The Journal of Psience

Volume One, Issue Three

”That’s where the money is...”
This third issue of the Journal marks the half-way point for the first year of enrollment. A meeting
place is under construction. It will offer those currently enrolled an opportunity to interact with
each other and with the ideas and routines offered in the issues of the Journal.

The first bonus issue is also nearing completion. It will present an alternative path to achieving a
moment of theatrical mind reading that traditionally focuses on a sterile data set. This non-
traditional approach focuses on the core characteristics of the subject matter at hand making the
process of mindreading feel more like a deepening sense of understanding and less like a game of
hang-man.

This month’s presentations offer a look at the balance between process and outcome. Too much
procedure and the entire experience will feel less like an entertainment and more like a burden-
some chore. But if the steps leading up to a final revelation are too few or insignificant, they fre-
quently offer little opportunity for the performer to develop his character or the relationship be-
tween himself and his audience. As is most often the case, balance is the key. We want to provide
an internal logic for the process, while leaving room for mystery. Work to offer moments of partici-
pation from and interaction with members of the audience which are designed to strengthen the
feeling of mystery. And finally, make sure the length and difficulty of the journey leads to a desti-
nation which is exponentially more satisfying than the effort required to get there.

Let the journey begin.

Duis Congue Vestrum Fac

"Where The Money Is..."
The performer addresses his audience, “ William Francis "Willie" Sutton, Jr. was a man who
became a self-educated expert in “alternative methods of bank withdrawal.” During his forty-
year criminal career he stole an estimated $2 million dollars and eventually spent more than
half of his adult life in prison, all while managing to escape three times.

He usually carried a pistol or a Thompson submachine

gun. Sutton once observed, "You can't rob a bank on
charm and personality" yet throughout his profes-
sional criminal career, he never killed anyone. Sutton
was once asked if the guns he used in robberies were
loaded. He responded that he never carried a loaded
gun because somebody might get hurt. Sutton was
ever the gentleman and once stopped a bank robbery
mid heist when a baby started crying.

Instead of violence, Sutton relied on disguise, decep-

tion and cleverness. His FBI record states that Sutton
once robbed a Broadway jewelry store in broad day-
light by impersonating a Western Union messenger.
Sutton's other disguises included maintenance man, window washer, bank guard and even
police officer.

On March 20, 1950, Sutton was the eleventh listed on the FBI's brand new FBI Ten Most
Wanted Fugitives, which had been created only a week earlier.
He was eventually caught and sentenced to life
imprisonment in the Philadelphia County Prison
but it wasn’t long before Sutton and three other
prisoners dressed up in stolen guard uniforms,
waited until dark and then carried two 45 foot lad-
ders across the prison yard to the wall that sepa-
rated them from freedom. When the prison's
searchlights hit him, Sutton waved and yelled,
"It's okay!" so no one stopped him as he climbed
over the 30 foot prison wall.
Sutton considered himself a kind of Robin-Hood.
As he explained to Federal Agents, “I got the
stealing from the rich part down real good, it’s the
other part I’m still learning about.”
In the most famous story about him, Sutton was
asked by a reporter why he robbed banks. Accord-
ing to legend, he replied, "Because that's where
the money is."
“Tonight, I’d like assistance from all of you in
testing one of Sutton’s theories. In staying with
Willie’s approach, I’ll use money that I take from
you, but to keep ahead of the Law, I’ll buy it from
you at face value. That way there’s no chance of any of you either ending up as a plaintiff or
being charged as an accomplice.”
The spectators are invited to hold up a single bill of any denomination, as the performer
reaches into his own wallet to remove bills of comparable denominations. The performer ex-
changes his money for the bills from the audience. One of the spectators is invited to take a
large piece of board and record the serial numbers of the newly acquired bills as they are read
aloud. The performer reads the first two serial numbers and checks as they are written one
beneath the other on the board. “Just so everyone knows I’m playing fair, you take the last
bill and read off the serial number just like I did with these and I’ll do the writing.” The per-
former faithfully records the digits of the final bill as the spectator reads the digits aloud.
“Each of these numbers is the unique identifier for one of these three specific bills. But we
are not interested in just one of the bills offered tonight, we are interested in all of the bills
you offered, together. So we’ll combine these three unique identifiers into just one unique
identifier that is made up of all three bills.”

The performer quickly and openly adds the three serial numbers resulting a single number of
eight or more digits which is sum of the numbers of all three bills. Placing the money back in
his wallet the performer offers an alternative way of looking at the result, “Remember Willie
Sutton focused on “where the money is” and that is exactly what we now know.” Using the
tip of his pen, the performer draws a dot after the second two numbers and another between
digits six and seven then draws a diagonal backslash to divide the number into two parts. For
example, the total 13410411834 becomes / 34.104 / -118.34.
“Would someone with web access please type this into the search window on their smart
phone?” When they do, the entire audience discovers that these are precise GPS coordinates
for the exact location of the entire audience at that very moment and the precise numerical
representation of “where the money is.”

Detour One: Background

In 1936 the remarkable Al Baker shared his effect Numero! In issue 22 of The Jinx. Here is
how the effect was described,

“Effect: A spectator is chosen for the problem, and is handed a folded paper upon which the
performer has scribbled something. Showing a large size slate, the performer hands him chalk
with the request that he write down a line of figures as they come to mind. Immediately under
this row the performer jots a row and the spectator follows with a third. Then the performer
finishes quickly by writing a fourth and fifth line. Drawing a line underneath, the spectator is
handed slate for adding. The total is read aloud and shown. Opening the folded paper, the
spectator finds prophecied the correct total! So far nothing original has happened, but wait!
The performer shows the back of the slate on which has been inscribed the letters of the al-
phabet, each letter followed by a numeral from 1 to 0, see illustration. The spectator is asked
his first or last name. Substituting letters for the figures of the problem's total, this spectator's
name is found to be revealed by that row of figures!”

The Baker routine was published again in Ted Annemann’s Practical Mental Effects and in
Martin Gardner’s Math, Magic and Mystery so most well-read magicians have encountered it
on one or more occasions. The aforementioned balance is present in the original Baker ver-
sion, at least for the spectator who’s name is revealed in the decoding of the seemingly random
final number. The method we will use relies on the basic Baker approach, but cuts the math
by 2/5’s and produces a surprising result which includes the entire audience.

The original NUMERO required that the performer have ad-

vance knowledge of the correct spelling for the first name of at
least one specific member of his audience. Once the name was
known, the chart was used to code the name into a number us-
ing a chart like the one pictured here.

When it came time to perform the effect, the performer would

“contribute the first number” which was the number which en-
coded the name with the last digit increased by 2 to cause the
pair of “repeating 9” digits which will be created to round up to the desired number with a 2 at
the front. This meant that the predicted number was not the actual number to be decoded, it
was the encoded name with a 2 added to the front of the string of digits.

Here is how Baker described the process: “Before the test, write down the name of the person,
and with the chart, substitute the letters for figures. If the name were Harry, the letters would
equal 81885. This is all you need know before starting. On a piece of paper write the five fig-
ures and place a 2 in front of them, making a number prophecy of 281885 for the spectator to
hold. Now add 2 to the last figure of the number representing the name of the person, in this
case changing the number to 81887. This number is your key number to be remembered. If
the last figure of the original name number is an 8 or 9, this rule holds good although adding
the 2 affects the last two figures of the number instead of only the last one. If the number
were 71288 it would change to 71290 by adding the 2.”
Stanley Collins liked the outcome of producing a number which translates into the name of a
spectator, but did not like the mathematical process so he created his own. Careful students
will want to look at Collins’ Chiffrenom (the French neologism for “Numbername”) which
can be found on page 1088 of Wilford Hutchinson’s Conjurer’s Chronicle Volume 99, Issue 1
(Published in June of 1937.) Later Collins included this approach in his book A Conjuring
Melange on page 170. Collins pointed to the same issues indicated above, offered his own so-
lutions and because his analysis of the underlying math was more rigorous, Collins’ clearly ex-
plained the challenges with Baker’s original and his own variant approach. Even if you are not
interested in the effect, the last paragraph of the description is worth reading just for Collins’
opinion of magicians who find mathematical methods too difficult.

Detour Two: The Modified Approach or “Sutton’s Law”

Similar in spirit to Occam Razor, Sutton’s Law was in-
spired by the reasoning behind Willie Sutton robbing
banks because “that’s where the money is.” “Sutton’s
Law” is often taught in medical schools and the law
states that when diagnosing, one should first consider
the obvious. First conduct those tests which could
most quickly confirm or rule out the most likely diag-
nosis. This suggests the ordering of tests in that se-
quence which is most likely to result in a quick diag-
nosis and treatment, while minimizing unnecessary
costs. Some believe this is the inspiration for the phy-
sician's adage, "When you hear hoof beats behind you,
think horses, not zebras."
Our approach is to find the most efficient process for arriving at the desired number by mini-
mizing risks for the performer and math for the spectator all while maximizing wonder for the
audience.
Begin by figuring out where you will be presenting this effect in terms of location, then use an
online tool to convert the address of the physical location to the precise longitude and latitude
of that location.
For example, imagine we wanted to perform this ef-
fect at The White House in Washington DC which
has the street address of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave
NW, Washington, DC 20500. Entering this address
into the search function of www.latlong.net
produces the latitude of 38.897676 and the longi-
tude of -77.036483. Our final product will be a 9
digit number, but because we only have three serial
numbers to add, instead of Baker’s resulting leading
digit of 2, we will have the resulting leading digit of
1.
To produce the final total, we will take all the numbers before the decimal from both longi-
tude and latitude, and then include two or three digits from after the decimal from longitude
and latitude. In the above example, we might end up with 38897703 which will be broken
into 38.89 and -77.03 to produce the desired outcome leading us right back to the White
House.
Return to the Main Road: Other People’s Money
In the Baker and Collins approaches, the numbers offered by the per-
former come from thin air with no explanation or verification, and be-
cause the performer needs to offer the complementary numbers to those
of the spectators, the performer always had to go last. By apparently us-
ing the serial numbers of the borrowed bills, the performer is offering a
source for the pair of eight digit numbers he “reads aloud” off of the bor-
rowed bills, and the assisting spectator gets to read the actual serial num-
ber off of one of the bills that was borrowed seconds ago.

Here is what is actually happening: Before the show the performer used
an online source to calculate the longitude and latitude of the location
where he would be performing, once again, let’s use the coordinates for
The White House: 38.897676 and -77.036483. The performer then takes
part of each of those numbers to make his eight digit “serial number.” In
this case, it would be 38897703. Because he will want the 99999999
total produced by the other two “serial numbers” to round-up to
100000000, he adds 1 to the last digit of the “key number” which he will
“read” first as the serial number of one of the borrowed bills.

This number can be memorized by the performer (38897704) con-

verted to number alphabet for a mnemonic peg (mfvpkgsr = my fav
package, sir) or it can be written on a small label and placed on the cap of
the marker which you will retain while giving the pen to your spectator
assistant. You can also place a sticker with writing on a thumb-tip, finger
tip or sixth finger. What is essential is that no matter which approach you
choose, it needs to look like you are effortlessly reading the serial num-
ber right off one of the borrowed bills. One approach we considered was using eyebrow pencil
or dry-erase marker directly on the skin, but there was too much risk of having some of the
writing blur or become erased too easily.

In performance, you will ask the audience to hold up bills. You will remove bills of like de-
nominations for three of the bills offered and fairly give the spectators your bills in exchange
for theirs.

Quickly look at the serial numbers on all three bills and identify the one which has the great-
est variety of digits, with the fewest sequential repeating digits. Place this bill to the rear of
the three bill stack. Offer the pen and board to a spectator and ask her to record the serial
numbers as you read them aloud. Announce or read your memorized number as if reading it
off the bill. You can appear to confirm something about the serial number by pointing to the
letter in the seal on the left of the bill, just above the serial number on a one dollar bill. With
the right side of the bill folded back behind the left side, your left thumb can innocently ob-
scure the entire serial
number as you point to
the letter in the seal and
say “and that’s a letter
C, correct?” The spec-
tator will confirm your
assertion which will
help aid the illusion
that you are simply
reading a serial number
and allowing a member
of the audience to see it and confirm part of it.
Place this bill to the back of the stack and spread the bills so the serial number on bill number
two is visible above the top left edge of the bill closest to you. You will now apparently read
the serial number off of the bill on the face. In actuality, you will ignore the numbers on the
bill at the top of the stack and announce the numbers that will raise each digit on the center
bill to nine. For example, if the serial number you see is 28973076, you will announce it as
serial number 71026923. As you can see, when these two numbers are added together, the
result will be 99999999. Ask the spectator to “please read that back to me” as you check the
numbers by adding them to the digits on the center bill.

“Great, one more to go” you say as

you place the top bill to the back
of the stack of three and then
quickly rattle-off the serial num-
ber on the remaining bill, too fast
for the spectator to write it down.

“Here, you read this one” you

announce as you hand the “last”
bill to the spectator who has
been writing. “I want you to be
sure that I am playing fair, so you
read the numbers off the last bill
and I’ll write” you say. You begin to write the numbers as the spectator calls them out then
“double check” the number one last time by reading it back to the spectator. This process
creates the convincing illusion that you and the spectator have mutually read, written and dou-
ble-checked the serial numbers on all three borrowed bills.

Place the money away and draw a line under the last serial number. Thank your spectator and
send her back to her seat and you quickly add the three serial numbers. Work down from the
top number so you are not announcing “nine” as part of every line of addition. Math opera-
tions are traditionally a slow spot in effects using numbers because the work is assigned to a
spectator who now has math anxiety to add to any stage fright he may already be feeling. In-
stead, this is a great opportunity to innocently demonstrate prowess and confidence with math;
something that many audience members fear and respect. Because you know that the top
number of the three will be almost identical to the final total, cross-off the digits as you add
them to obscure any obvious relationships between the first serial number and the total.

When you are finished, your final number will be 9 digits long, and equal to the first serial
number written by the spectator with a 1 added to the front and 1 subtracted from the last
digit. In our case, 38897704 became 138897703. Use the pen to turn the 1 on the left
into a slash, and add a second slash between the 9 and the 7 in the center. The result will
be /3889/7703. Now add the two dots in the center of the two four-digit numbers to cre-
ate /38.89/77.03. Because you left a little space between the 9 and the 7 when you wrote them
during your addition, there is enough room to add a small minus sign in front of the 77.03.

Invite a member of the audience to check these as coordinates of latitude and longitude, sug-
gesting an appropriate web source you have checked in advance. While your spectator is en-
tering the numbers, you are concluding your remarks to give your initial comments about
“where the money is” a new and meaningful context to every member of the audience.
We are aware that some students live in locales with currency that does not bear eight digit se-
rial numbers. Resourceful individuals will figure out how to make 9 or 10 digit serial numbers
work as well as 8 digit numbers do. Such a task should not send anyone running to the deep
fryer.
To Consider:
1) What other revelations will offer a similar inevitable surprise as longitude and latitude? Con-
sider phone numbers to the US Mint or Department of the Treasury. What if the resulting
string of numbers functioned as the URL for the CIA or the Illuminati?
2) Is there a dependable technique for eliminating the leading number which must be dealt
with? (2 in the Baker version and 1 in the version offered here.)
3) What famous magician is quoted for saying something about magic which is quite similar to
Sutton’s Law? What did he say? Was he referring to something specific at the time?
4) How can this effect be presented in settings where there is no internet access or for an audi-
ence of individuals who do not carry cell phones?
5) Is there something one can look for in terms of deciding which of the three available serial
numbers will be best to use as the one the spectator will read?
Lost and Found
The performer proposes a test in
observation and intuition. The
spectator is invited to shuffle his
own deck (which may be incom-
plete) and to deal out three face
down hands of poker, five cards in
each hand. The spectator is in-
vited to pick up any of the three
hands and simply think of one of
the cards in that hand. It need not
be the best or highest card in the
hand. The spectator turns the
hand face down and mixes the
cards in the hand so even he does not know which of the five cards is the one of which he is
thinking. The three hands are assembled and re-dealt, redistributing the cards. The spectator
is asked to guess which of the three new hands contains his thought of card. The spectator
looks at one or more of the hands until he locates his card. At no time does the spectator ever
indicate which card is his. The hands are gathered and returned to the deck at which time the
performer removes his phone and asks the spectator to indicate any of the people listed in his
contacts. The person selected is called and the performer explains that he needs the person
on the phone to name any number from one to fifty-two. At this point the performer truly has
no idea what card the spectator has in mind. The person on the phone answers and the per-
former thanks his friend and hangs up. The spectator is directed to deal down to the number
named and against all odds, it turns out to be the thought of card.
METHOD

There are few magicians, or laymen for that matter, who are not familiar with the 21 Card
Trick. In Martin Gardner’s book, Math, Magic and Mystery, he devotes an entire chapter to
the classic effect of finding a thought-of card though the process of redistribution. Gardner
writes,

“A special chapter is devoted to this trick because of the interest which it has aroused among
mathematicians. Known as Gergonne's Pile Problem (after Joseph Diez Gergonne, the
French mathematician who in 1813 was first to analyze it extensively), the trick has been
much discussed in the literature of mathematical recreations. The working principles have
been generalized to apply to any given number of cards (see Ball's MATHEMATICAL REC-
REATIONS, 1947 revised edition, p. 316). In the literature of magic the trick may be found in
Professor Louis Hoffmann's MORE MAGIC, p. 32, and many earlier books on conjuring. In
recent years, however, several new aspects of the trick have been developed by magicians-
aspects that have not yet found their way into the literature of either conjuring or mathemati-
cal amusements.”

Gardner goes on to examine the underlying math, some fascinating references including Dai
Vernon’s handling, and an extension of the principle to ridiculous proportions.

While most people are familiar with three piles of seven cards, reducing the number of cards
in each hand somehow camouflages the fact that the same process and principle is at work.
When the spectator deals out the three hands of five face-down
cards, dealing left to right, you only need to keep track of one thing:
that the hand containing the thought-of card is placed between the
other two before re-dealing. This is the same procedure as the 21
Card Trick, and a second dealing of the cards will redistribute the
five potentially thought-of cards so that two are in the first and third
hands and one is the center card of the middle hand. If the thought
of card has ended up in the center hand, you will be able to elimi-
nate the third re-deal and go right into the phone call revelation.

Ask the spectator if his card is in the second hand. Only he sees the cards as he looks to con-
firm, but be sure he does not change the order of the cards in that hand. If the answer is “yes”
have him drop it on top of either of the other two hand and place the remaining hand on top of
all. The 15 cards are dropped on top of the rest of the deck and you are ready to call a friend.

If the thought of card is not in the center hand, ask the spectator to try and guess which of the
other two hands contains his card. Let him look at one of the other hands to confirm. If he
finds it, have him place that hand between the other two and deal the three hands once again.

If he does not see his card after examining two hands, comment on how strange it is that he
should think of a card only to have it disappear even though he never named it aloud. Again,
direct the spectator to gather the three face-down groups so the hand containing his card goes
between the other two. He is directed to deal one last time.

If the spectator has had to deal a third time, ask him to use his powers of observation to deter-
mine which hand holds his thought of cards. This procedure will mirror the previous actions:
the spectator looks at a hand, if he sees his card he is directed to gather the hands so his goes
in-between the other two groups of five cards before he drops them all on the top of the pack.
Like the time before, the spectator is allowed two guesses to find his card, and the performer
secretly tracks the hand which holds the card and directs the action so the hand containing the
selected card goes between the other two.

At this point the spectator has dealt the cards a minimum of two times (the card was in the
center hand the first time he looked) or a maximum of three times (the card was in an outer
hand the first time he looked.) Each time the hand containing the thought-of card was gath-
ered between the other two and the 15 cards were dealt into three hands once again.

When the 15 cards are finally returned to the deck, you ask the spectator to indicate anyone in
your contact list. You actually dial this person, say “hello” when they answer the phone and
ask your friend to name any number from one to fifty two. You thank your friend, hang-up the
phone and report “she said eight.” The spectator deals seven cards down in the deck, names
his thought of card for the first time and then turns over the eighth card to discover it is his se-
lection.

In reality, no matter what number your friend says, you

thank her, hang up the phone and say “she said eight”
because the distribution procedure will always place the
selected card eighth from the top of the deck.