Steve wachner what i could do after the lightning strike

From the author of Edison Notes and Tesla Files comes the exciting conclusion to the trilogy. Steve has traveled across the United States and collected stories of lightning strike survivors who gained seemingly supernatural powers. These stories form the basis for everything that follows in the PDF. “This is real world LIFE CHANGING Mentalism. The effects are easy to do, but very strong.” – Reese Goodley (author of Navigator) EFFECTS Clap Hands — a modular palm reading system that you can add to your current knowledge or use on its own to appear as an instant expert. + by Craig Logan — your spectator chooses positivity every time. An instant classic business card routine with a beautiful message. Songs of the Century — You guess a song stuck in someone’s head and then are able to get it out in the most impressive way possible Sea Change — This is the REAL DEAL. Learn how to change a belief about your participant in a theatrical way. Any time, anywhere, with no preshow, no hypnosis, no failure. This will become a skill that is always on you for audiences large and small. ESSAYS Happy Feet A new way of looking at performing in daily situations and Jazz Mentalism. Are U Positive Adding variety in your routines. Methodless is the New Propless Steves approach and thoughts on having an arsenal of effects without a method Fourteen Rivers, Fourteen Floods Inviting REAL MAGIC into your performances. “Sea Change is the BEST THING you’ve shown me so far.” Adrien Lochon (author of The Jafi Read) 4 essays. 4 effects. 4 survivors. These are super powers. This is “What I Could do After the Lightning Strike.” TESTIMONIALS This one is a winner for sure. Its packed with so much and Im barely halfway through Thaddius Barker (author of Prose and Cons) Songs of the Century what a brilliant idea for producing an engaging piece of mentalism Steve Wood (author of Lost for Words) It is a great read and Im sure it will spark some good ideas Luca Volpe (author of the Emotional Mentalism series)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Happy Feet Essay page 4

Amara Alexander Story page 7

Clap Hands page 9

Joseph Weldman Story page 17

Are U Positive Essay page 18

+/- by Craig Logan page 22

Methodless is the New Propless Essaypage 28

Nathan Sakina Story page 32

Songs of the Century page 33

Fourteen Rivers Fourteen Floods Essay page 40

Adrien Lochon Story page 46

Sea Change page 47

SAW LIGHTNING

Hopefully it’s apparent from the title of this PDF that you’re not in for a standard Mentalism release Even better, if you knew that already because my name is associated with the PDF If that IS somehow the case, then know I’m feeling warm and fuzzy inside!

What follows is a set of TRUE stories about people who have been struck by lightning and apparently received special powers Of course, I can’t guarantee the accuracy of any of the stories and completely reserve the right of creative licensing

to adjust them as I feel necessary

I do this for a reason, Mentalism can be real To many people, Mentalism IS real For the next several dozen pages, I want you to imagine it is real too You can

go back to your normal life whenever you want, but as you read these pages,

remember how we can affect people, make their day a bit more interesting, make them look at life from a new angle, and be a bit more striking

I’m not asking you to suddenly claim supernatural powers or change your persona I’m just here to present you some of my favorite ideas in a bit more left of center kind of way This was an excuse to get more essays into a book, as people seemed to really enjoy them, as well as to swing for the fences as far as end results

of a routine go

On to the show!

HAPPY FEET

AN ESSAY

None of you would know this, but for most of my youth I was involved in soccer I even coached a kids summer league for about ten years During high school, we had a specialty coach come in who taught us yoga and other things that were seemingly unrelated to kicking a ball I still do some of the yoga, despite what my “enhanced stomach” would tell you The one thing that stood out more than anything was something called “Happy Feet.” It was, in fact, named after the movie

In order to control a soccer ball, you want to put your foot up slightly and on

a bit of an angle in order to create a rolling slope Put your foot too high up and you make a wall, which the ball can bounce off from If your feet are flat on the ground you’re going to lose a split second having to put your foot up in this

position and thus lose the opportunity to control the ball The remedy to this is to keep your feet moving, essentially stepping up on to your toes as you shift your weight from foot to foot It’s a mix between walking in place and an almost

dance…Happy Feet If you’re on the field, it’s possible for the ball to come to you, and thus, you need to be ready

What does this have to do with Mentalism? Everything

You can’t be caught flat footed Let’s say you’re someone who’s just getting started in performing and finding it difficult to perform in casual situations (or paid gigs) The first step is, of course, rehearse a couple effects that you know you can

get into in most situations Now, we’ll get a bit esoteric Imagine that good things are coming to you Imagine that performance situations will reach you this day and that you’ll take advantage of them Is this a pie in the sky theory? No, not really If you’re playing the game at all, opportunities are going to come to you eventually What I mean is, if you’re living life at all - getting out of your house and

interacting with people in any way - then an opportunity is going to come your way If you’re imagining this to be the case, you’re more likely to notice them when they come This is you being on your toes

Some of the best ways to get into casual Mentalism is to start by having a conversation Just a quick, “how’s it going?” can be all it takes If you have

focused down to a small handful of potential effects, and know them inside out, you’ll be able to more easily transition into performing them It’s even better if you can break your effects down to certain general themes that are likely to come up in conversations Focusing on these themes and knowing they’re going to come up in the day will have you ready to pounce on the opportunity to present them

This concept can be applied to your actual effects and routines too The only way you can fail in a Mentalism effect is if you stop If you find yourself in more

of a Jazz Mentalism kind of attitude, then make sure to imagine a few likely

negative scenarios that could happen during your effects and rehearse for them Things like a psy force not working out, missing a pinky break, illegible

handwriting, equivoque, or almost any propless effect where words are the method Knowing what could go wrong and what to do in case it does will give you

options Keep moving

for more information about potential failings in standard effects and how to react This is entirely different from the idea I’m giving you here and it’s something every Mentalist should be aware of.

Remember these ideas while you’re reading the rest of this book A couple

of these effects are opportunity driven and aren’t things you’ll find yourself

performing from table to table at a show You’ll need to stay on your toes a bit to see when the opportunities come to you Sometimes you’ll need to adjust in the moment in order to get the best possible effect Occasionally, you’ll even need to abandon the effect entirely! With that said, these are some of my absolute favorite pieces and favorites of my performing friends For instance, Sea Change, found later in the book, is something Adrien Lochon has performed multiple times a day since learning it!

Of course, none of this concept is BRAND NEW, I’m just hoping that I can give you a different way to look at it with the Happy Feet story You need to move when the ball is near you or you’ll possibly miss out or not be able to react to

opportunities as they come to you If you’re playing at all, you have the potential to get opportunities Again, if you’re living and making any effort to get out into the world, opportunities CAN come to you If you feel like you’re sitting on the bench, that’s when you need to get up and create an opportunity I can say that from

experience as I was a constant benched player If I was benched, I would stand up and follow my coach around until I got put in If you’re not getting opportunities,

do something new, imagine things are coming your way, and stay on your toes

AMARA ALEXANDER

Survivor

The year is 1962 Amara Alexander is a 30 year old woman asleep during a storm in her rural Illinois town of Springfield Suddenly a bolt of lightning strikes through her window, shattering it completely Her bed is set on fire The blinds fall from her window She becomes completely entangled Terror sets in

She’s unsure how she survived

A life of running a second-hand store, feeding chickens, and keeping mostly

to herself, is completely changed

“I saw pictures I heard and felt things about my family - it really upset me I cried a lot and saw my minister and physician Then one day I found an old

copper wheel of pendulumns sits on the front counter next to a near out-of-place iPad register I’m invited to the next room where she’s studying the black ink

stamping of my palm that I mailed to her the week prior to my visit

Peculiarly, all the blinds in her office are shut There’s almost no light in the room I can barely make out her large frame I do notice that she’s not wearing

shoes “I like to work in the dark”, she says Perhaps she’s had enough light for an

entire lifetime

I did my research before my visit While she has a slew of detractors, the police reports are hard to dispute With no connection to the events, she was able to describe details that no police officer working the case could have put together I went in skeptical, but very much open What she told me about myself in that dark room, with no way to really see my facial reactions, perhaps no way to even see

my palm…I will never forget

She claims to get this information from two spirit guides, guardian angels, she calls them Raoul and Isaiah are said to connect her to Heaven Raoul is tall with olive skin and a receding hairline He’s always dressed in a suit He doesn’t like how Amara dresses He also thinks I need to get a haircut

“They tell me a lot of stuff I feel like it’s a connection.”

CLAP HANDS

Amara’s story is what started this whole book for me I had a bunch of these ideas sitting around in my notebooks, but suddenly I started seeing them come together from the story of a woman who read palms in the dark

You don’t need to do this routine in the dark, but technically, you could The effect is pretty straight forward, you have someone choose a card and then, using palmistry, you’re able to determine their chosen card as well as tell a bit about their personality Paul Voodini uses this concept in his absolutely wonderful “Palm Reading for Magicians.” This is THE source to go to if you want to do palm

readings in an entertainment setting Luke Jermay also has his $1,000 Palmistry Demonstration effect in his “From the Notebooks”, which is another excellent book to get your mind going along the lines of fortune telling

What I add to this plot is a quick and relatively painless way to make it appear that you know a lot about palm reading It’s also a system that can grow with you as you do learn more about the subjects that follow I’m going to teach you four different types of palms, the Earth, Air, Fire, and Water palm You’ll determine which palm your participant has and then use that information to

seemingly work out what card they’ve chosen While it isn’t necessary to know for this effect, I’ll also teach you which playing cards correspond to each element That way, you can slowly add more knowledge to your arsenal and appear to be a person that knows much about some very curious subjects!

at two things; the overall shape of the palm and the length of the fingers We’re only dealing with square or rectangle palms and short or long fingers.

THE AIR HAND:

The Air Hand has long fingers and a square palm This next part isn’t

necessary for the effect, but it’s good to know Air hands are etched with many fine lines (think of the wind)

In order to remember the Air Hand’s shape, I imagine a square kite with four long, curving lines representing the wind blowing the kite The thumb is the string

of the kite This helps me remember long fingers and a square palm

Air Hands tend to be expressive, emotionally stable, and intellectually

curious They may gravitate towards professions involving communication, such as writing, education, or public relations Attach these ideas to the idea of wind You can’t see the wind, but you can see it represented (or expressed) by the things

around it Emotionally stable is like negative thoughts just blowing away in the wind For Intellectually curious, you can imagine Benjamin Franklin flying his kite (the same kite that reminds us of the shape of the palm - long fingers and a square palm)

The element of Air is connected to the playing card suit of Spades This is something you don’t exactly need to know for the effect to work, but the more of this information you can keep in your head, the better

THE EARTH HAND:

The Earth Hand has a square palm and short fingers I imagine short stubby trees sitting on top of a square acre of land These hands tend to include a deeply lined palm

The Earth Hand may reflect someone more serious A practical person who delights in physical activity Someone who’s more the salt of the earth, so to speak They tend to enjoy manual occupations such as carpentry, farming, and working machinery

These should be rather easy to remember as many of those traits apply to people you probably know who are more hands-on It’s very easy to attach these characteristics to a lumberjack/carpenter type person and then remember him

working amongst the trees on our square acre of land

The Earth Element attaches to Diamonds

THE WATER HAND:

The Water Hand is long fingers with a rectangle palm You can imagine a long set of lines forming a waterfall leading into a larger stream, representing the rectangle palm Normally this hand is a finely lined palm

The Water Hand often reveals a sensitive, creative, and quiet personality Studious or relatively low-pressure occupations such as research, office work, or

imagine a writer reflecting on his work by the water and the types of traits this writer would have

The Water Element is connected to the playing card suit of Hearts

THE FIRE HAND:

The Fire Hand has short fingers and a rectangle palm Again, this next part isn’t necessary for the effect, but nice to know It’s filled with clear lines on the palm The Fire Hand is connected to the playing card suit of Clubs

The Fire Hand denotes an energetic, impetuous person People with fire hands seem drawn to professions that involve challenge or risk and creativity Things such as medicine, law enforcement, or the arts

I imagine a dumpster fire for this hand! Short fingers of flames and a long rectangular trash can I’m sure you already have some ideas of how to remember the traits of this hand Fire acts on impulse and can move quite quickly If you’re

on fire, you’ll likely end up in a medicinal location, probably from law

enforcement, and perhaps because you burned yourself as you’re an artist like a fire performer!

Of course, I should mention that these are just some of my personal mental tricks to remember each description It’s always best to work out your own, as that will cause the associations to be made from you and thus easier to recall

feelings What I’ve found useful is having another system to back them up It helps

me focus and gives me something to ‘check my work.’ Essentially giving me the confidence to trust those inner voices Please hold your hands out.”

“The thing the other day with the paper cut was a nice reminder about how palm reading should really work As you go through life you create new lines, deepen certain others, and perhaps even eliminate spots entirely! Between my instincts and your palm I should be able to work out what kind of card someone like you may have been drawn to.”

“Ah, this is what would normally be considered a fire palm Were you born

in the summer months? Summer is under the fire element It depicts someone

who’s thoughts can go in any direction They can move very quickly, sometimes

or perhaps a bit self destructive People often feel drawn to them, perhaps they’re a bit more of a creative type or someone that is even involved directly or in a

satellite capacity to dangerous activities Things like law enforcement, medical areas, or even a fire fighter, strangely enough! You weren’t born in the summer, so probably not a black card I see some softer qualities underneath, so my gut is telling me a heart, correct? Yes?! I see you as someone who aims to stay balanced, but likes to put your own spin on things, so you probably wouldn’t have gone too far from the center…maybe seven or eight of hearts Let’s see… the seven of hearts! Wow, thank you so much for that!”

METHOD:

Forgive the long write up, but I wanted to give you as much as I could to start Do know that you can make this longer or shorter to fit your needs You don’t need to say the exact same opening script as me either, I just wanted to give you an idea of the types of lines you can use to turn a normal conversation into an effect Everyone has cellphones nowadays, so mentioning your fingerprint

changing (even temporarily) and not being able to unlock the phone allows us the smallest little gap to move into a palm reading demonstration

As far as method goes, we’re going to force the card on the spectator This allows us to know where we ultimately want to end up, but lets us continue to adjust as things happen during the routine You’re going to look at your

participant’s palm to find out what element they have From there, I mostly free associated the ideas of fire as though they were personality traits Before I gave them a reading, however, you probably noticed that I asked if they were born in the summer This gives us a 1 in 4 chance of a hit, but allows us to fall back on “this is

what the elements tell us” if it’s incorrect In the example above, I used the fact that they weren’t born in the month connected to their hand to mean that they

probably didn’t choose the card normally connected to their hand either I tend to use this more as subtext, but you’re free to say openly “fire hands normally choose black cards as Clubs are associated to fire, but since you weren’t born in the

summer I’m going to guess you went for a red card.” It’s up to you how much information you want to give

To minimize the “miss”, I start to give the reading to the participant In the script above, I deliver it as if I’m talking about someone else, allowing the

participant to pick and choose what they want to agree with You’ll notice the reading never gets direct and pointed at the spectator I’m just describing what the hand means From there, we begin to reveal the chosen playing card Again, here you’ll need to be on your toes a bit

If their hand matches their birth season and their chosen suit, great! You just say something like “Wow, a natural Water Hand, they’re normally drawn towards red cards, the hearts specifically Did you choose a heart?”

If their hand does not match their season, but does match the suit, you can just ignore the discrepancy and say “Water Hands tend to be drawn to the red

cards, normally hearts Did you choose a heart?”

If their hand matches their birth season, but not the suit of the card, you can just lie a bit “Earth hands tend to be drawn towards red cards I think for you, it’s a heart, is that correct?”

Just remember to stay on your feet If you absolutely have to, you can just make stuff up It’s best to know these things legitimately, as they’ll make you more legitimate and give you natural outs in the process Ultimately know that you can take a negative response to the season question to mean that the person didn’t choose what the “old wisdom” says they would choose You can take positive responses to mean that they did choose it Use the above examples as guidelines and test out a few scenarios on yourself for practice

To finish things off, here’s a small chart that gives you the rest of the

elemental information:

Spring - Air - Spades

Summer - Fire - Clubs

Autumn - Earth - Diamonds

Winter - Water - Hearts

Spring Air is often filled with pollen and allergens Summer is the hottest Things return to the Earth in Autumn Winter and Water both start with W I

recommend at least learning the seasonal elements first, you can add the card

information over time All that’s left now is to look at the participant’s hand with keen interest I like to take my time and recall everything I’m going to say (palm type, season, and suit) during this first moment, making it seem that I’m studying the palm greatly before moving on with the effect

JOSEPH WELDMAN

Survivor

“It started to rain I was out at the skate park, so I decided to go home Then

I felt a burst of heat It was like needles constantly being stabbed into me

Suddenly, everything went dark.”

Joseph was 13 at the time of the lightning strike I meet him outside of

Phoenix, Arizona during my second trip to the state The heat is rolling in and reminds me of when my air conditioning would go out in my old car during the summer Just heat being blasted back at you We sit in the shade outside of a coffee shop to discuss things further

“It was such a unique event that it got written up in the newspaper I had reporters stopping by my room every couple hours asking what it felt like I

remembered joking that I was waiting for my superpowers to come in, but really I just felt lucky to still be alive.”

It wasn’t just local newspapers that wrote up the story The New York Post reported on it, saying that the electricity went straight through Joseph’s body and caused his heart to stop Luckily his friend was walking home with him and was not as drastically affected He was able to perform CPR until the ambulance came, which ultimately helped him live

ARE U POSITIVE?

Being an age-less wizard like myself, I can remember a time when people listened to full albums When a musician writes an album they had opportunities to fail Failure, strangely enough, is a good thing With thirteen songs filling an album you had opportunities to make something that might not work and know that you had other “safer” songs on the album that were going to do well regardless

Nowadays, it feels that a musician has to get that one song right or they’re washed away into the abyss It can be argued that this inability to fail has caused songs to all sound nearly identical You feel like you have to lean into the winning formula

or else people will ignore you When people bought entire albums, you knew that you could risk on some songs without losing your entire audience, it allows you to reach a bit further and attempt something new Look at The Beatles, a band

heralded for their experimentation When you try something new, it COULD fail, but it could also resonate with someone Perhaps even a lot of someones!

Speaking of albums and flows, we can take more inspiration from the Spotify days With an album, you’re able to incorporate more emotions, more scenarios, more of the light and dark that make up the lives we live Albums

pre-wouldn’t have done well if they just focused on one emotion or one angle for the entire 45 minutes This reminds us that when we’re putting on a longer show, we should find ways to (at least occasionally) seek out new emotions and concepts in our performances Of course, if we’re only performing one or two effects, we can remember to lean into the formula and just give the audience a “pop song” or a hit single When you have a more captive audience for 30, 40, 60 minutes…it’s good

to create some change throughout the show

Think of the classic romantic comedy structure:

- Introduction of our characters

- Boy meets girl

- Boy falls in love with girl

- A misunderstanding occurs just as things feel like they’re going to work

- Then, right at the end, everything gets resolved!

While simplistic and overused, it’s a winning formula This is at least a nice place to start when structuring a show that aims to be more than one repetitive beat Not everything in that story works out perfectly, it’s not all perfect What can

we do to alter the mood a bit in our own sets? Our previous lightning survivor stories reminds us that life is a series of ebbs and flows, light and dark Joseph was just lucky to survive the lightning, rather than getting superpowers Still, that brief flash with destiny was interesting enough to warrant being written up in

newspapers It’s the brush with death that makes it interesting With his story as our inspiration, let’s play in the dark for a moment!

Let’s use Joseph’s pulse stop as an example of something a bit darker A pulse stop changes the dynamic of a show in a lot of ways For one, there’s no visual compromise in the effect No noticeable method from the audience

perspective This alters their perception of what’s going on instantly A pulse stop

is a dark plot in its own right, dealing with life and death in a obvious way that doesn’t need to be directly addressed This gives us variety My friend Adrien

the pulse lightly shake his wrist any time the pulse goes away as though to keep him just conscious enough This gives the effect a very different look while

accomplishing the goal of letting the audience know the pulse has stopped It’s these small touches that can make a huge impact on a routine and become

memorable to your audience This small movement alters the feel of the routine

This feels like a good place to bring up my own pulse stop script I won’t go into all of it, as this is something I still perform in my show, but I’ll give you a bit

of background to explain what I try to get across in the performance

I often feel overlooked in my daily life More so when I was younger, but it can definitely still creep up I should mention that this overlooked feeling is often

my own fault, as I tend to gravitate towards the corners of rooms and just outside the pack This feeling of being nearly invisible felt like something that worked well with the idea of a pulse stop - nonexistence Then, I stumbled across a quote that, while not expressing the exact feelings I had, expressed the idea I wanted to get across

“If you try to please everyone, it’s like you’re not there Like you don’t

exist.”

That’s a phrase that can fit with a lot more people, it has a wider appeal I started adding that sentence in just before the pulse stops in order to give it a bit more depth Suddenly, a routine that I always marveled at started to get reactions People never knew how to take the pulse stop when I performed it before, but now,

it had something deeper to communicate

There’s plenty of other emotions to try to access as well (And don’t think that I mean you need to use them all in a show.) A childhood memory routine could access some nostalgia, maybe comfort, or even humor Switching to your participant reading the mind of someone rather than you reading someone can shake things up There’s more negative emotions available as well, such as

suspense, chilling, fear, or worry You also don’t need to be too overt when

playing with other emotions Sometimes, the routine that you use will naturally induce certain feelings Other times, like Adrien’s shaking of the wrist, a certain action that you include can alter the feelings Remember to look at your acts and FEEL throughout them Notice if you’re doing too much of one thing or another It’s okay to have an overall theme, but remember how movies MOVE their

audience from one feeling to another Find ways to occasionally alter the pace and emotions in your shows The trick is making sure that it comes from a genuine place, otherwise you may be accused of trying to pull at the heart strings You also don’t want to have the emotion shift too many times for fear of an incongruent show

Pay attention to TV shows, movies, plays, performances, and music that you find interesting Notice your own reactions, get in touch with them, and feel how often they change (and what changes them) This little exercise can put you well ahead of the rest of the pack Now, let’s balance our negative with the positive with

a contribution from my friend Craig Logan:

+/-Presentation

Two people are sat at a coffee shop after the sun has gone down Rain begins

to fall, rapping on the large window next to them As the drops run down the glass, the performer slides his half-drunk coffee to the side

“Do you tend to think the best in a given situation, or the worst?”

The participant reluctantly smiles

“If I’m honest, I think the worst most times.”

The performer pulls out two cards, one with a “+” drawn on the face; the other with a “-.” Thunder mildly rumbles in the distance as the performer continues,

“I can relate I think a lot people tend to be more negative, myself included, but that’s not necessarily a good thing I think everyone could stand looking at the world a bit more ‘glass half full.’ But what if I told you choosing the positive is far easier than we might think Would you mind helping me prove that point?”

“Sure.”

“Great, I have two cards here As you can see, one has a plus sign and the other a negative I’m going to mix them up a bit behind my back, and it will be your job to

choose the positive and eliminate the negative.”

The performer mixes the cards and places them both face down on the table

“Now, I’d like you to make a fist and set it down on one of the cards.”

The spectator does this, dropping their fist on the left card

“Great, so you’ve chosen this card If you could move your fist, we’ll see what you got Looks like you landed on the positive See, I told you this was easy But I can already tell you’re a bit skeptical as it could simply be chance So, let’s do it

again.”

The performer takes the positive card, then as an almost afterthought, grabs the negative card as well The cards are once again mixed behind the performer’s back and brought out to the table again

“Don’t overthink this Just make the fist like you did before and set it down on the card you believe to be the positive.”

They do this, and again are correct A bolt of lightning illuminates the parking lot, causing both parties at the table to briefly look outside

“It’s really starting to look bad out there, but let’s stay focused on you Would you like to go one more time? Great, let’s see if you can’t go three for three.”

positive card The rhythmic droning of the rain begins to let up as the performer takes the two business cards into his hand

“I hope you feel more positive, but you know what, I’d like to try this out myself After all, we could all use a bit of help in staying positive But it won’t be all that interesting if I mix the cards, would it? Take the cards and mix them up behind your back just like I did.”

The participant does just that The performer takes a sip of his coffee, then places the cup out of the way He holds his hand over each card for a few seconds By now the rain has stalled out to a drizzle After a moment of concentrating, the

performer sets his fist down on a card It is turned over to reveal that they too have been successful The negative card is also turned over as the performer smiles and says,

“You’ve shown you can be positive in a little game that doesn’t matter Promise

me you’ll try be positive out there (points outside) where it does matter.”

Method

I think the strength of this effect, methodologically speaking, is the layering

of multiple methods They work in a way to cancel one another out While there are several methods in play, the effect is still simple to execute This allows the performer to focus on the participant rather than the effect

To perform this, you’ll need one business card with a negative symbol

drawn on the back, and TWO cards with a positive symbol drawn on the back (I know!) To set up for the routine, I have the “+” and “-” cards in my wallet, and the

duplicate “+” hiding away in my back pocket One final bit of preparation: subtly mark the back of the “negative” card so it can be easily distinguished from the

“positive” cards throughout the routine To begin, simply take the wallet out and openly remove the two cards

The first phase will make use of simple kind of equivoque The key to this

phase is the ambiguity of the phrase, “it will be your job to choose the positive and

eliminate the negative.” You’ll be asking them to set their hand or fist down on

one of the cards after they’ve been mixed This means if they set their hand on the positive card, it appears to be a logical conclusion that the card under their hand is the one they desire However, if they set their fist on the negative card, you’ll remind them they are eliminating the negative, so in that framework, it still seems logical they by dropping their fist on a card, they’ll be eliminating it; leaving the positive card

In either case, my friend Josh Silverstein had a great subtly to make the following phase a bit more fooling He suggested you first openly show the

positive card and place it behind your back Then, almost as an afterthought, you grab the negative card and briefly flash it to the audience without drawing too much attention to it This small moment is very helpful because in the second phase you won’t be able to show the audience the negative card

The second phase is where the sneaky bit happens When you place your hands behind your back to repeat the process, you’ll switch the negative card for the duplicate positive one you placed in your back pocket earlier Once you mix them up a bit, bring them both out and place them face down on the table Now, it

The key to making this (or any other equivoque) work is consistency No matter what the circumstances or the presentation, if you ever utilize multiple instances of equivoque, you must find a way to vary the scripting or process so the method is not transparent In this case, we’re only actually using equivoque in the first phase, but for the same desire to have consistency, whatever “path” you proceed down with the spectator in the first phase is repeated in the following two phases For clarity, if they drop their fist on the negative card in the first phase, you will

continue having them eliminate the negative by setting their fist on the card they believe is negative If they set their fist on the positive in the first phase, setting their fist on a card will represent the positive in the following phases

The second phase can obviously be repeated (which is how I normally

perform it), but I wouldn’t recommend performing the second phase more than twice If you do, the method will begin to lose its potency and become more

transparent Also, the repetition will become a bit tedious

Now, we’ll clean up our dirty work and move on the final phase of the

routine Take the two cards behind your back one final time for a little mix You’ll

be swapping a card in the pocket once again, only this time you’ll be putting one of the positive cards in your pocket and taking the negative out I then deliver the line,

“But it won’t be all that interesting if I mix the cards, would it?” I can then hand

the cards to the participant to mix and set face down on the table

The way you’ll be determining which card is the positive, you will simply look for the previously marked business card To take a small step back, you will mark the negative card in a subtle yet visible way, so it is easily identified when mixed You could accomplish this by any means you are comfortable with (nail

nicks, tactile bumps, etc) I use a small ink dot on the face of the card I have a glossy finish to my business cards, so a small dot from an ink pen will stand out, even from a small distance I actually dot a lowercase “i” to make my mark It truly

is invisible, and I highly recommend using this technique if you don’t already have

a means of marking business cards

Once you’ve identified the correct card, simply follow what your participant has been doing by setting your fist down on the appropriate card as well

Credit

I first saw the idea of using the ambiguous language of “choosing” and

“eliminating” in regards to equivoque in Max Maven’s “Videomind” series in his classic effect, “Kurotsuke.”

As for “ringing” in another card behind the back, the idea has been used many times for many reasons, but the oldest reference I came across was for a deck switch in the “Nikola Card System.”

METHODLESS IS THE NEW PROPLESS

This is a concept I’ve hinted at in various essays throughout Edison Notes and Tesla Files In my mind, it’s the idea of attempting something for real, for a while, in order to build up a method As a Mentalist, we’re “allowed” (and in some books encouraged) to fail on purpose in order to increase believability In Edison Notes I talked about creating a legitimate structure to use alongside your trick methods in order to know WHEN to miss In Tesla Files I outlined my “DGAF” attitude towards less meaningful effects, such as guessing a playing card With

“Methodless”, I suggest we take it a step further

I think we should just go for it occasionally I think you should back yourself into a corner every now and then and attempt something you probably shouldn’t be able to do I’m not alone in this thought either

I think that the openness of attempting something legitimate adds to your credibility I also think that the more that you do something for real, the more you can develop a process to actually achieve it At the very least, you can develop a process to make your standard effects appear more legitimate

There’s a variety of standard Mentalism effects that, in my mind, are just too minor to bother with methods I’m talking about things like Which Hand routines and Rock, Paper, Scissors - effects that we normally consider to be warm-up

routines Looking at our performance legitimately, we would say that we need moments like this in order to build a connection with our participant Telepathy is a

two-way street and we need to open up the roads If that’s the case, then why

worry if they don’t work? If it doesn’t work, you do something more to help

establish the connection, perhaps Hold hands for a moment and think the same thought to “calibrate.” Suddenly, your next effect actually works! This, of course,

is because you use a solid method for the next effect

I’m sure you’ve seen magicians that do sucker tricks, apparently failing and then miraculously ending on top If you watch that magician a little longer you’ll eventually see him actually mess something up, but no one in the audience believes him I know this is true, because that magician was me I feel that as a Mentalist it’s far better to be seen failing once or twice in a show, but unphased by it, rather than consistently correct I wouldn’t do this for every show, of course

I feel that I need to clarify something really quick It’s not that I don’t have methods for things like which hand routines or rock, paper, scissors It’s just that I don’t use the method versions first Instead, you attempt the effect for real,

claiming that it may not work and it lets you know what kind of person you’re working with This is a pretty standard script, but now it’s much closer to the truth! You can say things like “I get better throughout the night as I’ve been around

everyone longer” and this sentence will be proven true as well

Once an effect fails miserably without a method, you can attempt it again later with a method Of course, you’ll want to have the two look as congruent as possible If you perform one of the liar/truth teller methods of which hand, for instance, perhaps you’ll just want to guess whether they’re lying during your first performance Here’s a fun part, if you succeed, you can do the methodless version

If this frightens you, remember the idea from earlier with musicians and full albums This is one of your deeper tracks, this isn’t your radio single Also, this may not be the route to go if you perform a lot of other Jazz Mentalism pieces or propless pieces that don’t always feel like they are going to work You may want

to consider those propless pieces as your “Methodless” effects instead Again, use your judgment If you only have one thing that you can perform to someone,

MAYBE this isn’t the route to go If you can’t believably convey a confidence in your abilities, you may want to hold off on this approach as well The idea we’re getting across is that we KNOW that things will work throughout the evening, but

it takes some time

Of course, I still can’t help myself and I often have some loose method in the back of my head while I’m doing any of these things For a Which Hand

routine, I may ask someone to hold both hands out to start I then place the coin in their left hand and ask them to put their hands behind their back

“I want you to PUT the coin in the hand that feels COMFORTABLE and when you’re ready, bring them both out.”

Don’t emphasize the capitalized words, I just want you to see what I’m attempting In this scenario, I’ve already noticed the person is right handed Asking them to PUT the coin somewhere implies an action The coin is already in the left hand, so the hope is that they’ll move it to their right hand I also say the word COMFORTABLE in hopes that it compounds the PUT suggestion The final thing that I’m doing in this scenario is not bringing up exactly what’s going on I’m not asking them to HIDE the coin I’m not telling them to MIX it up or make it