CICATRIZ ESP Any spectator is able to reveal a random word which you are merely thinking of Art VanderlayAll rights reserved. Copyright Art Vanderlay 2014 © No part of this publication can be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written consent of the author which he will never give so don’t even bother. NOT FOR RESALE.EFFECT “Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, 1 will be giving the power of telepathy to one of you in the audience. I am currently thinking of a word that I have sealed in this envelope. I will bring one of you onstage and given that I’m sure most of you have never read anyone’s mind before, I will give them a little helping hand in the art of being able to read my mind. That person will then be able to divine the contents of this envelope!” A spectator is chosen at random and brought onto the stage by the mentalist. They are asked to sit in a chair and the mentalist gives the spectator a helping hand by guiding them through a mental thought process to select a word they believe the mentalist is thinking of. ‘The spectator writes this down on a large pad but does not show it to anybody just yet. The mentalist swaps his envelope with the spectator for the large pad asking the spectator to open the envelope and unfold the paper inside. Both words match.METHOD This effect is a collaboration between myself and the fantastic German mentalist, Dan Ruse. Dan is an amazing thinker and mentalist who always impresses me with his ideas. Whilst discussing a similar effect we stumbled upon the following effect. The basic method will be outlined here, will then provide a full script of the effect and finally some additional ideas. As you are addressing the audience, the envelope you show at the start is taken out of your inside jacket pocket. Once you have shown it to the audience you place it back inside the same pocket. You then select a spectator in the fairest possible manner. I prefer to have the audience nominate someone to come up. You could just as easily throw out an inflatable ball, Frisbee or stuffed toy. The important point is to ensure the selection is random. If the audience does not believe it is a random selection of the volunteer then the effect will look staged. As you bring the spectator onto the stage you will perform a “reverse Dunninger ploy” - Instead of finding out information from the spectator, you will be feeding them with information instead. (The Dunninger Ploy is a method used by various mentalists throughout the world. In the original use of the technique, Dunninger would ask someone’s name as he brought them on stage. Later on he would call them by their name which gave the audience the impression that Dunninger had read their mind, as the audience started to react he would then tell the audience not to applaud. This resulted in the audience thinking Dunninger was being humble shrugging off something simple like a name reveal, whilst the spectator on stage would assume he was implying that they should not applaud since he blatantly asked for their name when bringing them on stage. This is probably the first use of the Dual Reality ploy at the same time!) However, as stated above, instead of finding out information we will be feeding information to the spectator.What you say to them as you bring them up onstage is as follows: “Just to give you a little helping hand, I am thinking of one of the four seasons.” To the spectator coming up onto the stage, this is you “giving them a hand” as you claimed you were going to do before they were selected. Once they are onstage they are taken through a relaxation process and mental sequence to ascertain the word. They are instructed to think of what word they believe you are concentrating on. ‘They are asked to change their mind a few times and allow the image of the word to take form. To the audience's point of view, this is you “giving them a hand” as you claimed you were going to do before they were selected! (Our use of the Dual Reality technique) Asking them to change their mind a few times also implies to the audience that they can think of any word possible. They are unaware that the spectator only has a choice of four words. Ifyou wanted you could add something along the lines of: “Just so everyone in the room is on the same page here, you are thinking of about three sorry no, four words correct? Cycle through these words until you settle on just one that you think I have in mind.” To the audience this looks even more impossible and emphasises the apparent fairness of the test. Once they have committed to a word, hand them a large pad of paper and pen, requesting for them to write their word down onto the pad in large bold letters. As soon as they start writing the word they think you are concentrating on, you need to pencil read the first few letters. This will enable you to remove the correct envelope you have in yourinside jacket pocket index. I simply have the seasons as follows: Envelope closest to my body - Spring Envelope second from my body - Summer Envelope third from my body - Autumn. Envelope furthest from my body - Winter If you do not get the word from pencil reading you can simply ask the spectator to name the word into the microphone (For the very first time) and then remove the correct envelope at a later stage. I prefer to try my best to pencil read the word so I can remove the correct envelope before they have finished writing the word. Pencil reading my seem like a bold method to get the word but remember you only need the first one or two letters to be able to confidently remove the correct envelope. Anyone who has Corinda’s 13 Steps to Mentalism should read up on that chapter as it is an invaluable tool for the mentalist. (Chapter 2) I have found that watching the persons elbow is much more accurate than looking at the top of the pen/pencil when using pencil reading as a method. The large pad and telling the spectator to write in large, bold letters helps the method work more easily too for you to figure out the word. Matthew Mellow has a DVD out titled “The Technique” that teaches pencil reading and gives you some very good examples of styles of writing and how to accurately discover letters and numbers someone has written down. There is also some great practice clips on the DVD for you to watch and attempt to figure out the number or letter he has written.FULL SCRIPT “Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight you have witnessed some incredible feats of mind reading and precognition. Some of you may think these to be mere tricks of the mind whilst others may consider a more other worldly aspect to them. People often ask me if they can learn the secrets of mind reading, well tonight I will grant one of you in the audience that very wish! Just imagine what you would do with the powers of telepathy! Would you use your powers for good? Or for evil? In this envelope I have written a single word, it is a word from the English language and one that everyone here will know. A volunteer will be selected at random by everyone here and they will be brought onstage. I will assume that the majority of people here do not possess the ability of telepathy so I will have to give that person a little helping hand on how to read minds. That person will then be able to divine the contents of this envelope with 100% accuracy. I will throw out into the audience this stuffed toy, whoever catches it on the third throw will be our random participant. The stuffed toy is thrown into the audience and the person on the third catch is asked to stand. Can you stand up please? Thank you. Can you please confirm that we have never met before, we have arranged nothing and that you have no idea what the word inside this envelop is. The spectator replies in your favour. Thank you. Can you please join me onstage. ‘The spectator makes their way towards the front of the stage. As they approach you briefly step off the stage and shake their hand leading them onstage encouraging the audience to applaud the spectator. As the audience start to applaud you employ the “Reverse Dunninger Ploy”.Just to give you a helping hand, I am thinking of one of the four seasons. You lead the spectator into the middle of the stage and sit them down into a comfy chair. Ladies and Gentlemen, this brave person has agreed to take part in an experiment of telepathy. In order for this to work I need to take them through a guided mental journey for them to successfully read my mind and divine the contents of the envelope. You face the spectator and recite any psychobabble that you are comfortable with. I use something along the lines of the following: Please close your eyes for me. I believe you already have about three or four words in mind right now yes? That’s good, keep using your instincts and start to cycle through these three or four words. As I attempt to project the word I am thinking of into your mind I want you allow just one of those words to stand out to you. It may feel slightly different or you may even see the words in your mind with one of them becoming larger or in a different colour. Feel free to change your mind as many times as you like but whenever you have a word in mind please give me a loud and clear “Yes”. The spectator eventually states she has a word in mind. Fantastic, and just to confirm that the word you have selected was a free choice yes? You could have selected any of the words you were thinking about when you came onto the stage but the one you have settled on is definitely the one you believe to be in this envelope yes? The spectator replies in your favour. Great. Please take this pad of paper and this pen and in your clearest and largest letters, could you print the word you are thinking of onto the pad of paper for me. The spectator starts to write the word on the paper. You turn towards the audience.Ladies and Gentlemen. This brave person has thought of a word from the thousands upon thousands of words in the English language. It would be almost impossible for the word she is thinking of to match the word I have in this envelope. And yet... You hand the envelope to the spectator whilst taking the pad of paper from them. Could you please open the envelope and hold the paper writing side towards you for now please. The spectator does so. On the count of three I would like you to turn the paper around displaying the word I was concentrating on. One, two, three! You turn the pad of paper around at the same time as the participant turns round the paper from inside the envelope revealing that both words match 100%. Thank you so much for your help here today, I really appreciate your help with this, and if anyone asks you how you managed to do it, just give them a wink and say, “It must be mind reading!”.ADDITIONAL IDEAS Some people might want to use other topics in order to be able to perform repeat performances. You could use the following: The 4 Elements - Earth, Wind, Fire & Water Playing Card Suits - Clubs, Hearts, Spades & Diamonds North, South East & West Tarot Suits There are countless possibilities. For more experienced performers who wish to use more outs, you could have: + The7 Deadly Sins * Theg Planets * Star Signs * Continents Another idea is to use Mark Oberon’s effect “Way Out” so that you can have 4 predictions hidden in the same slip of paper. This would allow you to have the envelope on display the entire time. If you wanted to perform this impromptu, you could have the four words written onto a business card. This is given to the spectator to use to write a word onto. The spectator is linguistically instructed to think of one of the words on the card whilst looking like a 100% free choice, (See the works of Pete Turner for this) which can then be revealed in the correct envelope. You could also use Michael Murray’s CUPS Principle to ascertain the correct word and verbally reveal it. You could even use eye accessing cues to gain knowledge of the word such as: I believe you are thinking of one of the four seasons, if you are thinking of Spring, imagine for me now all the leaves on the trees starting to grow back.Since they are trying to read YOUR mind and not the other way round, it doesn’t really matter if you see their word or not so you could ignore the pencil reading part of the process and just have them write the word down in front of you. You could even reduce the envelopes to just three, if you saw them write down the wrong word you could rip it off telling them that they have got the wrong word and to try again but this time to really try to feel the word. Another idea is you could ask them to stand in their chair and then say: “Lam going to give you a few clues to help you read me. first take my hands, start to get an idea of what words you think I am thinking of, now get rid of them because they are more than likely going to be wrong, when you come on the stage just go with what you feel is right and don’t second guess yourself. The key is to look right at me and trust your own intuition. Give this lady a round of applause as she joins me on the stage!” Now hesitate on the way up and say: "Oh I forgot to mention, I am thinking of one of the four seasons.” Finally another great idea is to generate a hit from nothing by saying to the spectator before she enters stage: "Tt seems, that your mind is already occupied by a thought that seems to bother you. Please sum it up into one word and try not to think of that thought, try to erase it from your mind *tossing gesture* and stay clear to receive the thoughts I am going send you. Would you all please give her a big round of applause?" While you guide her on stage you simply ask her, what she is thinking of: "What is the word you were thinking of? Interesting, I'm trying to send you on of the four seasons” This way you use the Dunninger ploy the original way AND the reverse way. Let's assume she tells you, she is thinking of the word "Illness". When she arrives on stage, you act like you were reallystruggling to mentally project your thought. You then say: "Well, this isn't working for some reason, we'll have to deal with that bothering thought of yours first." Since you know the word, you can cold reading almost any associations connected to the topic "Illness" (doctors, medicine, perhaps staying at the hospital). For the helping spectator you are providing a way to cope with the thought that is bothering her. For the audience at large you are doing the same whilst also reading her mind. After this thought is dealt with in an assuring and emphatic way, all obstacles are out of the way for her to read your mind in the script provided. This dresses the whole effect nicely up and should also give a "believable" presentation as how mind reading works - a two way street and not one way.CREDITS Dan Ruse - For his original “Reverse Dunninger” idea using the four seasons and generous contributions to this effect and others. Dunninger - For his original idea! Pete Turner - For his continuous help and advice Corinda - For his 13 Steps to Mentalism Copyright Art Vanderlay Mysteries 2014