ONTROL TOTAL C ONTROL :
EXTENDED
MATT MELLO
No part of this publication may be duplicated or transmitted in any form without written permission from the author. Copyright © 2015
Contents: Introduction.......3 Total Control 2.0…….4 Trippy Colors…….6 Effects…….7
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Introduction: Let me start by thanking you once more for your continued interest in my work, and Total Control . It really is quite fulfilling to know that so many of you are pleased with my ideas, enough so to keep coming back for more. Having had an adequate amount of time to absorb the information in Total Control , and with the success of its release, it is my pleasure to share with you this extended version of one of the most realistic demonstrations of direct mind-reading that I’ve ever created. The focus in Total Control was essentially a drawing duplication, with the drawing existing only as the person’s hallucination. I mentioned that you could do it with different pieces of information, but didn’t go very deep into things. There were also a couple of ideas that I had held back. That’s what this manuscript is for. Not only will you learn some effect applications, you will learn a new handling that makes everything one-hundred percent sleight of hand proof. You will also learn a cool new subtlety to make the participant’s hallucination even more trippy, adding a bit of extra mind-reading to the piece. At the same time, I don’t want to overload—and bore--you with every possible effect that this concept can be applied to. You can think of this as an extended additional thoughts section to the original manuscript. What I’m sharing here are the ideas that I find to be the most interesting and unique. I hope you feel the same. Matt Mello
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Total Control 2.0: As the title of this section suggests, this is a shiny new version of Total Control . It isn’t much, but it removes the ‘move’ from the original routine, now making this truly no different from the real thing. If you were to film a genuine demonstration of someone hallucinating an image on a blank index card that someone guesses, and then played that side-by-side to Total Control 2.0, there would be no difference. In the original, you had the ‘special’ turnover which could have been spotted. Now it’s unnecessary. The setup for 2.0 is simply to write your force information very lightly with pencil on one side of a double blank index card. Just light enough that you can barely see it. If you turn this card end over end fluidly as you show the audience your ‘drawing’, they will see nothing but a totally blank card. I typically take out a black marker and put it behind my ear before doing this card display. Your audience sees the black marker and automatically assumes that if there was any writing on the card, it would be in marker, not lightly drawn in pencil. They are looking for any signs of a marker, they see none, so naturally assume that nothing is written. This is simple suggestion at work. So rather than doing the false turnover move as you let the audience ‘in on the happening’, you just flip the card a few times and show it blank; nothing suspicious or out of place. You can now openly show the card to the participant and they will see the very light drawing on the card. The faintness of the image will further the idea of it being a hallucination. You may even wish to rub
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over the pencil marks with your finger to create a slight shadowing effect. All of this combined with the foggy haze from suddenly opening their closed eyes will greatly add to the illusion. To destroy the evidence, remove the marker from behind your ear and trace over the pencil marks, showing everyone your prediction. It doesn’t get any cleaner than this.
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Trippy Colors: This is one of my favorite additions to the Total Control technique. It gives you some extra mind-reading without having to really change anything in the sequence. The effect is that a spectator hallucinates a shape and a color, and you’re able to guess them both. This works quite easily by writing your force image in a specific color. I prefer yellow, because it works with Total Control 2.0. If you draw a red triangle, no matter how fast you flip the card, your audience will see the red triangle. But if you draw a yellow triangle, you can display the card, flipping it end over end without anyone seeing it. If you want to use darker colors, you will need to use the original false turnover move. In presentation, you show the audience a ‘shape’ you’ve drawn on a card, but they don’t see anything. The participant now opens their eyes and ‘hallucinates’ the yellow triangle and closes their eyes. I have them focus on the shape in their mind as I trace over the yellow triangle with the black marker. I can now show this to the audience and have the participant say the shape that they visualized, to which they will answer, “Triangle.” This will, of course, get a reaction from the audience all on its own, but now you can take it further. I ask, “It doesn’t always happen, but yes or no, was there a specific color involved with this image?”
When they say yes, underneath the triangle, I write out, ‘Yellow?’ and show it to the audience. The participant can now name the color, and you are shown once more to be correct.
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Effects: As I said earlier, I won’t bore you, or insult your intelligence by going into detail on every single effect that you can do with this; there are too many. I’m just going to share a few uses that I find intriguing. Personally, I feel the impossibility of Total Control as direct mind-reading is the strongest way that this can be utilized. No other props involved, just a marker and paper. There are already other ways to achieve the following effects—except for maybe Multiply-a-Number— but there are few demonstrations of direct mind reading that look as clean as ‘visualize something’ and then you can immediately draw it. Because of this, I almost exclusively use it as a stand-alone mind-reading piece. This stems from my not wanting to use the Total Control technique for all of my effects. Things would get boring rather fast if you were just constantly using this method, so I will leave these ideas here more for completeness than anything else. MULTIPLY-A-NUMBER – I’m a big fan of effects that appear to give the spectator an ability
to do something spectacular. With this effect, you give a spectator the ability to do impossibly quick calculations. “It’s astonishing to think that our brains are stronger than the most powerful super computers, capable of making innumerable complex calculations without our conscious awareness. Without trying to consciously think about the answer, I want you to simply allow your subconscious to show it to you.”
You can now say a multiplication equation like 43 x 18, and your spectator will ‘see’ the answer on the paper, ‘774’. 7
ACTION! – I must say that I really enjoy using this as a way to predict someone’s actions. I also
sometimes synchronize the actions of two spectators by showing them the same card. I mentioned dancing as a possible action in the original manuscript, but it can of course be applied to any action, making a person ‘Scream’ or ‘Cough’. Or you could make it more specific and involved, like ‘Give me your watch and jump up and down.’ Or rather than a drawing duplication, you could write out, ‘Draw a house’ and then give them another piece of paper to draw it on. ANY CARD AT ANY NUMBER – For this one in particular, I would put both the card and the
number on the same index card. I would hide the card value and suit with my fingers as I show the number to spectator one, then hide the number as I make spectator two hallucinate the card. You can then reveal that card at that number in a regular deck. BOOK TEST – Have the person imagine that they’re holding an imaginary book. They are told
to flip through the pages and tell you what page number they’ve stopped on. “In the center of the page I want you to visualize blurry letters, almost like you’re reading while wearing someone else’s eyeglasses. But when you open your eyes, your subconscious will show you the word on the paper.” They open their eyes, see the word, and you write it in marker for
everyone to see. You could also force the page number, have them open a book to that page and find the force word circled in the middle. CHAIR TEST – Let’s say you want to force the blue chair. After showing them the word blue,
you would remove a blue marker from your pocket and trace over the penciled letters. Show this openly to your audience, and then have the participant sit in the chair color they visualized.
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For myself, who only prefers to use the ‘hallucination’ bit once, I feel this is a waste of the technique. It’s still very impressive as an open prediction chair test, but compared to the impossibility of being able to visualize and guess anything , it just doesn’t compare. I could continue with time forces or date forces, or anything, but I think you get it. The main point of this manuscript was the 2.0 version and the color idea. Hopefully you get as much enjoyment out of these additions as I do!
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