing cards. Most mentalists think that as soon as you pick up a deck of cards your audience are going to automatically assume that you are doing magic tricks. It all depends on the way you frame what it is you are performing, in one of my earlier releases I released ‘Getting to know you’ A tarot-esque effect using playing cards (cartomancy) not one person would ever assume that was a trick because of its esoteric nature. Read a few of the effects explained in here, I guarantee that your audience will never assume what they experience is a trick. So the answer to the question in brief is yes... Yes they can.

From the beginning The biggest look at the cards and 4 really easy

thing to remember with all of these forces is not to deck like 52 different cards (which they are) but 13 suits. When you can get this into your head it makes it to be able to force any playing card you require.

I am first going to outline a multitude of different ways to force the suit for the playing cards. I will start with equivoque (equivoque is a viable method that you can use as an out OR as the main way to get someone to think of a suit being it that it is 100%). After we have forced the suit this means that we are then only left dealing with 1-13 which is when you think about it not really a huge range.

Equivoque This is the simplest way to force the suit, yet the least imaginative - Great if you want to be sure fire. There are many different scripts for the equivoque of the suit of the playing card. This is the way that I do it and is in my opinion the simplest and most logical. Step one - decide upon the suit you want to force. For the point of an example let me outline how to force the heart. Performer: “I am going to tell you before we begin that this is by process of elimination, there will be no ambiguity whatsoever and whatever decisions you make we will follow. [Remember to accent 'by process of elimination' so they clearly hear you say it.] First call out a colour - red or black?” Participant: “Red” If they choose red move on as they called that out as a selection. If they choose black, then counter with Performer: “Just to be fair and to reiterate, I stated this would be by process of elimination so that obviously leaves the Reds. Do you want to change your mind?” Do not ask the last question if the person you are working with has been difficult before this point. It is quite a bold question, most people won’t change their mind so I don’t mind asking questions like

this, this is a key question we will come back to time and time again. Chan Canasta (if you haven't seen his performances go check them out on youtube as you would be mad not to it’s a lesson in things like this). You can slightly change the question - This is also something I use frequently as it ensures no one will change their mind. Performer: "Are you sure that is your decision, you can change your mind if you don't think it was your own, feel free". [Notice the word decision in that above sentence - NOT CHOICE.] After the colour is selected move onto the next step. You are essentially down to one colour - it is now about choosing the option that works best for you to force the suit. Performer: “We have hearts and diamonds take one of them from me”. Obviously at this point if they say hearts it is a clean hit just respond with Performer: “Are you sure that’s the one you want?” This is quite a bold question but I have never had anyone say no. I would then reiterate the series of events slightly changing what happened – Always try and think about where these principles can be applied outside of playing card forces. This simple but elegant type of principle can be applied to any are of mentalism. In short – Recap is king! Performer: "I asked you to choose a colour you said red, I asked you to choose a suit and you said heart and I even offered you the opportunity to change your mind. I don’t think this could be any fairer. Had you chose black you would have been on a completely different colour and therefore the outcome would have been entirely different. If they say diamonds not hearts, quickly counter with, Performer: “You were asked to take one away and you decided to take the diamond are you sure that’s the one you want to take away?” Again this is quite a bold question but I have never had anyone say no. Performer: “Well that obviously leaves us with the heart, had the series of events been different the outcome would have been different, you were asked to choose a colour and you said red, you were then asked to choose a suit you decided you wanted to keep the heart. Had you chose black, which you could have done you would have been somewhere entirely different”.

If you have each of these scripts rehearsed smoothly and you move at a nice pace then no one is ever going to notice a bump with the questions that you are asking. Check out David Berglas' work on Equivoque, Mark Elsdon and Joshua Quinn also have a series of interesting ideas using equivoque. I have tried to stay brief while talking about equivoque as I don’t want to take away from what this is really about.

The bolder approach This is my favoured approach, try this out you will be surprised at how cleanly this plays out. The two most psychologically chosen suits are heart and club, by killing one of them suits it practically forces the other. Here is a couple of examples of how to kill a suit. If you want to force a red card all you have to do is place a black card on the face of the deck and casually flash it. As mentioned above heart and club are the most frequently chosen, so if you place a club on the bottom of the deck it will force a red card (a heart more frequently) and if you place a heart on the bottom of the deck it will have the reverse effect and will force a black (a club mostly). This has an added effect if you say while casually flashing the card “I am going to try put a playing card in your mind”. If you don’t want to use a deck of cards when performing and just want to go for the reveal on a piece of paper/ billet you can always verbalise a suit to kill it. Here is an example. Performer: “In a moment I am going to ask you to think of a playing card, we will build it up nice and slowly in your mind aspect by aspect but I need you to over visualize. For example if in your mind you see a club, I want you to imagine it being ten times darker and bolder for me. Clear your mind completely and let’s start”. Obviously to force a black card you would replace the word club in the above script for heart. Try this it will surprise you how stable this is.

This seems innocent as you are just telling the participant what you would like them to visualize and in doing that you are actually upping the probability of you success rating.

Don’t be scared to get them to change their mind This is probably something I take advantage of more than anything else. I would recommend thinking about this. Before you aim to force a suit (this is more tailored for the bolder suit variations) casually drop in – Performer: “I will even let you change your mind at any point”. When it comes to them calling a suit out loud now. If they call the wrong one out you can give yourself a second/ third chance by simply saying, Performer: “Where you have settled now is instinctive, you decided that you were going to go for this suit, I don’t want you leaving here thinking that I could have pre-empted this. Remember me saying I was going to get you to say a suit and then get you to change it, this so even you didn’t know what suit you were going to think of and it is completely random”. This means in theory you can at this point if you are not feeling as bold or you are practicing move into equivoque. Another favourite of mine is to get the participant to accidentally blurt out the suit, then if it is the right suit you can go with it and accept it as a fair choice if not you can say to them “No don’t say it out loud just yet or you will make my job really easy just think it”. To get the participant to blurt the suit out all you have to do is look at them and say “All I want you to do is think what’s the suit?” Accent the “whats the suit?” so it sounds like you want them to tell you and they will blurt it out.

Not Ed Marlo’s snap change There are two approaches for this: one is the simple and effective approach and the other is the bold approach. I will let you decide which one you think I prefer.

Variation #1 This variation is something you will have to just try to see the effectiveness of it. It is essentially a verbal subtlety that ensures you know the order in which the participant changes their mind. It is a clever take on “restricting without seeming restrictive.”

The participant gets slightly less from this than the audience, but it flies straight under the radar so I never worry. Address the participant: Performer: “To make sure you know the four suits, can you say them out loud for me?” Participant: “Clubs, Hearts, Spades and Diamonds.” Performer: “In a moment I am going to snap my fingers, and every time I snap my fingers I just want you to cycle through the suits.” As you say the word “suits,” snap once close to your body, snap a second time a few inches from the first time and then snap a third and fourth time, each time a little farther than the last time you snapped. I understand that it is a very difficult instruction to understand in text. Essentially you are non-verbally suggesting to the participant: “Each time I snap my fingers I want you to move to a different suit.” Because you used a specific word in your scripting, the word “cycle,” the participant won’t change the order of the suits they committed to when they named them out loud (in this example I used CHaSeD order). This means they will constantly go around CHaSeD order (don’t worry, there is a video link in a moment). For example, let’s say you want to force a Club and the participant has said the suits out loud in CHaSeD order. Address the participant: Performer: “Visualise the first suit in your mind and get ready for me to snap my fingers.” This will let the participant know to think of the Club and that when you snap they are to start stepping through the cycle they chose. Now all you have to do is snap count along in your head. Snap (Heart), snap (Spade), snap (Diamond). Go around as many times as you like. Slow down on the last few, ensuring you stop on Club. Remember, you aren’t saying the suits out loud. When you do stop them on the Club and address the participant: Performer: “Be 100% honest, you didn’t know you would be thinking of a playing card?” Participant: “No, I didn’t.”

Performer: “You didn’t know that you would be changing your mind in the order you did?” Participant: “No.” Performer: “Therefore there is no way I could have known the order in which you would have decided to change your mind?” Participant: “No.” Look at how sneaky the questioning is: it will lead the audience to believe that the participant could have changed their mind in any order, when in fact they really couldn’t. If you are bold you could make the participant promise that they will not change the suit and then almost pressure them to admit they could have changed to any suit in any order. Before anyone takes the word “pressure” out of context, I don’t mean instant stooge or control/manipulate; I mean use of clever questions like the questions above. At this point you can openly produce (in a non-magical sense) the card you forced.

Additional idea This is something that I have explored in great depth in The Book of Demons. It is so sneaky yet completely forces the participant to stick to the order that they chose. It requires good audience management but is very simple; I have used this in close-up for such a long time and I have never had any problems. Stand the participant away from the group so they are facing the group of witnesses. After the participant has called out the four suits and you have explained they are going to cycle through them when you snap, face the participant for a few seconds (ensuring the witnesses cannot see your mouth). When you snap the first time, mouth the word “Club,” then snap again and mouth the word “Heart,” then snap and mouth “Spade,” snap and say “Diamond” and then finally snap and say “Club.” NOTE: You would be mouthing them in the order that they specified out loud. Continue to snap and they will follow the order with no problems whatsoever. This will ensure that they will stop on the exact suit you would like. This is a very simple touch, but when you take this principle and you stretch it, there are many wonderful applications.

Variation #2 The bold variation. I cannot for the life of me explain how I do this, but I am accurate 95% of the time without having them say anything out loud. I urge you to try it my way. See how it works for you. I ask the participant to think of a playing card suit and then I proclaim: Performer: “Every time I snap my fingers I want you to change the suit to whatever suit you feel you want to change to.” I start to snap my fingers at a nice pace (one that feels comfortable) and I close my eyes and think of the suit I would think of. I then start to slow down my snaps and I stop when I feel I would stop on whatever suit it is I want them to stop on. I find this somehow works; maybe it is that we are all similar as human beings...I don’t know! Natural selection If you ask a women to pick a suit the likeliness is she will go for the heart, a man will go for a club. This plays a massive favour in making your choices seem so much fairer, I have realised that it is nicer to ask someone to pick a suit and then jazz to get them to change should it not be the suit you want them to choose (which I will also outline below). Let me give you an example of a context where this would play a big part. Let’s say that someone has thought of a playing card then removed that card from the deck and placed it face down on the table. You know the card is the seven of clubs (I will detail this kind of routine later) – I would then naturally point to a male to perform the psychological force on knowing they would more than likely go for a black suit. If the card that came out of the deck was red, I would choose a women knowing that she would go for a red. You could take this a step further let’s say a diamond comes out of the deck and you have turned to a women to go for the suit. You know the likeliness is she will go for a heart, instead of asking her to call a suit out loud ask her to think of one. When she says she is look at her for a second and then say:

Performer: “Stay with whatever colour you are on and change to the other suit from within that colour”. This will naturally force them to go for the heart. What if they don’t? What if the female participant was thinking of a diamond and then changed to a heart? Well using language it is very easy to get your participants to go back to their initial choice. Making someone change their mind is a really, really easy thing to do. Start by saying to the participant, “Would you consider yourself an instinctive person, good at making decisions?” – No one is going to say no at this point it is a very clever double bind. Then all you have to do is simply ask: Performer: “So do you want to stay with the suit you are on now, or do you want to go back to YOUR (emphasise the word your) first instinctive choice. It is essential that you leave knowing each and every decision you make is yours and no one elses”. This will almost always get them to go back to their original choice. You can use the same logic for the blacks also.

Learning not to care Learning not to care if the suit is slightly out is the most important thing, remember this kind of thing IS something you can repeat and getting the suit wrong the first time only makes it more impressive when it hits the second time. I often think that to the participant getting close is often more impressive – If you open any routine like this: “With this I have no control whatsoever, if you get even remotely close this will be exciting for me”. When they do get close act excited and like you didn’t expect it. It seems more genuine and impressive for them to be close and not bang on the first time. It is also the same with the values, if you hit the suit bang on but you are one out on the number I would never worry about it for the reasons described above.

Al Baker – The finger knows and tells This is not easy and requires a lot of practice but I think it works so beautifully to work out what suit a participant is thinking about. I would first ask them to think of a suit, ignore the value You have to ask the participant to hold their palm face up, you then touch their index finger (with your index finger) and say, “this is club”, touch their middle finger “heart”, ring finger “spade” and finally touch their Pinky “Diamond”. I want you to think of the suit of the card you are thinking of and which finger it relates to. Then say, Performer: “I want you to imagine that finger feeling different to the rest of the fingers, imagine it standing out”. This is where you will touch their fingers again with your index finger, touch each finger in turn lightly and feel for the finger that stands out as being different. Whilst tapping the tip of each upturned finger gently repeat “Making that one finger stand out”. With each person it is slightly different. Some people will force their finger up; some people will make their finger stiffer, some people softer. Here are a few excerpts from Al Bakers work. Once you think participant is value you want participants). value.

you have thinking to force Then you

determined what suit you think the of go through the deck and then take out the (with the suit that matches the use the psychological force to force the

Karl Scott has some incredible work on this, currently unpublished but keep your eyes peeled as I promise you will love it!

Multiple outs If you have decided on an indefinite value you want to force in advance you could place three of the suits matching the value into your pocket. Let’s use the number Seven as a good example, place the club, heart and spade into your pocket (Let’s pretend it is a breast pocket) the face of the club would be closest to your chest, followed by the heart, and then the spade. This ensures that when you pull the cards out the back is facing the participant (giving you a ta-da moment) leave the diamond inside the deck.

When you are in performance mode, run through the deck and find the seven of diamonds and pull it out of the deck (back toward the participant). Place the card into your pocket at the back of your little stack. While proclaiming “This is the card I am going to transmit to you, let’s see how close you get”. It really doesn’t matter what suit the participant goes for now, you just pull the relevant card out of your pocket. Think of this from the participant’s perspective, they have seen one card go in and seen one card come out. This is by far the easiest option and reduces the force down to 1-13 not one in 52.

Fishing for the suit before bringing out a card Here is a technique I call the “But then you” principle – This is a way to fish for the colour of a card someone is thinking of – Ask the participant to think of a playing card and feel free to change their mind a few times. This is where the principle comes into play. Performer: “So what do I know about you? I feel you changed your mind 2-3 times you went for a black card (pause) but then changed to a red”. That script is all you need in order to hit the colour 100% of the time. Look at it again. Performer: “So what do I know about you? I feel you changed your mind 2-3 times you went for a black card” (pause) – There is a very important reason for the pause, if the participant reacts it is a hit. You never counter with the rest of the sentence. If the participant doesn’t react then you counter with, - “but then you changed to a red” on paper this might seem obvious but in the real world this plays perfectly. The timing here is super important, you need to learn to pace this in such a way that it flows unnoticeably. This will give you two hits not one making it more impressive from the participants point of view. This is not the only place that you can use this principle, any outcome that has a 50/50 outcome you can apply it. I would then use a guess for the suit or the wash principle.

The Wash Principle The Wash Principle can be used verbally or physically. This principle (when used wisely) will reduce your miss rating massively. In this instance, we will pretend we are working with numbers as opposed to cards. Let's start with using the wash principle in a physical scenario. We will imagine we are fishing for a number someone is thinking of out of a series of numbers, just to give it a real world context (like a pin divination). We have deduced that the last digit is odd and is reasonably low (3 or 5). Address the participant, Performer: “Can you think of the last digit for me? “Imagine drawing the number in the air; imagine seeing all the different lines and the way the number is constructed. Concentrate for me but don't say anything out loud.” This is where you pick one of the odd numbers and start to draw the lines in the air. (We will pretend we chosen 5.) Start to draw the number largely in the air remember to draw it from their perspective so you are in essence drawing it backwards. Watch the participant’s face; if they react by starting to smirk, you know it's that number! If not, wipe the air clean and shake your head as though you are not seeing it clearly. Secretly we now know if it is or isn’t the 5 and now I know it is a 3! Even if you didn’t hit, you corrected yourself and therefore have NEVER missed. The theatrics are beautiful here also as it really is just two minds working in unison. You can see how this would be useful if you are torn between two cards when you are performing a psychological card force. I would use this in comparison with several of the forces in this book just to test for a sure outcome. If you are using a deck of cards you can create a simple multiple out to ensure the suit hits perfectly. Let’s use the above example of forcing the value of seven. All you have to do is get the colour of the card using the above principle (lets for example say the card is red) – Cull the most likely seven to the top (the heart) and the diamond to the face.

Place the cards face down and perform your psychological card force. It’s now a case of asking them to turn over the top card or you casually turning the entire deck over. You may have started to notice there is a multitude of different ways to achieve exactly the same thing; it is in all honesty situation dependant. You can decide which set of techniques work best for you once you learn how to jazz it becomes simple to force the suit. I would highly recommend checking out Michael Murray’s ‘Tombola principle’ from his book ‘A piece of my mind’. This is the perfect way to round this up when you get down to the colour. It is so fair and so clean that it makes the process seem impossible from everyone’s perspective. I honestly think it is too good! As you can see above there are a multitude of different ways to force the colour and the suit, it is about learning to jazz and pick the one that you feel is going to best for the job.

The Values The values are not going to be written up in order; each value will be present and accounted for. Some of the values are easier to force than others and therefore I will outline them first and then the other values after.

Piggybacking This is the easiest way to psychologically force a playing card we will be using one card to piggy back off of to force another. I have used this technique for as long as I can remember – The only technique I can think of that is remotely similar is Springboard by Michael Murray (But I am sure as you read you will see why they are different) – If you don’t know Springboard you should check it out. The easiest playing card to psychologically force is the 7 – When asked for a number from one to ten that is the most frequently chosen number. I want to practically ensure that someone goes for that. Here are a few ways to do that – And make it seem like they could have chosen a picture card too. It needs to seem they could have chosen any card from 1-52. I mentioned previously about casually flashing specific cards on the face of the deck to ensure they are not chosen. This can also be done verbally if you do not want to use a deck.

In this instance let’s say I want to force the 7 of hearts. I would place the 3 of clubs on the bottom of the deck. As mentioned earlier, the black card will kill the black suits and the 3 will kill the number three – You can however use one of the other methods described for the suit so that you don’t have to worry about using a deck. Another method is to verbalise the 3 of clubs like this: Performer: “In a moment I am going to ask you to think of a playing card, when you do this I want you to see every single aspect of the card in your mind. So let’s say for example you thought of the three of clubs, I want you so see the suit in this example the club really dark and bold in your mind and the number in this case the number three really largely. Clear your mind and think of a number from one to ten stick with it. Have you got one?” Participant: “Yes”. Performer: “If you don’t think what you are thinking of is a fair enough choice you can if you’d like change it to a picture card”. [Watch carefully for the participants eyes - If they move then the likeliness is that the participant is changing.] It really doesn’t matter though as you could if you wanted just ask if the participant is happy Performer: “If you are happy, just say I am happy and we will go from there”. A thing to note also, probably the most important thing in this entire booklet is to learn how to up the probability of them hitting the card. One way to do this is to ask them to verbalise their selection. In the above example, I asked them to think of the number the problem with this can be (if you are not comfortable) that they change their mind if they verbalise it, it doesn’t give them the opportunity to change their thoughts as they have to commit to it. The way to perform the above force getting them to verbalise is as such. Leave the pack face-up on the table with the 3 of clubs on show. Performer: “Name out loud a number from 1-10 obviously avoid 3 (point to the cards)”. This is one process not two and makes forcing the number seven a lot easier.

When you ask them to name a suit out loud now as you pointed to 3 earlier and said “obviously don’t go for that” - without you having to say they will automatically assume that the club is also too obvious and therefore avoid it also. Let me explain why this will work most of the time, you have killed off the number three, two is close to three as is four. You have now restricted their choice from 1-10 right down to 4-10. 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 – 7 is bang in the middle and therefore the most psychologically chosen. I would also quickly like to add that if you were just stopping at the 7 force (which is completely up to you and you didn’t want to use piggybacking – Which is just about to be explained you can sway the participant should it not hit). To ensure you get them to seven it’s relatively easy if they are a couple out either way. Before you go to force the number seven all you need to add is this line. Performer: “I will even give you the opportunity to go 1-2 either way when you have made your choice”. Now if they call out 5 6 8 9 – All you have to do is remind them that you were going to get them to change (just like you did with the suits). Here is an example. If they went for 8 it is obviously one away from where we want them to be. So just smoothly add – Performer: “I did say I was even going to get you to change on whatever number you settled upon one either way so that even you didn’t even know what you were going to be thinking of. So what do you want to do where did you stop 8? So it would be 7 or 9”. Then you can be bold and let them choose, use Michael Tombola, use equivoque or my personal favourite is to people to vote and count the votes. If there are more stick with it and use the mass vote if there are more 9 simply say to the participant –

Murray’s get the other for the 7 for the number

Performer: “Look at what everyone else has gone for, the number 9 which would suggest that, the number 9 is the more popular choice, so it boils down to you. Do you want to go with everyone else’s choice or do you want to go with the 7 and go against what everyone else would choose. The reason I am asking is I want this to be as random and fair as possible”. You can see here just how many opportunities I am opening for myself to get back to that number, it is almost in essence like the trick that can’t be explained.

I never worry about anything I just roll with it, I have learnt in one way or another they will always end up where I want them to be. Remember one thing though, ham up the process of everything else I.E – The selection of the participant, get everyone to vote on someone and then change their minds and then ask ask if it is fair and if the group want to change. This gets them used to voting and making selections and therefore when you want to have a slightly lengthier process when it comes to the selection of a value or a suit it stays congruent. Seven is a really easy number to force and therefore it makes it an incredible card to piggy back from. Piggybacking is essentially that using the number seven to your advantage. Let’s go back to the above force of the seven (the one where they thought of it) – Directly after the line where you say Performer: “If you don’t think what you are thinking of is a fair enough choice you can if you want change it to a picture card”. You can stop them ever going for a picture card very easily and at the same time make it seem like they had the choice to if they are wanting to. Simply add to the end of the above sentence – Performer: “If you don’t think what you are thinking of is a fair enough choice you can if you want change it to a picture card. Infact (jump in before they have the opportunity to change), just go up by one from where you are now”. This will obviously force an eight (if they were thinking of seven). Performer: “Now even you didn’t know that you would have been thinking of this value, so there is no way I could of”. They obviously have to agree. You can use this for the rest of the values surround the number seven. I would never personally use this for more or less than three. The reason being is that it seems a little bit strange of a request when you ask them to go too far away from the original number they were thinking of. So this covers the numbers – 45678910 very easily. I will outline other methods to force these cards also, so that you are not just restricted to piggybacking in this way.

You can also use the number 7 to get someone to jump in the opposite direction (just like you did with the three). By placing the seven on the face of the deck you can use that card as the focus. Say to the participant Performer: I want you to envision, this number seven here for obvious reasons we aren’t going to use that. But imagine jumping back to another number, see it largely like the number nine bold and vividly. They won’t go for nine now as you have mentioned it and they will jump back to a three or a four. Simply using the “but then you principle” you will know exactly out of the two which one they went for. For those who missed it, here is a simple script to deduce which. Performer: “With you I know you changed your mind, you went for an even number (Pause) then changed it for an odd one”. Obviously if they react at even I would go with it being a four and you wouldn’t continue with the “Then you changed to an odd”. If they do not react, you are quickly countering with “But then you changed to an odd number”. Now you know if it is a three. This is another way to force the number 3 or the number 4; you can from here piggyback and take the participant from this number 3 in either direction. As I keep repeating (and it will get old) it is about using all of these methods in symphony to be able to get the participant to where you want them to be. Obviously there are different ways to present the ideas. Using the above force, you need to prime them with questions before bringing the card out of the deck, the way to make this seem entirely fair is to look at the participant at the start of the effect and place one playing card on the table (facedown). Then get to the point in the effect where you know what number they are thinking of and proclaim: Performer: “In fact I am going to change this, I think now I have a better feel for the way that you think”. Place whatever card you want to lead them to on the table. If you think this is drawing too much attention to what it is that you are doing then you don’t even have to place a card down until you have got to the point where you know what number they are thinking of, place the card down and then force the suit. Remember this is not the only premise that you can apply with these techniques. I will get into talking about different premises later on.

The increment force This force, as I am sure you will come to realise, is a lovely little force. There are a number of applications for this force. Let your imagination run wild. I am currently exploring lots of applications for this force and will detail my findings in my “Book of the demons”

Variation #1: The performer asks a participant to think of a playing card. Without any fishing the performer can name the thought-of playing card, or if desired, have it as the only card in a completely examinable wallet.

Variation #2: The performer asks a participant to think of any letter of the alphabet—the participant never says this out loud. The performer also says very little and only talks when he is instructing the participant. The performer then asks the participant to take that letter and to think of a country that starts with that letter. The performer is able to deduce the country.

Breakdown This force can be used to force anything that goes up in increments (or anything that goes up sequentially; i.e., 5, 10, 15), and more than that it also teaches a valuable lesson (I think) about how to take things that are not considered useful within a specific art and, with a little bit of work and refinement, make them incredible and totally practical. The original concept goes back to the “stop force” or “timing force” using playing cards. Don’t worry, this effect isn’t done using any cards at all, but to understand how it works you need to understand the timing force. This is also referred to as the “stop force” or the “dealing force.” To quickly refresh your memory, it’s the force where the performer deals down the cards one at a time at a particular pace and the performer asks the participant to say stop at any point, which usually forces the sixth card.

The first thing I did with the force was to eliminate the cards and to replace them with a beautiful invisible piece of theatre. I hope you enjoy what I have done with it. To start with I will explain how the stop force is done with playing cards (after all, this is a great way to practice the pacing). At first this will seem bold, but I promise once you have the timing down, it is so easy and will work 99% of the time. Take a deck of playing cards and place a force playing card in the sixth position. When you are sitting with a participant, start to deal down at a moderate pace. When you have dealt two cards, look at the subject and say: Performer: “just, say stop.” (Say it in a tone that suggests that they should have known they were saying stop. Their brain will freak out at this point and they will say stop on the sixth card. Get the pacing down, and once you have, you can force any number. The card they stop at will always be four cards after you have said, “Yeah, say stop.” That is, if you want to force the tenth card, then use the stop line after the sixth card and then they will stop on the tenth.) Once you have gotten used to the pacing and you’re comfortable, you are ready to practice the Increment Force. Here is the scripting/difference between the Timing Force and the Increment Force. Performer: “In a moment when I ask you to think of something, it's essential that you say nothing out loud. “If I ask you to think of moving your arm, I don't want you to do it, just think of it. Stay as inanimate as possible; don't blink, nod or say anything out loud.” (This may sound like overkill, but it's essential and it ensures things go the way we want.) Performer: “I am going to touch the air like this (tap a full stop in the air). Every single time I touch the air like this (touch a different spot in the air), I want you to imagine letters of the alphabet going up in increments.” Here we will give the participant a demonstration. Touch the air while simultaneously saying, “A,” touch the air again and simultaneously say, “B,” and repeat for C.

Whilst doing this, remember the pace of dealing down the cards as the same pace is going to apply theoretically; it is like you are dealing invisible playing cards into the air (without making a dealing motion). Performer: “In a moment I am going to do this without saying a word. The only time I will say anything is if I want to give you an instruction. It’s essential you count in your mind up through the letters every time I touch the air. Do you understand that?” This will force them to verbalise a Yes or nod their head. When they do you want to remind them: Performer: “Stay as still as possible and don’t say anything. “Are you ready?” Start to touch the air (implying the same pace as you would deal a playing card onto the table). After the second air touch, say: Performer: “Just think stop.” This will force the letter “F” (or somewhere in that very near vicinity)—I rarely miss on this. Continue to touch the air but increase the pace after a few letters, and when you have estimated you have counted all the letters, wipe the air clean. The number of touches really doesn’t matter as the participant stops counting after they have Stopped on a particular letter. (This will subtly suggest that you went through the entire alphabet and the subject had the free choice to stop anywhere. More importantly, this is beautifully theatrical.) Address the participant: Performer: “You are now thinking of a random letter, and neither of us said anything out loud; everything was done in our minds alone. Do you agree that letter was a completely free choice?” Participant: “Yes.” Performer: “I would now like you to think of a country that starts with that letter. This ensures that there is no way I could have somehow influenced you to think of a country, as fate decided what letter you would stop on, and that ultimately helped you make the decision on the country.” I would like to remind you that you are not just limited to forcing the letters in the region of the letter “F.” Here is an example of how you could force the letter “I.”

Continue to touch the air until you point to the letter “E” and then apply the line, “Yeah, think stop.” This would force the letter “I.” The reason this works is it forces the participant to just stop a few letters after the letter “E.” If you wanted to force another letter for whatever reason, it’s easy as long as you remember this line: “A few before.” What do I mean by that? I would go to the letter I wanted to force (let’s say we wanted K). I would then count a few letters back, K – J – I – H, and that would be the letter “H” and therefore that is the letter on which I would apply the line. The force for the value of a playing card would be done in the exact same manner. I always force the Six of Clubs. I just apply the forcing line after the number 2. As you can see this force relies on the old timing force. If you move the number up by one (when you say, you think stop wherever you want) then they will stop one number later. In the example depicted above you can see that I forced the number 6 after asking them to think stop after I had called the number 3, if I had said for them to think stop after the number 4 they would have stopped on seven. For obvious reasons I would not ask them to think stop on seven as I prefer the outlined method. I generally do this to force the number 5, 6 or 8. Again stopping them on any of these numbers I can use these numbers to piggyback 3 in any direction from these numbers. So far we have covered a way to force the 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. Some of these numbers we can force in different ways.

The number 3 / 4 Forcing these numbers are as easy as forcing the number 7 – You are just going to work in reverse, placing a seven on the face of the deck (or verbalising a seven). Performer: “Imagine that number seven really largely, in your mind jump back to another number so if you went for 9 you would see it in the air big and bold. For obvious reasons don’t go for that as that is my thought not yours. Tell me when you have a number?” Using clever questioning (outlined in this document) you can determine which it is. As you can see there really is nothing much to forcing these cards, they are very, very simple and you can always piggyback off of these numbers to get to whatever number you need to be on.

The eight / nine of clubs – Lloyd Barnes This is a lovely little force created by Lloyd that will allow you to force the eight/ nine of clubs. Performer: “As a kid I used to go outside and look at the clouds and be able to see all sorts of amazing imagery. Did you ever do that?” Participant: “Yeah all of the time”. Performer: “Have you done it recently or is it something that you haven’t done for a long time?” Participant: “It has been years since I last did it”. Performer: “Well I am going to take you back to your childhood, I want you to think of the simple drawing of a cloud and then think about the first playing card that pops into your mind when thinking about that drawing”. Participant: “I have one”. Performer: “For me, it is the three of hearts, I love the colours and vibrancy and the number just pops out. What was the first card that popped into your mind?” The participant will more than likely be thinking of the number 8 or the number 9 (cloud nine), it all depends on the subconscious awareness. Try it, you will be amazed at how frequently this hits. It is then up to you to choose a premise and how to reveal that card. The hardest cards in the deck to force are the aces, I will cover them last. The preference is to never have to force the aces and therefore they could in theory be eliminated. Let’s take a look at the picture cards, let’s start with the easiest picture card to force – The Jack of Spades. This is what you will use if you want to piggy back to get them to go for a queen or a king later. Performer: “Playing cards have been used for many things over the years, they were used in cartomancy or tarot as it is more popularly known, they were used for things that were a lot more esoteric than just playing card games. So excluding the aces think of what you would consider the most mysterious card in the deck”. Wait till the participant has committed to a playing card, then say,

Performer: “For me the three of diamonds would be the most mysterious as it represents the magic number, the number of all things strange. What do you consider the most mysterious card in the deck”. The participant will naturally most of the time go to a Jack. You can of course test the water, and force them towards a picture, should you think you have missed. This is as simple as saying, Performer: “If you have a number card in mind think card you also consider mysterious so you can change between the two of them. This really ensures as you more than one card that is even more impossible for be able to guess”.

of a picture your mind were thinking of anyone to just

The reframe is beautiful and you will find occurs commonly throughout this booklet. The notion of making someone change their mind to work in my favour yet seemingly being more impossible for the participant is something that fascinates me more than anything else in mentalism. Then all you have to do is reign them into thinking of the picture and you are almost home free. To force the queen there are a few ways to do it, if you are working with a female participant if you ask her to name a card out loud the chances are she will go for this card. You can up the probability by asking her what her favourite card is. Another option is Rus Andrews DVD – Destination. On this DVD he shares an invaluable series of techniques on how to force a playing card. I highly recommended it.

The number 2 / 5 These are relatively easy numbers to force. The trick with forcing these cards is to focus on them being more difficult to guess (from the participant's point of view) this makes them easy to force. I have noticed that when I say to someone "I want you to think of a card inside the deck but make it one you don't think I could just guess and feel free to change your mind, so if you went for 8 for example you would see it largely and clearly in the front of your mind" - This forces the number two or the number five. It sounds so simple, yet it is one of the most natural forces - This one is right up there for me with the jack of spades and 7 of hearts force.

You have to use the questioning outlined, to gather which of the two they have gone for. You can also use this to force the number ten, if you know they have gone for a low number (because you have used questioning) you can then get them to jump to a higher number adding - "Again making it one you don't think that I could easily guess" this will force them to go for a 9 or a 10.

The Joker – Annemann I am not 100% sure if this is original to Annemann but it was certainly the first place I ever read it. I have made a slight variation on the wording to up the hit rate. This is short but sweet. Performer: “Obviously the deck consists of 52 cards, red, blacks, pictures and numbers I want you to think of any card and tell me when you have it?” Participant: “Yes”. Performer: “If you don’t think this is a fair choice feel free to change your mind, let the sceptic in you come out. Think of one you don’t think I would ever be able to guess”. By reading this you should see why it forces the person to think of that playing card! Simple but sweet and effective.

The queen of hearts This is a force that I think most people will know, it is a very easy force to pull off and is probably the oldest force in this entire document. This is when working with a female. Performer: “I want you to imagine a deck of cards, imagine going in and taking one card out, this could be your favourite (pause) or you’re least favourite. Tell me when you have a card in mind”. Pay attention to the pause, you are pausing there so they start to think of their favourite card and then you add or your least favourite as they have already started to think of their favourite they are not going to change their mind. I have never seen this sort of force done with the pause but there is something really beautiful that you have just done. You have now enabled yourself when the participant tells you that they are thinking of a card you can now say –

Performer: “There is no way I could know what card you are thinking of, it could be your favourite, your least favourite or one you just selected at random”. This makes it seem impressive from everyone else’s perspective. Using piggybacking here you can make it even more incredible. Let’s say you wanted to force the king of clubs – When you have performed the force above simply say. Performer: “Whatever card you are thinking of now, go up by one. Then change the suit to one of the opposite colour that resembles the shape of the one you are thinking of. So now there is no way on earth I could know what you were going to think of because even you didn’t know”. As you can see this is a simple but elegant way to not make it seem obvious from the audience’s perspective as the last card is the only thing they will remember.

Aces These are the hardest cards to force and also the least impressive I would recommend staying away from forcing these cards. But I am going to outline how you can force them should you ever need to. The first way is to simply pressure someone to name the first card that comes to mind. If the person is not familiar with playing cards the likeliness is they will go for the ace of spades. Another way to force the ace – Performer: “I want you to imagine we are playing a game of cards, this can really any game you desire. Obviously the rules for each game are different and each card represents something different in each game. I want you to imagine dealing yourself a card. This is the card you feel is the card you need to beat me”. Let them tell you they have. Performer: “I don’t know what game you were playing and I certainly don’t know what card you have dealt yourself, as I said all the cards mean something different”. This will usually force an ace. A really blatant force of an ace is to ask someone to name a good card.

Most of the time you are going to force the ace of spades, so don’t try resist it if you are wanting to force a heart. Let them pick up on the ace of spades and then ask them to ignore the suit and use one of the techniques outlined to force one on them. This seems so fair and natural.

Missing If you are not particularly bothered about what playing card you are forcing, here is a lovely force that is impossible to backtrack when performed smoothly. Have a deck of playing cards in your pocket, address the participant, Performer: “As you know I am not a magician and don’t really know any tricks, but I would like to try an experiment. In the 1920s they used to test for psychic ability by transmitting playing cards mentally. If the receiver got close they would count it as a hit and that would be enough proof to declare that the person was the real deal. I want you to think of a playing card for me feel free to change your mind a few times and tell me when you have one in mind”. The deck is pulled out, Performer: “There are a couple of cards missing from the deck, before we start let’s just make sure your card is in there”. Ribbon spread the cards on the table the wider you spread them the better. Can you see your card? What will the participant do? Look up and down the deck and then give you a yes! This will tell you within about 7 cards the participant’s card. This means that you know the area the card has come from, notice a card from that area and remember it that will be your key card. Cut to that card. Pick up the deck and cut to that card, that way you have the region of the card they are thinking of. Then apply the “But then you” principle (described above). Performer: “So what do I know about you? I feel you changed your mind 2-3 times you went for a black card (pause) but then changed to a red”.

Don’t move any of the cards just yet, just remember later to get rid of the non-chosen coloured card from the stack surrounding your key card. This is where you need to look in your hand to be able to ask questions, if they are all numbers then it’s definitely got to be a number. If there is one picture surrounded by numbers the likeliness is based on probability the participant has gone for a number, but I would deal with it carefully with a clever question. Performer: “Knowing you, you probably thought the picture cards were too obvious (pause) and therefore [Keep your eyes on the participant’s reaction they will tell you! They will nod or say yes that they did think that if they are thinking of a number. If they are thinking of a picture they will sort of bow their head. The way they react dictates the way you are going to end your sentence.] If they nod or give you the green light mid-sentence (to tell you that they are not thinking of a picture) finish the sentence with, Performer: “You avoided thinking of them”. If they bow their head and look like your assumption was wrong, then quickly counter with: Performer: “But you know that I know they would be too obvious so you tried to double bluff me and went with a picture card”. If there is only one picture in your little stack you know exactly which card they are thinking of. If not this will eliminate the picture card/ cards that are in your hand, either way you will know if it’s a number or a picture and the colour of the card they are thinking about. This is not really the same as fishing as these are carefully constructed sentences in order to be able to construct hits whilst fishing – I call these “Guaranteed bites”. The questions above dictate what cards are left in your hand there should only be 2-3. Using clever questioning you should be able to get exactly what the card is. If you place your card in a stack then you don’t need to readjust the order of the deck, you can just clock your key and then you already know the cards around the stack. Which means everything can be done mentally and you don’t need to even touch the deck (other than to pull the deck out at the end to reveal the card).

Another simple yet elegant force is a jump force, I use this all the time and is my favourite card reveal/ psi force. Performer: “If you are thinking of a red card change to a black, black change to red”. If you watch you will notice they will often verbalise when they have done - telling you if they were first thinking of red or black. Performer: “You are thinking of a number right?” The likeliness is that they will be. [It doesn’t matter if they are or they aren’t as in a moment you will have a good cover.] Let’s say that they have a number. If you are thinking of a high number, change for a lower number (pause)

Lucky lucky This is a simple yet effective force that requires a time delay. Before you move into this type of routine during for example a pin divination – address the participant. Performer: “What do I know about most people? Ask them to think of a number and most of them will go for a 3, 5 or 7 due to it being the most frequently favourite numbers”. After slipping this into a routine, address that same participant after the routines come to a close – Performer: “I want you to take into account what you think you know about people and I want you think of a playing card I couldn’t just guess. The ace of spades or Queen of hearts might be too obvious. Tell me when you have a card in mind”. Now the participant is more than likely to avoid the pictures as they are too close to the queen. They won’t go for 3, 5 or 7 because you mentioned most people do. That leaves 2 4 6 8 10 I have never had 2 or 10 called out, that means you have reduced a deck right down to 4, 6 and 8 three values out of a whole deck! After forcing a suit, then combining this with a couple of clever questions (as depicted earlier) you can easily work out what card it is that the participant is thinking of.

This sums up something I have talked in depth about in the past ‘restricting without seeming restrictive’. Implication in a different routine is what makes this routine work; it seems to have a really beautiful feel to it this way. That is not to say this can’t be performed stand alone. If I am using this as a stand alone effect then I would use something I call ‘negative questioning’ – Putting a doubt into the participant’s mind. You have placed a card on the table, six of clubs is perfect for this. Performer: “This is going to be a difficult one, I will tell you that it’s not an obvious card like the ace of spades or the queen of hearts, so here goes. Most people under pressure would naturally go for a 3, 5 or 7, I am not saying this card is and I am not saying it is not. Do you think it is a 3, 5, 7 or something else?” This is beautiful and something I am exploring currently, asking someone a question in a negative way to get a negative response. I reckon with a little bit of thought the things that can be done with this principle will be mind blowing – I am not there with it yet. This sort of routine works because the focus is on the participant succeeding and is not about you. Therefore the participant has no reason to ever try and mess you up.

Practice A really simple yet effective way of practicing this sort of stuff, is to use a marked deck and ask the participant to remove the card they are thinking of, that way if you feel you are panicking or have forgotten where you are all you have to do is glance down and look at the marking to back you up. Once you have failed at this type of thing you realise that it is not the end of the world, I feel without a safety net you will try harder to make it hit. Another thing I really believe is that if you believe it, so it shall happen. Sounds really stupid but I think focusing on actually sending that card to someone really ups the odds (not in a spiritual or psychic way) but maybe our body language changes or people just have a way of knowing. Anyway what is the harm in trying?

Recommendations I want to share a few recommendations for psychological forces/ psychological card reveals I use and would personally recommend as they are super strong! Derren Brown – 3 of Diamonds International magic lecture Docc Hilford – 6 of Clubs Real Mind Reading Rus Andrews – Destination Ben Seward – Cog

Premise This is the most important part of this booklet; it’s what you do with these forces that make them special here are a few premises and ways to perform using these forces. Everyone has their own performing style and preference on how they would like this type of thing to be perceived. Think for a few minutes about what you would do with these forces, think about how you would use these forces in context. I have outlined a few ways I like to perform these routines I hope you love them.

Twin telepathy One participant thinks of a playing card the second one thinks of one also both are asked to name out loud the card they are thinking of and coincidentally they are thinking of the same card! The main thing to remember here is to not use the same force on both of the participants which is tempting as it seem the most logical route. With the first participant I would use the increment force and stop them on the heart (if the second participant is female) club (if male) so the first participant would be thinking of the six of hearts (or clubs) I would then force the seven on the second participant and use piggybacking to get them to go down by one. In this type of routine it doesn’t matter if one goes for the heart and one goes for the diamond. Or one goes for spade and one goes for club. Just use the techniques outlined above to ensure that the second participant goes for a suit of the same colour. If you wanted to ensure that the first participant goes for the same card as the second you could always use a marked deck, ribbon spread it facedown and then ask the first participant to slide a card out facedown and keep it face down.

Read the marking and then just force the relevant playing card on the second participant. With this type of routine, one participant is choosing a card consciously and the second is choosing a card subconsciously (or unconsciously) I think it makes for a great premise. This type of routine plays out really strongly for a couple, just ensure that you can indefinitely force the card before trying this type of routine.

Bold This is my favourite type of routine, one playing card is placed down and the participant names a card it is flipped over and BOOM it hits! There are multiple ways to do this, one is to place it down at the start of the routine and go for gold and frame the routine as influence. You can do this type of routine by getting the person to think of a card use the above methods to test the water and then fish pulling one card and placing it down. In this context you can always use the age old one ahead should the first card not hit and try to hit the second one. For the people that don’t know what the one ahead is, let’s say I have placed the four of clubs down and the participant has gone for the six of spades I would then pretend to the participant that everything has gone perfectly and then without turning the card over I would then go through the deck pulling the six of spades out and then aim to force the four of clubs again. This will give me a second chance should I have failed the first force. Another way out of this situation is when they name the card out loud, if it is the wrong card don’t worry simply go through the deck and cull their card to the top and apply a simple top change. If you are not mechanically that great then place theirs on the top of the deck and ask them if they want to look at it. They will obviously say yes. Then simply apply a double lift.

Another out is the Santa Clause out, or more popularly known as

Burnt Memories

We will look at But you reading

be using this in the context of asking them if they want to the card or not, not in the context it is described here. should fully understand how it would work in context after this.

Take a billet and write on it: “Some of the greatest things in life are best left a mystery”. Fold the billet and then place it into a match box. Add two matches to the box. Place the small matchbox into your pocket and you are set. Save this piece until it feels right, (for example at the end of a reading or performance) turn to one of the females and address her. Performer: “I feel with you, you really want to believe that something outside of what we logically understand exists. Even though you are constantly told it’s not possible, there is something in your heart that just tells you that there are things out there. If I could write down just one thing that would prove undoubtedly that all of this is very much real, could you think of what that one thing would be? Whether it’s a name or a little sentiment, just something that would completely confirm all of those feelings to be true”. Participant: “Yeah I have something”. Hold the participant’s hand for a few seconds while just looking at her - right into her eyes. Performer: “You know they say that the eyes are the window to the soul”. Remove the matchbox, slide out the drawer and unfold the billet ensuring that the writing on the inside is hidden. Write on the billet – To (INSERT PARTICIPANT’S NAME), Then sign the bottom of the billet. Fold it back up and slide it back into the box. Performer: “(insert participant’s name) separating you from believing in all of One of the worst situations to be in in mind have opposing viewpoints and there

there is only one thing this. life is when the heart and is a conflict of interest.

This is for you. But before you even contemplate opening it I want to tell you something that is going to be life changing, no matter which path you decide to take. Before you make that choice let me tell you a story. I grew up on Queensbury council estate (the ghetto to everyone outside of the U.K) and as a kid because of the people we associated with we always believed we would amount to nothing. Because of that one of the things I held in such high regard, which might seem silly now was Santa clause. I loved Christmas. I probably believed for far too long. I behaved every single one day. One afternoon to my friend Christy’s the door Christy asked

day just to have a definitive effect on that in December I got my guitar and went around house for band practice and as I came through me what had got me so happy.

I told him that it was Christmas soon and Santa was going to be visiting and he looked at me and said you do know Santa is not real right? I smiled and replied yeah of course I know but inside I was torn. He had stripped away the only thing that made me feel a sense of wonder. I left and went home and I was destroyed. I realised as I matured that there is only one thing actually stopping Santa from being real. That thing is belief. It is the one thing that stops the greatest things in life from being real. You may be wondering why I told you that story. The reason being that it leads to this moment, where you get to make a choice. You can take the box, slide out the piece of card and open it, potentially risking it being wrong and if it is wrong you ruin this moment for yourself. Or, You can give me the box back, just knowing that what I have written is correct completely and there is no need to look at it because you just know it is right and you will ultimately have a beautiful story to tell of this exact moment for the rest of your life. If they give you the box back, take out a match and strike it on the side of the box and then burn the billet. Think about the power this piece has psychologically. People might open the box and read the content, they will feel bad that they did and that is a massive lesson in itself. For the people that don't open it, think of how powerful that is! It is the stuff legends are made of and the box will become an amazing part of their life and a story that they will tell whenever they get the opportunity. Truly something that will last a lifetime.

Additional idea This is something I use in the very last phase of my Acaan (there is usually three phases). I have hearts number of the

the participant shuffle the deck of cards, mix them to their content name a card and a number and then deal down to that placing the card at that number face down away from the rest deck.

I collect the rest of the cards up and proceed to tell the story from above. At the end of the story I replace the last bit with. Performer: “You can turn the card over and risk me potentially being wrong and ruin this moment for yourself or you can believe with all of your heart that, this card is the right card. Pick it up and place it back inside the deck without looking and you will always have a beautiful story to tell of this exact moment. Note** If they do decide to look at the card, tell them to slide the card towards their chest and keep the outcome private no matter what it is, so the mystery is left alive for everyone else. Ask them to place it to their chest and peek at it. When they peek say the words: Performer: “Amazing, right?” Smile at them at the same time as saying it. Then take the card from them placing it inside the deck. I have come to find that based on luck the card can be there and I promise you, you will never get a reaction like it if it hits. If it does not, because you have asked them to leave the mystery alive for everyone else, everyone will always wonder if it was the right card. Rarely people tend to turn over the card and the finish is one that is super powerful. I had the pleasure of finishing with this phase in Vegas onstage with Jeff McBride and when I hit the end note of the story everyone in the room gasped. Jeff placed the card inside the deck without looking stood up and bowed at me. That to me was a complete testament to how strong this piece was for lay people and performers.

The Journey In spirit of the last offering (Burnt memories) I would like to share a little story that took place in Blackpool 2013. This effect is also mentioned in my write up of the lecture I gave at the magic circle – Although this was never meant to be an effect... More an affect! I was sat in Blackpool 2013 (might have been 2012) and after just holding court in the Ruskin, a young chap called Daniel approached me and very boldly proclaimed that he didn’t believe the legends that he had heard that surround me. At the time I had just finished performing the billet-less name guess, d.o.b revelations, pin code materials and the whole prop-less area of mentalism were something that performers were just starting to take seriously and look into. I’m not saying it was a new concept the idea of psychological mentalism - just one for the most part undiscovered because of the belief of impossibility. I had the year previous been doing these sort of effects over skype and internet communications and had a complete admiration for such things and it was refreshing to be able to hold court and showcase them to my peers. Back to the young chap, after making such a bold statement I told him that I think he is missing the point. Mentalism is not about fooling people with nothing – or fooling people with something, it is about creating a moment that will last a lifetime. He didn’t understand the point I was making and I told him I would share with him what I meant but it would cost him 51 playing cards. He handed me his deck of cards and I shuffled them and without looking selected a card from the center of deck and placed it inside the card box. I was careful not to flash any of the other playing cards and pocketed them. I instructed Daniel to not open the box and to change his mind through as many playing cards as he would like. When he was watching other people perform take a few seconds to change the card he had in his mind, when he went to the toilet change his mind, when he stood at the bar waiting for a drink change his mind, on the walk home to his hotel change his mind, before he went to bed place the card box on the bed side table and change his mind and when he woke up first thing in the morning change his mind one more time and then slowly as he possibly could open the box.

I told him that whatever card he was thinking of would be inside the box. With that Daniel left with a look of disbelief on his face. As soon as Daniel left a few friends of mine were sat at the table and looked at me in disbelief also. How are you going to do that? They asked. I will tell you the answer after I finish the story. The next morning I approached the Winter Gardens (where the convention is held) it was a very cold morning and I saw Daniel stood at the doors. He ran towards me with a look of disbelief on his face and said to me he had waited for nearly two hours to see me. The card he thought of was the card inside the box! My friends couldn’t believe it and the people he shared the tale with I doubt they believed it. I could end the story here and never tell you what I told my friends after Daniel left that night and it would always be just a story. One more moment where someone has a tale to tell that is so impossible it couldn’t be true. I won’t leave the story there as I feel there is a very valuable point to be made. The kind of point that separates good mentalism/ magic from the bad. This is of course just my opinion and who am I to say what is good or bad, all I can share is my experience. This is what I told my friends after Daniel left. “It is not about it hitting, it’s about the fact that when everyone else is performing tonight Daniel will be thinking about the card in the box, when he goes to the toilet he will think about the card in the box, when he walks home it will be in his thoughts, the last thought he has when he goes to sleep is that playing card and then the first thing on his mind when he wakes up and the few seconds when he is slowly opening up the box is real magic. His brain doing acrobatics saying “No way, no way, no way”. The journey that got him to where he is going, the hit on the end is merely just the end of the journey not nearly as important as how they got there and what they felt in between. That is the real magic. Anyway... I might just be the luckiest son of a bitch and the card lands. Who knows? With that I slowly sipped a few more whiskies and chatted the night away. I will leave you to decide if it was just luck or something more, it sure meant I didn’t have to share the secret (if there was one) to anyone then...

But that is a tale for another time. I really hope you understand the value of this story.

Conclusion As you can see there is a lot of fun to be had with using playing cards in this context it really makes it seem so impossible. Also if you are using the ‘reading the participant’s mind ploy’ it really makes you seem like you would have a godly ability to play cards. Don’t be put off by the amount of work required to force playing cards it is a great skill to have and one that has taken me a long time to get to what I would consider a good standard. I always felt under confident at conventions, being it that I am not good mechanically. The forces in this book helped me get over that and gave me the ability to hold my own. If you guys have any psychological forces that you would love to share or would love adding in the revised version of this document email me – [email protected] I am always interested in fresh ways to do things.

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