This book is dedicated to Ted Karmilovich.

He was a friend, a mentor, and a genius creator.

 Zandman Book Test - Oz

Included in this PDF are the 2 methods featured in Oz. Thank you for your support and contact
me anytime with any questions you may have: joshzandman.com.

Method 1 : Core Method

This method is the main method featured in all of the Zandman Book Test titles. The 2nd to last
word in the rst sentence on the right side page is the exact opposite of the rst word in the
rst sentence on the left side page. It’s that simple!
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 Method 1 : Presentation
For simplicity of explanation, the left side (even pages) will be called the target page and the
right side (odd pages) will be called the peek page.

• Hold the book in your left hand.

• The front cover facing you.
• The edge of the pages pointing between 2 and 3 o’clock.
• Your right hand ips through the pages - my favorite position is: rest your thumb on the front
cover and use your middle nger to ip through the pages from the back of the book towards
the front, 2 inches down from the top. This frees up your pointer nger to tap at the location
of the target word, after they stop on a page.

Basic performance

“I’m going to ip through the pages. Whenever you want, just say stop”
(Sometimes I ask them if they would like to change their mind, after they say stop.)

With your right pointer nger, tap at the location of the rst word and as you say something
like, “Look at the rst word and remember it”, you peek the opposite word on the peek page.

So this all happens at the same time:

* Ask them to look at the rst word.
* Tap at the location of the rst word.
* Look at the peek word.

As you look down at your nger tapping the word, it naturally draws their attention down
towards the target word along with the fact that you ask them to look at the word. While they
are looking at the word, you peek at the opposite word on the peek page and immediately
regain eye contact with them - even if they’re still looking at the target word. The process of
peeking the opposite word is so fast - you should nish peeking the word before you’re even
done saying “Look at the rst word and remember it.”

Bonus : Reveal Words in MOABT (Mother of All Book Tests)

This bonus method assumes you have the long words in MOABT memorized or cribbed.

*** IMPORTANT INFO ***

There are two versions of the MOABT Pocket Edition (PE); the older version which has a glossy
cover and the newer version (2022) which has a matte cover, larger book dimensions, and font
adjustments.

Some of the content has changed in the newer version which leads to 6 peek changes; 2 1st
word changes and 4 long word changes. But there’s no need to worry, because I added an
extra subtlety in the cueing system that lets you awlessly perform this method, regardless of
which version you have!

The main cueing system is exactly the same for both versions.
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 MOABT (New version with Matte cover)

In Oz, the rst letters of the 1st and 2nd words in the last sentence on the target page (left side)
will let you know the 1st long words on the left and right side pages in MOABT.

In Oz, the 2nd to last word in the last sentence on the peek page (right side) will let you know
the 1st word on the target page in MOABT.

** Wherever they stop you in Oz, you will always show the even page number (left side) **

Page 136 in MOABT (Matte cover): rst long word is Underwear and the rst word is White.
Page 137 in MOABT (Matte cover): rst long word is Newspaper.
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MOABT (Old version with Glossy cover)

Like the newer version, the peek methods are exactly the same except on six pages where the
layout or content has changed. So, how do you know if it has changed??

If you see a ! after the rst 2 words in the last sentence on the target page, that means you
need to look at the 2 words after the !.

If you see a ! at the end of the sentence on the peek page, that means you need to look at the
3rd to last word instead of the 2nd to last word.

Page 124 in MOABT (Glossy cover): rst long word is Illustration.

Page 125 in MOABT(Glossy cover): rst long word is Eyeglasses.

Page 98 in MOABT(Glossy cover): rst word is Dark.

For extra reference:

The following pages in MOABT(Matte cover) have content that has changed and has a ! in the
last sentence: 28, 86, 99, 124, 143, 154.

The following pages have rst long words that are hyphened to continue on the next line and
may not look like a long word: Page 157(Matte cover) and page 142(Glossy cover).
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Revealing the Chosen Word
Letter in a Word
With permission from Banachek, I’m able to share one of my favorite ways to reveal a letter in
the chosen word. This is taken from his excellent book, Psychological Subtleties.

Let’s say the target word is Above.

Ask your spectator to “Think of a letter somewhere in the middle of your word.”
This word is easy, because there’s a letter directly in the middle of the word.
Reveal the letter “o” and then continue to reveal the entire word.

What if the word doesn’t have a letter directly in the middle? Like the word Liquid.
Since they will most likely think of 2 letters, trying to nd the middle letter, I usually reveal it like
this: “I feel like you thought of 2 letters, but I’m getting the letter Q.”
Always go for the hard consonant over the vowel.

Now, if you’re wrong you’re still right because the letter Q is in the word! If not Q then they
most likely thought of the letter U so I usually say, “But you thought of the letter Q rst and
then the letter U?”

This is the way I reveal the word every time I perform my book test; I reveal the letter rst and
then the word. Their mind gets blown twice!

*****************

CREDITS

Big thanks and appreciation to Ted Karmilovich (Long-word principle in a novel), Larry Becker
(Flashback principle in paperback books), and Banachek (Letter in a Word) for their permission
and inspiration.

LINKS

Facebook group

JoshZandman.com

FLASHBACK & LONG WORD HISTORY

(Researched & written by Brett Barry, Ross Johnson, Max Maven, & Lee Earle)

Book tests have a long history in magic. The book test is also a classic mentalism prop used to
demonstrate telepathy-like abilities. The name refers to its early use as a test of mental
powers, with the premise that the tens of thousands of words in a book provide a random and
fair testing of mind reading abilities.

Many modern day "book tests" are based on many of the ideas from proli c inventor UF Grant
used when he published his "Tru Test" magazine test over 85 years ago, in the 1930’s. These
ideas were updated and improved greatly decades later by Ted Karmilovich’s classic “Mother
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 of All Book Tests,” known today fondly as MOABT, which added the idea of the long word
principle throughout a book. The UF Grant trick used a set of 25 words, each beginning with a
di erent letter of the alphabet, an idea that was also incorporated into the Karmilovich MOABT.
But, in the Grant e ect there were no shorter words involved; hence, there was no need to ask
for a long word to be thought of.

The Flashback NAME (which is now well known among mystery performers) was coined by
creative genius Larry Becker around 1979, for a series of paperback books that he had printed
by Magico magazine.

But the actual Flashback principle appears to go further back to Franklin V. Taylor’s peek deck
and an Orville Meyer concept. Taylor’s famous “Peek Deck” appeared in The Phoenix #25,
December 25, 1942. The rst to adapt the Taylor idea to a book was Paul Curry, whose “Out of
This Phonebook” appeared in The Phoenix #53, February 4, 1944.

As the title suggests, it was done using a phone directory. They are all di erent e ects based
on the "peek book" concept credited to Paul Curry's 1944 e ect "Out of This Phonebook"
which seems to have been adapted from Dr. Frank V. Taylor’s “Peek Deck” card trick. Max
Maven says that historically the Taylor reference is the most important, as it is probably the
actual starting point for these FLASHBACK STYLE e ects.

The earliest versions used the peek for a page number. Meyer’s “Incredo Book Test,” was
marketed in 1958. It was later published in the Linking Ring, February 1965. (This used a peek
to learn the person’s page number, subsequently learning the thought-of word via a cue list.)
Another relatively early book adaptation was Alex Elmsley’s “Dictionary Test,” part of his 1959
lecture notes, Low Cunning. That routine also appears in The Collected Works of Alex Elmsley,
volume 2 (1994), under the title “Verbum Sapienti.”
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