Matt Mello - PATHS

P.A.T.H.S. by

MATT MELLO

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P.A.T.H.S. by

MATT MELLO















Table of Contents

Opening Thoughts...........................................................................................................................4 Path I..............................................................................................................................................6

Player One…………………………… One………………………………………………………… ………………………………….…………………….… …….…………………….…10 10 Player Two………………………………………………………………………………….…… Two………………………………………………………………………………….…… 12 Birthmonth.....................................................................................................................................14 Path II...........................................................................................................................................16

Triangulation………………………………………………………………………………… Triangulation………………………………………………………………………………… ..… ..…19 …………………………………………………………...…………………………... ...… …23 Path III…………………………………………………………...………………………… Card Coding…………………………… Coding………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………...… ………………………...…25 25 Codex…………………………… Codex…………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………… …………………………….… .…27 27 Intersecting………………………………………………………….…………………………… Intersecting………………………………………………………….…………………………… 28 Anagram Architecture………………………………………………………………...……… Architecture………………………………………………………………...……… .…31 Alphagram…………………………………………………… Alphagram………………………… ……………………………………………………… ………………………………… ……..37 ..37 Closing Thoughts…………………………………………………………………………… Thoughts……………………………………………………………………………... ...… …48















Opening Thoughts

I’d like to start by thanking you for purchasing this work on progressive anagrams. It’s the first book that I’ve written on the subject, and I hope that you’ll glean glean some useful, practical information from the paths that I’ve treaded. For most mentalists, the biggest issue and pet peeve with progressive anagrams is the act of fishing or guessing the letters. I can tell you that this was why I steered clear of them for years. There have been some attempts to cover the process of guessing random letters, but I still felt that most were far too obvious, and not n ot particularly inspiring. The first record that we have of using a progressive anagram within a list of words dates back to 1920, developed by a man named Stanley Collins. His original concept has remained relatively unchanged amongst magicians since its creation. Atlas Brookings is well-known within our mentalism community for his work on progressive anagrams. His material offers some of the best and most thorough thinking on the subject to date. The way that he uses them is to be admired and studied, as many of his thoughts could be incorporated into the concepts conce pts from this manuscript. P.A.T.H.S. is an acronym for “Progressive Anagrams Through a Hidden Sequence”. Sequence”. All of the approaches taught in this book are well hidden within the framing of the demonstrations, which I believe is vital to their deceptiveness. My initial approach to progressive anagrams came from an idea that I was working on with psychological forces called c alled “Targeting” , which I recently released in my manuscript, The Grey Area. Area. I just had a feeling that the presentation could be applied in some other way, and thankfully I continued working at it. After thinking and tinkering with ideas, I came to the realization that this could be a perfect method to deceptively perform a progressive anagram right in front of a person. The pieces just fell together, and I suddenly had a fully formed system for working with any anagram.















Along with the teaching of my personal approaches to this kind of work, I’ll also be teaching be teaching you a couple of anagrams that I love. “Player One” and One” and “Player Two” are Two” are Nintendo anagrams. “Player One” is One” is only for characters in the Super Mario Bros. universe. “Player Two” Two” expands the anagram to pretty much any common Nintendo character that they could think of. I haven’t seen anyone perf orm orm this before, and I particularly enjoy the presentation of having them pick their players. I also teach a basic anagram for months of the year , as I find the effect of guessing a person’s birth month to be more interesting than guessing a star sign. Unless your participant really believes in astrology, accurately guessing their birth month will have far more impact than guessing a star sign that they might not relate to. Though, I do teach an interesting star sign divination effect near the end of the book. There are also a few other branching anagrams that I teach, each with their own unique touches that I think you’ll you’ll find to be highly interesting and thought provoking. “Triangulation” is something that I’ve never seen applied to progressive anagram work, and work, and I think that it will spark inspiration in many of you. “Alphagram” will likely have the most hype surrounding it, and it’s something that I’m very excited to share with you. Because of this, I’m sure there will be a desire to skip ahead and read it first, first, but I would suggest working your way through the chapters as I’ve outlined them, in order to slowly grasp and understand the concepts before progressing into the more complex pieces. Of course, c ourse, this is only a suggestion, as I’m sure some of you may have already skipped past this opening section to dive right into the material. I can’t say that I blame you. From the beginning to the end, these approaches truly look as if we’re we’re peering straight into our participant’s minds participant’s minds and thought processes. Very few demonstrations of prop-less mentalism look this clean, and are this lethal le thal in application. It’s my hope that if you’re someone who doesn’t particularly enjoy progressive anagrams, that P.A.T.H.S. will be a helpful guide into this wonderful world of word working. Along the paths we go.

Matt Mello















Path I

When working with progressive anagrams, the first thing that most of us focus on is hiding the sequence of guessing letters. This is because when we get a mix of “yes” and “no” answers with no real pr esentation esentation or justification for why we’re we’re asking, it looks like blind guessing. With my approach, our questions aren’t just just being asked as a way to guess. Any Any “yes” or “no” answer that we receive serves a logical purpose within the given presentation. presentation. I’ll I’ll give an example using a person’s birth month, but “Path I” could be applied to nearly any progressive anagram. The process starts where every branching anagram does, by asking for a volunteer who’s fairly confident with spelling, followed by naming a specific category. “Could you please think of the month that you were born?”

Our next instruction sets up the entire sequence and forms the backbone of this approach. “I’d now like you to think of a few other months to try and confuse me. Every time I snap my fingers, I want you to think of a different month.”

We now slowly snap our fingers four of five times, instructing them to change to a random month on each snap. “I think that should be good enough. I now want you to look out in front of you, and imagine those random months you’ve chosen a re being projected onto a screen. ”

We appear to study the participant, adding, “I think I can see a few months coming through pretty clearly, but I’m a little hazy on one or two of them. Are you having a hard time remembering all of the months you thought of?” You’ll You’ll find that the participant will almost always forget at least one item that you’ve asked asked them to think of during this snapping sequence. They are being asked to remember four or five

















In any case, after they’ve confirmed that they’re having a hard time remembering one or two of the months, we say, “That’s perfectly perfectly fine. All of your thoughts are still locked away in your subconscious mind. Focus on relaxing your conscious mind. Take a deep breath and look at me. Excellent, that’s already a little better. I can see them coming through a bit clearer. Just give me a moment to look things over.” We look into our participant’s eyes, and then at the empty air in front of them, as if truly visualizing whatever months they’ve they’ve randomly randomly chosen to think of. We now ask, “Yes or no, is there an R in your birth month? Please take your time to go through the spelling in your mind.” They will answer either “yes” or “no”. or “no”. Let’s assume that they say, “No.” We then say, “Okay, so that means I can get rid of this one.” We appear to grab a single word (month) that we’re visualizing in the space between us, and toss it away to the side. If they had said, “Yes,” we would have said and done exactly the same thing. I’ll continue with the finer details in a moment, but I hope that you all have big smiles on your faces, as you should now instantly have a basic understanding of this approach. From the audience’s perspective, it should appear that we’re genuinely seeing and interacting with the participant’s thoughts. When we ask about a particular a particular letter, it seems as though we’re asking in order to eliminate and eliminate and differentiate between the options that we see before us. We’re looking over their personal selections, selections, and we’re we’re appearing to naturally go through each month that they’re visualizing. visualizing.

















At the same time, we’ve we’ve asked them to think of these extra months months as a way to try and ‘confuse’ us. To them, them, it appears that we’re we’re making things harder for ourselves, while truthfully, it helps immensely in making the process invisible. Picking up where we left off, our participant has said “no” to the letter (R) being (R) being in their birth month. We’ve then appeared to swipe away one of the months. Continuing through our progressive anagram, we look over the ‘months’ months’ in the empty air for a moment, and then ask, “Is there a Y in your birth month?” “Yes,” they say. “I thought there might be. be . That means I can remove this month.”

We grab and swipe away a second month. For this letter , we’re we’re seemingly removing a month they’ they’re re imagining that doesn’t have a (Y) in it. We look over the ‘months’ months’ again, as if trying to find a letter that could help to further narrow things down. We say, “This should be the last one. Is there an A in your birth month?” “No,” says our participant. “Okay, then this has to be the one.”

Grabbing an imaginary month, we bring it to the center of our attention. “You know, I had a feeling from the start that it was this month, but I kept second guessing myself.”

We write “July” on a piece of paper and place it into their hand.

















The audience must believe us when we say that we’re we’re seeing a variety of items coming through. This is subtly suggested with the use of our “forgetfulness” “forgetfulness” ploy, taking advantage of the fact that they will likely forget at least one item. As I mentioned, this really gives weight to the belief that we’re actually in their head and doing this for real. They must believe us when we swipe away an item. They must believe that it actually contained the letter they rejected, or that it didn’t didn’t contain a letter they confirmed to be in their word. Their belief comes directly from our belief. We must really try to envision these items. Act as if the words are really there in front of you. This is easy, because we actually are visualizing a set of months and letters. Always take a few moments to look over these ‘imagined’ imagined’ words. Don’t act as if they’ve all just popped into view in an instant. Once they’ve appeared, we must now pretend to be genuinely looking over their choices, looking at the letters and finding connections, so that we can cut it down to their specific thought. The psychology behind this demonstration is perfectly logical. It plays like the real thing. If you could truly peer into a person’s mind and view their random thoughts, it’s it’s possible that that you might sift through them in this way. Now that you understand the workings of the “Path I” approach, I’ll walk you you through a couple of progressive anagrams to use it with. for more [email protected]

















Player One

We begin by asking a person about their childhood, and if they played a lot of video games as a kid, specifically Nintendo games. After a bit of healthy nostalgia, we propose a demonstration. “I want you to imagine that you’re playing Super Mario Bros. and you’re going to p ick your player. You can choose to play as any character, but preferably one that most people would know. And please be sure to include the entire name, whether it be a ‘junior’ or some type of royal title. So if you thought of Bowser Junior, you would want to spell out ‘junior’ in your mind. O mind. Okay, kay, so pick your player.”

Give them as much or as a s little time as needed to choose.for choose.for more books boo ks and dvds contact [email protected] “Now, we’re going to play a mental game. Whichever player you’ve chosen is the one that you’ll stick with, but I’m going to have you go through four or five other character s in your mind to try and confuse me. So, allow a new character to come into your mind. Focus on it for a moment, and now think of another character…and ch aracter…and another…and one more.” Snapping our fingers, we instruct them to change the character each time, finishing by saying, “I think that should be good enough. I now want you to look out in front of you, and imagine all of those characters are being projected onto a television screen.”

















Player One

“

R

no

A

”

no

yes

O

O yes

WALUIGI

YOSHI

no

MARIO

yes TOAD

E

no

W yes

yes

WARIO

no

LUIGI



















Player Two

This addition extends the “Player One” anagram to almost any common Nintendo character. Which, after our instructions, really only includes four more cha racters. “I want you to imagine that you’re playing a Nintendo game, and you’re going to pick to pick your player. You can choose to play as any Nintendo character, but preferably one that most people would know. And please be sure to include the entire name. So if you thought of ‘Bowser Junior’ Junior ’, you would want to spell out ‘junior’ in your mind. Or, if Or, if you thought of ‘Zelda’, the full title would be ‘Princess Zelda’. As I’ve just named them, I would prefer if you didn’t choose either of those characters. With this in mind, please pick your player.”

This basically leaves us with all of the Super Mario Bros. characters, as well as: Link, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, and Kirby.



















“Player Two”

K

no

(proceed to “Player One”)

yes

G

no

R

no

yes yes KIRBY

I

no

DONKEY KONG

LINK



















Birthmonth

On the next page is a basic, branching anagram for the months of the year. An interesting attribute of “Birthmonth” is that the final two options at the end of any branch begin with either a straight capital letter, or a curved capital letter. Because of this, when we reach the end of a particular branch, and we have two options left, we can ask, “If the first letter of your birth month was capitalized, would it be curved at all?” Depending on their answer to this question, we would either name the option with a curve in the first letter, or the one made up of only straight lines. So, if we’ve anagrammed the months down to “June” and “August”, if they say “yes” to the first letter being curved, we know that they’re thinking of “June”.



















“Birthmonth”

R

no

Y

A

no

yes

JUNE

yes

A

yes

no

JULY

AUGUST

MAY

M

no

Y

no

yes yes

B

B

no

yes JANUARY

OCTOBER

APRIL



















Path II

will “Path II” II” will

explo explore re a variat variatio ion n on “Path I”, as well as a concept concept with with branch branching ing anagrams anagrams that I’m shocked I haven’t seen published before. This This is the idea of mixing multiple categories within a single anagram.for more books [email protected] The closest work that I’ve seen to this is by Atlas Brookings, though I haven’t heard of him mixing multiple categories into a classic anagram as I’ve done here. done here. Using this concept, not only does it make their choices seem even broader, but we can target their chosen category, as well as their specific thought within that category. As you may already comprehend, this idea of combining categories can sometimes lead to the creation of quite large, branching anagrams. The two that I’ve provided provided can get us to any thought in only four letters, but it’s possible that some anagrams you develop may require you to guess a





















This line about seeing any confirmed letter as a little bolder is a nice subtle convincer of what we’re doing. “What about the letter B? ” we ask, as we grab a second letter from the air, “Is the letter B in your word?” “No,” they answer. “Okay…I wasn’t sure about that one. It was fairly bold, but not quite as much as some of the others. Let me look things over for a moment. ”

We toss away the (B) (B) and ponder the ‘letter s’ we see before us, and simply and simply continue through this process for whatever number of letters we need to finish our anagram.





















The difference is that instead of naming letters aloud , we have them think of their letter, followed by a bunch of random letters which we try to filter through. Finishing this process, we should more than likely have enough information to guess the entire word or name. teach you my “Triangulation” anagrams, with the full presentation of the “Path II” approach. I’ll now





















Triangulation

I call this one “Triangulation” because I’ve combined three different categories into one anagram. I’ve designed a male and female version of this demonstration, which will perhaps offend some of you, but you, but that isn’t my m y intention. This is just one example of a combined anagram that I enjoy. There are many others that can be devised.





















“Okay…I wasn’t sure about that one. It was fairly bold, but not quite as much as some of the others. Let me look things over for a moment.”

We throw away the (I), looking over the remaining ‘letters’ in the air, and then grab a third letter, asking, “Is there an R in your word?” “Yes.” “Okay, I think this this should be the last one ,” we say, as we grab a final letter, “Is there an O in your word?” “No.” “Perfect, let me see what I can do here. Can I have you focus on whatever category you





















“Triangulation” (FEMALE ) N

no

R

no

A

yes

U

yes

yes

no

yes

no

L

RED

BRACELET

W

W

no

yes

FALL

WATCH

YELLOW

BLUE























“Triangulation” (MALE) T

no

C

no

U

no

R

no

BASEBALL





















Path III





















The letters that we would name, in order, would be: H, I, R, T, U, and S. (H) is a unique letter, in that it only appea rs in (Thursday). (I) is a unique letter that only appears in (Friday).





















Card Coding





















I would also suggest performing this with multiple people. Give them the small pack of seven cards, have them shuffle while we look away, and each person chooses one card. We can now go through the letters, and when each person stops us or closes their eyes, it will tell us each of their cards in succession.































































































































































































































































































Matt Mello - PATHS

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