Luke Jermay - Reincarnation - The Event 2018 Lecture Notes

REINCARNATION r - Jermay’ � � General Pe r on Ploy -

THE EVENT 2018 - Lecture Note � � -

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REINCARNATION Jermay' � Gene � al Pe r on Ploy CREATED & WRITTEN BY Luke Jermay

EDITED BY Tara Whittaker

COVER PHOTOGRAPHY Martin Eder

















REINCARNATION - 'Jermay's General Person Ploy' Copyright 2018 (C) Luke Jermay. All Rights Reserved. All legal owners in possession of an original copy of this manuscript have the

































INTRODUCTION Tese

lectures notes were prepared to accompany my exclusive presentation at Te Event in 2018. Te Event is an annual mentalism convention I produce, in association with my friends at Vanishing Inc Magic, that aims to bring the very best performers, thinkers and creators in contemporary mentalism to London to share their wisdom, insights and professional performance material in a day packed full of exclusive lectures, presentations and performances.

Tis

manuscript could be thought to mark the sixth instalment in an ongoing series of releases in which I aim to document my explorations and expansions on what might be one of the very oldest techniques in all of recorded theatrical card magic; Te General Card Ploy. Te earliest written description I can �nd of this wonderful principle is on page 159 of the Pieper translation of the formally unpublished manuscript referred to as Sloane 424 , dated to the 1600’s. Te translation of this remarkable historical document can be found in Gibeciere, Volume 5, Issue 2, published in the summer of 2010 by the Conjuring Arts Ar ts Research Centre. For those who are unsure, Te General Card Ploy can be easily summed up as a deception in which the performer forces the same card on multiple spectators, each of whom believe they have selected diff erent erent cards to one another. Later, this forced card and several other random cards are in some way displayed or revealed to the spectators and each verify that their chosen card was among those revealed or displayed. Te resulting

















since they assume the other cards revealed or displayed were those selected by everyone else involved. Tose observing believe this since those participating con�rm their selections have been revealed. It is a bold, brilliant and highly sophisticated deception. Tose

readers who have been performing mentalism for even a short period of time will instantly recognise the General Card Ploy as being the central mechanism within the venerable Tossed Deck. Te Tossed Deck is a wonderful example of the General Card Ploy applied to a direct demonstration of mind reading. As a community we often call the General Card Ploy, when utilised in the context of a mentalism routine, the Hoy Principle due to the widespread exposure to Hoy's performance piece Tossed Deck, which utilises the principle as its core methodology. Curiously, many have failed to notice that the concept of the Tossed Deck predates Hoy with an earlier, almost identical, routine in print by Orville Meyer which can be found on page 2 of the often overlooked periodical Mental-Wise, Volume 2, Issue 8, published in March of 1956. Hoy gave no history to his routine when he included it on page 25 of a collection of his his fantastic performance performance material entitled Te Bold and Subtle Miracles of Dr. Faust, published by the Ireland Magic Company. While Hoy off ered ered no mention of Meyer it is highly likely that this is where Hoy got the inspiration for his routine from. What is certain is that few realised the power of the concept until Hoy brought it to the attention of the mentalism community with his commanding theatrical performances. Once the power of this simple concept was recognised the routine spread like wild�re. It became a



















in their own performance work. History aside, the General Card Ploy and the Tossed Deck have been a constant source of fruitful inspiration for me personally for more than than 20 years. My �rst major contribution to the body of work utilising the Hoy, which �rst principle was my original routine Touching On Hoy, which saw print in 2002, but was created in 2000, in a set of lecture notes dedicated to it. Touching On Hoy is a prop free mind reading sequence which transformed the General Card Ploy’s scope and expanded it to work not with playing cards but with human beings. I consider this routine as the foundational building block that all of my other related material stands upon. It is included in this manuscript, in its most recent form, to present the reader with a well rounded understanding of the process of exploration I have taken t aken with the core methodology methodolog y. I believe this expansion of the General Card Ploy’s reach and scope to be my original contribution to the body of work connected to the General Card Ploy and one that I am very proud of. Touching On Hoy opened the eyes of many to the �exibility of the General Card Ploy; Ploy; something that previously had always been used only in conjunction with playing cards was now applicable to more interesting and further reaching information

















In 2015, thirteen years after Touching On Hoy �rst saw print, I decided to share more of my explorations on the General Card Ploy applied to human beings. I began by sharing Touching On Divination as part of my 4 disc DVD set Jermay's Mind, produced by Vanishing Inc; Inc; this is a sequence which allows the performer to seemingly answer thought of questions held only in the minds of spectators. Tis handling is also included in an updated form here in this manuscript. Tis is my personal favourite of all the routines I have created and the one I use the most in my own own professional professional work. work. It has has a �exibility and an authenticity that makes it very useful and hugely impactful on an audience. Next, I released a PDF and audio training package called Cartomancy which detailed an entire show themed around fortune telling with playing cards which utilised the concept in one of its central phases. Tis can be found as a stand alone PDF download at my online mentalism store. sto re. Te

third release on this theme was Touching On Hypnosis; a sequence of pseudo hypnotic phenomena made possible thanks to the General Card Ploy which appears on my second 4 disc DVD set Premise And Premonition, produced by Vanishing Inc, available at their website and in magic stores around the world. world .

Te

fourth was Vibrations; my professional, dare I say, avant-

















It is my hope, that by documenting the many diff erent erent routines I have created using the single principle as a muse, giving birth to a new approach which I now call 'Jermay's General Person Ploy' , the community will begin to see these routines not as self contained ‘tricks’ but but rather, diff erent erent disguises for a utilitarian technique. A technique upon which direct and startling miracles can easily be built once the approach is fully understood. In this manuscript you will discover three fully formed professional routines and one universal technique; each built on 'Jermay's General Person Ploy' to produce a wide array of distinct and powerful professional performance pieces. Both ‘Broadcast’ and ‘One ‘One Are All’ have have never been shared, in any form, anywhere before. Tey are exclusively housed within this limited edition manuscript. When I decided deci ded to t o present a lecture lect ure on 'Jermay's General Person Ploy', my biggest challenge was in deciding what not to include. Te time restraints of a convention lecture forced me to reexamine all of my work with 'Jermay's General Person Ploy', both published and unpublished, in order to select what I felt was the best variety of information for those in attendance. It was, at �rst, an annoyanc annoyance. e. However, it soon becam becamee cle clear ar this challenge was a blessing in disguise. disgui se.

















previously unpublished additional utilitarian 'Jermay's General Person Ploy' techniques that I use in my own performances, to the community community.. I suggest suggest you read these these notes from start to �nish and do not jump jump ahead. I have structured these notes in such a manner that each routine builds upon the last as they introduce techniques and applications that are transferable to one another. I hope these lecture notes provide you with a new way to look at something very old. It is my hope hope that the work I have done Ploy' will inspire you not in developing 'Jermay's General Person Ploy' will only to go out and perform these routines but to ask yourself what unique discoveries you might make as you explore a principle that has, in my experience, only continued to grow, shift and expand as it continues to occupy as special place in my mind.

LUKE L UKE JERMAY

















TOUCHING ON TELEPATHY TELEPATHY Touching Touching on telepathy is a sequenced routine of two diff erent erent demonstrations (Touching On Hoy and Touching On Divination) built on 'Jermay's General Person Ploy' that that off ers ers the performer a startling, prop free, demonstration of test conditions telepathy, immediately followed by a prop free demonstration of divination and fortune telling in which the performer answers the personal questions of random audience members that are only 'thought' about. I personally follow these two sequenced routines with my personal approach to George Anderson’s ‘Dynamite Mentalism’ which allows me to present a full, prop free, performance lasting anywhere between 20 and 35 minutes. Nothing is written wr itten down, there there is no preshow work and there is no stooging. Tis is a true, prop free, demonstration of telepathy that leads to one of the purest, test conditions, demonstrations of true Questions and Answers that you will encounter. I recommend that you read this chapter fully, even if you are already familiar with my work, as many of the principles and techniques that are taught are utilitarian and will be transferred



















TOUCHING ON HOY Phase One: Telepathy

After some introductory remarks about the nature of telepathy, telepathy, mind reading and divination, the performer explains he will begin with a mental warm up and to do so he must work with receptive minds. He has the audience relax and remain remain open minded. He then has the entire room room attempt to pick up on three simple thoughts that he explains he will 'project' to them. Each time he has those audience members who accurately perceived his thought indicate this by standing at their seat in the theatre. He then selects three of the standing audience members to join him onstage. Each person sits in a chair lined up across the stage. Te performer instructs the spectators to close their eyes. He then openly walks to the spectator in the chair furthest to the left, from the audience’s viewpoint, and taps that person several times on the shoulder He then



















Te

performer then moves to the spectator sat in the centre of the three and taps this person several times on their back. He then continues:

“If you just felt me touch touch you, you are player player number number two. I would like you to to focus on a name; a name that you say everyday. everyday. It could be a loved one, a family member, a friend; anyone that is a part of your life…your task f rom this point onward is to simply focus your mind on that person’s person’s name. Ignore Ignor e what the other players are doing. Simply focus your your mind on whichever name you have decided upon. Feel free to change your your mind a few times if you wish, before you settle on one, however, however, once you have decided; lock that in your mind and focus all of your attention on it. You are player player number two; focus only on your chosen name.” Te

performer moves to the �nal spectator sat in the chair furthest right and taps this person. He address this person



















“Please, players players 1, 2 and 3…open 3…open your eyes for me now! All of this applause is yours.” Te

three onstage spectators open their eyes and the performer leads in a round of applause. Te performer continues, addressing all three of the onstage spectators:

“Please take a moment to focus your mind on your speci � c thoughts. You each have one concept in mind. Player number one, some simple shapes; something of a warm up. up. Player number number two, the name of someone close to you and player number three, a year that has some signi cance to you.” � cance Addressing the audience at large the performer performer continues: “I � nd nd telepathy telepathy is much like any learned skill. It requires a speci � c



















“I believe I have been able to reach inside your mind and � nd nd the speci for. I have two simple shapes, shapes, a year � c thoughts I was looking for. and a name. Strangely, this evening, the thoughts that were normally the easiest, the shapes, were the most di cult for me to ffi cult nd.” � nd.” Te

performer turns to address the onstage spectator who focused on two simple shapes: “So, Player number one…if I get even one of the two shapes you have in mind, we will count that as a success.”

Te

performer then continues, addressing the audiences and onstage spectators at one time:

“ Te name and the year were very clear. Te shapes that came to me



















“One out of three, in most scienti � c circles, would be considered highly signi cant but right here and right now we are not interested � cant in scienti cance…” � c signi � cance…” Te

performer then continues, addressing addressing the second spectator:

“If I successfully named your thought…please, sit down” down” Te

performer �nally addresses the last spectator:

“ Te moment of truth…If I successfully named your thought, please, sit down.” Amazingly the �nal spectator sits. Te audience reacts with shocked silence quickly followed by intense applause.





















TOUCHING ON DIVINA DIVINATION TION Phase Two: Two: Questions & Answers

With the three onstage spectators sat in the onstage chairs the performer continues, addressing the three spectators and the audience at once: “I am warmed up. While I understand the need for tests of telepathy, telepathy, its not really the best use use of the gift. Let’s move on to to what really matters the most; the past, the present and the future.





















“Please, all three of you, open your eyes. I have the answers you seek. Player number three, when it comes to the past you have to be careful not to allow it to in � uence the present and interfere with the future. � uence At this point in your life there is nothing more you can do to mend the situation. I believe that Joanne was not in possession of all the information she needed to make the best decisions, however, however, now it is your duty to move move forward. for ward. Now is the time to to let this go. Player number two, the present, I feel you asked a question literally about the present. Something about you right here and right now; something of a challenge. I believe you want me to tell tell you the colour of your underwear underw ear.. Understand that I normally would not accept





















they would like to the answer answer to. to. He then works with various spectators, dotted around the room, accurately answering questions.

BEHIND THE CURTAIN Te Core Methodology

Before we launch into the exact details of the method, I would like you to consider that the routine appears exactly as it has





















Much has been made, in recent years, of the notion of Dual Reality. Tis is the term given to an eff ect ect in which an audience member has a diff erent erent experience to the performer, and each has diff erent erent experiences to the audience at large. I have always been somewhat puzzled by this notion being new. It seems to me there is not a single example of a magic or mind reading demonstration which, at its very core, is not an example of Dual Reality Realit y. In truth, for any deception decepti on to take place, the performer must always manage multiple experiences and realities; this routine will highlight that fact. To To begin, I wish to present you with a simple overview overvie w of how





















To To properly understand this routine it is important that you understand the 'Hoy Principle’ , imagine you have a deck of playing cards; of which �fty one cards are all alike. Te remaining card, which is diff erent erent from the �fty one all alike cards, is on the face of the deck. Te complete deck is wrapped in a rubber band. Imagine you were to throw the deck to diff erent erent people in the audience; accompanied by instructions for them to each break open the deck and look at one, and only one, card within and commit it to memory and then have the deck returned to you. You would present whatever whate ver vision visio n of mind reading process you personally favour and �nally reveal that you have several cards in your your mind. If you were to now announce the card used for the �fty one alike cards, along with























With the spectators sitting, you stand behind the spectators in the space between the second and third chair as you instruct the onstage spectators to close their eyes and for them to keep their eyes closed until you ask them to open them again. You appear to lean forward to look up and down the line of spectators to check that they have each closed their eyes. Tis action, while benign and uninteresting to the audience proper,























believes is only being actioned by the spectator they saw you openly touch on the shoulder. shoulder. I choose to control the choices by employing a classic psychological force of two simple shapes: a circle and a triangle. Once this is complete you will move to the second spectator in the row of chairs, you will appear to 'touch' this spectator somewhere on their back; in truth you merely mime the actions of touching the spectator but do not























Te

name we reveal and the date can be anything; since no-one is really thinking about a name or a date. Since all three spectators were instructed to take part as Player number one, who we employed the psychological force upon, all three spectators will sit down.























concepts to create a twenty � ve to thirty thirt y minute prop free mind reading demonstration.

THE REAL SECRETS























and right at the exact moment you turn your head to look up and down the line of spectators, seemingly checking they have followed your instructions and closed their eyes. You will now straighten your body up bringing your torso out of the space between the two chairs. You You will lead with your right leg as you walk to the only





































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































Te Premise & Outcome:

Once you have established a deceptive method to group the individual participants as one and constructed a method to ensure that all participants within the secret group are thinking of the same thing all that remains is to work out what you will do with that situation! Tis might seem easy but in truth this is the hardest part of constructing material using ‘'Jermay's General Person Ploy'.’ Much like the tailor cutting a perfect �t, the real challenge is not in �nding the mechanical solutions to the problems, the real challenges hide in the tricky subject of aesthetic and feeling. Some methods lend themselves naturally to certain themes and premises. As an example let’ let ’s pick back up with our three spectators who have all been forced to hold the same card while the audience believes they have each selected a diff erent erent card. A natural natura l �t for this situation might be to produce a resulting eff ect ect of divination and fortune telling using cards. If the performer were to off er er the same information presented in ‘Touching On Divination’ but apparently based on the meanings of the cards themselves, he woul wo uld d succ su cces essf sful ulll y br brin ingg ab abou outt a deva de vast stat atin ingl glyy dire di rect ct demonstration in which the cards themselves seemed to answer thought of questions. Tis is where your unique vision of mystery will come to life in your creations. I like to think that constructing material using 'Jermay's General Person Ploy' is �fty percent craft and mechanical understanding and �fty percent personality and artistic expression.

















dress a utilitarian method in new clothing, you will be creating your own uses u ses for 'Jermay's General Person Person Ploy' in no time at all.

















ALL ARE ONE Te �nal

secret contained in these notes is not a fully formed routine but rather a utilitarian u tilitarian technique tec hnique that, I hope, will spark something creative in the reader. 'Jermay's General Person Ploy' is a technique that allows the creative performer to produce remarkably powerful eff ects ects with very little e ff ort ort in performance. Each of the routines routines I have shared, shared, not only in these notes but also across my published work to date, focuses on applying the concept to a small number of participants working directly with the performer. However, However, the technique is not restricted to working with small numbers numbers of spectators. spectators. In fact, it is possible to use the technique with an entire audience. au dience.

Magical literature is resplendent with interactive material that is designed to work work with an entire audience at one time. Many of these creations are mathematical in nature and have the whole audience participate in some process of selection and apparent randomisation to select one thing from amongst a set group. group. At the conclusion, the performer performer reveals that he has predicted whatever the �nal selection each person in the room has made. Te audience are startled and surprised to �nd that everyone has apparently freely chosen the same thing. Personally Personally these these types of demonstrations do little for me. I believe that, in revealing that everyone in the room has come to the same ending point, the mathematical and formulaic nature of the demonstration is instantly apparent. Tat is not to say that these contributions to the art are not fun and engaging for an audience to take part in. I just prefer prefer to look a little deeper

















By now you will have probably realised a connection between these types of mathematical demonstrations and 'Jermay's General Person Ploy'. Simply put; these demonstrations open up a remarkably efficient opportunity for us to exploit the possibilities of 'Jermay's General Person Ploy' with larger groups of people. Imagine an entire audience being engaged in a process of selection which secretly forces them all to one known outcome. Te audience believe everyone in the audience has a di ff erent erent �nal choice, from those available, in mind when in truth they are all thinking of the same thing. In this moment you can now have the entire room label themselves based on the their decision. Of course they are all now ‘Player number one’ and and we can use this in interesting, unexpected ways. I have many unpublished exploitations of using 'Jermay's General Person Ploy' on an entire audience at one time. However, for the moment, these will remain with me. I will, however, share one of the presentational approaches I have enjoyed for a mathematical forcing process that opens the door to labelling every audience member as ‘Player number one’ in in an engaging fashion that is congruent within the framework of a mentalism performance. Te

example I give is my personal dressing for a sequence I �rst learned from Jim Steinmeyer in his wonderful ‘Impossipuzzle’ series. It now looks and feels very diff erent erent from Jim’s sequence but the mathematical mechanism that produces the forced outcome remains the same. All I have done is give it a new dressing and a cool new name.

















SUPREMO CABARET PERSONALITY TEST Great title right? I miss the days of mentalism releases releases being titled supremo or ultimate and personally I mourn deeply the disappearance of the confusing trend to add the letter ‘O’ to the end of words. words. As we live live through the the obsession with one word titles for products and performances �lmed in underground car parks I �nd myself craving an additional ‘O’ on the end of a superlative. I hope hope my decision here here may have quenched the the thirst for some of my like-minded readers. I decided to call this particular routine the ‘Supremo Cabaret Personality Test’ not just because I am an old man su ff ering ering from bouts of whimsy and rose tinted glasses but rather since it cannot be performed in an underground car park. Maybe that wasn't as clear as I hoped. I will try again. You can not, not perform this routine in an underground car park. I am not sure sure that has made anything clearer. clearer. One last time; this routine is designed to be performed in a formal settings and not in a car park. However, it could well be performed in a car park with the addition of visual aids in place of a video screen. screen. As I type this I now realise my title isn't really doing the routine full justice.

SUPREMO CABARET & UNDERGROUND UNDERGROUND CAR PARK PERSONALITY TEST Better? I think

Now that has been cleared



















see �t. I personally think it makes an excellent addition to a show if it plays as a connecting line throughout the longer program. I will leave the performance choices to the reader and present the technique as simply as possible. On a large video screen the performer displays � ve diff erent erent images. Tese images appear to be mysterious and ancient occult symbols. Play along with the text that follows imagining yourself in the audience. “ Tese symbols have been used for hundreds of years to reveal interesting things about people. Tey come from a tradition of fortune telling and divination. Now, I do not claim they hold any mystical power themselves but they do o ff ff er an ancient personality test that is remarkable accurate accurate.. Let’s all play together and discover what the ancient occultists know about us…”

“Begin by starting on the far left end of the line of symbols. In a moment I will ask you to move � ve ve times. You can move right or

















with people on a deep and connected level; there is no point in small talk with you! If you ended up on the cross cro ss with the circle cir cle above all the way on the left of the line you are the what they called the ‘Vessel’, someone who needs new information and experiences to live a fully engaged life, you will be happiest seeking out new experiences. You would be at your happiest working in an industry that brings you into contact with new people and challenges as often as possible. If you landed on either of these symbols you can stop playing the game. Remember your symbol for later. later. Everyone else…those still in the game, let’ let ’s continue and � nd nd your symbol. Starting again f rom wherever you were I want you to move to move one time. Trust your intuition in making this choice…move once now! If, right now, you are on the crossed arrows you are what the ancients called the ‘V ‘ Voice’ you need to share your ideas with the world w orld and help others by connecting them with on an intellectual level… you can stop playing having found your symbol. Remember it for later but for now you are out of the game. Everyone else let’s continue…again start f rom wherever you were and move one � nal nal time! Move � nal nal time now trusting your

















Finally, if you are on the spiral symbol you are what they called the ‘Creator’, the type of person who needs to make an impact on the world that will outlive them; you need to leave something behind to mark your time here. Tis is your symbol and you can stop playing the game now. Remember your symbol. We will use you personal symbols this evening in our tests of telepathy, telepathy, intuition and prediction. So, I wonder how accurate each of those personality traits are to each of you? It is an an interesting game and one that that naturally naturally intuitive intuitive people can use to learn a lot about a person. However, However, right now, I want to continue working with some of you chosen at random to see how much we can learn about each other without speaking a word.” Te

performer has various audience members chosen at random. He instructs them:

“If you are the Warrior, I want you to think about something you want to change in the world. worl d. If you are the Voice, I want you to to think about something you want to tell the world about; something you are passionate and energised about f rom your own life. If you are the Vessel I want you to think about some exiting new thing you want to experience in your your future. If you are a Creator I want you to imagine a simple image. Begin by by seeing two simple shapes in mind. When I simple I something like

















allowed us to elegantly label every single person in the room within one group. We now have a version of ‘Touching On Hoy’ that can be worked with an entire audience. I suspect you already have ideas for how you might put this to work in your own performances. If you do not, I suggest starting to consider how this might open up the routine detailed earlier in this manuscript in which the performer seemingly answered thought of questions of three onstage audience members.

















FINAL WORD Now we reach the end of this instalment of my ongoing documentation of what I have come to call 'Jermay's General Person Person Ploy'. I hope that in this collection you see and feel why I think of these routines not as a series of isolated, unrelated eff ects ects and demonstrations but rather as a utilitarian approach that has resulted in a series of interconnected routines that form a collection of explorations on a single theme. Te possibilities that exist for your own performances perfor mances are limitless. For example, you might like to present Touching On Hoy not as a mind reading demonstration but instead as a display of prediction. All that need change to bring about such a desire desire is your presentation and script. Instead of revealing the information verbally in a cloak of telepathy you could reveal the information to have been recorded prior to the performance; in bold thick ink on a large banner which was locked in a box from the outset. A simple change to premise and presentation unlocks almost any demonstration you desire. Tis is the mark of the utilitarian approach and one that I know will yield hearty rewards for you in your own performances. My love aff air air with this deceptive principle began when I was

Luke Jermay - Reincarnation - The Event 2018 Lecture Notes

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