Going Mental

Today’s “Magic Friday” event was a real change of pace, I must say. Last week I did Vernon’s “Fingerprint Trick” and got a huge response with it. In order to keep things fresh and interesting I try not to do two card tricks on consecutive Fridays.
I am currently working on two beautiful Dai Vernon effects. “The Ace Assembly” (An earlier version of “Slow Motion Aces”) and “Silk and Silver” using the Cervon opening. Although I’ve never seen them performed, I can tell these are pure, beautiful and elegant effects. But they do involve some pretty hairy sleights. I am making reasonable progress with both, but they will require a lot more work before I can do them justice.
So all week I have been going through my collection of books trying to find the right trick for Friday.
In all my years of doing magic as a kid and as a young man I don’t recall ever doing a mental / psychic effect. With the exception of a trick called “Tarot Thought”. It’s a nice trick involving 5 tarot cards and 5 envelopes. Long story short; the spectator’s thought of card is divined from within an envelope behind the magician’s back.
I haven’t done that one for many years. Although it’s a good trick, I quit doing it because I felt it lacked directness. There were too many instructions for the spectator to follow. But now for some reason I thought a mental effect would be fun for a change. That is if I could find one that I could make fit my own style. By Tuesday I narrowed it down to two effects. Both of them are from Tarbell #4. I finally settled on “Himber’s Transcendental Book Test”.
In a nutshell; three books and two assistants are called for. Each assistant picks a book and some pages are randomly determined. The page numbers are added and subtracted to determine a page and line number in the third book held by a spectator. The Magi then becomes an actor and goes into psychic mode, gets some visual impressions, and after a bit of by play recites the arrived at line in the book. I was intrigued by the effect but not really excited about it. But the clock was a tickin’ so I figured I’d just give it my best shot and see what happens. There would be 5 performances as usual. But I had those blasted rising cards handy just in case…
1. The “Book Test” turned out to be a dud.
2. I turned out to be a dud. Or
3. I just plain chickened out.
I had three concerns about the trick. The first was that there might be too many instructions for the volunteers to follow. All my favorite magical authors warn against tricks that require too much concentration on the part of the audience. That makes perfect sense to me. Personally, I would rather be entertained than be put through a series mental calisthenics. I was also worried it might smack of a math trick. There’s nothing magical about counting articles into various piles, adding the year of your birth, multiplying by 12.7 and integrating the result along an inverted parabola. Yawn. My third concern was the fact that the proper working of the trick requires some quick counting, arithmetic, reading and memorization when only a quick and casual glance is allowed. I’m not the sharpest hammer in the woodpile so I was a little spooked by that last part.

So how did it go? It was great! I was as blown away by the response as my students were by the effect. I really didn’t expect this trick to play that well let alone pack such a powerful punch. In fact, I may have to look into one or two more mental effects. Who knows, Maybe I could apply some Vernon-osity to "Tarot Thought". Once again, where I was hesitant and ready to chicken out, I instead pressed forward and trusted my gut. And once again, the payoff was HUGE.
Acting!
Amazing!
Thank You!