POST OF F ICE BOX 14 4
•
FREEHOLD, NEW JERSEY
0772B
WARNING! This manuscript contains TOP SECRET material to be handled by authorized personnel only!
WARNING! TOP SECR~T MATERIAL!
AL MANN ~.zc/~ POST O FFI CE BO X 144 •
FREEHOLD. NEW JERSEY
201-431-2429
07728
CLASSIFIED Copyright by Al Mann Exclusives
FOREWORD Life for the earthbound is composed of
two planes. The material and the spiritual. Work and prodution, money and what we can buy with it make up the material world. Our thoughts and ideas, our dreams and our hopes, our loves and our hates, our beliefs and our Gods make up the spiritual world. Spiritual things are abstract things without measurable dimensions. We can not touch or contain them and in most cases we can not see them.
A book represents both planes. It is printed
on matter and it is inert as it lays on the shelf. But it's contents are potentially spiritual. Some of the dullest reading is usually found in magic books. The cutting and restoring of a piece of rope or the floating of a ball for example. yet in the hands of the artist these ideas are truly magical. Unfortunately many fine ideas in books, specially magic books, are forgotten. Novice mentalist Charles F. Garvey from Tampa, Florida, stunned his audience with the effect, "The Face in Cement" from the book Death Watch, in his very first show before an exclusive Tampa Club. Then he shattered their reasoning with the Lexicon Phenomena! Mentalist Charles Cotton and the Amazing Allemann presented Death Watch over the air waves while Anthony Raven made headlines with it. Allemann was asked to repeat the effect, "Astral Sight" from the Third Ecstasy, five times to the complete bafflement of the audi ence. One spe c tator kept saying that Allemann never touched the deck. This gentleman was a bank official.
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AN AL MANN EXCLUSIVE TOP SECRET. I
OMAR'S PROGNOSIS
EFFECT" Performer writes three predictions on three separate pieces of paper. and marks the papers with the letters. "A," "B" and "e" respectively and places the predictions on a table or in a clear glass and never touches the papers again. Three persons from the audience designated as "A," "B" and "e" are asked to callout a word, a city and to choose a card from a deck. Anyone may then come forward and read the predictions which prove correct. The papers are left on the table for anyone to inspect or they may be given to the spectators to keep as the papers are devoid of trickery I Gentlemen, this is the mentalist's way of presenting the
Triple-Forecast effect, Direct and to the point. The performer only uses J pieces of paper. J spectators and one pen. There aren't any gimmicks or sleights used or sUbstitution or switch-
ing of papers. The Triple-Forecast effect was very popular with Al Baker and Annemann. Done with pellets and billets. a simplification of the billet tests formerly done by Bert Reese and Charles Foster. The Triple-Forecast effect was also done with cards and slates culminating in such masterful presentations as Peter Warlock's "A Warlock's Predictions" in his book Pat-
terns for Psychics and in the slate effect "Mental Epic" by Hen Fetsch.
In 1960 Ed Mellon released Dr. Jaks' daring presentation called, "OMAR'S PROPHESIES" by J. G. Thompson , Jr. This was the Triple-Forecast effect done with three sheets of paper folded tent-fashion and placed on the table with the letters, "A," liB" and "C" showing to designate each spectator. However. unknown to the audience, the back of the tent-fold showed
a different letter.
To end the effect, the performer had
to handle the slips and mix them and turn them around secretly, display and read them, cru mple them and pocket them.
There is no doubt that the effect i n the hands of a great showman like Jaks was a stunner, but the reader must
admit that the method was weak. The method that follows does away with the weak ending of Jake presentation.
METHOD AND PRESENTATION. Take a scratch-paper pad that measures 5 by 8 inches and secretly mark the underside of the top three pages, at the center, with the letters "e," "A" and "B 't respectively. That is, the top sheet is marked
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AN AL MANN EXCLUSIVE
OMAR'S PROGNOSIS ........ cont. with a "C" on it's underside at the center. The second sheet from the top is marked with an "A" and the third sheet from the top is marked with a "B" in like manner. These letters are about one inch high and are done with
a black felt tip pen or ink marker and with the same pen or marker that will be used during the show to write out the predictions. In order to understand the instructions that follow, the reader must assume that the sheets of paper, 5 by 8 inches,
are equally divided by imaginary lines into 9 sections as shown in Fig. 1. THE PRESENTATION. The performer patters about taking a peek into the future. He says that he is going to write out some predictions that hopefully will come to pass in a few minutes.
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- \-,...... \ ~.,
WRITING THE FIRST PREDICTIO.I PAPER. On the top sheet. the performer pretends to write a
prediction for the "A" spectator but actually writes the prediction of a card to be forced on spectator "C" later. The me ssage that he will eventually write will read t "A card will be chosen. It will be the four of hearts." However, the first word "A" of the sentance is not written
\ Fig. 1
but only the rest of the message as shown in Fig. 2. The top left corner, one ninth of the page is
left blank on purpose. Performer then tears off the sheet and folds it as shown in Fig. J. First, the bottom third of the sheet is folded upwards, Fig. JA. The two bottom thirds of th e sheet are next folded back behind the top third, Fig. JB and last, the folded sheet is again folded into thirds as shown in Fig. Je, with the blank upper left corner of the sheet showing. Performer then says, "I am going to mark this paper with a large "A" as it is the first prediction." So saying, the performer openly marks the
folded paper with an "A" about
(
1"......
he.;;t -
Fig. 2
J/4 inch high,
B
1"-.. C
A
1-
Fig. J
)
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OMAR'S PROGNOSIS .... .. .. .
AN AL MANN EXCLUSIVE cant.
whic h unknown to the audience comple tes the prediction message for spectator "C."
Performer displays the folded paper marked with the nAn
and places it on the table or inside a short clear water glass. NOTE 1 In the above patter, it is very important to say
the word nlarge n or nbign when referring to the marking of the folded paper with the letter nA" as this will impress the
minds of the audience who will later remember and say that
you marked the papers with big letters.
Next. point to any spectator and say. "Sir. will you please callout any word in the English language. but please make it an easy word, say of four, five, six or seven letters." Let's assume that the spectator called the word 'about' to which you say. "Thank you. Please remember the word you just called and that you are the first person. You have just
made a most amazing choice." Next inform your audience tnat you are going to make a second predietion.
WRITING THE SECOND PREDICTI ON PAPER. Fig. 4 shows the second sheet on the pad which.
~nknown
to the audience is
marked with the letter "A" on lt's underside. On it the performer writes a prediction for spectator "A" and the word 'about' as shown. Please note that the message starts at the
bottom of the top third of the sheet and that the second line is written through the center
of the paper. Also note that all the words start with capital letters and that the word "Be" has been left out to be filled in later. The performer may sign his name on the
bottom third of the sheet. The paper is then folded as shown in Fig. 5. The top and bottom thirds are first folded
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back behind the center third, Fig. SA, and
sides are then folded also back so that the center one-ninth of the sheet is now showing
and it is blank, but will be marked later.Fig.5B
Fig. 4
Performer then openly marks the foldea
paper with the word "B e" so that the two letters are separate to complete the message, but the audience does not see the letter "e" as it is covered by the performer's left first-fingertip as the marked paper is shown and placed into the wa ter glass.
~I
A
Fig. 5 B
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OMAR'S PROGNOSIS
.. . . .. . . .
AN AL MANN EXCLUSIVE
cont.
WRITING THE THIRD PREDICTION PAPER. A second person has been called to callout any city in the world. Let's say that he calls out "Paris." This person is again told that he has also made an amazing choice and to please remember that he was the second person called. Performer then pretends to write a third prediction for
spectator "C· but actually writes a prediction for the city just called, for spectator "B" on the third sheet which is secretly marked "B" on it's underside.
The message written will be, " The City cbosen will be
Paris ...
Please note that the letter "C" of the word "City" is not written. The paper is then folded by folding the two bottom thirds behind the top third and then folding the sides back so that the blank section with the missing "C" is now showing. Performer then openly marks
the folded paper with the letter "C." The marked paper is shown and placed into the water glass with the other two papers
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,
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but not necessarily in any order.
You must now make the third prediction
Fig. 6
come out correct by forcing a card to the last spectator. A direct force can be found in "The Third Ecstasy" or the performer may just use a Bvengali d.eck. The reader may wish to not use a deck of cards in which case a word force like Himber's "Coronet Trick" would be a fast one.
After the force, the effect can be brought to it's
dramatic conclusion. Call someone to come foreward and take *
the water glass and invert it over the table so that the three prediction slips fallout haphazardly. Tell the person to pick
up anyone, open it and read the message and to hand it back
to the spectator if desired. The same is done with the other two slips. Once the slips are opened up the audience sees
the designation letters and the illusion is complete. Keep in mind that even if the person that opens the slips notices something that is not up to par, he is the only one. The rest of the audience including the three spectators do not see anything wrong. The letters on the back of the slips are larger than the writting on the other side.
* (the performer is the one who inverts the water glass)
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CLASSIFIED OUTDONE-OUTDID
From the notes of West Coast mentalist Robert Dorian, The Sleight of Mind Artist The Mental-Magician differs from the mentalist by the amount of props used. The professional mentalist avoids props as much as possible while the Mental-Magician loves to use eye-catching stage props. Omar's Prognosis was a good example of how a professional mentalist presents the Triple-Forecast effect. In "Outdone-Outdid" Dorian offers a method for duplicating the quadri-forcast effect as would be done by a MentalMagician with flashy props. This effect attemps to duplicate the effect currently on the market called "Outdone" and
selling for $100. Neither Dorian nor the author have read the "Outdone" manuBcript since it is priced out of our range. However. by searching the material on record, Dorian has come up with a very close if not the Bame modus operandi. The following method is a slight variation of Dr. Stanley Jaks, "Mental Flashes" on page 18 of Magic of the Mind by Lewis Ganson. Dorian recommends using either number cards as in "Mental Flashes" or using designs. For our purpose we will use designs. EFFECT, Four spectators are offered a free choice of anyone of four designs and also are told to think of any object such as a word, a place, a J-digit number and a
playing card . Performer writes four predictions on four design cards. Spectators are then told to write out their choice items on a large card over their chosen designs . When the design cards are examined it is found that the performer's predictions prove correct and they have been written on the same design cards as chosen by the spectators!
THE PROPS. One large "Audience Card" as per Fig. 7. This card is large enough so that the whole audience can see it. The designs on the 'audience card' are drawn in red outline. The spectators write their thoughts over their chosen designs with a
black ink marker. Several ink markers as needed.
Fig. 7
Audience Display Card
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OUTDONE-OUTDID .......... CONT. Please note that the designs on t h e audience card in Fig. 7 take the place of numbers. circle. 1, crOSB
J and the square
= 4.
z
2, triangle
a
4 double face design cards in envelopes.
as in Fig. 8. Front
The designs on the cards are drawn in red outline. Performer writes his pre-
Back
dictions on the
back of the cards,
Envelopes
Fig. 8 Design Cards and Envelopes
PRESENTATION. With the "Audience Card" on display, pass out the four envelopes with cards inside. The envelopes are marked on both
sides with the design that shows on the front of the card. Give all four envelopes to one person and tell him to choose any one and pass the rest to other spectators until all four are distributed. The spectators have now had a free choice of designs.
Next pick out the spectator that is holding the envelope with the circle on it. take the envelope and Bay that you are
going to write something for that one spectator and write out the name of the force item, card or whatever, that you will later force on the fourth spectator. Performer writes the force item on the back of the circle card which has a • square' on the back, unknown to the audience~ and lay the card down on the
table, with the circle showing. Remind the spectator that you have committed yourself and ask him to go to the audience card and write over the circle
any word in the English language,
preferably a short one. Pay
no attention to the spectator after you give these instruc-
tions, but proceed directly to the spectator holding the en-
velope with the 'cross.' Take the envelope and remove the card with the 'cross' facing the audience and then give a sideways
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AN AL MANN EXCLUSIVE ....•..... cont.
glance to see if the spectator has finished writing out the word, comment on the fact that he made an amazing choice, etc. Write the word just written on the audience card by the first spectator on the back of the 'cross' card which has a circle on it's back and lay the card down over the 'circle' card so that the crOBB shows on the second card as shown in
Fig. 9.
The 'cross' card overlaps the circle card to the left
as Been by the audience.
Tell spectator number 2 ( the one that chose the cross) to go to the audience card and write out a three digit number, over the crOBS.
Next take the envelope from the 3rd person that is holding the 'triangle' design, remove the card with the triangle show-
ing and write the 3-digit number on the back of the card over the crOSB. Lay the card on the table over the other two cards
there so that the triangle card is actually under the cross card but over the circle card as shown in Fig. 9. Now tell spectator number three to go to thA audience card and write out the name of any city or the amount of change in his pocket, over his chosen design.
Proceed to the fourth spectator who is holding the 'square' card. Take out the card with the square showing and mark on
it's back the city just chosen or the amount of change in the spectator's pocket over the 'triangle.' Lay the card on the table with the square showing. But the card goes under the the 'cross' and 'triangle' cards and ~ the 'circle' card!
Spectator number four is then told to go to the audience card and write the name of the object forced on him,
over his design which is the square. NOTEI Dorian recommends that if a deck of cards is to be used for forcing a card on the fourth spectator. then for the sake of consistency. ano1her prop should be introduced
during the routine like using a book on the first spectator for him to choose a word from. If the reader does not wish to force a card then he can resort to
Fig. 9
getting information before the show with a clip board, center-tear, etc. A spectator can be approached
and told to jot down the last four digits of his Social Security number, for example, and that he will be asked during the show to give these numbers for a test.
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AN AL MANN EXCLUSIVE
CLASSIFIED OUTDONE-OUTDID
. . .. . . . . . . .
cont.
THE CONCLUSION, If the performer next squares the cards as they lay on the table as in Fig. 9, places them over the envelopes, picks them up and deals them from the top down unto an easel so that the other side shows. they will be
dealt in order from 1 to 4 or circle, cross, triangle and square I And the predictions will match the audience-cardl NOTE. If the reader feels that there is too much fumbling
in trying to place the fourth card (the square) third from the top as shown in Fig. 9. he can just place the fourth card over the other three and deal it last simply by in-jogging it a bit, deal the next three cards and the top card last. The four envelopes which are already in order can be displayed on the easel and then the four cards with the corresponding designs and predictions can be dealt over them.
PLEASE NOTE that the above effect, except for the use of the envelopes and the audience card, is identical to Dr. Jake "Mental Flashes." However, This is not to imply that the method is the same as used in the marketed effect "Outdone."
If the performer wishes to impress on the audience that he does not touch the cards after the predictions are written he can simply lay the cards over the stack of envelopes, then for the conclusion he takes the envelopes with the cards on top saying that he does not want to touch the cards and calls someone from the audience to come forward and deal the cards and envelopes on the easel. When the person approaches, performer gives the stack to the spectator with the envelopes
showing thereby turning the cards over. Spectator is then told to deal the envelopes first and the cards on top to cor-
respond with the designs. HOWEVER this is not at all necess~.
the effect on the audience is the same since
the
cards
are large and the possibility of trickery or substitution appear nill in the eyes of the audience. The presentation is cleaner if the performer handles the cards. To avoid the spectators opening the envelopes and taking out the cards during the presentation, the performer can simply pick up the envelopes as soon as the designs are chosen or the spectators can just callout their choice of designs.
TIP, When doing the effect of predicting the amount of change in the spectator's pocket, do not predict the exact
amount. If the spectator had 87 cents in his pocket, predict 86 cents. This will cause comment by the audience and the effect will be remembered longer. The performer can say. "That is close enough."
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TOP SECRET. II
ENCHANTMENT A most Fabulous Book Test
EFFECT. Performer passes out three books to three spectators. Each book contains a sealed envelope. Spectators are told to open the books to any page and to choose any word. When the sealed envelopes are opened, the contents prove to be cards with long messages predicting the exact words chosenl
That is the fabulous effect, That is exactly what the audience sees. They Bee you pass out three books with three sealed envelopes to three spectators. They see that the spectators opened the books to any page and chose any word. They Bee that the envelopes, otherwise empty,contain a card predicting the same three words, They can examine the envelopes and cards and books and find nothing to explain the mystery. They must come to only two conclusions. That you are a true psychic or that the three spectators are stooges.
METHOD. The two-ahead system is used coupled with some envelope subleties and one book or word force. When performer comes on stage, he is holding three books. two of the books contain sealed envelopes and the third book contains an envelope with two cards. This last envelope is
held behind the third book with a rubber band, The envelope is opened with the two cards sticking out, Fig, 10, The top card of the two sticking out of the envelope (Fig. 10) contains a message that reads, I'The first word chosen will be " with
the space left in the sentance to fill in the word later. The second card reads, "The second word chosen will be ." This set up is of course secret and seen
1-
only by the performer,
l--!
Of the other two books handed out, one sealed envelope contains the message predic-
ting the choice of the third word which is the
~
Fig, 10
force word. And the other envelope is empty.
The envelope used in the third book, Fig, 10, must be a
self~sealing
envelope. The word force to be used is left up to the reader. There are many excellent fast word forces on the market. The author uses the word "SHE" from the book "The Wrecking Crew" by Donald Hamilton which sells on the book stands.
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AN AL MANN EXCLUSIVE
CLASSIFIED ENCHANTMENT
CONT.
In the Matt Helm novel the word 'she l appears several times as the first word on the page. Use the even number pages only to avoid confusion and cut the pages short for the force. The pages can be cut short on all the three books used and that way someone of the three spectators is bound to hit one of the pages! Another good word force is Himber's Coronet. Whatever you do, do not use cards or dice to force a word.
THE PRESENTATION, Performer walks on stage holding the three books. He calls on two spectators from the audience to please come on stage. (Just point to any two persons and ask
them to come on stage, they will) Performer hands two books out to the two spectators and
tells
them to please open the book or riffle to any page and
at ~ne Bame time he calls attention to the two sealed envelopes that are sticking out of the books. Care must be taken here that the envelopes are placed between the front cover and the
flyleaf of the books so that no one will think that the page is already marked. Next performer tells the two persons to please callout their two chosen words for the benefit of the audience. At this time performer takes out a business card from his coat pocket and places it over the opened envelope behind the
book he is holding. This last business card has been prepared by writing in the date at the top and the performer's signature at the bottom. Performer also takes out a pencil and says that he is going to write down the two warde on the card but actually he writes out the two words on the two cards sticking out of the opened envelope. one word to each card accordingly and immidiately seals the envelope.He also pretends to write in the
date of the test but rewrites the two words again on his business card. And last he states that he will sign the card. A third person is called on stage and given the third
book. This person is also told that the book contains a seal ed envelope. The word is forced on the third person. Performer
writes in the word on his business card and gives it to any one in the audience. Performer then goes over to the three persons holding the books and takes away the three sealed envelopes as he patters about the experiment. "1 want to show you what I wrote last night while preparing for this show" says the performer as
he takes up a pair of scissors and openly clips off the tops of all three envelope s at the same time. Performer then extracts the cards and passes them out while the envelopes may be left
on the table or tore up. Voila I The Miracle of it alII
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CLASSIFIED ENCHANTMENT
AN AL MANN EXCLUSIVE
.. .. . .. . .
CONT.
An extra Bublety is to mark the envelopes with a large black number as 1, 2 and 3. The cards are marked with small numbers. This will deepen the mystery as the audience can not follow the performer's secret moves or even suspect them. They can not tell what card came from what envelope but assume the trickery, if any. to be else where. They always suspect that the spectators are the culprits as they can fathom no other solution. Many will say that you are indeed 'amazingl' At the conclusion, the marked envelopes with their cards are passed out as souveneers.
NOTEII Please do not make the mistake of trying to use a double-writing gimmick like the one mentioned in Annemann's
Practical Mental Effects page 160 or the 'Instrumental' gimmick. These are passe and obsolete as far as the professional mentalist-showman is concerned. The above routine is a good example of how to obviate the cumbersome gimmicks. FORCING the word 'she' from the novel "The Wrecking Crew" or any other novel that repeats the same word as the first
word on the page a number of times. The last book that you will use will be the forcing book. The other two books used can be any paper back novels but they
have the pages cut short that will force the word on the third
book. Let's say that the first person is told to open the book
to any page by riffling to it. Say that he does not stop at one of the force pages BUT the second person does, The first two spectators have a free choice of any word on the page BUT for the third spectator, the performer asks the second person
to what page he opened his book and then turns to the third spectator and tells him to open his book to that page and to note the first word. If the first two persons fail to stop at a force page,
which is highly improbable, then the third person is asked to riffle to a page or as a last resort the performer riffles
himself. However in most cases all three persons will stop at a force page in which case the third spectator is given a free choice of one of the three pages, etc, The reader who is good with a swami gimmick can present an even more baffling test. But care must be taken that the audience does not s uspect the glances at the cards behind the third book. Misdirecti on hear is a must.
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BONUS
A discussion on LORANT. meaning Long Range Telepathy. You are seated by your fireplace one morning, comfortably reading a magic magazine, when the phone rings. A radio station 2000 miles away is calling long distance. They received your publicity and would like to have you on their program. You would be delighted, you say. They have heard that you are a mind reader and a prognosticator so they would like t~ have you read the minds of
members of their radio audience and predict Bomething. "That would be wonderful." you say. To your mind comes the many excellent prediction tests that you know and the many ways of reading people's minds.
And of course, you are an expert at using audience participation. "We do not have a studio audience and we can not afford to fly you here for the show. What we do is to choose one listener that calls the station by phone and then we connect him directly to your home." Your heart skips a beat here. but you say nothing but ex-
press your approval of any condition they desire. Surely you will not pass up this excellent opportunity. Now you are starting to recall all the clever card tricks that you know how to do over the telephone. "But please," they say, " don't do tricks like Kreskin does. We want the real thing. That is what you claim. isn't it?" "But of course!" you say.
"Fine, You will be hearing from us about 10.15 A.M. on the day of the show (two weeks hence).
to
No tricks. EH! Your heart is now in your mouth and your
thoughts are racing. "Got to think of something. I have two weeks to prepare for the show." you say. Two weeks later you go through with the show and come
out with flying colors. You succeeded in reading the mind of
a person whom you never saw and who was 2000 miles away. You also predicted something that another person would do and there was no prearrangement. Everything happened spontaneously
and on the spot 2000 miles away I Gentlemen, this is a true story and the events actually happene d including the mention of Kreskin's name. How was it
done7##?? All card tricks were definitely out. No matter how clever the routine, the mere mention of a deck of cards would suggest trickery. The files on predictions were searched in vain, including all the books on telephone trickery. Tricks with numbers would surely appear just like mathematical puzzles.
1) AN AL MANN EXCLUSIVE
CLASSIFIED LORANT ...•.... cont.
Going through the Al Mann Files. the very first effect in the book "Deathwatch" seems to fill the bill perfectly. All you need is to alter the plot a bit. So the face of a watch with hands is drawn on a piece of paper, sealed in tin foil inside a small block of cement and mailed to the
radio station with full instructions. The day of the show the spectator chosen is told that this is her day, a very special day in her life. She gets up in the morning and looks at the clock on the wall, then goes about the business of the day, having breakfast, cleaning house, watching T.V. and going shopping. Each one of these actions takes a certain amount of time, etc, At the
end of the day the times are juggled around to arrive at the predicted time. A little drama with a little mystery I Reading through the files of the Phoenix you alight at the only formula for the pseudo-reading of minds, on the
front page of the 94th issue. The effect is. "This is it" by Don Medley. If the reader has a copy of this Phoenix, it is well to look it up and read the original instructions. Your author has streamlined this effect so that no matter how smart the listener, he will not be able to duplicate it or come even remotely close to the solution. Fig, 11, shows a chart
that has a list of 12 items apparently, but
actually it has only 9. The numbers 7. 9 and 11 have been omitted for very good reasons that will be obvious later.
1
2
doing any writing at all. In fact it is well to imply that you are not writing
down anytMng. The person is asked to callout a number of items in front of him or whatever comes to mind.
8
No.
Item
1
picture
2
door
)
books
X
4
stapler
X
5
Desk
X X
6
chair
X
9
pen
X
10
light
X X
12
window
X
X
X X X X
The gist of the trick is that the person on the other end of the telephone has no idea of the preparation of this chart or that the performer is
4
X
X X X X
X
Fig. 11
14 CLASSIFIED LORANT
AN AL MANN EXCLUSIVE cont.
As pointed out by Don Medley, the person When told to think of one of the items called will usually settle on one of the last four items called. So as the spectator starts calling out items the performer starts writing them down
placing the first placing the fifth item (picture) on pler. The last line
item on line 5 (desk), and continues down item (window) on line 12, and the sixth line one and finishing on line 4 with staon the chart which contains the 5 crosses
is a dummy line. The performer places any other item he wishes
on this line but one that is not known by the spectator. The performer asks the spectator on the telephone to please choose any one of the items secretly and to keep it in
mind. Performer then says that he is going to callout items and that when the chosen item is called the spectator is to think, "That is the one I am thinking about" or simply, "That is it." Performer then starts calling out the items with the crosses
under the vertical culumn "1" on the far left of the chart. This column only contains four crosses plus one more on the dummy line. So the performer calls out. picture, books, desk, pen, plus the dummy item which could be tkeys' or 'paperclips' or whatever. The dummy item is thrown in to hide the system and also to confuse the isuue a bit. Since the spectator did not call this item out he can not be thinking of it and it looks like something is wrong with the performer's ability. The performer then says that he felt a faint vib or impulse.
"Did I call out the chosen item?" he asks. The spectator will either answer "Yes" or "No." Letts assume that he answered "Yes," The performer then writes down the number 1 for the No.
1 column and then calls out the items marked with an X under column 2, which are. door, bOOKS, chair and light plus he may also callout the dummy item. Let us assume that the chosen item was called again as the spectator answered "Yes" again. Performer writes down a 2 and adds it to the 1 previously written and comes out with a J for the Jrd item which is
"books" and is what the spectator is thinking about. The chart in Fig. 11 has been streamlined so that only two "Yes" answers are needed from the spectator to discover
what he is thinking. That is why the numbers 7, 8 and 11 were left out. Numbers 7 and 11 require three "Yes" answers, while number 8 requires three "No" answers, which almost gives the secret away. In any event it is not desirable to have the spectator answer too many times as it will appear that a guessing game is being presented instead of mindreading. The author has eliminated the three numbers mentioned after a lot of trial and error, so do not include them on
15 CLASSIFIED
AN AL MANN EXCLUSIVE
LORANT .......
cont.
your charts although the temptation is great. The original chart that appeared on the front page of the Phoenix contained 15 lines and if the spectator happen to choose the 15th item he would have to answer "Yes" four times. Perhaps that is the reason the effect did not become too popular at the time. Nine items and even four items are enough. Remind the spec-
tator that you are attempting a most difficult test, one that has never been tried before. With practice the performer need only callout the first two columns. For example if the answer to the first two columns 1s a 'Yes' and a "No," the performer knows that the spectator
can only be thinking of one of three lines, No.1 (picture), No.5 (desk) or No.9 (pen). With a bit of pumping the item
can almost be guessed. After trying out the system a number of times the operator can learn a number of short cuts, for example,
A A A A
"Yes" for the 1st and 2nd columns is item NO. 3 Yes No- Yes for the first 3 columns is item No.5 No - Yes Yes for the first 3 columns is item No. 6 No - Yes - No for the first 3 columns is either No. 2 or No. 10 A Yes - No - No is either No. 1 or No. 9 "Yes"
-
-
If the operator gets a 'No' - 'No' answer for the first 2 columns, it is better to stop there as the answer is either
No.4 (stapler) or No. 12 (window), otherwise the operator will have to go through the whole chart to get at the answer since ir he gets a No-No-Yes answer on the first J columns he is still not sure which one it is. a leading question-statement is usually enough to arrive at the correct thought. for example the performer can say. "1 get the impression that you are thinking of an instrument." If the spectator answers 'No,' then the operator says, "You are thinking of a window."
THE ABSTRACT THOUGHT Let us now proceed to a more advanced test. We will now
attempt to read not one thought but two thoughts. And to make it a unique test, one of the thoughts will be concrete while the other will be an abstract one. Please refer to Fig. 12. This chart contains two columns of items which are related. We inform the listener on the telephone that we have a especially prepared test. We'll call out some designs and their color starting with No.5 which is a 'Green Tree' and call all the designs up to 12 and then
start at the top and call the other four. Listener is told
16 CLASSIFIED
AN AL MANN EXCLUSIVE
LORANT •......... cont. to please choose one of the designs
1
No.
Item
Item I
1
Red
0
X
2
Blue
~
X
J
Brown
+
X
4
Yellow
0
X
S
Green
1/
X
6
Pink
X
9
Orange
X
10
purple
X
X
12
white
X
X
X
2
4
8
called, to jot it down and to remember it's color.
X
He is then told that of course he can not write the true color of the design but he must visualize the color
in his mind. A color you
say~
X
X
is an abs-
X
tract thing that can not be touched
but only thought of. etc. Now you will
X X
do some real
thought reading since the color
of the design is
X
X
only in the person's mind and you ask
Y
Y
him to pl ease concentrate on it. Now the operator calls out the colors only. When the color is known. the design
Y Y
*.AEB e
dummy No. J
Y
No. S
Y
No. 6
will be known alsol After the color is
Fig. 12
ascertained, the performer
says, (say person is thinking of the Blue Moon) "Please imagine that you have a box of crayons in front of you. Please reach over and take the color crayon which you are thinking of. but please do not tell me the color. Now imagine that you are drawing the design that you are thinking about. You have just drawn in your imagination. a Blue Moon! II Gentlemen, that is a most dramatic and amazing test . ~ead
For a variation, the listener can cho ose any book and off any line and concentrate on any word, etc.
NOTE I Assume that the X marks on the two charts are 'Yes' answers and the blank spaces are 'No' answers. This will help clarify the method.
