Spoken Destination – Psychological Card Force By Bazz Fazackerley
This is my alteration to one of Rus’ earlier creations, Spoken. Due to the way it is performed the end result is more akin to what we now know as Destination, hence why I wanted to create this as a supplement otherwise it would never see the light of day due to the similarities between the two. What I am about to explain has been performed many times in professional situations and casual situations over the last couple of years or so. I have performed this over Skype to great effect and also blown magicians away with this and a sprinkle of boldness. The idea is to psychologically force a card using the Spoken principle that also exists within Destination. I wanted the final selection of the card to be a seemingly free choice but verbally restricted so that it narrows down the final options whilst going completely under the radar. THIS WORKS BETTER WHEN PERFORMED TO MEN than it does to women, though there is also a script for the ladies included separately. Though I DO NOT perform this version myself. To this extent I wanted to be able to take a single playing card and place it face down onto the table and then have the participant build up a card in their mind with the end result matching the card on the table. This goal, I soon discovered, requires you to be a bit bolder than the other variations I created and will include here but elevates things to a miracle status when it hits. Which is very often. As you will have gathered from that last statement this is not 100% fool proof but no psychological force is. However, it has a rather high success rate and should be used as a lead into another routine if it does not hit. If you want to be bold and do this as a stand-alone effect with the risk of failure then either do it in a casual setting or use a basic out which we will discuss later. Right lets go through the script. As you read it I want you to play along and actually build the card up in your mind as you do so. Just bare a couple of things in mind. Number 1, you are a magician/mentalist and as such you do not think like lay people so if it fails with you then just stick with it and try it on the lay a few times. I have only performed this for 3 magicians in my time and it has worked with each one of them. More on that later. The second thing to remember is that it’s just a psychological force. It will miss at times. Script: (Performing to a guy) Performer - “In a moment I am going to ask you to think of a playing. I don’t want you to think of the Ace of Spades or the Queen of Hearts or anything obviously like that. But what I am going to ask you to do is to think of a playing card that you think would be difficult for someone to guess. Please do that now, keep it to yourself and tell me when you are done” Participant – “ok got one” (hopefully you, the reader, have got one in mind too as you play along)
Performer – “Good! You are now going to make some changes to your thought of card so that you end up thinking of a completely random card that even you did not think you’d be thinking of. I want you to think about the suit of your card. Whether it’s a black suit, Clubs or Spades or a red suit, Hearts or Diamonds and in your mind I want you to stick with the same color card but to change to the opposite suit of that color. So if you are thinking of a Club I want you to change it to a Spade and vice versa. Keeping the original value of the card for now. Let me know when you have done that” Participant – “got it” (please do this at home) Performer – “Now we are going to change the value of the card. If you are thinking of a number card then I would like you to change this to a picture card or if you are currently thinking of a picture card then I want you to change this to any number card. But again, nothing too obvious. Give me a sign when you have done this” Participant – “yep” (again, please follow along and do this) Performer – “you should now have a new suit with a new value, creating a completely new card. What card did you build up in your mind?” Participant – “The Jack of Spades” Performer – “Please turn over the card on the table that has been there the entire time” The participant turns the card over and it is found to be the Jack of Spades much to their astonishment. This, of course is the perfect and bold scenario. When I am feeling brave I will place a single card down onto the table (the Jack of Spades) and perform it as above. When I am not feeling so brave or don’t necessarily want to take the big gamble then I will use it as a lead into any other card routine and after delivering the script I will simply ask them what card it is that they are now thinking of. If they say the Jack of Spades then great. I reach for the deck that is on the table and spread it face down stating that “one of these cards HAS to be the Jack of Spades and just like your unconscious mind led you to the Jack of Spades a moment ago I now want you to use your conscious mind to lead you to the Jack of Spades in this deck”. They think about it for a few seconds, realising the impossible nature of the task, then they lean forward and draw out a card. I give them the opportunity to change their mind and they can do. They turn this card over and it is their thought of card the Jack of Spades. A miracle. This method relies on the above script (which we will look deeper into in a moment) and a one way force deck of the Jack of Spades. I always have an indifferent card on the bottom of this deck so that I can casually flash it. I also keep a Queen of Hearts on the top just in case I can get a psi force on a lady too.
If the person does not end up thinking of the Jack of Spades and names a different card then I will generally make out that I am getting an idea about how they think and then just use the force deck to do a quick mind reading feat. Or I will do a deck switch and lead into something else whilst using the above excuse. If I am performing the bold version where the card is already on the table face down then I may resort to an out that we will come to later. Though I don’t have a problem with missing and if it is treated like a little game then the participant is less likely to care that it missed as they can see how impossible the task at hand is. There are many possibilities when it comes to the revelation of the thought of card and I’m sure you will come up with your own.
Method - How and why does this psi force work? The basic idea behind this is influenced by the book Naked Mentalism by Jon Thompson. The book deals with many statistical possibilities and probabilities and is worth picking up. I thought about using probability as a basis for a psi force when the idea of using cards popped into my head. As you know there are 13 cards in each suit, only 3 of which are court cards. So by using probability alone the odds are that someone would choose a number card as opposed to a court card. I know that this isn’t strictly true when it actually comes to someone making a choice as they can be drawn to picture cards more than number cards and it was with this in mind that I wanted to control this aspect and steer them well clear of picture cards to being with. But on paper the odds are that a number card would be chosen before a court card which means I could tell them to change their mind from a number card to a court card and vice versa and be fairly safe in the knowledge that they would end up thinking of a court card once the mental changes had been made. But I wanted to be 99.9% sure that they would be thinking of a number card to begin with. This is why I verbally tell them NOT to think of the Ace of Spades or the Queen of Hearts or anything OBVIOUS like that. By branding the Aces and by essentially branding all of the picture cards as obvious choices people will stay away from all of them despite you only actually labelling the Ace of Spades and the Queen of Hearts as obvious choices. By naming 2 cards you have just eliminated 16 cards leaving only number cards to choose from. The other thing that is mentioned within that same sentence but not directly addressed are the suites Spades and Hearts. Because you mention them and because they have also been included in the “obvious” bracket these are also less likely to be thought of initially. So in total we are left with a choice of any number card in the suit of either Clubs or Diamonds to select from. This all happens at a rather subconscious level and is not something that they will be thinking too much about. They will hear your instructions and will follow accordingly.
Now that I had it down to the selection of a number card and only 2 suites I really wanted to push towards the Clubs. It is true that they could still go with diamonds and it has happened once or twice but is far less likely in my experience. If this happens then they will end up thinking of the Jack of Hearts in the end. This is why my first working of this used a 2 way multiple out to cover the Jack of Spades and the Jack of Hearts. I finally got rid of that when it was clear that most people were going with the Jack of Spades. This brings us to the next part in the script that instructs them to think of a card that would be DIFFICULT for someone to guess. For some reason this really seems to push guys towards a black card in general and especially a Club. I noticed this before deciding to use the Ace of Spades as an example with the aim of ruling out Spades. The use of verbally mentioning Spades just seems to push them more into thinking of a Club. So after following my little script I can be pretty certain that they are thinking of Number card in the suit of Clubs which allows us to now move forward and basically direct them towards the card we want. We tell them to keep with the same color but to change to the opposite suite and then tell them to change from a number card to a picture card or vice versa but to keep away from anything obvious. Again, for some reason I have found that out of the 3 court cards, Jack, Queen and King guys deem that a Jack is less obvious than the other 2 which brings us nicely down to the one card. It should also be noted that when you give your instructions to change the cards appearance you should give your instructions on the assumption that they are thinking of a numbered Club card. For example, if I tell them to think of their suit which is either “Clubs Spades Hearts or Diamonds” I always say Clubs first. Also when I am instructing them to keep the same color card but to change to the opposite suit I always start with the example that if they are currently thinking of a Club then they are to change to the Spades and vice versa. This way if they ARE thinking of what we hope they are thinking of then these instructions are literally guiding them to where we want them to be and decreasing the likelihood that they will make an error as we are giving them the track to follow. If they are thinking of something else entirely at this point then they are going to give us a completely different card in the end anyway. So we might as well give our instructions in a way that will keep them on the straight and narrow if they are thinking of a numbered Club card. The same goes for the next part where we instruct them to change from a number card to a picture card and vice versa. It is said assuming that they are already thinking of a number card and we are again leading them on the correct path. It can be a strange internal process for them when they are kind of put on the spot and I have found that this guidance improves things immensely and that can only be a good thing. Use Rus’ Spoken to get to grips with the forcing of the Jack of Spades that way you can keep track of how many times it pops up until you are comfortable. Alternatively have a primary routine option
available for when the Jack of Spades is selected and use Spoken to fall back on for the other selections. For me, I have found that taking a chance on the Destination style approach is far stronger than anything else. It’s just one card on the table from the get go.
OUTS If you attempt this psi force version of the Destination routine with one single card on the table and you miss then you can simply run through the remaining deck under the guise of telling the participant that they could have thought of any of these cards. What we actually do is spot the named card and cull it to the top of the deck and then take the tabled card and perform a double lift or a top change to give the illusion that the card on the table was their thought of card. Another alternative I keep in mind is when I am using the one way force deck that I mentioned earlier where there is a Queen of Hearts on top. I don’t actually expect a guy to end up thinking of the Queen of Hearts especially as it is one of the cards that is mentioned in my script but it is in the deck and therefore if it comes up then it is on hand and that option is covered. Daniel Maddison’s Advocate is an outstanding card index to have on you if you really want a good out. I find that it is a much better alternative to the Invisible Deck and cleaner too. The original Spoken by Rus Andrews as previously mentioned.
Script for forcing the Queen of Hearts This is a lot more straight forward in process. This time you will use the original script using the Ace of Spades as an example but instead of using the Queen of Hearts we will use the King of DIAMONDS and instead of asking the lady to think of a card that she would deem difficult for someone to guess we are going to ask her to think of a card that she LIKES. This pretty much always leads them to Hearts and of course our wording in the script keeps them away from the “obvious” cards and leaves them choosing a number card in the suit of Hearts. From here we take her down the same route of making changes to the card only in this case there is only going to be one change made. We are going to tell her to keep with the same suit but we are going to change the value. If she is thinking of a number card then she is to change to a picture card and vice versa and again she is asked to settle on a card that she LIKES. Perhaps her favourite amongst the remaining choices. This should leave her thinking of the Queen of Hearts. You can, if you want, just make ONE change to the gentleman’s card rather than making him change suits from Clubs to Spades. Instead just get him to change the value from number card to picture card. Only this time your prediction with be a Jack of Clubs.
Things that have happened in performance The first time that I decided to try this on a magician was for my good friend Michael Leadbetter. I decided that as I am going to give this a go I might as well try for the most impossible outcome I could get. What I decided to do was to place my one way force deck onto the table taking due care to purposefully flash the bottom indifferent card as I removed the deck from the box. I went through the script for the psi force and then asked him if he had settled on one card in his mind and he replied “yes”. But at this point I did not want to ask him to name the card, instead I told him to keep that card in mind. I then spread the face down one way force deck across the table and asked him to draw out a card that feels right to him. He did so. Once he had done this I gathered up the rest of the cards and placed them back into the box. I knew that at this point that there would be NO way to backtrack this as a magician if this worked. After all, he had not yet named his thought of card so there was nothing that I could do to force the correct card etc. Anyway, once he had this single card in front of him I asked him what card it was that he built up in his mind. Thankfully he uttered the words that I wanted him to say…”the Jack of Spades”. Inside my excitement was break dancing to MC Hammer. I told him to turn his selected card over and there was the Jack of Spaces. A true miracle of a routine. But a pretty big gamble too
Another time I had a bit of fortune with this was on a stag do. I had my one way force deck set with the indifferent card on the bottom and a Queen of Hearts on top. I was asked to do a trick and I decided to give this a whirl. This was in the very early stages when I was still finding better ways to make it hit. Well, I was performing for this one chap and when I asked him to name his card he didn’t end up saying the Jack of Spades, instead he said the Queen of Hearts….what a stroke of luck. So I ran through the deck asking him to simply touch the back of any card he wanted. Once he had done this I fully removed the card from the deck, placed it on top and did a double lift showing the Queen of Hearts. Of course he freaked out. But then his mate jumped in saying “can I have a go of that?” and I thought “sod it, why not?” I took him through the process and asked him to name his thought of card and he said “the Jack of Spades”. How very convenient seeing as they are the only 2 force cards I have in this deck. On this occasion I then went with an ACAAN finale to get him to his thought of card which was very easy seeing as 50 of the 52 cards were Jack of Spades. You can imagine the response this got.
Thoughts Rather than being a full card force it is just as effective as getting someone to think of the suit Clubs. Which means that you can even take a little risk and tell the participant to attach a certain topic to each of the four suites and then reveal what they are thinking based on the likelihood of them thinking of Clubs. That would be a great thing to do if you are good at applying readings to your work. I am crap at readings so I personally do not do this but it is food for thought.
THE DIRECT MIND READ - You could just use this as a direct mind read as a branching part of a routine. Get them to build a card up in their mind and use the Derren Ploy to see if there is a reaction. The Derren Ploy being where you tell them to repeat the card over and over in their mind like “Jack of Spades, Jack of Spades, Jack of Spades” and if there is a reaction then you know you have hit. If not then you can move onto another way to deal with the situation or the next possible branch of the routine. I first saw the Derren Ploy as it has become known on his dvd set The Devils’ Picture Book and then later in print in Pure Effect.
BRANCHES - I think it is important for me to quickly talk about the “routine branches” that I speak of. These are basically all the possible avenues that a routine can take. The participant will never know about them and nor will you know which route you will take on any given performance. It is essentially magicians choice but with routine structures. An example would be this: We use the script for this psi force to try to force the Jack of Spades. Branch one (or outcome one if it’s easier to follow) is that you use the Derren Ploy to see if you have hit. If you do hit then you can’t do any better and the routine ends. If you don’t hit then the participant is none the wiser and you move onto branch 2 of your plan to make this look like it is all a part of the same routine. Branch 2 may be to ask them what card they built up in their mind and, like me, hope it is the Queen of Hearts that is in my deck. If this hits at this point then I do an effect to bring it to a conclusion. If it does not hit then we move onto branch 3 which might be to use an out like Advocate and have their thought of card be the only blue backed card in the red deck. That’s it, they are just hidden structures that help you run the risk of a mega miracle, down to a slightly lesser miracle.
The reason I mention this is because I believe it is important to build these chances into your existing routines and not have these psi forces as stand -alone effects. Build them in and push for a miracle.
Impossible ACAAN – I call this the Impossible ACAAN as it is impossible for anyone to figure out but is also near on impossible to get right most of the time. But it’s fun when in works and is just an off the cuff thing and no one really knows what you are about to do anyway. I like to use this set up when jamming with another magician. When he/she goes to the bar I take their deck and place the Jack of Spades in the 17th position ready for the performance of the psi force. So why the 17th position? Well let me explain something strange that I have noticed happening a lot in the last year. I was setting up a Phoenix Double Decker Deck and needed a force number. Instead of picking one myself I decided to leave in the hands of my girlfriend. I asked her to name a number between 1 & 52 and she said 17. So I went with it. Now keep in mind that within the given routine with my double decker deck there is a “miracle” chance built in and it only occurs when the number 17 is chosen as that is the number my girlfriend decided upon. Well, I tried it out for the first time at a gig and asked the gentleman that I was performing for to name any number between 1 & 52 and you guessed it he chose 17. This was my first performance of it and I got to take it to an impossible climax. At the same gig I tried it for a second time and the lady I was performing for chose the number 17!!! What the hell?? 2 out of 2. I tried it a 3rd time, but got a different number and had to see the routine out in its usual way. 2 out of 3. The next day I tried it in work on a colleague….he chose 17…3 out of 4. The next day it decided to show a Michael Leadbetter and he chose 17…4 out of 5 For whatever reason I have not performed it since, mainly due to pocket management I think. But it is an unbelievable streak for the number 17 to be picked so many times I mean it’s 80% in the given example which, granted, is freakishly high and won’t remain at that level for long but there is definitely something in it psychologically. A good friend of mine, Kris Douglas, has recently released his own Ebook called Fragments of Clarity and in it he has an ACAAN routine. During his description of the routine he gives an example of a participant naming a number between 1&52 and in this description he uses the number 17 as the chosen number. It just seems to be a number that pops up a LOT. I’m sure he did this at random and that seems to be the key here.
So with the Jack of Spades in the 17th position in someone else’s deck you can attempt to go for something completely outrageous. Ideally you will have your own deck as a back up with the Jack of Spades on top in case they get the card and not the number. You can then do your own impromptu version of ACAAN with a regular deck and still fool them as they will have no idea how you got the right card. It might also be worth noting the 17th card down in your own deck (and even the 17th from the bottom) in case they get the number and not the card. At least then you have a second chance. Of course this is just something to play with and who know perhaps someone can find a better use for it.
Credits Rus Andrews – Spoken Jon Thompson – Naked Mentalism vol1, 2 & 3 Michael Murray – Springboard Daniel Maddison – Advocate Derren Brown – Devils’ Picture Book Kris Douglas – For his ideas on his own ACAAN that allow me to do an impromptu ACAAN if things don’t do my way
