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Positive Positive
Written by Art Vanderlay
Edition by Pablo Amirá

None of this work can be copied, resold, shared, uploaded or traded in

any way shape or form without the author’s explicit permission which he
will NEVER allow so don’t even bother. You are permitted to have this
electronic copy and to print out one copy for your own use if you so
wish.

Each eBook has been modified slightly & secretly for each customer to
ensure that if any eBooks end up online, the person responsible shall have
ALL of their personal details uploaded onto the internet and a swift call
to the police for illegal file sharing. If you do not agree to these terms
then DO NOT SHARE MAGIC.
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Interested in more ideas?

Interesting themes and ideas for performers.

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Positive / Positive
A New way of approaching the Max Maven Classic

Ever since Max Maven released his effect Positive Negative on his second
volume of Videomind DVDs way back in 1999, there has been a new and
improved version of Positive Negative on the market almost every week.
Look on any magic site with instant downloads and guaranteed you will
find at least one “holy grail” solution to Max’s original effect. Some of
these have had terrible solutions and some have had some interesting
solutions but nothing that seemed to keep in spirit of Max’s original
effect.

A version that came very close to being a “winner” in my eyes was

Kenton Knepper’s version that can be found in his Wonder Words series.
This uses, like the original, equivoque and linguistic deception but in a
way that the business card can always be handed out at the end.

Still, I wasn’t 100% satisfied. I wanted a way in which the spectator never
got it wrong. I never wanted to have to resort to a, “You got one answer
wrong but look, I predicted that beforehand!” style “out” that the original
and many others since then still adopted. I felt that the spectator should
be able to say for 100% if their coin was heads or tails and my one and
only prediction that could be always left with them should say exactly
that.

After many attempts to solve the solution, I finally had a brainwave using
an already established method from a well-known effect. Combining the
method from this well-known packet trick that still fries audiences today
along with the Positive / Negative style presentation makes this a very
clean and supercharged version of the original effect.
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Why is my version better than everyone else’s? Well for a start it isn’t.
You cannot say that one method for accomplishing the same effect is
better than Joe Bloggs’ method. What works for one performer does not
always work for another. I will only say that I have found that this is my
favourite way of performing Max Maven’s effect and the cleanest version I
have seen so far. I hope you do too.

So enough with all of the above, let’s get down to the nitty gritty of this
effect!

EFFECT

Hello reader, would you be so kind as to take a little moment of your

time to engage in an experiment using dreams? You will? Why thank you!
Before we start anything allow me to write something down on a
business card of mine. This is my prediction for your dream you are
about to have.

Dearest reader, I would like you to imagine that you are dreaming. You
are stood in your own house. In fact you are stood in your kitchen. Also
let us imagine in your dream that it is towards the end of the month,
possibly around the 27th of July. Please imagine that you can see the sun
shining through the window, you can feel its heat bearing down onto
your face. Imagine this dream as if it was actually real.

Since it is towards the end of the month in this dream, please imagine for
me that you are a little bit strapped for cash and decide to count your
earnings. Please dear reader, imagine for me that you take out your wallet
and proceed to tip 3 coins out onto your kitchen table. There you should
see a penny, a 10p and a 50p.

(Wow, you dream using English coins! How amazing!)

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Using your left hand, please imagine picking up any one of the coins.
Which one did you pick up? The 10p you say? Great! Ok, now with your
right hand, please pick up any of the other two coins. The 50p this time?
Fantastic! Please put them away in your pockets.

So you decided to leave the penny on the table. Remarkable! Do pennies

have any significance to your dreams? Perhaps on a subconscious level
that you are not aware of? It’s worth thinking about.

In your dream, please imagine picking up this penny, as you do this, I

want you to imagine myself suddenly materialising out of thin air. This
dream just keeps getting better doesn’t it!

I also have a duplicate penny on me. What a coincidence! However, since

this is a dream, and in dreams sometimes things aren’t always what they
seem, whatever happens to your coin, the exact opposite will happen to
mine. Let me show you.

Please imagine throwing your coin into the air in your dream, you catch
it in your hand and have a look to see if it landed heads side up or tails
side up. Which side did it land?

Tails you say? Well that obviously means I have a heads side up penny
then. Wow, isn’t that amazing! You visualised everything perfect for me
there dear reader! Remember I wrote something down earlier on my
business card and said that it was MY prediction? Well I was telling the
truth! Let me show you MY prediction and I will read it out for you,
remember that in your dream I had the heads penny and you had the
tails penny.

“MY PENNY WILL BE HEADS AND YOUR PENNY WILL BE TAILS!”

Thank you, dear reader, for taking part in this experiment. You did
wonderful! Please keep my invisible business card as a souvenir!
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METHOD

Now believe it or not, that was the WORST CASE SENARIO you can ever
get for the outcome.

As with the original effect, there are two methods being used here. One
method will be used to force the correct coin on the spectator and the
other method to steer the outcome to a successful close.

PHASE 1

We shall first deal with the coin. As everyone who reads this should
already know, equivoque is one of the most valuable tools for a mentalist
to have. Done properly and the audience should never suspect any
“leading” or “guiding” has taken place. For anyone who is afraid of using
equivoque in their performances should purchase Max Maven’s DVD
Multiplicity for proof that using equivoque on its own or combined with
other methods will always work.

You have already seen the above outcome if they happen to pick up two
indifferent coins and leave the penny on the table, but what happens if
they pick the penny up first? Well then you have the cleanest prediction
of all time! Don’t do anything else! Just reinforce the “fact” that they had
a free choice of coin and then proceed straight ahead into the second
phase!

However, let’s imagine they are left holding the penny and an indifferent
coin in each hand. This is what I always say, and recommend you use too,
when I am down to any two objects using equivoque:
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“Please hold one of the coins in your left hand and one of the coins in
your right hand. In a moment one of those coins is going to start to feel
different. It will stand out to you somehow, almost like it doesn’t belong
with the other coin. Which one?”

There are two ways this can go and each response you can give is logical
and fair.

Penny – “The penny is the one that feels special and the one that stands
out to you? Fantastic, hold onto that coin and don’t let go of it.”

Indifferent Coin – “That’s the one that feelsdifferent to you? It doesn’t

feel right and doesn’t belong with the other one? Then please get rid of it
for me.”

This is the most natural way of handling the last two objects using
equivoque and I urge everyone to use it if you don’t already.

So now let’s look at phase two and how we make the outcome successful
every single time.

PHASE 2

There are only two ways the ending can go. Either they have a penny that
is heads side up or a penny that is tails side up.

Because we handsomely enter their dream with a duplicate of their coin,

this allows for the FREE WILL principle created by Deddy Corbuzier to
be exploited.
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As you can see, the phrase; “My penny is heads and your penny is tails!”
can mean two different things depending on WHICH PERSON reads the
prediction out.

If they say “Tails” as in the above example, you remind them that the
prediction you wrote was for yourself since you said “This is MY
prediction…” DON’T then follow on with “…for your dream.” though, just
say this instead:

“Remember how I said this was MY prediction? Well I was telling the
truth! Let me read out MY prediction for you, remember that I have
heads and you have tails.”

At this point, YOU pick up the prediction and YOU read it out loud as if
you were predicting YOUR outcome in HIS dream.

If they say “Heads” you then tell them; “Remember that I said how I
wrote a prediction for YOUR dream? Well that’s because I was telling the
truth! Please take YOUR prediction and read out loud what I wrote for
YOU! Remember that you chose heads leaving the one in my hand as
tails.”

This time the SPECTATOR is asked to read out the prediction so the
wording is fitted to their outcome.

So no matter what the spectator says, you either focus your ending patter
on the prediction being for yourself and you read out the prediction, or
you focus your ending patter on the prediction being for the spectator
and have them read it out instead.

And there you have it. My way of performing Positive / Negative in a way
that you never fail and the spectator is never wrong either. If you have
any feedback or comments regarding the effect, please contact me using
the email address on the next page.
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BONUS

Always Heads by Pablo Amirá

This simple idea is a verbal finesse to enhance the odds (almost a verbal
force) in your favor for the last “Head-Tails” moment in the classic
“Positive- Negative”. Proceed with your normal equivoque/verbal control
to narrow the selection to one coin. After that your script is:

“Ok, in a moment I will throw this quarter, and you will tell me if this
coin lands (point up with your right hand) HEADS UP, or tails up”

You mimic the action to toss the invisible coin, catch it in your hand and
say:

"How do you see the heads side “

And this precise moment, you point with your right hand again up to the
ceiling. As you can see… there’s no place to say “Down”, because in the
first place there isn’t that option. Heads up imply tails down, but in an
indirect way. So if the participant is really participating in your
performance, there must say “UP” because there isn’t other apparent
answer. Try it out. This can be a great solution for casual performances
in this classic mentalism problem about this routine.

When I’m performing paid performances, I use this technique plus the
use of a stack of blank cards that allows me to have 2 outs (even 4) in a
natural way. In that way I could even hand out my business cards
without a problem or a complicated switch at the end.
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CREDITS

Max Maven – For the original effect!

Kenton Knepper – For his version in Wonder Words. This also uses just
one business card that can always be handed out.

Deddy Corbuzier – For the Free Will method employed in the second
phase of my version.

THANKS

Max Maven, Kenton Knepper, Deddy Corbuizer, everyone at

www.mysteryperformers.com and at PSYCRETS.

ME

Art Vanderlay 2013

artvanderlaymysteries@gmail.com
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