Many wizards pretend to actually read minds and predict audience reactions or choices. In most mind-reading techniques, the magician uses techniques to control the audience’s attention and choices.
Magicians are able to predict answers by preemptively controlling the answers that people will give. Many people are susceptible to suggestions, and their thought patterns are simple enough to be easily manipulated. So magicians manipulate them into delivering easily expected answers and then stating them.
Unlike ordinary magicians, psychics cannot rely on cheap tricks to grab the audience’s attention. Some mental techniques rely on reading other people or subtly giving them options, but some (such as this mind-reading technique require the judicious use of partners.
Well, this mind-reading trick is based on odds of winning, which means just picking the most likely answer. In this example, I’m assuming we’re using the predictive response trick to someone on the street. For a trick variation where the answer is an odd number, announce that you will have half the answer in your hand. For cheats with one-to-one answers, announce that you are holding pennies in your hand, and do it in such a way that students cannot see what you are collecting.
Preparing for the Answer Prediction Trick
Before you do the trick with the answer you know ahead of time, write the answer on a piece of paper, fold it a few times, have the student put it in their pocket “so the magic doesn’t escape”, then follow the steps and have the student explain and read the answer. Write your answers on a piece of paper ahead of time, put them in a decorated box, and wave your wand on it to help the magic numbers fill the room and get into everyone in the room.
Create more drama by adding extra phrases like “their phone number is easy to get”; “it’s easy to read someone on the street from their body language…you take it all” Leaked”; but closer to: “Now that we all know your phone number, I wrote it down on this piece of paper…please tell me what your phone number is.” Now start explaining how you’re going to read them of thought and body language and create excitement for your makeup at this point.
This includes starting techniques; at this point, you may be reading someone on the street with your thoughts or body language; and finally, what you will say when you write their number. The trick is that you pretend to write someone’s number in a normal pencil, giving the impression that they can read their body language or their thoughts.
Psychics use various methods to guess numbers to find the answer, then write the answer down and put it in a special envelope, or after you write your pencil, they write it down using something called a Swami pencil. A psychiatrist will make you come up with a number and write it down, and really good people can hire other people to help them read your mind without props.
How Mediums Appear Psychic
Psychics make you appear psychic by making incredibly accurate statements about a person, but if those statements are broad enough, some of them are likely to be true. Of all the other idealism techniques, this one is the easiest, and you need the help of a friend to perform it.
The secret of wizards is that they always have someone in the room who will do what you say. What I’m finding is that the sole purpose of most techniques is to contract your mind to get the answer the psychiatrist is trying to say, or use your body language to explain your thoughts. In both cases, the psychiatrist will open the envelope to “make sure the psychiatrist got it right” or “see what’s confusing” and can then read what the real public has written about his blank.
Mentalists and Their Mind-Reading Ability
The mentalist pretends not to read the statements, but reads the statement aloud from a previously opened envelope. Unbeknownst to the public, the mentalist had already opened, read and unwrapped one of the envelopes. All this time, the mentalist is “one ahead” in the stack of envelopes, pretending to read one, but actually reading the next one. The mentalist then chooses the next envelope and proceeds to read the contents of the others in his mind, one by one.
Once you’re done you give it to the mentalist and he rips it out in front of you without looking at it and then gives you the exact number you wrote in a creative manner that seems to read your mind. Now it will read your thoughts by touching your head and read any number you want from your mind.
What happens here is that the mentalist knows that the probability that you will draw a triangle inside a circle is high, so the mentalist will make this prediction. Because the mentalist used TWO different techniques, he masks cold reading by using it in combination with other techniques.
The trick is to confuse the viewer as you give him different options to choose from, predict information about the last card, lie about suit or value to add smoke and alternatives between predicted suit and value. Audiences often turn to this simple answer when a trick involves apparently free choice about something, and the answer “must be forced” doesn’t bring relief. Wizards can often influence people to choose a specific card from a deck, and even know which card people will choose when asked to consider them.
