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phathOM
by
BRANDON QUEEN
PUBLISHED BY BRANDON QUEEN EDITED BY BRADLEY BENSON
© All copyright owned in its entirety by Brandon Queen - Feb, 2013 No part of this publication may be stored, reproduced, copied or transmitted without the prior written consent from both the author and publisher. TV performance rights withheld. Conflicting live performance rights reserved.
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CONTENTS He who would search for pearls, must dive below
FORWORD ……………………………………………………………......... 4
INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………………... 5
TELEGEUSIA ……………………………………………………………... 7
R.A.M. ……………………………………………………………............... 18
LACUNA ……………………………………………………………........... 34
TELEGEUSIA II …………………………………………………………… 43
TEA FOR TWO …………………………………………………………….. 51
PSYCHO DYSPHAGIA …………………………………………………… 58
CREDIT & THANKS ………………………………………………………. 68
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FOREWORD By Colin McLeod
Stylish. Quite simply the best word I could use to describe everything Brandon Queen encapsulates: his look, his persona and most importantly in this case –his material. Having got to know Brandon over the last few years I’ve realized that he’s way more than just a beard-rocking hipster, he also likes good food. Like, SERIOUSLY likes good food. In fact, after reading this you’ll be convinced that food is THE major influence on his choice of material. More than all of that though, he has the ability to absorb all of the information around him, to improve it and to produce an end result that is far superior to how it began. Brandon is constantly striving to make his audience’s experience of mentalism one which is as it should be. That is, a purely mental experience (in the nonderanged sense) and what you are about to read is proof of that. Within these pages are some of Brandon’s most worked routines. These are ideas that I’ve watched him develop, grow and ultimately try out on me (usually via Skype) with great success. What you’re about to read will constantly offer you new approaches and at the very least, techniques that you WILL add to your currently performed routines. I’m very lucky to have been privy to this man’s thinking long before anyone else has. I have no doubt that the more Brandon shares with the community, the more convinced you will all become that he is actually possessed by the demon of Annemann. Brandon has long been my secret weapon for bouncing material off, as I know he’s going to help me to refine it and make it exactly as it should be and play in the real world – stylish. – Colin McLeod March 2013.
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INTRODUCTION [fath-uh m] 1. A unit of length equal to six feet. Used chiefly in nautical measurements. 2. To penetrate the truth of; comprehend; understand.
Hello and thank you for purchasing PHATHOM. This is the first collection of my material to be released to the mentalism community. Each of the routines presented in this book are my own personal creations and ones that I use in my current professional performances. It is my pleasure to finally be releasing them to the public. I am really excited to be contributing to my community after so many years of learning and growing as a performer. Without all of the wonderful friends, family and teachers in my life, this material would never have come to fruition. It is their encouragement and support that keeps me pressing forward and striving to be the best version of myself that I can be. What you hold in front of you is a collection of six routines and concepts that have been taken straight from my personal working repertoire of the last decade. Each routine has gone through a series of evolutionary developments; the results of countless trials, errors and discoveries made in real world performance situations. I have done my best to include every nuance and to cover these routines from just about every possible angle. All of the routines in this book focus on either mind control, or revealing some sort of personal thought, information or idea, that exists only in someone’s head. I know that may seem obvious, as reading minds is primarily what we do as mentalists; however, our job as mentalists is not just about reading minds or showing off a super-human ability. To me, our job as mentalists is really about connecting with other human beings on a deep level, within an artistic context. When I read somebody’s mind, my goal is to make that person feel – even if it’s just for one moment – that I understand them in a way that nobody else can. It’s not about regurgitating information that they already know, it’s about making them feel appreciated and understood. Almost everything expressed in this book is prop-less and has an organic, natural feel to it. Most of the routines are designed for the close up performance environment; however, they could all easily be adapted for larger audiences should that be a requirement of yours. There is truly something special about connecting with other people on a personal level, especially strangers. It is my wish that the material in this book may inspire you to find unique ways to connect with others, so that you can leave your audiences and participants better off than when you found them.
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Like our minds, we view oceans’ depths as something so foreign and incomprehensible that we embrace them as a metaphor for the unknown or the unknowable. Most of us feel that no one could possibly fathom what actually goes on in our minds. This often makes us feel comfortable, but sometimes it can make us feel disconnected. We as mentalists are some of the select few who possess the tools and abilities to make people feel as though we can penetrate that mental barrier and provide the comfort of connectedness. I sincerely hope you enjoy the material presented in this book and that you find ways to utilize the ideas and concepts in your own work and performances. If characters have been allocated genders in the descriptions of the following routines (unless otherwise specified) the performer has been described as being male and the participant as female. This has been done solely for the sake of clarity and not with the intent of supporting gender stereotypes.
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TELEGEUSIA A tasteful disquisition of gustatory perceptions
This is the routine I call upon when I need to close deals over the phone. It is one of the strongest and most practical pieces I have in my personal working repertoire. I still perform this regularly and it is often the only thing I perform. I was quite reluctant to share this, but I knew that had I decided to keep such an incredible routine (which is based upon a pre-existing concept) all to myself, then I would have felt quite guilty. I trust that the following routine will provide you with some food for thought and give you a springboard of ideas that you can use to take this routine and its concepts to the next level. The performer addresses the audience at large. “Listening to music is one of the most complex things our minds can process. Several parts of our brain have to work together to comprehend even the simplest tune. In addition to the many mechanical aspects of processing music, our brain also links associations with memories and feelings. Because music elicits certain thoughts, it makes us more likely to use these thoughts when asked to make a decision. “In 1997, three psychologists ran a field experiment that involved playing French accordion music and German “Bierkeller” music in a grocery store. The results were that shoppers purchased more French wine when the French music was playing and more German wine when the German music was playing. The results suggested that music creates unconscious responses in shoppers that could have a huge influence on consumer choice.” The performer asks the participant to close her eyes and to imagine walking into a grocery store where music is playing. He then guides her through an imaginative journey during which she is asked to make several decisions in her mind. Eventually, the participant is asked to picture herself preparing a dish using the ingredients she has collected in this imaginary grocery store. Once she has done that, the performer is able to describe the textures, smells and flavors of what the participant has cooked in a great deal of detail. After revealing the exact name of the participant’s imagined dish, the performer asks her to think of a dessert. Again, the performer is able to describe the dessert – which the participant is merely thinking of – in detail and with complete accuracy.
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OBSERVATIONS This routine went through several changes and transformations before becoming what it is today. The description you just read is one of the many presentations I enjoy using when I perform this trick. My preference is to perform this close up, one-on-one, or over the phone. I once performed this for a blind gentleman and afterwards, he told me that it was the first time he had ever experienced any kind of magic first hand. His response was priceless and so was the astonishment of all those in attendance. It was then that I realized I had armed myself with a very powerful tool. What makes this particular routine so powerful and unique is the ability to perform it anytime, anywhere, with absolutely no props or setup necessary. A thought is revealed in real time and there is no evidence left behind for somebody to use if they were to try to reverse engineer the experience later. At the heart of this method lies a concept that is relatively new and has been explored by very few. It was created by an extremely talented and progressive thinker in the field of mentalism – Joshua Quinn.
PLAN OF ATTACK When I first discovered Joshua Quinn’s Thought Chunnel routine, published in his book “Paralies”, I immediately fell in love with it and began using it in my paid performances. What initially attracted me to this method and routine was the ability to have someone think of ANY word and to eventually be able to tell them exactly what word they were thinking of, without the need for them to write anything down. After playing with the ideas in Quinn’s book, I decided to create my own chunneling system that allowed me to bypass the one major issue that most readers were finding to be quite a hurdle – not being able to use this routine outside of the United States. The initial inspiration behind creating my own chunneling system was not the result of living outside of the United States. I had learned through experience that most Americans struggle to remember the names of presidents and even have trouble thinking of American states. Time and time again, the routine would come to a sudden halt due to people lacking certain geographical and political knowledge and the success rate of the routine proved to be too low for me. I also wanted to use a more linear sequence of chunneling, one that didn’t feel so random and disconnected. I am going to explain two different ways of performing my chunneling system: the first description is intended to be used one-on-one or over the phone, the second is a stage routine in which you will seemingly read the thoughts of every single person in the room.
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Okay, let’s get into the chunneling system and the workings of this routine, then I’ll discuss the details and the subtleties that accompany them. Those of you who are familiar with Thought Chunnel will understand how this works right away. For those of you who aren’t, I’ll explain the basic principle in a moment. The system is as follows. First, they think of any musical instrument (there are only three possibilities that won’t work and I’ll get to those later), next you have them think of a fruit and finally you have them think of any vegetable. Unbelievably, by the time they get to think of a vegetable, their options will be limited to one of only three: a turnip, an eggplant or a yam. Allow me to explain exactly what is going on here. Each time I have my participants think of an item in the grocery store, I ask them to think of one that begins with the last letter of their previously thought of item. By directing them to choose from a category that has a limited number of last-letter-results, I can effectively narrow down their future options. The great thing about these items (an instrument, a fruit, and a vegetable) is that they all fit perfectly within the context of the presentation. All three items are part of the journey into the grocery store and are consistent with the premise. So, the items in this chunneling sequence are all related to one another, but they also provide the additional benefit of being relevant to the greater effect. Each item used within the routine will play an important role later on, which is usually not the case in chunneling routines. Once the participant has selected a fruit and vegetable, they are going to use these items to prepare a dish. The participant never asks you to tell them their first word because the original instrument seems integral to the process and not like something you made them change simply because you couldn’t. Every choice is important and is integrated into the final reveal. Here is how it sounds: “I want you to imagine that you’re about to walk into a grocery store. Just outside of the store is a young man playing a musical instrument. Can you picture the instrument in your mind? Great, now as you walk into the store you grab one of those little handheld baskets by the entrance and walk over to the produce section. You’re going to select a fruit, but you notice that they have a sale on one particular fruit. Coincidentally, it happens to begin with the last letter of the instrument the young man was playing outside. I want you to take that fruit once you’ve found it and place it in your basket. Now, you’re going to mosey on over to the vegetables and select one that begins with the last letter of your fruit. Okay, once you’ve selected the vegetable and placed it in your basket, you’re going to purchase your items and go home to cook me a meal.”
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STEP ONE Once you’ve had them think of a musical instrument, they will be left with only TEN possible final letters from which they can select a fruit. Those letters are: N, R, Y, L, S, D, A, O, T and E. There are three possible exceptions to that outcome and they occur if the participant chooses a harp, a drum or one of several Chinese instruments. I’ve never actually encountered anyone who has thought of one of these obscure and ancient Chinese instruments off the top of their heads; however, I once preformed this for someone who had trouble thinking of an instrument over the internet and thanks to the wonders of Google, they managed to expand their musical vocabulary and select a rather rare and ancient Chinese instrument. Having said that, unless you’re trying this effect under those same conditions, I wouldn’t worry about it. The likelihood of you encountering someone who will select one of those Chinese instruments is extremely low. Well, unless of course you live in China. If someone is thinking of a drum, more often than not they won’t pluralize it as ‘drums.’ This poses a potential problem, because now their last letter is “M,” which forces mango, mandarin or melon as their thought of fruit. If they think of “harp” then they are forced to think of peach, pear, pineapple, plum, pomegranate, passion fruit, papaya… this list goes on and on. Of course, this situation is less than ideal as the reason this routine works so beautifully is that the chunneling sequence should leave the participant with as limited a choice as possible. There are several ways in which we can avoid this situation, my preferred being to blatantly tell them NOT to think of those two instruments. “As you go to walk into the store, you notice that there is a gentleman playing a musical instrument out front for money. It’s quite an uncommon instrument, like a harp or a drum, only different. Can you picture that instrument? Again, this can be any instrument you can think of, the more unique the better. Another way to stop them from thinking of a drum is to ask them to think of an instrument that plays a tune; this eliminates most percussion instruments. It would even be perfectly reasonable to revert to classic verbal forcing techniques, such as, “Think of any musical instrument you want, like a harp or a drum, but don’t think of those because I just mentioned them.”
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STEP TWO Okay, let’s return to those ten possible letters. Once they have an instrument in mind (unless they’re thinking of a harp, drum, or Chinese instrument) you’ll have them think of a fruit that begins with one of these ten letters: N, R, Y, L, S, D, A, O, T and E. Although it seems like a lot of possibilities, probability narrows it down to only four letters: O, N, T and R. The most common letter is O and of those four, T is the least common. Although it is possible to think of a fruit beginning with the letter E (endive, elderberry, eggplant, entawak - just to name a few) no one ever seems to think of these. The most common fruits are orange, nectarine, raspberry and tangerine. The only way they’ll think of a raspberry is if they begin by thinking of a guitar. Sometimes, when I have them imagine the instrument I’ll tell them not to think of a guitar, but to think of a less common instrument such as a harp or a drum instead. That knocks all three out at once! If I’m performing this for two or more people simultaneously, then I’ll leave guitar in there as a possibility. Once they have a fruit, there are only THREE possible last letters that they could be thinking of: Y, T and E. The letter “E” is by far the most common letter chunneled, “Y” is the second most common and “T” is very rare.
STEP THREE You are going to be forcing one of four possible vegetables and those possibilities are: turnip, tomato, yam and eggplant. As long as you have chunneled them correctly and bypassed the harp, drum, and Chinese instruments, they should be thinking of one of these four vegetables. There is however a few exceptions and those will be covered in the “Difficult Spectators” section. In practice, eggplant is almost always the vegetable that is thought of and yam is the second most likely outcome. Of course this is completely dependent upon how you manage the participant’s choices at the beginning of the chunneling sequence. Again, turnip and tomato are almost never thought of. I am also quite aware that tomatoes and eggplants are technically both examples of fruit and not vegetables; however, because they are both culturally used as vegetables (i.e. in more savory contexts) it is hardly an issue. Your participants will think of these options, so it only makes sense to categorize them as vegetables for the sake of this routine.
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PSYCHOLOGICAL FORCE This is the part of the method that takes this whole chunneling system to the next level and really convinces your participants that they could have thought of anything, even if they suspect that you have been narrowing down their options. Once you have successfully chunneled a vegetable (most ideally an eggplant), you’re going to implement a psychological force to have them think of a dish. The brilliant thing about this segment is that almost everyone has a bit of a struggle trying to think of a dish and most of the time they have to think about it for at least a few seconds. The good thing about this is that it really gives them the feeling (even if just for a few seconds) that their vegetable is SO far from the obvious that they must have done something wrong, or perhaps that they just have too abstract a mind to think of something. This is exactly where you want them to be. Once you have taken them this far along on the journey, there is no backing out. They may tell you that they can’t think of anything, but I assure you that they will if you guide them. In moments like this I make use of modern technology and let them use Google on their cell phone. “I want you to take your vegetable and use it as the MAIN ingredient for a dish. Nothing too abstract like Mac & Cheese with pieces of cut up hot dog and Ritz crackers, just something practical that you’re familiar with.”
“Now for something sweet. I want you to take your fruit and use it as the main ingredient for a dessert. For example, if you had peaches you could make peach cobbler or something like that.” If they seem to struggle to think of something, add: “… and it doesn’t have to use the actual fruit. It can just be flavored like the fruit if that makes sense to you.” At this point, they should be thinking of eggplant Parmesan (or a variant of that) or sweet potatoes/candied yams. We will continue with this assumption in mind. Now remember the most probable fruits thought of are orange, raspberry, nectarine, and tangerine. The desserts they will be thinking of are orange sherbet, nectarine sorbet, tangerine Jell-O, raspberry sorbet or some sort of pie. Once they are thinking of both a main dish and a dessert, it’s just a matter of describing the dishes detail by detail, until you have revealed exactly what they have thought of.
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EGGPLANT PARMESAN “Now don’t say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ because I don’t want you to think I’m fishing for information; just listen. Right away I’m sensing that this is a warm dish. I mean, it’s not just a salad or something; you actually went out of your way to cook this. I also taste what seems to be a sauce and it’s a bit sweet at first, but kind of has a bit of spice to it too. The texture is really soft. I can taste tomatoes. You definitely put tomatoes in this. I believe this is an Italian dish. It’s like spaghetti, but it’s not spaghetti. This is something you baked. Like a lasagna, but it’s not lasagna, it’s similar. Ahh… You made eggplant Parmesan!”
SWEET POTATOES “Now don’t say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ because I don’t want you to think I’m fishing for information; just listen. The first thing I’m noticing is the consistency and texture of this dish. It’s very soft, almost creamy. I don’t think it’s soup because I don’t feel like I’m slurping it; it’s similar to baby food. It’s sweet, very sweet. I’m also getting a sense of comfort, like that feeling you get on Thanksgiving. Wait... Is this dish sweet potatoes??”
ORANGE SHERBET “Now this is quite a unique dessert. It would be quite easy to just assume that you’ve thought of something simple like apple pie, but you seem more creative than that. In fact, I think you decided to go with a cold dessert. It’s not ice cream though, that would be too easy. I taste some sort of citrus fruit flavor. Ah! You’re thinking of orange sherbet!”
BINARY PROCESS Although statistics are in our favor, the outcome won’t always be eggplant Parmesan and orange sherbet. It follows then, that we need to utilize a method for subtly fishing for what they are thinking of, whilst maintaining the illusion that we aren’t fishing at all. Because we are working under the (hopefully accurate) pretense that they are thinking of either eggplants or yams, the first thing we need to do is to figure out which one.
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SIDE DISH / MAIN DISH “Okay, I want you to just think of your main dish… (pause) this is a main dish, right? Or is it more of a side dish?” Their response to this simple question will tell you whether they are thinking of eggplant or yams right away. Once you have figured out which one, you can continue with the relevant script. If you have decided to guide them away from thinking of a guitar, but they still say “yes it’s a side dish” or “I’m not quite sure” then there is a possibility that they are thinking of edamame.
COLD DISH / WARM DISH As you start to reveal your impressions, just before you tell them not to give you any hints as to whether you’re right or wrong, you’re going to subtly ask whether it’s a cold or warm dish. You only need to do this if the person confirms that their dish is a SIDE DISH, or is unsure. In either of these cases, say the following: “First off, I’m sensing that this is a cold dish, but I’m not quite sure. Is it a cold dish?” (YES) “Ah, I thought so.” (NO) “I didn’t think so, must have been sitting out for a bit.” If they confirm that it IS a cold dish, then they are thinking of edamame. If they say that it is NOT a cold dish, they are thinking of yams/ sweet potatoes.
EDAMAME “Now, right away, I feel like this would make a better appetizer than a main. I have a feeling we both might be hungry after this, although I’m not quite sure what it is. Can you think of something that would compliment this dish? Perhaps a main course that would typically follow this appetizer?” At this point, they should obviously be thinking of sushi. Instead of just revealing edamame, it’s best to go straight into describing the sushi. Describe the colors, the temperature, the flavors, the associated culinary region etc. Only after sushi has been confirmed should you reveal that they have thought of edamame. This way, it appears as though you determined edamame by deduction and not the other way around. This makes your sushi revelation much stronger. If they have thought of edamame, try sticking to the theme when revealing their dessert, by saying something like: “Now, although the best dessert right now would be green tea ice cream, I think you picked something a little less traditional with this meal. Still, I think it might compliment the entire ensemble.”
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GAUGING RESPONSES When going through the chunneling process, it is important to observe the participants (especially one on one) and pay particular attention to how quickly (or slowly) they are able to think of their items in each sequence. If they seem to struggle or take longer than usual, there is a high chance that they are going to end up somewhere completely off track and far from where you want them. Those people think in a more abstract way than others and often over-think things. They are the people who are likely to think of edamame. When revealing your impressions and describing the details of the dish, you must watch to see how they react to what you’re saying. Their facial responses will tell you everything you need to know in order to correctly describe their dish. If you have properly built rapport they will want you to succeed and as a result they will want to interrupt you and tell you if you are wrong, before you stray too far into nonsense land. Don’t give them a chance to verbally tell you you’re wrong, just read their expressions –read their minds for real! As a perfect example, let’s say that for some reason our participant has thought of a tomato as her vegetable (this has only happened a handful of times for me and always with the same outcome). In this situation, you may notice a positive reaction as you begin to describe an Italian dish. They may look equally as impressed when you say that it seems like pasta, but when you mention that it isn’t quiet pasta they may look a bit confused. Their confusion would suggest that they are thinking of pasta, with a tomato-based sauce. If you pay attention to these reactions, you can still bring the routine to a successful conclusion a large percentage of the time.
DIFFICULT SPECTATORS I almost always refer to the person or people directly participating in a routine as the “participant/s” but sometimes those people will prefer to become spectators and difficult ones at that. Even though we have a very structurally sound system for forcing eggplant Parmesan, there are still those people who will intentionally try to make you fail or even quite innocently veer off the intended path. This often has a lot to do with their not having any investment or interest in what you’re doing, or with their viewing the whole process as a challenge. There are also those people who just don’t know how to follow directions, which again results in them not having any emotional investment. It is quite natural that you will eventually encounter each of these people when you perform and I’m sure that many of you already have. I usually just refrain from working with these people as it saves me a lot of time and frustration; however, once in a while you will encounter a person of this disposition, who adamantly wants to participate.
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When you DO encounter a difficult spectator (and it will happen eventually) there are certain trends that they follow and I have come up with a few solutions to overcome them. As we discussed earlier, some people will choose edamame over eggplant. People who do this usually fall into one of two very different categories. Either they are abstract thinkers who naturally and unintentionally overlook the obvious, or they are the type of person who will very intentionally try to be difficult in order to provide a challenge. Though it’s less common, another ‘unusual’ behavior worth mentioning is that sometimes people will take the process way too seriously. These people will be happy to tell you the difference between a fruit and a vegetable and will sometimes choose eggplant as their fruit because technically, it is a fruit. If they do that, it’s completely okay. When it comes time to reveal the “Italian Dish” and you mention that there are tomatoes in it, you just have to gauge their reaction. (see the “Gauging Responses” section for more detail) Another thing worth mentioning is that in extremely rare cases, you might find that someone has thought of an avocado as their fruit. When you recognize that you are working with one of these difficult spectators and feel compelled to work with them anyway, just make sure that every instruction you give them is as clear as day. If you suspect that you’re working with a person who might think of an avocado for instance, then mention that although avocados and tomatoes are considered types of fruit, you require them to pick sweet fruits because they are going to be using them to make a dessert. Saying something along those lines usually puts them right back on track.
STAGE PERFORMANCE One of the many environments in which I perform this routine, is on stage. I have everyone in the room stand up and I take them all on the imaginative journey at the same time. As I go through each item, if there are people who can’t think of something or have trouble, I tell them to sit down. This not only allows the process to move quicker and smoother than it would do otherwise, but it also filters out any of those abstract thinkers I mentioned earlier. I also reveal a few of their thoughts between each item and have them sit down as I do so. This added bit of procedure not only allows me to transparently filter out problem items such as the harp, drum, and guitar, but it has the added benefit of contributing to the effect as well. “Okay, I’m not sure who this is, but there is someone over here (point to right side of audience) thinking of a drum and someone over here (point to left side of audience) thinking of a harp. Could you all please sit down for me?”
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When moving on to the fruit, I do the same thing. This part also eliminates the guitar people. “Ok there are a couple of you at the back thinking of a raspberry and someone over here (pointing in middle of audience) thinking of a strawberry. Could you also sit down for me please? Thank you.” Finally, when I get to the vegetables I eliminate the last of the problem participants in the following manner: “I’m not exactly sure what direction this is coming from, but there is someone thinking of a Japanese soy bean... Edamame. Who is that?” At this point, I just ask this person to sit down. If no one raises their hand, I will point to the back of the room and say, “there you are, please take a seat” and then continue with the rest of the routine. At this point there should be a few people left standing, though the number will vary depending on how large your audience is. Usually I’ll have somewhere between two and six people left standing and will invite one of them to join me on stage (preferably a female). I finish the routine by escorting her to a candle lit table set for two (piano music playing in the background, of course) and continue the routine as usual, but with us both sat at the table. Should everything go to plan, I will also reveal that the words “Eggplant Parmesan” have been printed and sealed in an envelope (or something to that effect), which has been kept underneath her plate the whole time.
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R. A. M. Memories light the corners of my mind
The performer asks a spectator if she carries photos with her, and explains: “People like to carry pictures with them wherever they go, as a sort of tangible recollection of moments. Pictures can capture the essence of a single moment in time and give us the ability to access details about that moment forever; however, we don’t really need pictures to remind us of our special moments. Often all it takes is something simple -such as a certain smell - to trigger off a specific memory and suddenly a picture pops into our head and the details are allowed to reassemble. In a moment, we are going to access one of your memories. We’ll start by activating your senses with various mental images, generating random associations connected with a moment in time. We’ll do that until all of the details of a specific memory have fallen back into place.” The performer then begins to guide the participant into a mental construction of vague associations, allowing her to naturally retrieve various images, sounds and smells without revealing any of them aloud. Once the participant has mentally constructed enough associations, she begins to piece together the randomly generated thoughts and images into a specific and detailed memory. Once the participant has a specific memory in – and only in – her mind, the performer begins to reveal his first impressions. He describes everything he sees, hears, and smells, as if he‘s stepped directly into the memory. The participant starts grinning in amazement as she wonders how the performer could possibly know the details of her mentally thought of scene. To take it a step further, the performer asks the participant to mentally create an image that is related to her memory. He then begins to sketch something with a sharpie on the back of his business card and places it face down on the participant’s face up palm. With that done, the performer immediately rests his middle fingers on the participant’s temples, takes a deep breath in and begins to describe specific elements of her memory in a great deal of detail. Astonished, the participant begins to confirm many of the details revealed by the performer. Finally, the performer asks the participant to describe out loud, the picture that she saw in her mind. She turns over the business card to find that the picture matches exactly.
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OBSERVATIONS This is another routine that was loosely inspired by Joshua Quinn’s Thought Chunnel. The genesis of this idea was the result of an effort to create a thought chunnel process that would allow me to force a specific emotion on a participant. I then wanted to have her think of a moment in time when she had felt that emotion and be able to reveal the minor details of her memory, before finally revealing the original emotion. As I went through the process of creating a chunneling system for my original idea, my goal was to give each category some sort of relevance to the one that had come before. In the process of doing this, I found myself playing an actual game of word/thought association with myself, which led to the conception of this specific chunneling system. I ended up with something quite different to what I had originally intended, but I feel it might actually have turned out better than my original idea. This effect has been designed so that it can be performed at any time, in any place, without requiring objects that you wouldn’t ordinarily carry with you or couldn’t easily borrow in any situation. Although this effect can be performed completely prop-less, I have alternate versions that I will discuss toward the end.
PLAN OF ATTACK There are two underlying methods that make this effect possible, thought chunneling and a visual branching system much like a progressive anagram (or as Alain Nu calls it, ‘iconographic fishing’). Whereas thought chunneling works by directing participants to think of words from categories that offer an increasingly limited number of word endings (i.e. final letters) and therefore a limited number of options, iconographic fishing chunnels categories by using a psychological forcing technique, which leaves room for only one option in each category. The category that you will ultimately be forcing from in this routine would best be described as ‘festive holidays.’ All holiday festivities share some similarities in respect to how they are celebrated (food, alcohol, lots of people etc). We are going to exploit these festive similarities by revealing them early on in the routine as we simultaneously work to determine exactly which holiday the participant is thinking of. I am very much a fan of methods that are integrated and hidden within the presentation and most of my original work utilizes this concept. The method presented here relies upon the presentation and the presentation relies upon the method. In a way, we are going to be working backwards. We won’t have enough information to describe details of our participant’s memory until we learn which holiday she is thinking of and we won’t know which holiday she is thinking of until we know what picture she has imagined. Once we have determine the picture
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she is thinking of, we can describe specific details about her memory, adding a liberal amount of cold reading to the mix as well. The picture we are going to draw is a symbol that represents the specific holiday that the participant is thinking of. This is where the iconographic fishing techniques come into play. Once we learn which picture the participant is thinking of, we will know which holiday she is thinking of as well. There are 53 holidays listed on a U.S. calendar, so how do we narrow them down? Well, there are only four major holidays and the instructions that we give our participant are designed to lead her to think of one of those four. Sometimes though, we will encounter difficult spectators who have trouble paying attention to instructions and could potentially think of one of the four minor holidays. These are also covered in our branching system. If I were to ask you to think of any day of the week and to then take the last letter of that day and think of a color using that letter, I would have forced you to think of the color yellow. This is the basic idea behind this particular psychological forcing technique. Unlike a typical psychological force, which attempts to force something based off of statistics and probability, this situation gives the participant no other option yet feels completely fair. To start the chunneling process, we are going to ask the participant to think of a memorable year. Once she has a year in mind, you will ask her to think of any month out of that year. When she has a month in mind, you are going to ask her to think of the season the month falls within and then to think of a holiday that falls within the season. Finally, you will ask her to think of the icon that represents their holiday. While there are major and minor holidays, there are also major and minor icons for each holiday. Below is a chart that visually displays the categories.
Primary Categories SEASONS
HOLIDAYS
SUMMER SPRING
Independence Day Easter
AUTUMN/FALL WINTER
MAJOR SYMBOLS American Flag Bunny
MINOR SYMBOLS Fire Works/ Eagle Easter Egg
Thanksgiving
Turkey
Pilgrim
Christmas
Tree
Santa Clause
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Minor Categories SEASONS
HOLIDAYS
SYMBOLS
SUMMER
XXX
XXX
SPRING
St. Patrick’s Day
Shamrock
AUTUMN/FALL
Halloween
Jack O’ Lantern
WINTER
New Year
Ball / Fireworks
WINTER
Valentine’s Day
Heart
Although you must chunnel your participant through various categories in order for this routine to work, it is important that by the end of the routine she feels as though she has naturally pieced together a random memory. In order to achieve this, you will allow her moments of freedom as she thinks about each category, but then you must guide her away from those random thoughts by telling her not to focus on her specific memory just yet and introducing her to the next category. It should go something like this: “In order to access one of your memories, we are going to think of a specific time in your life. We are going to start vague though and end specific. So first, just think of a memorable year. Now right away you might see some of the highlights from that year flashing through your mind. I don’t want you to focus on any of those just yet. For now, all I want you to do is to randomly focus on any month within that year. “Perfect. Now as you think of this month I’m sure that there are a lot of things you associate with it that are floating around in your mind. For example, maybe you’re thinking of some kind of anniversary, or a friend’s birthday. Never mind those, just skip them and think of the season it would have been during this month. Now you can see how this is working, you’re automatically imagining the weather, maybe you can see the color of the leaves, maybe they’re green or brown, maybe it’s scorching hot or there is a cool breeze. These minor details seem to become more and more specific to you now. “Finally, I want you to think of a major holiday that most people would associate with this season. Great. Now here comes the specific memory that I want you to just close your eyes and step inside of. Allow all of your senses to work so that you can hear, smell, see and feel what it’s like to be back at this event, on this specific date, for this specific holiday.”
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Often people aren’t entirely sure of the exact dates the seasons change. Thankfully, the season your participant associate’s with the month is irrelevant. All you’re really concerned with is which holiday she ends up choosing within the season. Even if someone accidentally thinks of the wrong season for the month (or if they come from a country where the seasons are different e.g.; in Australia, Christmas is a summer holiday) it won’t affect the outcome of the routine. Here is the wording used to psychologically force the holiday that corresponds to their thought of season: “Think of a MAJOR Holiday that MOST people would ASSOCIATE with this season.” Here you are using an ‘unspecified referential index’ (which you may recognize from Kenton Knepper’s wonder words). The fact that you have asked them to name what MOST people would think of and not what they personally would think of forces them to answer the question objectively, based on a consensus. I have performed this for several people who typically don’t observe Christian holidays. All of them were naturally able to think of Easter and Christmas. I must briefly mention that whilst most countries share most major holidays, they obviously don’t share every holiday. Furthermore, for the holidays that are shared, cultural differences might still dictate various traditions that will vary from place to place. In addition to certain holidays varying from country to country, certain religious cultures in the States and around the world also have specific celebrations of their own, such as Passover, Ramadan, Hanukkah, Yom Kipper, Kwanzaa, etc. We are basically going to focus only on holidays that contain universally known images. I can tell you from experience that the likelihood of performing this routine for someone who has no idea what symbols or holidays most people would associate with any given season is extremely low. Even if you were to come across such a person (and I never have) I imagine that it wouldn’t take much to recognize them as having been sheltered from cultural references necessary for this effect to work and to simply avoid performing this routine for them. During these specific holidays (the four major holidays) nearly every bank, shopping mall and grocery store is themed with recognizable decorations. Whether somebody is a Jehovah’s Witness, Jewish, or Muslim, they can still recognize these public holiday traditions. Although most of these people will be able to think of a symbol that represents these holidays, they may not be able to think of a personal memory attached to them.
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The routine as it is described here is designed to work best in the United States; however, it can be changed and adapted to work in other countries and for different religious celebrations. The basic goal is to force a holiday that MOST people within your performing region will attribute to each season. If you live outside of the United States or are going to be performing mostly for people who celebrate alternative holidays, you should be able to work with the principle presented here to create a specific, customized system that you can use for yourself. Back to the explanation! This routine is structured in three presentational phases: Phase One- First Impressions Phase Two- Mind Reading Phase Three- Reveal Drawing
*I’m not counting any part of the process as a phase. Only the reveals* The chunneling process is divided into two parts, or rather; it is paused as you execute one of the presentational phases. Once you have forced the holiday, you are going to stop the chunneling process and jump straight into the first phase. PHASE ONE This is where you are going to deliver your ‘first impressions. ’In order for you to do so, I have put together a list of ‘impressions’ that you are going to communicate to the participant. You will notice that some of these impressions relate more specifically to certain holidays than to others, but in the second phase you will be adding context to your impressions, strengthening those that might not have made much sense at first. This first phase serves a much greater purpose than it should appear, as it is actually half of the method. It is important that you gauge and remember how your participant reacts to each impression as the iconographic fishing in phase two will only narrow down the categories by another 50%. It is the information you gain in the first phase that will absolutely clarify which holiday your participant is thinking of. This is very much a backwards way of working, which helps conceal the method. You are going to remember which impressions they specifically react to and how they react to them. This information will serve not only to direct you toward the holiday they are thinking of, but it will also be useful in guiding you as you deliver a healthy amount of cold reading in the second phase.
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IMPRESSIONS Surrounded by lots of people Hear laughter Hear music Hear a banging and ringing noise See a flickering light See bright colors See people drinking alcohol Smell lots of food Smell Cinnamon & spices Taste sweets Sulfur smell You’ll notice that “banging and ringing” and “flickering light” are both rather vague descriptors. The banging and ringing noises could be attributed to a few of the holidays. When revealing this information in the first phase, you will deliver it as if you’re not entirely sure of why you are hearing and seeing those sights and sounds, or what they could mean. It should come across as if you’re confused by them. The first phase should sound something like this: “Now that you’ve pieced together a memory, I want you to immerse yourself in the scene. Just allow all of your senses to be consumed by the environment. I want you to imagine the sights, sounds, tastes, smells and feelings you’re experiencing in this very moment. I want you to add as many additional details as you can that would clarify this moment for you now. You can even add elements that you would typically find on this special occasion that may or may not have been present in your specific memory. “You’re doing wonderfully. Let me share with you my initial impressions. Some of these may make more sense than others, but what I’m getting right now is this... Immediately I see you surrounded by lots of people. Most are familiar, but I even see a few strangers amongst you. In fact, there is one particular person that stands out to me now. Do you know who I’m referring to? I also hear laughter. I see a particular person with a small group surrounding them and I’m not sure if this is you or the person that stood out to me earlier, but they appear to be the life of the party and to be making everyone happy. Does that make sense? “I’m also hearing some music in the background and I’m not sure what this is, but I can hear a sort of banging, and ringing noise.” (Watch for a reaction) “There is also this flickering light that stands out to me and I’m also seeing lots of bright colors.” (Watch for a reaction) “I see a few people drinking alcohol and I smell lots of delicious food. I taste something quite sweet. I believe there are lots of sweets here as well, like candy, or deserts. Okay, you can relax for a moment and stop sending your thoughts.”
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After this first phase, you are going to change gears by continuing with the final sequence of the chunneling system. To complete the chunneling system, you need to psychologically force the symbol that matches their thought of holiday. The wording is as follows: “This doesn’t involve a living thing, does it? Like an animal or something? I thought so.” (or) “I didn’t think so.” At this point you should know what symbol/holiday they are thinking of. You then finish drawing the image and place it face-down on their palm. Here is the wording I use to psychologically force the image that corresponds with their thought of holiday: “Think of THE UNIVERSAL SYMBOL that MOST people would IDENTIFY with this holiday.” Again, you can see how the language forces your participant to respond objectively based on a consensus. After she confirms that she has an image in mind, you will pull out your notebook or business card and sharpie, and begin your drawing. Do your best to involve your spectator in this process, encouraging her to mentally add as many details as she can to the picture. Here is where the iconographic fishing comes in. You are going to pretend to start the drawing, but as you pretend to draw you will ask vague questions that seem to exist for no purpose other than to help you clarify your impressions of the image. In reality, you are subtly pumping for information. It would sound something like this: (As you pretend to draw) “This isn’t a living thing is it?” [No] “No, I didn’t think so,” or [Yes] “Yes, I thought so.” Once you have discovered whether or not your participant’s icon or symbol is a living thing, you can use this knowledge in conjunction with the reactions that you noted in the first phase, to be able to determine which symbol she is thinking of. Here is a visual map to clarify the iconographic fishing sequence:
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HOLIDAY SYMBOL MAP
OR
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Essentially, you’re going to be determining your participant’s thought-of memory/holiday by watching and observing how she reacts to your impressions. For example, if she reacts more to bright colors, sweets or flickering lights, she could be thinking of Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Easter or Christmas. If she reacts more to lots of food, banging sounds and lots of alcohol, she could be thinking of Thanksgiving, Independence Day or Saint Patrick’s Day. In order to identify which holiday she is thinking of, you must pay close attention to her reactions every time you make a statement. It’s a bit like watching a film with subtitles, if you aren’t paying close attention, you won’t know what’s going on. The subconscious responses you pick up on will help you in determining which holiday she is thinking of. If you paid close attention to her reactions whilst giving your initial impressions, you should now be able to narrow down the thought of holiday to one of just a few now. Allow me to briefly clarify something here. If you follow the scripting word for word, you’re psychologically forcing your participant to think of one of the FOUR MAJOR holidays. When you say, “Think of THE major holiday that MOST people would associate with this month,” you are forcing them to do just that. If you say, “think of A major holiday” then the chances of your participant thinking of Halloween, Saint Patrick’s Day or even Valentine’s Day becomes much higher. Also, experience has taught me that the two most thought of holidays are Christmas and Independence Day. I’ve had those two holidays thought of more than any others; so when you narrow the options down to four, you’re essentially trying to narrow them down to one of those two. After delivering your impressions and using your observational skills, you should be fairly certain that your participant is thinking of a holiday from one of the following pairs: Easter & Independence Day or Christmas &Thanksgiving. When you execute the iconic graphic fishing phase, you will be drawing upon this information and cross-referencing it with the nature of her image (animate or inanimate) in order to make sense of everything. Once you find out whether her image is of a living thing or not, you should know exactly which icon she is thinking of. PHASE TWO Once you have placed the drawing face down upon her open palm, you will continue to the second phase. Here, you will eliminate the ambiguities that lingered in your initial impression by forming strong connections between those statements (banging and ringing sounds, flickering lights etc) and the thought-of holiday. You will also go into more detail by employing a liberal dose of cold reading. The banging and ringing sounds and the flickering lights could mean the following:
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Banging of exploding fireworks • Ringing of Piccolo Pete fire works • Banging/knocking at the door for trick-or-treaters on Halloween • Doorbells ringing on Halloween • Ringing of bells during Christmas (jingle bells) • Any holiday that could involve guests arriving at someone’s home (ringing the doorbell) • Ringing of the telephone from people wishing happy holidays. •
The flickering lights could be interpreted in much the same way. Here is a list of a few things they could represent:
The lights on a house during Christmas. • The lights on a Christmas tree. • Flickering lights of fireworks or sparklers. • Flickering candle lights from the menorah (Hanukkah) • Flickering candle light inside of a jack O’ lantern. Flickering light from a candle lit dinner during Thanksgiving or Valentine’s Day. •
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You will then give them a more detailed cold read, during which you can sort of back-peddle all of your misses and re affirm and clarify the hits of your previous ‘impressions.’ Your readings should sound something like this: “I want you to go back to your memory and recall some of the details you were picturing earlier and maybe some of the details you have created within your image. Okay it’s coming in much clearer now than before…” Christmas “I feel like the weather here is cold. I get a cold feeling so this must be either a fall or winter holiday. The colors I’m seeing now are green and a bit of gold I also see a bit of red coming through – actually, lots of red. I see everyone sort of standing around mingling, but also I see people smiling and I’m sensing the feeling of surprise very strongly here, like the feeling a child would get on their birthday. I can hear that ringing noise again and it sounds like a bell, like some sort of bell jingling. Ah, now I’m seeing it. Those flickering lights... They are on a tree! And I see some on houses; so many bright colors. I believe you are thinking of Christmas.”
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Easter “Right away I’m sensing sort of warmish weather, but there is a cool breeze coming through. The air has a fresh crisp smell to it. I’m sensing that this day involves going somewhere. It’s like you’re leaving your home to go somewhere, but it seems like you’re not too excited to go to wherever this is. I’m not sure if it’s a relative’s house or some sort of public event or function, but I get the feeling that you’re being dragged to this event. There is a girl here. I’m not sure if this is you as a child or someone else but she’s wearing a pastel pinkish dress and is running around looking for something. She seems very excited about it, almost as if she’s playing hide and seek or something of that nature. I see lots of candy... Chocolate! Oh wait, now I’m seeing eggs! Colored eggs. Lots of bright colors everywhere. You must be thinking of Easter.” Thanksgiving “There is something very comforting about this day. I’m seeing a lot of natural woodsy colors and I get the feeling that I’m surrounded by people who care for me. There are so many smells in the air; mostly warm, comforting smells – lots of food. I’m seeing a few people huddled around a television, mostly gentleman. Is that an uncle? They are drinking and shouting as if they’re excited about something, as if they were watching an important sporting event. That flickering light, I’m seeing the flame of candles lit on a table. There is a little boy/girl wandering around the room, and they have black olives on their fingers. Is this you, or someone else? There is an elderly lady here and she seems a bit frazzled. Is this your grandmother? Now I’m seeing everyone gathering around a table. The table is cluttered with SO much food. Is this Thanksgiving?” Independence Day “I sense a feeling of excitement. I’m not sure if it’s because of what’s being celebrated or if it’s just the weather, but I definitely can sense that the atmosphere is warm and sunny which tells me that you’re outside in this memory. I can smell lots of delicious food. It smells like someone is barbecuing hamburgers or hot dogs. I also see people drinking beer, lots of beer. I’m hearing a bit of laughter and conversation. There’s that flickering light again. I keep seeing it every time I hear that banging sound, as if there is an explosion going off, like sparklers and fireworks. So many bright colors and lights keep jumping at me. I believe you are thinking about the fourth of July.
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PHASE THREE At this point, you have revealed their thought-of memory in detail and they are still standing there with a face down business card (containing the drawing you made) resting upon their face up palm. It’s now a simple matter to have them explain what their image is out loud and once they have explained it, to have them turn over the card revealing that you have drawn most of what they mentioned, if not all of it.
MINOR HOLIDAYS As I mentioned before, if you follow the exact scripting of the psychological forces and pick your participants wisely, they will think of one of the four major holidays. There may be times that you encounter someone who doesn’t follow directions or decides to be difficult by deciding not to think of one of the major holidays. You will be able to determine this when you give your first impressions, by paying attention to how they react. In extreme cases, they may even bluntly say “No. You’re wrong.” while you’re giving your impressions. Gather as much information as you need to, in order to determine which holiday they are thinking of. You may even want them to think of one of the minor holidays. If that’s the case, all you have to do is to change your wording when delivering the psychological force. If you decide to go that route, you will also have to create your own scripts/readings for the second phase. When doing this, be creative and remember to readdress as many of your initial impressions in the second phase as possible, giving context to those things that may not have seemed immediately relevant at first and shedding more light upon those that did. It is also worth stating explicitly that a routine of this nature cannot work 100% of the time. There is a chance that the participant will disagree with a lot of the things you say as you start to get into more detail during the second phase. If this happens, you will quickly realize that you’re thinking of the wrong holiday. The good news is, most of the time you will have collected enough information during the other phases to now know which holiday she IS thinking of. In these situations, it is not too late to change your drawing. Just take it from the participant’s hands and draw a new one, if you don’t make a big deal about it she won’t. It’s that simple.
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ALTERNATE METHODS & PRESENTATIONS There are several different ways to perform this routine, which can offer you a more a secure outcome than what has been described and therefore a higher rate of success. Whilst these alternate presentations still rely heavily on psychological forcing, their methods and presentations allow for easier and more secure ways of retrieving the participant’s memory.
Drawing Duplication This particular take on R.A.M. relies on the original method, but contains a presentational variation that can also contribute to the method. The presentational variation is that in this version of the effect, both you AND the participant will draw a picture. You will need to carry extra props for this, but all of the other requirements are exactly the same. In regard to how this presentation benefits the method, the answer is simple. In addition to the slew of other reliable methods you‘re currently using, you now have the opportunity to use pencil and sound reading to determine the participant’s image. You could rely on this method alone if you desired. I often prefer to perform the routine in this manner because there is quite an astonishing theatrical moment created when the pictures are turned over and shown to match.
Prediction / Influence This routine has quite a different method and presentation to the original. The presentation becomes less about reading the participant’s mind and more about influencing her thoughts, or even predicting the future. The method relies upon multiple outs, which can either be managed via a pocket index of some kind, a binder index, double envelopes etc. or which can simply be hidden on stage in unique ways. The choice is yours entirely and you are limited only by your own creativity. If you choose to take this route you will be correct 100% of the time, so long as the participant thinks of a major holiday. The fact that the odds have been improved for this approach, make it an ideal one to use in stage situations, whereas the other methods play strongest in impromptu, close-up situations.
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I-phone / Android If you have an iPhone, Android, or any other smart phone for that matter, you could use a simple doodling app to create your drawing. For a no-fail method, you can download and use Greg Rostami’s, iForce. iForce allows you to store up to eight outs in your phone, which can either be utilized within the context of a prediction effect, or within the structure of the original routine. If you decide to use iForce to support the original routine, you must pretend to draw the participant’s picture during the mindreading stage, and then use the multiple out function of the app to show that your impression was correct once you get to the reveal phase. This is a great way to perform this routine safely, without having to carry any extra props.
Prop-less The original routine can be performed prop-less, without the need to draw a physical picture. In order to accomplish this you will have to describe the impressions that you receive –out loud – as you supposedly pick up on the participant’s picture in your mind. I don’t feel that this version is as powerful as the one that utilizes props, but for those of you purists who wish to perform completely organic and prop-less mind reading, this might be an ideal approach. This version does not differ as far as the method is concerned, only in relation to the presentation; specifically, in the fact that you must imagine and describe yourself drawing the picture rather than physically drawing it on a piece of paper. Hallmark This routine can be performed on stage or close-up. It uses Hallmark greeting cards and multiple outs. The requirements for this routine are pretty simple, but you will need to think about it them advance. In order to perform this routine you will need to gather a selection of greeting cards, one that corresponds to each of the major holidays. Once you have collected the greeting cards, there are several ways that you could choose to advance. One example would be to simply use the relevant card to show that you knew which holiday the participant was thinking of or going to nd think of. Another example might see you writing your entire reading (the 2 phase) inside of the card and then giving it to your participant as a gift at the end of the routine. In this way, you would leave your participant with something that is meaningful and which she can take home and place somewhere around the house.
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Another approach would be to perform a confabulation-type routine using the card. You could have the participant secretly write the name of a family member on a billet and at some point get a peek. Then, you could sign the card as that family member. If you were to fill the entire card in with a scripted reading but to leave a few spots blank, you could covertly fill in those spots with details that they tell you and then – as in the previous example – you could hand them the card to keep at the conclusion of the routine.
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LACUNA Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders
“Without memory, we would have no idea who we are, where we’re from, who we know, or the difference between a safe and a dangerous situation. Our memories are mostly based on genuine experiences, but our minds can create false memories to embellish our version of reality - just as we can suppress memories of events we find displeasing. “Throughout life, we encounter and interact with so many different types of people that it can become difficult to remember all of them. Once in a while though, we’ll meet someone who leaves such an impression on us that we find them very difficult to forget. It’s that sort of person who we choose to engage in more meaningful relationships with. “As we move through different relationships (whether they be platonic or romantic) we often establish associations between the things around us at the time and the people with whom we are involved. For instance, the smell of vanilla might make you think of that one ex-girlfriend you had, or a particular song might make you think of the day you met your best friend. Sometimes, the people we hold dearest end up betraying us and we experience things in those relationships that we would rather just forget. Our memories are often attached to those people though and the things around us can serve as constant reminders of them.” Having set the tone, the performer asks everyone in the audience to think of a person whom they would either like to forget, or whom they would like to feel better about. He invites one person to join him on stage and requests that she continue thinking of the person she has in mind. With the participant concentrating on this individual, the performer is able to reveal several details about them – details that he couldn’t possibly know. After describing a few things about the thought-of individual, the performer picks up a pad and a marker and writes something on it. He shows it to the audience, declaring that he believes it to be the name that the participant on stage has been thinking of. He then shows the name to the participant, who confirms that it is correct. The participant is then placed into a hypnotic trance, where in her memory of the person she has been thinking of is erased and replaced with a new memory.
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The participant will genuinely appear to have no recollection of the person she was originally thinking of and instead, only be able to think of the memory that was implanted in her mind. When people ask her about the experience afterwards, she will genuinely support the new reality, confirming that she no longer has any memory of the person from her past.
OBSERVATIONS This routine was inspired by one of my absolute favorite movies, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In the film, the two main characters go through a procedure that completely erases their memories of each other and leaves them with absolutely no recollection of the pain and hurt that they experienced during their dysfunctional, dead end relationship. I, like many others, often find myself wishing that this were a real procedure. This movie had a big impact on me and got me thinking about how I could demonstrate this concept within a performance context. This routine is the result. It has been designed for use in a stage environment, but it can be performed in a close up setting as well (which I have actually done on several occasions).Having said that, it is still my preference to perform this routine on a stage. The routine is very simple and very strong.
PLAN OF ACTION This routine relies mostly on the dual reality principle. It makes use of both a switch pad and the Dunninger ploy. The pad that I use is the same as the one Banachek uses for his Q&A routine and which he teaches you to construct in his PSI series DVDs. You could easy use another kind of switch pad, so long as the audience is able to read what has been written on the pad from a distance. After the participant has joined me on stage, I ask her to focus on the person she is thinking of in her mind. The first thing I do is to reveal things about that person that I couldn’t possibly know. The things I reveal are: the person’s gender, how she knows the person, how long she has known the person for, what the person looks like and the person’s star sign. I only need to ask one simple question to do this fairly accurately. The inspiration for this cold reading technique came from a brief suggestion in Oz Pearlman’s DVD, Into the Abyss. In this DVD, he suggests asking one simple question to learn a lot about the person being thought of by a participant. The question is: “Do you know this person’s birthday?”
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That’s it! The fact that you’ve asked this question is not viewed as unusual when you follow it by asking if they know the person’s star sign, but the way your participant responds to this question will tell you a lot. After performing this style of effect for many years, I have accumulated a sort of ‘mental-database’ of responses to this question and have attempted to share my findings with you here.
YES RESPONSE When they respond with a ‘yes’ to this question, it usually means that the person they are thinking of is a close friend, or an immediate family member (such as a sibling or a parent). It is very rare for somebody to remember the birthday of a family member outside of his or her immediate family. The first piece of information I will offer is the person’s gender. I will usually take an educated guess for this, but I could also quite easily ask by employing the use of a negative question e.g. “This person isn’t a female is it?” Once I know the gender, I can deduce a little bit more about the person they’re thinking of. If the person is of the SAME gender as the participant, then generally I will assume that they are thinking of a sibling or best friend (though it could still be one of their parents or even an aunt or uncle). The next thing I will try to discover is whether the person they are thinking of is older or younger. Depending on how quickly they answered the original question, or how long they took to remember the date, I will have a bit of an idea as to whether they are older or younger than the participant. To elaborate on that point, if they responded quickly it usually means that they are around the same age as the person they are thinking of. If they had a long delay on the other hand, it usually means that the person they are thinking of is much older. I can get this information in one of two ways. The first option is to boldly guess, based on the speed of their response to the initial question and the second option is to say something like, “I feel that there is an age gap here, which one of you is older?” Regardless of their response I will continue as though I already knew the answer and was merely seeking confirmation. I then inquire into how much older one is than the other, if the answer is “a lot” then I’ll say something along the lines of, “Ah yes, I knew you/they were older because I was seeing them/you looking up to you/them like a big brother.” If they say that they’re around the same age, then I will say, “Ah that makes sense, because I’ve got this feeling that this person is very close to you, as if you are siblings.”
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NO RESPONSE When the participant responds with a ‘no’ to this question, I can deduce that they either haven’t been in touch with this person in a long time, that they aren’t very close to this person or that there is a large age gap between the participant and this person. If they appear to be giving it some thought but still can’t recall the person’s birthday despite feeling like they should or do know it, then it’s generally an indication of an age gap. This usually means they are thinking of a grandparent or some other distant relative. If your participant says no without hesitation, then she will usually be thinking of someone very new in her life, someone she hasn’t seen or heard from in a long time, or somebody with whom she was just never that close, such as a work associate or acquaintance. If the birthday is not known and the person being thought of is much older than the participant, it usually means that it’s a grandparent or aunt/uncle being thought of. When asking who is older, if they have no idea or seem to be guessing, the person is most likely someone they haven’t seen or talked to in a very long time. If they tell you they are pretty close in age, make sure you find out which one is older. This will tell you a lot about the dynamic of their relationship. Pair that with your knowledge of the gender and you have a lot of information to work with. If they are both of the same gender and the person they are thinking of is close to them in age but older, they could be thinking of a friend whom they have lost touch with or not seen in a while. Being older, this person most likely played a dominant role in the relationship. If the person they are thinking of is younger but close in age, then the opposite applies. If the person they are thinking of is of the opposite gender, around the same age and the male is older than the female, then there is a very good chance they were involved in some sort of romantic relationship at one point. This is particularly true if the participant is a male (as males tend to pay less attention to birthdays anyway) but it could also be true of females, especially if the relationship was very short lived. If the female is older, there is a greater chance that it was a platonic relationship and it is possible that they knew/know each other through work or as acquaintances. On the next page, you will find a branching graph that you can mentally refer to when using this technique. After asking the question, “Do you know this person’s birthday?” you can use the information provided in the graph to hopefully deliver a more successful reading.
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Please bear in mind that this is not an absolutely definite, fail-safe graph. It does however have its genesis in the results of many, MANY trials and is quite accurate as a result. There will be occasions when this doesn’t work perfectly, but I’ve found that it has improved my readings immensely, regardless of any exceptions that might pop up. I use this technique every single time I perform a name reveal using a center tear or peek. It is also worth mentioning that when you use this technique in combination with a centre tear or a peek, just knowing what name is being thought of before you go through this process should help you immensely when it comes to being able to describe things about the person’s age and appearance. This is one of the most powerful and universal tools that I can call upon when reading minds. The graph is shown on the following page.
YES?
SAME SEX
OLDER
DIFFERENT SEX
SAME AGE
SAME SEX
PARENTS
SIBLING/FRIEND
DIFFERENT SEX
NO?
ROMANTIC
OLDER
SAME AGE
NOT SURE
AUNT/UNCLE
GRANDPARENT/AUNT-UNCLE
CO-WORKER/OLD FRIEND
ACQUAINTANCE
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DESCRIPTION If I discover that the participant is related to the person she is thinking of, I will basically describe the features of the participant herself. If she is thinking of a relative of the opposite sex, I will describe the male version of her (or the female version, if working with a male participant). If I discover that the person being thought of is NOT related, then I will usually describe someone with opposite characteristics to the participant. For example, if the participant has dark hair I will describe someone with lighter colored hair, if she has brown eyes, I will describe someone with blue eyes.
HAIR When describing the color of someone’s hair, if I think it may be dark I’ll say, “I’m seeing that they have darker hair.” If they tell me I’m wrong I will add, “Well I mean, it’s not blonde, it’s darker than that.” or “Well I mean it’s darker than YOUR hair.” Of course, the opposite applies when describing the person’s hair as being lighter. If they disagree, then I’ll explain that I meant that their hair isn’t black, but a bit lighter than that. If I’m totally wrong regarding the hair color, then I’ll ask, “Has this person colored their hair recently? Maybe I’m picturing them in a specific memory from when their hair was darker/lighter.” DISTANCE I make use of this line whenever I’m revealing a name and it always garners a very strong reaction. I’ve had people cry, I’ve had people turn flush in the face and I’ve had people feel completely invested in the moment, convinced that I was connected to them, that for that one moment – I really knew them. It is a very powerful line and I advise you to use it with caution: “I’m sensing some distance between you and this person. I’m not sure if it’s a physical distance, or an emotional distance, but I’m definitely seeing some kind of wall there. Does that make sense to you?” Usually they will explain the nature of the ‘distance,’ whether the person lives far away or if they have just lost touch with one another. If they don’t freely offer you that information, but tell you that you were correct, I will add, “Yes, has it been a while since you’ve seen them?” If they respond in the affirmative, then I’ll ask if it’s a physical distance. If they respond negatively, then I’ll ask if it’s emotional distance.
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On extremely rare occasions, the participant will not connect with this statement or accept it as a hit. In these instances she is generally thinking of someone whom she is very close with, on good terms with, hasn’t fought with recently and whom she has seen very recently. Whenever I am “wrong” on a cold read, I will use what I call a ‘Time Ruse.’ This is a simple technique where in I attempt to show that the thing I was wrong about was actually relevant at an earlier point in the participant’s life. It would sound something like this, “Oh, I must be picking up on something that happened a few years back, did you two have a major disagreement about something then?” If your participant has rejected the distance ruse, then she must be thinking of someone she is very close to and we have all had disagreements with the people we are closest to at some point or another. You almost can’t be wrong with this one. REGRET This is another cold reading line that hits pretty hard. It’s not as easy to connect as the ‘distance’ ploy, but when it does hit, it really sends people over the edge. It makes the participant feel as if I’m really deep inside his or her head and that I might know their deepest, darkest secrets. This ruse sounds like this: “I’m sensing that whenever this person comes up in conversation or in your thoughts, you’re reminded of something. I’m not sure if it’s an actual situation or just your feelings about something, but there is definitely something you’ve been wanting this person to know, that you either haven’t had the opportunity to tell them or just haven’t found a way to tell them. I can see a few things just popped in your mind right now and you’re wondering which one it is. I can tell you with certainty, it’s the one right THERE… yes THAT one, the one that keeps popping up over and over in your mind. Don’t worry; I’m not going to say it out loud. Just know that when you do decide to tell them, it’s going to lift a weight right off your chest.” As I mentioned before, this gets very strong reactions when it hits, but it doesn’t resonate with as many people as the ‘distance’ ploy. Having said that, this, ‘regret’ ploy definitely hits more often than not.
GETTING THE NAME My pad consists of two writing surfaces. One of the surfaces is blank and the other surface has the words “THE PERSON YOU’RE THINKING OF” clearly written on it.
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When I write a name down, I just write down a random name on the blank surface. I show this to the audience, but not to the participant on stage. I always select a female for this particular routine. I have a table on stage with a small, thin vase placed upon it and a single flower resting inside. I address the lady on stage and tell her that if I turn the pad over and it says the name of the person she is thinking of, she should take the flower and go back to her seat. If I did not write the name of the person she is thinking of, then she should slap me in the face instead. Well, in truth, that is only what the audience hears. As you’ve likely figured out, the lady on stage hears this: “In a moment I’m going to show you what I’ve written and if it says ‘the person you’re thinking of’ then I would like you to please take the flower from the table and go back to your seat. If I turn over the pad and ‘the person you’re thinking of’ is not what I’ve written on it, then I want you to slap me in the face. Do you understand?”
I then show her the pad, which says “THE PERSON YOU’RE THINKING OF” and she will react (usually with laughter), take the flower and begin to return to her seat. This is a variation of a method printed in Banachek’s ‘Psychological Subtleties 1’ in the description of a Tony Raven inspired effect entitled ‘Subtle Numbers’. In the original routine the performer revealed a person’s phone number. I am essentially doing the same thing in this effect, but with a person’s name. It’s a dual reality ploy wherein the audience sees and hears one thing, whilst the participant sees and hears the literal sentence “THE PERSON YOU’RE THINKING OF.” Sometimes I change it up and write, “THEIR NAME” or “HIS NAME,” depending on the situation. ERASING THEIR MIND Right, now when we last left off, our very helpful participant had just taken the flower from the table and began heading back to her seat. It is at this point that I would ask the audience to give her a loud round of applause for having helped me out so graciously. It is under the cover of this same applause that I take the opportunity to shake her hand and to ask who she was really thinking of. This is the Dunninger ploy and as I mentioned previously, it is covered by the cheers of the audience and executed under the guise of thanking the participant for her help. After she has told me the name that I’m after, I immediately stop the audience from clapping and say, “Wait, we forgot one thing!” I invite the participant back on stage with me and this is the moment I will use to put her into a pseudo-trance. Let’s say the name that she thought of was Jeff and the name I made up was Chris, once I had her in a trance, I would say the following.
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“Everything you once knew about Chris is completely fading. In fact, you cannot remember Chris and you have no idea who Chris is. If I were to ask you who you were thinking of, the only name that would pop into your mind would be Jeff. No matter how hard you try to remember Chris, you can’t. In fact, the more people who ask you about Chris the further away from your mind he goes, because all you can remember now is Jeff. One, two, eyes wide awake!” When she opens her eyes, she will look very confused. This is exactly what you want. It will create the illusion that she just came out of a deep trance. I immediately ask her: “Who’s Chris?” “I have no idea” is the typical response. “Well who were you thinking of this entire time?” I ask. “I was thinking of Jeff!” she will reply. I then thank her and ask her to return to her seat as the audience provides a soundtrack with their applause.
CLOSING THOUGHTS This routine works great as an opener. It’s quick, powerful and establishes your abilities very quickly. I bill myself as a hypnotist and mind reader, so for me this is the perfect opener as it showcases both of those abilities right from the start. One of the things that makes this routine such a great opener is that there is no drawn out procedure and no need to have anything written down by the participant. You can reveal details about the thought-of person and then reveal that person’s name without ever having the participant write anything down. You can use this method to reveal any piece of information, even something as insignificant such as what someone ate for breakfast that morning. The strength of this effect lies not only in the fact that the thought reading process is quite quick, but also in the fact that if the audience questions the participant in an attempt to discover the method, they should become even more convinced that her memory has been replaced.
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T E L E G E U S I A II Revenge of the food baby
The performer guides his participant on an imaginative journey. He asks her to imagine that she is driving a car on a long road trip. She decides to stop for some food at a fast food restaurant, but when she arrives she realizes that it has been shut down and decides to go to a sit down restaurant instead. She is handed a menu as she is seated and orders an item from it. Moments later, she is imagining that her meal has been served and that she is eating the dish. The performer is able to tell her exactly what she is eating and which restaurant she is eating at.
OBSERVATIONS Let’s get this out in the open right from the start – this routine is not the most practical. There, I said it. It involves a lot of memory work and even then, it isn’t quite as well developed as the others. Additionally, this routine is limited in the sense that – as presented here – it can only be performed within the United States or to an American audience. As with the other routines that favor U.S. audiences, if you apply your own thinking to the principles discussed here, you could very well adapt this routine to work in any country. Despite the aforementioned shortcomings, I am including this effect because I feel that it uses some interesting ideas and principles that might inspire you to come up with your own routines. This is also an ideal routine to use on the radio or over the phone, as you could theoretically create a crib and eliminate the need for any real memory work, resulting in a very strong and practical demonstration of mind reading.
PLAN OF ACTION Once again, this routine uses a combination of things including: chunneling, progressive anagrams and psychological forces. The imaginative story is what makes this routine fun and engaging, but also acts to disguise the method somewhat.
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The first step is to ask someone to imagine that she is driving a car on a road trip and that she decides to stop for some food. The reason for including these minor details in the story is that in order for the chunneling process to work reliably, I will need the participant to think of a fast food restaurant that has a drive-thru. The reason for this criterion is that it eliminates a good portion of fast food restaurants. “I want you to close your eyes, take a deep breath in through your nose and as you exhale I want you to imagine that you’re driving in your car on a long road trip. You’ve been driving for so long that it’s almost as if you’ve forgotten your destination. You realize it’s been a while since you stopped for food, so you decide to pull off the road and find a fast food restaurant. As you pull off the freeway, you notice several fast food restaurants. I want you to choose one, but pick one with a drive-thru.” There are literally hundreds of fast food restaurants for someone to choose from and even though we have limited their options by forcing them to select one with a drive-thru, there are probably still some that they could think of that I haven’t included on my list. The ones that I have listed are the most common fast food restaurants, plus some less common ones that exist in certain parts of America. LIST OF FAST FOOD RESTAURANTS
*ARBY’S*
*BOJANGLES*
*CHICK-FIL-A*
*CHURCH’S CHICKEN* *FOSTERS FREEZE*
*EL POLLO LOCO* *KFC* *SONIC BURGER* *WHITE CASTLE*
*LONG JOHN SILVERS* *STEAK ‘N SHAKE* *WIENERSCHNITZEL*
*BURGER KING* *DAIRY QUEEN* *HARDEE’S* *McDONALD’S* *TACO BELL*
*CARL’S JR. * *DEL TACO* *JIMBOY’S TACOS* *POPEY’S CHICKEN* *WENDY’S*
*IN-N-OUT*
As you look the list over, you will notice many fast food restaurants that you’re familiar with, but you will also notice quite a few that you’ve probably never heard of. If you really wanted to, you could narrow the list down even further, but by doing so your success rate would naturally drop as well. Once your participant is thinking of a fast food restaurant, you’re going to have her think of a sit-down restaurant. The restaurant she is going to think of will start with the SECOND letter of her fast food restaurant. This is the only chunneling sequence in this routine.
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“As you pull up to the fast food restaurant you notice that the building has burned down! You look up at the restaurant’s sign and notice that the second letter is dangling from its hinges. You decide that you would prefer to dine at a sit down restaurant anyway and this dangling letter inspires you to go to a restaurant that begins with that letter. So, just think of a casual sit down restaurant that begins with that letter, nothing too fancy and something with variety, not like a pizza place or burrito shop. Let me know when you’ve arrived.” The list of potential restaurants starting with the second letter of the previously listed fast food restaurants is shown below: LIST OF SIT DOWN RESTAURANTS
*APPLEBEE’S*
*CARROW’S*
*CHEDDARS*
*CHEVY’S*
*CLAIM JUMPER* *ELEPHANT & CASTLE* *HOOTERS*
*HUDDLEHOUSE* *IHOP*
*EL TORRITOS* *HARDROCK CAFE* *LOGAN’S ROADHOUSE* *OLIVE GARDEN* *RED LOBSTER* *TEXAS ROADHOUSE*
*LONGHORN STEAKHOUSE* *ON THE BORDER* *RED ROBIN* *TGI FRIDAY’S*
*CHEESECAKE FACTORY* *COCO’S* *CRACKER BARREL* *ELEPHANT BAR* *FUZIO*
*MACARONI GRILL* *OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE* *RUBY TUESDAY* * TONY ROMA’S*
*O’CHARLEY’S* *RAINFOREST CAFE* *RUBY’S DINER* *UNO’S*
Now at this point you might be thinking, “How is this a sufficient chunnel when there are now MORE possibilities than before?” My response to this concern is that my primary goal when creating this effect was to narrow down the possible choices for casual sit down restaurants, not just to chunnel down to a random category. It clearly would be easier to change the first category from fast food restaurants to something else that would yield a much more manageable number of possible outcomes; however, I feel that what makes this routine and the other chunneling routines in this book so strong and unique, is that the categories are all linked in a manner that makes sense and is consistent with the underlying theme.
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Not only does this hide the method just that little bit more, but it also allows the participant to enjoy the process, without being enticed to work out the linkage between the categories and ultimately discover the modus operandi. I feel that by using categories that correlate with one another, spectators won’t think AS MUCH about the supposedly ‘random ’chunneling process. Your participant should be thinking of a restaurant now, but if she tells you that she can’t think of one, this means that she originally thought of “IN-N-OUT Burger.” If that’s the case, you can skip the third step and continue to the reveal. If your participant has confirmed that she is thinking of a restaurant, you can continue her imaginative journey by having her picture herself sitting in a booth and being served by a waitress. This is when you will get her to choose a menu item. At this point, we really have NO idea which restaurant she has imagining herself sitting in and we have no idea what she could possibly have selected from this large menu. This is where the psychological force comes into play. The force is dependent upon the participant being familiar with this restaurant she has chosen, so it is important to ask her if she has ever been there before. This will give you an indication as to how well she will respond to the psychological force.
“As the waitress approaches your table, she kindly sets down a complimentary appetizer. She then proceeds to take your order. You tell her that you just want the special. You want the dish that everyone gets, the dish that they are most famous for. She says, ‘no problem! Coming right up!’” You can hopefully now see how the force is dependent upon the participant’s knowledge of the restaurant. Most of the restaurants on the list shown previously are famous for something. For example, Chili’s is known for baby back ribs, IHOP is known for their pancakes, Chevy’s is known for their fajitas… If you don’t know what the main culinary attraction of the restaurant is, or they don’t really have one, then you can vaguely describe the type of food that they serve there and take an educated guess as to what your participant has ordered. For example, if you learn that she is at Macaroni Grill, you could assume that she is eating pasta. You can also get creative with your knowledge of the restaurant. For example, I know that at Macaroni Grill they have an audio track playing in the bathroom that teaches you to say various phrases in Italian. With this in mind, you could ask your participant to imagine washing her hands in the bathroom and reveal that you can hear this strange track. Again, this depends as much on her knowledge of the restaurant as does on yours. I’m not going to list all of the popular dishes and iconic staples of each restaurant, I will leave that research up to you, should you decide to use this routine.
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Now that your participant is thinking of her meal, the third and final procedural element can take place. You are about to discover exactly which restaurant your participant is sitting in. If she has clearly understood all of your instructions and hasn’t deliberately decided to make extremely abstract choices along the way, then you should be dead on about which restaurant she has selected. You may also have noticed that in the script, I mentioned a complimentary appetizer that the waitress had set down at the table. This is important. Once you have discover the restaurant, if it’s one of those places that serves free appetizers (such as a Mexican restaurant that serves chips and salsa, or an Italian place that serves bread sticks) you can reveal this later and claim it as a hit before moving on and revealing the main dish. Now, in order to determine which restaurant your participant has imagined herself in, we are going to make use of a progressive anagram. This is where the potential memory work is involved, as this progressive anagram consists of thirty-two possible endings. A progressive anagram of such a size may seem a bit extreme, but once I break it down for you, you’ll see that it really isn’t. Here is how I transition to the progressive anagram phase within the script. “As you sit there waiting for your food, you notice one of those little advertisements in a plastic sign-holder resting on the table. It has the name of the restaurant and its logo printed on it. I want you to imagine picking up that sign and to just focus on all of the letters that spell the name of the restaurant. In fact, I want you to take those letters and kind of scramble them around in your mind. I’m going to see if I can hone in on your location.”
This is where you begin to implement your progressive anagram. First we need to divide this list of thirty-two restaurants into two separate categories. To do this, you are going to ask your participant to just read the name of the restaurant in her mind. You are then going to say, “I’m not quite sure, but it sounded like two or three syllables. Did I get that right or are there more?” Depending on her answer, you will just respond with, “Perfect, just as I thought. You‘re coming in loud and clear,” or “Perfect, I thought so, because I could sense a bit of a longer word.” The progressive anagram ensues on the following page:
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THREE SYLLABLES OR LESS
S |\ |O ||\ | | CLAIM JUMPER |N ||\ ||P |||\ | | | FUZIO | | IHOP | RED ROBIN E |\ |C ||\ | | UNO’S |W ||\ | | COCO’S | CARROWS H |\ |T ||\ | | APPLEBEES | RED LOBSTER C |\ |L ||\ | | HOOTERS | HUDDLEHOUSE Y |\ | CHEDDARS V |\ | O’CHARLEY’S CHEVY’S
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FOUR SYLLABLES OR MORE R |\ |N ||\ | | OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE | ELEPHANT & CASTLE E |\ |S ||\ | | MACARONI GRILL |M ||\ | | TGI FRIDAY'S | TONY ROMA'S A |\ |N ||\ | | EL TORRITO |I ||\ | | ON THE BORDER | RUBY'S DINER O |\ |T ||\ | | CRACKER BARREL |D ||\ | | ELEPHANT BAR | RUBY TUESDAY H |\ |D ||\ | | RAINFOREST CAFE | OLIVE GARDEN S |\ | HARDROCK CAFE U |\ | CHEESECAKE FACTORY
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D |\ | LONGHORN STEAK HOUSE N |\ | TEXAS ROADHOUSE LOGAN'S ROADHOUSE
As soon as you have learned which restaurant she is sitting in, it’s a simple matter to deliver all the information you have gathered throughout this process. I usually start by revealing the appetizer (if it applies) and then continue by describing the dish. If there isn’t a particular well-known dish associated with the restaurant, then I will reveal the general kind of food she is eating, and then reveal other detailed information about the restaurant. For instance, if they are in a ‘Rainforest Café,’ although the restaurant doesn’t really have a signature dish, it IS known for its animatronic animal figures that make noises every 15 min, so you would be wise to make mention of them. Basically, if you find yourself in that sort of situation, you can describe your participant’s surroundings and as many of the aesthetic details as possible, before finally revealing the name of the restaurant.
CLOSING THOUGHTS I really enjoy the organic nature of this type of effect. The fact that it’s prop-less and requires the participant to use his or her imagination can result in a nice pseudo-hypnosis presentation. I’ve been messing around with various themes and routines that use the same formula as this one (chunneling + psychologicalforce+ progressive-anagram) and the possibilities are endless and only limited by your imagination. This routine may read as though it is impractical or requires too long a process, but I can assure you that if you perform it in the right situations, it is not as daunting as it sounds. I encourage you to try this routine for yourself, and to experiment with your own linear themes and correlative categories that use the formula: chunneling + psychological force + progressive-anagram = success.
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TEA FOR TWO “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
The stage is set with two chairs. One is placed on the left of the stage and the other, on the right. Next to the chair on the left is an easel with a blank canvas, some paint and a brush resting upon it. The performer invites two audience members to the stage and each is asked to take a seat. The performer explains that both participants are about to take part in a telepathy experiment, during which each of them will play different roles. The performer clearly and honestly announces that the two spectators are not secretly working with one another, nor have they ever met each other. The participants confirm that they do not know each other and that they have not set anything up beforehand. The Performer walks over to the participant farthest from the easel (house right/participant B - we shall refer to this participant as a male from this point onwards) and places a blindfold on him. He asks participant B to sit tight for just a moment and to relax. The performer then walks back over to the participant closest to the easel (house left/participant A - let us refer to this participant as a female from this point on) and asks her to close her eyes. As she closes her eyes, the performer proceeds to guide her into a light trance. As she falls into the trance, the performer asks her (participant A) to imagine a blank white canvass and to see it filling up with different shapes and colors until all of those shapes and colors have taken the form of a recognizable picture. Once she has a painting in mind, the performer instructs her to paint her picture on the canvass, using the brush and paint provided. Once participant A has completed her painting, the performer asks her to write down the word that best describes her painting. She writes her word on a large pad and places it down on the stage in such a way that neither the audience, nor the performer can see what she has written. The performer then asks participant A to concentrate on her painting and to begin mentally sending the image to participant B, piece by piece. The performer then approaches participant B and directs him to imagine a blank canvass in his mind and to see shapes and colors forming on it as he (participant B) tries to pick up on the pieces that participant A is sending him. As he receives those pieces he is told that he will have to try to put them back together in order to form a whole picture. Once he has confirmed that he has the image in his head, the performer reminds the audience that participant B is not an
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accomplice, that he cannot see anything and that he has not been secretly informed of what participant A has painted. The performer also asks participant B to confirm that he genuinely saw the painting form in his own mind, which he does. The performer then asks participant B to think of a way to describe the painting he has imagined in just one word. The performer asks participant B what the word is. Let’s say for example participant B says the word sky. After he says, “sky” the entire audience will react because the word that he just said correlates with the painting. The performer then takes the blindfold off of participant B and asks him to turn around and look at the panting. The performer asks if this painting is relatively similar to what he had imagined and participant B concedes that it is. After that, the performer asks participant A to show everyone the word she wrote down to describe her painting. It says ‘sky’.
OBSERVATIONS This effect can be performed in a number of different ways. The original concept for this idea took the form of a two-person telepathy demonstration that used a thought of word and nothing else (no paintings, blindfolds or any other extra stuff). It plays just as strong that way and depending on your character and performance style, it could even play stronger. When I finished reading Twists and Trances by Kenton Knepper, I was suddenly hit by a torrent of ideas and presentations, which included the method for this effect. I believe that to date, the ideas contained within that book have been extremely underrated by the mentalism community. The inspiration for framing the routine as a drawling duplication came from a Luke Jermay effect called Blindfold Sequence. In this routine, one participant writes down a thought-of number on a piece of paper (which is then hidden in his pocket) and another participant who is blindfolded is able to name the thought of number. My main goal was to make sure that every audience member who was involved in the effect was equally as surprised by the outcome. I didn’t want anyone to walk away feeling as though they had just been playing along, that they were just an instant stooge. The reason I decided to use a painting/drawling for this effect was simply to make it more visual for the audience.
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PLAN OF ACTION The method that I’m about to describe takes advantage of a couple of ideas that are known amongst mentalists, but takes them to an extra level of deception. Put simply, the method consists of a dash of pre-show work mixed with a liberal sprinkling of multiple realities. Basically, get a piece of information from one person during pre-show, and then I force that piece of information on a second pre-showed spectator. That idea alone is nice, but when I went through the process of developing this routine I felt that there was something very important missing. Whilst both of the pre-showed participants might express genuine surprise at how one was able to read the thought of the other, I felt that the audience at large might still be suspicious toward the person who was responsible for reading the thoughts. The participants, though surprised, mightn’t be surprised enough. At least one of them would know that his or her impression of what the other had thought of had been selected from a limited number of options and this would show in his or her reaction. As a result, I was worried that the crowd would be left feeling underwhelmed and suspicious of the process. To explain this in simpler terms, if I asked you to pick a card and then told you what it was, you wouldn’t be nearly as surprised or excited as you would be if I asked you to think of any name at all and then managed to tell you what name you had picked. In order to combat this piece of human nature, I reversed the roles of the participants in this routine. The first person I pre-show (the person who thinks of a picture or word) therefore plays the role of the mind reader (participant B), whilst the second person I pre-show (the person I force participant B’s thought on) will play the role of the sender (participant A). In this way, both of the participants will be genuinely surprised by the revelations on stage. On top of that, the presence of double meanings in my script will add further layers of deception for everyone involved. This serves to further convince the audience that nothing has been set up with or between the two participants beforehand. PRE-SHOW SCRIPT The first thing I have to do is approach a person before the show (future participant B) and tell him something along the lines of: “I’m going to have someone create a painting on stage. Now neither you nor I know what this person is going to paint, but I want to see how good your intuition is. I have a good sense that you have a natural ability to pick up on certain thoughts. I’d like you to relax and close your eyes. Use your imagination and visualize a blank canvass. Now fill that canvass with shapes and colors, until it forms into a full painting. This painting can be anything, but make sure it’s something you can easily draw, nothing too abstract. Do you have it yet? Great!
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“This is a painting that you genuinely believe you saw in your own mind now correct? Good. Now I’d like you to sum up this painting in one word, the word that most closely describes what you see. If you can, write down exactly what it is that you saw, in one word. You’re going to be imagining your painting later on stage, so be sure to remember both how you imagined it and the word that you’ve chosen to describe it.” My preference for secretly discovering words during pre-show is definitely via a center tear or any type of impression device that doesn’t allow the spectator to keep the written word on them. I have had experiences in the past where the person on stage was so excited that the test had succeeded, that they decided to pull out the paper and show it to everyone in an attempt to prove that it had worked. This obviously ruins the fact that you used pre-show work and is not a good thing. Once I have finished pre-showing participant B, I will write his word (which I will have peaked during the pre-show procedure) on a blank card. I carry a stack of index cards with me that have random words written on them whenever I am going to perform this effect. You will have to prepare this stack of cards the first time you try this, but the stack can of course be reused and also becomes selfsustaining as you end up adding a new word to the stack each time you perform it. I take this stack of cards, including the one I have just prepared with participant B’s word on it and go off in search of a participant who does not know participant B. This person will become participant A. Once I have found somebody suitable, I will tell her something along these lines: “I have several words written down here and you can see that each word is different. Please give them a mix. Now I’d like you to put your finger on the back of any card you wish. Now please take the card, look at the word and keep the word you selected, but only in your mind. I need you to remember this word later on. It’s important that you don’t tell anyone your word, especially not me. Now what I’d like you to do is to close your eyes, take a deep breath in through your nose and just use your imagination to visualize that word coming to life. Imagine a blank canvass and imagine it filling in with shapes and colors. I want you to paint a picture in your mind that best fits/describes the word you selected. Does that make sense? Good. Now later, onstage, I’m going to ask you to paint that picture. I’m going to ask you to think of a picture and when I do, I want you to just allow that very same word you just selected to pop into your mind and with it, the picture that you just created in your head. Make sure that you remember what the painting looks like and what your word is.” It is important that when you pre-show someone, you are very specific in regard to what you want him or her to do. One of the biggest mistakes people make when experimenting with pre-show work is that they don’t give their instructions clearly enough. I’ve learned this the hard way. There were occasions in the past when I tried to pre-show someone to think of a card or a word and when I had that person on stage I’d receive one of two responses. They would either ask,
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“Do you want me to think of any card/word, or the card/word you had me pick earlier?” or they would just think of a card/word other than the one I had already forced on them. I eventually learned that in order to avoid looking like a fool on stage, I had to be extremely clear when delivering my instructions beforehand. That is why I tell them, “When I have you on stage and ask you to think of a word, what I mean is: just think of the same word you’re thinking of right now and I’m going to try to read your thoughts on stage. Okay? Does that all make sense?” You’ll notice that as well as stating my expectations very clearly, I also make sure to ask them if they have understood everything clearly. I cannot overemphasize the importance of clarity here. Now that you have your two pre-showed participants, it is time to perform. I suggest making this either your first or second effect. It is possible that if you wait too long to perform this effect, one or both of your participants could forget what you have asked them to do. I’m not going to explain how I locate my two preshowed participants during the show, as this has been discussed extensively by Luke Jermay in both Coral Fang and 3510. I find the methods discussed by Jermay in those texts to be very effective and if you’re not familiar with Luke’s work on locating pre-showed participants, I recommend that you check out those texts. PERFORMANCE Once your two participants are on stage, you must convince the audience that nothing has been set up between any of you. In order to do that, I say something that resembles this: “First, it’s important to let everyone know that you both don’t know each other. You guys haven’t pre arranged anything with each other and are now meeting for the first time. Correct”? They will of course agree to everything, because everything you have said is absolutely true. The audience should also assume that if the two people on stage don’t know each other and haven’t met before, then you wouldn’t have met them before either. Also, as a side note, I always purposely neglect to ask the participants names during the pre-show process. In that way, when I do ask for their names on stage, it’s a genuine moment of introduction. To make this ruse even more deceptive, rather than asking for the participants’ names as soon as they join me on stage as one usually would, I begin the routine and pretend to have forgotten to ask. Later, I will make it seem as though my rudeness has just dawned on me and will excuse myself, requesting their names in the process, “Oh, excuse me. I forgot to get your names before.” Once I have guided them to their seats on stage (participant A on the left by the
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easel and participant B on the right to be blindfolded) I begin my script. I blindfold participant B first and then return to participant A to have her think of a picture. I use a specific wording that is intended to evoke a recollection of my previous instructions to think of the word and picture that she selected from the cards before the show. The other intent behind this script is to make it seem to the audience at large as though I am delivering this instruction for the first time and that in this moment she could be thinking of anything at all. This should be easily accomplished, assuming that my pre-show instructions were clear. I also use ambiguous words such as “selected” which could either mean thought of, or physically selected. So I’ll say to participant A, “Now that you have painted this picture, I want you to think of the one word that best describes this painting. You have a word you’ve selected locked in your mind, correct?” To the audience this looks like I just read her mind, as if I knew in that very moment that she had just finished sifting through words and decided to settle on one. Participant A’s perspective is that I’m just confirming that she is doing what we discussed earlier. She has to agree with what I’ve said, because it’s true that she selected a word and it’s true that she has it locked in her mind. Also, when I tell her to “think of the one word that best describes this painting,” participant A thinks I’m saying, “think of that one word you selected earlier that describes this painting.” The audience on the other hand, interprets this sentence as, “think of the best word to describe what you have just imagined painting.” One mistake that is easy to make when scripting instructions for our on stage participants, is to change the scripting so that the on stage script no longer resembles the pre-show script. As an example, if in pre-show you say to a spectator, “select a card and remember it. I’m going to try to tell you what your card is later, on stage. Keep this a secret,” then on stage you say to them, “Think of any card in a pack,” this is likely to confuse your participant. All you need to do in order to avoid this sort of confusion is to repeat whatever you told them off stage, onstage. If you make sure to use the same imagery in both scripts, those images will trigger your participant’s memory and he or she will be able to understand your instructions clearly. Of course, you don’t want to use the same script word for word, because then you’d be giving away the method. Once participant A has finished with her painting, I walk over to participant B. Participant B is still blindfolded and I am going to take full advantage of this. As I approach participant B I say, “Now then, just like before I want you to imagine a blank canvas.” As you say these words, you touch his shoulder and point at participant A. This creates a moment of dual realities. Participant B hears what I have just said as, “Now, just like before the show, you’re going to think of that same word/picture, “Whilst the audience and spectator A hear, “Now just like we did with spectator A, I want you to…”
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Once participant B has his image in mind, you’re going to ask him to describe his picture in a single word. He will of course use the word that he selected during pre-show, which will match the appearance of the painting made by participant A. The result is a rather elegant ‘participant as mind reader’ effect.
CLOSING THOUGHTS Although I do not currently use pre-show work in my performances, when I need a routine that hits really hard and I have a good opportunity to use pre-show, this is the routine I will choose to perform. The way that I perform this routine these days includes an additional phase that integrates a PK touch sequence. I should also mention that the first person I ever shared this routine with was Rob Domenech. Years ago we met at a workshop in Las Vegas and seeing as we had so much in common, we quickly became friends. Coincidentally, we ended up discovering that we had come up with the same method for two entirely different routines. If you’re into this type of material, I would suggest that you pick up some of his work!
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PSYCHO DYSPHAGIA When I left you I was but the learner. Now I am the master
After performing a few demonstrations of psychokinesis and mind control, the performer causes a participant’s throat to constrict, rendering him or her incapable of swallowing.
OBSERVATIONS This effect has several different applications and performance presentations. While the effect is very simple and basic, it takes a skilled and confident performer to properly execute it and to make it play big. This effect and the routines that accompany it are best suited for a close up, impromptu situation, but could be adapted for stage. I have kept this routine under my belt for a very long time, during which I have only shared it with a select number of friends and peers. This is actually something I had wanted to keep to myself, but a few years ago, my friend Jay Noblezada coincidentally released a very similar effect and shared it with the hypnosis community. Although our methods and routines are quite different, there are definite similarities between them that have compelled me to release my routine and method to the mentalism community, and if this kind of material interests you, I highly suggest looking into Jay’s ideas on this. The origin of this idea was a childhood prank / body magic trick that my friends and I used to use on each other in the playground, along with the invisible thread through hand trick and rising arms trick. It wasn’t until about 7 years ago, when an old friend of mine reminded me of the gag at a bar, that I (immediately) started thinking of ways to apply it to mentalism. By adding what I have learned through my experience and education in hypnosis and performance art, I’ve taken a very simple body magic effect and turned it into a killer routine.
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PLAN OF ACTION There are several different methods that we can use to make this particular effect work. Each of the methods can work either individually or separately. The methods can be grouped into two categories: primary and secondary methods. The primary methods rely fully on physiological phenomena, whilst the secondary methods rely on suggestion. By teaming the suggestion methods with the physiological ones and vice versa, the likelihood of either one of them working is tipped in our favor. There is a motor pattern that naturally occurs during deglutition (the act of swallowing) and it consists of three parts. Those three parts can be labeled (in order) in the following manner: an oral preparatory phase, a pharyngeal phase and an esophageal phase. We are only interested in the oral preparatory phase, as the two latter phases are both involuntary and extend far beyond the scope of this effect. There are over 25 different muscles that are engaged in the throat within the first (oral preparatory) phase of swallowing. In order to cause a significant delay to a participant’s voluntary motor responses, we are going to temporarily disable his or her relevant throat muscles by implementing a series of techniques that will interrupt the participant’s central pattern generator (CPG). This will be achieved through the simple action of lightly rubbing his or her throat. This physical method alone will delay the participant’s swallow by a few seconds. When coupled with suggestion, this delay can be prolonged and you will be able to repeat the effect without touching anyone.
PHYSIOLOGICAL METHODS THE TOUCH When performing this effect (and let us assume from here on in that you are performing it with a male participant) you are going to be lightly touching his throat. It is very important to understand exactly where to touch and where not to touch, as well as how much pressure to apply. You are not going to just overtly touch his throat; instead you will cover the move by telling him to focus all of his attention on that area and then touch his throat as you naturally gesture toward it. “In a moment you’re going to feel a strange sensation in your throat. It may feel a bit uncomfortable at first, but I assure you that it is not dangerous. Go ahead and take a deep breath in through your nose and let it all out through your mouth. I want you to focus all your attention on your throat, because in a moment you’re going to notice a slight tingling sensation, right about here.”This is where you touch their throat and then continue by delivering the following suggestion, “Now try to swallow.”
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The manner in which you touch the participant’s throat and exactly where you touch it are quite important, so allow me to elaborate. There are two locations that I have found to be particularly successful for this, but the effectiveness of each location will depend on the type of person you are working with. Regardless of the location you choose to use on an individual, you are going to do it with a very gentle and light touch with the back of your index finger. Imagine making a hook with your right index finger and then relaxing it. It’s a similar action to what you would use if you were petting a small bird. The back of the finger is going to rub down, and then up just once. You’re going to be rubbing your participant’s cricoids cartilage area. That is the area just below the laryngeal prominence (Adam’s apple) and the jugular notch. It’s important that you do not rub your finger over their Adam’s apple, because you could potentially hurt them if you were to rub too hard. Rubbing on this area will achieve two things. First, because you’re dealing with a sensitive area, once you touch it a person’s natural reaction will be to defensively tense up. If the person you do this to appears to be completely open and comfortable with you touching his throat and he does not flinch or hesitate, you should take it as a sign that this may not work on him because he is too relaxed. Having mentioned that, it is important to have built up a certain level of trust, before touching the participant to begin with. The second thing this touch achieves is to generate the sensation of having just swallowed, within the spectator, thus rendering it more difficult for him to swallow again immediately thereafter. The other location you can touch is around the mylohyoid and geniohyoid muscles, which are located directly beneath the chin. You will be rubbing these just once. Start at the edge of the participant’s chin and move your finger back, underneath his chin. Stop before you reach his Adam’s apple. This move is more of a horizontal motion, whereas the first motion described was a vertical one. When you touch this spot, you can apply a little bit more pressure than you can for the previous touch. This method actually serves to lift the tongue in the mouth, simulating the first phase of a swallow. Again, by triggering the sensation of swallowing for the participant, it becomes more difficult for him to swallow again immediately after.
DOUBLE DEGLUTITION We can experience rhythmic swallowing movements (basically a train of closely spaced swallows) when we drink water. As this is a daily occurrence, it would be easy to assume that we could mimic this action at any time, however unless you are applying repetitive stimulation to your superior laryngeal nerve with a nerve probe, it’s damn near impossible to swallow twice in a row. Luckily, we can exploit this natural paradox within this effect. You can use this method alone when repeating the routine, or use it in conjunction with the touch method.
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“In a moment you’re not going to be able to swallow. The harder you try the more difficult it will seem to be. You can swallow easily now, right?” This is where you get them to swallow, seemingly in order to prove that it’s an easy thing to do. In actual fact you are setting them up to fail when they try it the next time around.
LOOKING UP Try swallowing whilst looking straight up. It’s extremely difficult, bordering on impossible. This physiological ruse works very much like the stuck eyes trick that is commonly used in hypnosis and we are going to use it to our advantage.
In order for this to work you must instruct your participant to look up slightly. He should be made to look up enough that you can touch his throat, but also enough that the tilt of his head makes it a bit more difficult for him to swallow. “Go ahead and stand right there, with your feet together and hands by your side. Take a deep breath in through your nose and exhale out through your mouth. Excellent, now go ahead and look right here (have him focus on your finger, which is positioned in such a way he has to look up) and focus on this spot”
BACK BONE This method is very strange. It seems to work better than the touch method; however it can be very uncomfortable for the participant as well. Again, this is one of those things that one might learn in the playground at school, but I didn’t discover it until about five years ago when a friend shared it with me after I perform the touch version on him. I do not recommend using this method on anyone you don’t know well. You could potentially hurt or bruise someone with this method if you’re not careful. I don’t know exactly why or how this particular method works, all I know is that it does. Essentially what is involved is to firmly run your knuckle down your participant’s spine, starting from the top and stopping somewhere around the middle. That is the way it was demonstrated to me, however it is important to mention that this does work without the need to push too hard. This will work if you apply even a sleight bit of pressure. You need to be able to perform this move in such a way that the audience is never made aware that it happened. In order to achieve this, you must position the participant with his body facing toward the audience and then stand beside him. One of your hands will then be held in front of the participant while the other hand is held behind him. Neither hand should be touching the participant at this point. With the hand that is held in front of the participant, you are going to gesture upward and then downward with your palm up. It is during the second
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half (the downwards part) of this motion, that the hand held behind the participant will contact his spine and perform the dirty work. “Go ahead and take a deep breath in,” (both hands move up in unison) “now exhale through your mouth.” The hidden hand takes advantage of this moment and drags its knuckle along the participant’s back (not too hard) whilst the visible hand moves down at the same pace and gestures for the participant to exhale.
SUGGESTION METHODS DRY MOUTH As I mentioned earlier, it is extremely difficult for someone to swallow twice in a row without drinking water. The drier your mouth is, the more difficult it is to swallow. It logically follows then, that we can make it more difficult for someone to swallow by convincing them that their mouth is dry. If someone has an open and suggestible personality, various physiological responses can occur as a result of the suggestions that have been delivered to them. For instance, a hypnotized subject who believes she is in a sauna will actually begin to sweat. A person, who believes that his mouth is dry, will actually begin to develop a dry mouth. By simply suggesting to your participants that a dry mouth is a common side effect of the process, many of the more suggestible ones will actually convince themselves that their mouths are becoming drier.
THE STRUGGLE You explain to your participant that soon, he won’t be able to swallow. You attempt to swallow as a part of your explanation, acting as if it’s a struggle to do so. The simple fact that he has watched you struggle to swallow sends subconscious suggestions to your participant about what he is about to feel and experience and increases the chance that he will actually experience those things.
CONFIDENCE It is very important to go into this routine displaying full conviction. Your participants’ expectations will drop the second you doubt yourself or reveal a sense of uncertainty. Of course, the opposite is also true. If you walk into the situation with the mentality that this WILL work no matter what, your participants will sense your confidence and their expectancy will increase, making them more likely to experience an extreme case of temporary dysphagia. This method alone, has brought me plenty of success with this effect, generally for people who have just experienced a moment of dysphagia induced by another method, or for those who have just witnessed somebody else experience dysphagia first.
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DIFFICULTIES There are a few potential difficulties that could cause this effect to fail, though it is at least quite easy to try again should that happen. Thankfully, we have layers of methods that we can combine to make this effect work. It is also worth mentioning that certain body types will react differently from others when treated with the same physical methods. Here are some of the difficulties you could encounter, as well as various methods by which you can overcome them.
SLENDER NECKS People with huge Adam’s apples tend to have long necks and you can literally feel and see all the little muscles in their throats. This is a characteristic usually found in tall people or really skinny people and one that makes it more difficult to implement the touch method on someone. The first reason is that their Adam’s apples can sometimes get in the way of the rub and the second is that you are forced to use less pressure on the rub because their throats are more sensitive. The best approach to use on one of these people is to rub the M&G muscles beneath his or her chin. CORPULENT NECKS These people can sometimes be difficult to perform this on because they tend to have thicker skin and more meat on their necks that they don’t really feel anything in that area. Rubbing on the cricoid cartilage of these people is more likely to work than on people with slender necks, but sometimes neither touch method will work. It is in this situation that I will usually perform the backbone method, because these people tend to be larger and you can usually press a bit harder on their backs with less chance of injuring them. I find this to be the most sufficient method to use on people with these body types. FAKERS These are typically the alpha male types who want to heckle you. They do this thing where, when you have them try to swallow they will move their neck like a bird, dipping their head down forward and then up again in a fluid motion, as if they were demonstrating an exaggerated swallow. They will generally follow this by saying something along the lines of, “see, I can swallow.” I am most likely to receive this reaction when using the hypnosis presentation (described in the ‘Presentations’ section) because when I do perform this routine in a hypnosis context, I intentionally set it up as a challenge. When I encounter these types of reactions, I usually just move on to something else.
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PRESENTATIONS Over the years, I have come up with several different presentations for this routine. Not so surprisingly, the first one I came up with was the “Force Choke” – the choke that Darth Vader uses in Star Wars. My favorite presentation to perform is probably “Amnesia.” I often like to skip all of the patter, build-up and suggestion, and go straight for the kill. I suggest that you try all of these presentations and figure out which one works best for you and your persona. This effect is extremely powerful and very fun. It would be a shame if you didn’t try it at least once.
FORCE CHOKE This routine is inspired entirely by Star Wars and was the very first routine I came up with that used this technique. The premise is very simple – I am showing off a skill. There isn’t much depth to this presentation, but it is extremely entertaining all the same. This presentation works best for Star Wars fans, or at least for people who are somewhat familiar with Darth Vader. “Have you ever seen the movie Star Wars? Do you remember how Darth Vader would choke people without touching them? Well I’m going to try that same thing on you. Don’t worry, I’ll just do it very lightly. In fact, I won’t actually choke you; I’ll just make it so you can’t swallow. Go and stand right there with your feet together and take a deep breath in through your nose. Great. You can swallow easily now, right? Good. You’re going to feel a strange sensation right about here.”(Perform touch move) “Ready?” This is the moment that I take a few steps back and make a choking gesture with my hand like Darth Vader. I just use my thumb and index finger and act as if I they are trying to squish something. I watch for my participant’s reactions and stop making the gesture just before he looks like he’s about to gain control of the swallow. At that moment I create the illusion that I’ve released him from my grip, by relaxing my finger and thumb. HYPNOSIS Often times when I’m performing hypnosis, I’ll encounter someone who claims that they cannot be hypnotized. This is the perfect opportunity to perform this routine. When someone sets me up for a challenge, I don’t ever feel like I need to prove myself or show off. Preferably, I will choose to perform for those who are willing to participate and are already enjoying what I’m doing. Having said that, this is one routine that I will always use if someone challenges me and I feel like shutting them up.
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“There is a common belief that when somebody is hypnotized, the hypnotist can control that person’s mind and make them do whatever they want them to do. The reason so many people believe this to be true is that it IS true. Hypnosis can and will allow people to control one another. If you don’t believe me, let me show you. Do you feel like you have complete control over your own motor functions? Try to swallow. You notice it’s easy and normal. Now watch this.”(Perform the touch method and then snap your fingers) “Try to swallow. The more you try to swallow the more difficult it becomes” (snap fingers again) “There. Now you can swallow again.” Usually after performing this, the participant is ready and primed for real hypnosis. At that point I’ll typically make his hand stick to a table or wall and continue with other hypnosis demonstrations from there.
AMNESIA This is my favorite routine by far. When I perform this, I don’t present it as an effect or any type of formal presentation; I also don’t give any forewarning that I’m going to do it. I almost always use this when I’m in a conversation with someone and the topic of hypnosis or mentalism comes up. As I’m talking to him, I’ll just stop mid-sentence and say, “Do you remember that one time you completely forgot how to swallow?” As I say that, I’ll touch his throat. Immediately after I’ll follow up with, “just like that time you completely forgot your name” whilst simultaneously using my finger to tap the center of his forehead and making a pop noise with my tongue. There are many layers that act together to make this particular routine possible. This doesn’t work with everyone, but it is well suited for use with people who are extremely interested in you and the magic, hypnosis, or mind reading that you have performed for them already. The people I’m talking about are those who are likely to bombard you with thousands of questions and who are absolutely enthralled by everything you do. When people start getting inquisitive with me, that’s when I feel most compelled to perform this routine. As I converse with them and answer their questions, I will usually go into some elaborate, bullshit filled explanation as to how I manage to achieve my feats. As I do this, I am planting suggestions in their mind about mind control and hypnosis and I’ll casually shift the conversation to the topic of memory. I build up their expectations and their belief in hypnotic phenomena. Once I feel that they are primed, I use a pattern interrupt. Not giving them enough time to think or react throws them off completely and for a brief moment, also allows me to bypass their critical mind. After I perform the touch move and suggest that they have forgotten their name, the fact that they actually can’t swallow loops the suggestion of name amnesia, giving it more credence. It’s a very linear process and again, takes a lot of confidence to pull off.
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JUMPING PULSE My good friend, Paul Shirley, shared this idea with me. Since the moment I originally showed him how to perform Psycho Dysphagia, Paul has been performing this routine for just about anybody he can get his grip on and I am very grateful that he has given me permission to share his take on the effect here. Paul’s rendition makes use of Bill Cushman’s Jumping Pulse and if you are already familiar with Cushman’s routine, you will immediately understand how it is applied here. I can’t explain how Cushman’s Jumping Pulse works here; however, I can explain how I use it with psycho dysphagia. Once the participant has experienced his pulse jumping around from finger to finger, I ask him to imagine and feel his pulse slowly moving up his arm and then across his chest. I then suggest to him a feeling of tightness in his chest and tell him to notice that the tightness is moving up toward his throat. It is as I ask him to imagine the tightness moving up toward his throat that I use the touch technique, disguised as a gesture. I then lay the suggestions on thick and cause him to feel a lump in his throat. At this point, he cannot swallow and just before I sense that he is about to regain control of his swallow, I will synchronize an abrupt snap of the fingers with a jolt to his shoulder (delivered by my hand) serving to release him from the choke. INDUCTION When I am performing hypnosis, I like to use Psycho Dysphagia as a waking suggestion or “set piece.” I will start with magnetic fingers and frame it as their body’s physical response to a focused thought. I then ask a participant to focus his attention and awareness toward his throat. “In a moment you’re going to feel your throat begin to tense up and it’s going to get tighter and tighter. You’ll find that for a few brief moments you won’t be able to swallow. Instead of fighting it, just allow it to happen. When you feel that pressure begin to release, you can allow every muscle and nerve in your body to relax and be completely open and ready for any suggestions. Don’t speak or say anything, just nod your head once you’ve lost the sensation of swallowing. Go ahead and close your eyes. When I click my fingers, you‘re going to feel your mouth start to get really dry. You‘ll notice that this begins with your tongue starting to feel uncomfortable, almost as if you‘ve forgotten how to use it. As you swallow right now you‘ll hear a crackling sound in your ear, that‘s how you know this is working.” At this point, I perform either the touch maneuver or the spine technique and wait for him to nod. Once he has nodded, I continue: “Now, as you feel that sensation in your throat you’ll begin to notice a wave of warm energy surging from your throat, down to your feet and allowing you to become more and more relaxed.”
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From this point I will take him deeper into a hypnotic state and continue to loop all of his physiological responses to hypnotic phenomena, building each suggestion upon the last. DRINK UP This idea was actually given to me by my good friend Paul Vigil. I shared my dysphagia technique with him at Luke Jermay’s first workshop in Las Vegas. Paul suggested that the routine be prefaced with the participant taking a drink of water, in order to prove that he can properly swallow. Then, he suggested that the participant be directed to take another sip of water, but instead of being instructed to swallow, he should be instructed to hold the liquid in his mouth. It is at this point that Paul suggested performing the touch maneuver and watching the participant struggle to swallow the liquid. I’ve performed this for people and sometimes they end up spitting the liquid out. I don’t do this often, but it’s definitely entertaining and something worth trying. KEY FOB When I attended Mind-Vention 2012, I was in the dealers’ room and noticed that pretty much every single vendor was selling some sort of electronic item that used a little remote to control something. I thought it would be funny to convince people that I had just purchased a new gimmick that had been designed to choke people. My stunt-prop was a not-so-futuristic key fob, with a little LED light built in. Throughout the convention I would explain my new gimmick to people, perform the touch move and point the key fob at their throat. After doing this a few times, I realized that people were really freaking out!! I also told them that the product was still going through a beta testing period and that I was unsure of any longterm damage. After the first performance, all I had to do was point the light at the throat of a subject who had already experienced the ‘choking’ effect and it would work. There is so much suggestion built into this method that it practically works itself. After using the key fob, I started considering other possible gimmicks and tools that I could use to supposedly induce this choke. It would be fun to create a contraption that looked like it came from a sci-fi movie and to use it to choke people. Power balance bracelets and interesting rings worn by participants also came to mind, as it would be interesting to convince participants that their bracelets or rings were able to give them (or take away) full conscious control over their bodies.
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CREDIT & THANKS “Without you, today’s emotions would be the scurf of yesterday’s.”
Joshua Quinn, “PARALIES” (2008)
Alain Nu, “Astrologic”. (2007)
Banachek, “Psychological Subtleties” (1998) & “PK Touches”. (1995)
Oz Pearlman, “Into the Abyss” (2007)
Luke Jermay, “Building Blocks” (2003) & “The Coral Fang”. (2004)
Kenton Knepper, “Twists & Trances” (2006) & “Wonder Words”. (2003)
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Colin McLeod – ‘Thank you’ alone could not express how grateful I am to have you as a friend, mentor, and brother (from another mother). Over the years, you have had a huge impact on both my professional and personal life. Your encouragement, guidance and friendship have all helped to shape and shift my perceptions toward positive directions and have had a large impact on my personal development as a performer and creator. Thank you for believing in me and for continuously encouraging me to reach for higher excellence.
Ran Pink – You have quickly become one of my best friends and I often wonder why we never met sooner. You probably don’t hear this enough, but you are seriously one of the most amazing people I have ever had the privilege of knowing. You are an incredibly creative and innovative thinker in both mentalism and music, an accomplished producer and songwriter, a wonderful family man and a truly great friend. None one of those qualities should be overlooked. You inspire me in countless ways. I look up to you and hope to be at least half as awesome as you are now as I climb in age. Thank you for everything!
Paul Shirley – Thank you for being such an uplifting, supportive and encouraging friend. You seem to have an abundant amount of positive energy that radiates around you and it’s so infectious. You play a very important role in my life and I feel spoiled to have friends like you in my life. Without your constant support and positive affirmations, this book would never have come in to fruition. So thank you for pushing me forward and a big thank you for creating the cover art for this book. Jerome Finley – You are by far one of the most interesting, unique and wonderful people in my life, and I am proud to call you a friend. You have truly morphed and shaped my thinking when it comes to mentalism and performance. Although the material in this book may or may not particularly reflect your thinking, believe me when I say that you’re a huge influence on my work and performance. So thank you for gifting me with your knowledge, guidance and friendship.
Bradley Benson – If you think about the sequence of events that lead to our meeting, there is no doubt that some sort of divine intervention was involved. If I had to decide on the single most significant event during my stay in Australia, it would be meeting you. You’re truly one of the greatest friends I have. I am so fortunate to know you and consider you a brother. Thank you for editing this book for me and thank you for being such an incredible person.
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Don Theo III –I need more people like you in my life DT3. You make me laugh more than most and you have such a unique thought process that I envy. I always look forward to our late night jam sessions and chats. Thank you for inspiring me and for giving me sleepless nights.
Luke Jermay – You probably don’t know this, but if it weren’t for you I most likely wouldn’t know any of these people and probably wouldn’t even be performing mentalism. You have indirectly been a huge influence on me and I’ve always considered you to be one of my mentalism heroes. Thank you for your friendship and generosity.
Ahmed Kalil – I feel like the luckiest guy on earth to be able to call you my best friend and brother. You’ve been riding along with me since before this endeavor even started and you’ve seen me at my worst and my best along the way. You’ve helped me to develop and refine just about every trick in my working repertoire, including everything in this book. You’ve always been there for me, trying to push me beyond the limits of my own self-perceived capacity. These few words can’t begin to express the gratitude and appreciation I have for everything you have done for me over the years and I can’t even begin to fathom where I’d be now, if you weren’t a part of my life. Shokran!
I’m sure that there are many others who I may have forgotten to mention and I do apologize sincerely. I want to thank all of those who have contributed ideas to this book and those who have contributed to my development as a performer, creator and person. Thank you all!!
Yours truly, Brandon Queen - 2013
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