Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
DekEl
Table of Contents
Introduction – 3
The Secret – 4
Commonalities – 6
Definitions and Structures – 9
Rose/Red – 13
Gun/3 – 14
Diamond/Wedding – 15
Car/Car – 16
Red/Apple – 17
Rose/Apple – 18
Carrot/Car – 19
Pushing – 20
Direct Drop – 21
Impromptu and Propless Passing On Techniques – 22
Picking Up - 24
Triple Threat – 25
The Cloud – 29
Madness – 30
Link – 31
Drawing Duplication – 33
2 to 4 Way Envelopes – 34
Conclusion – 36
About a year and a half ago I came up with a rather simple idea that could be
considered the holy grail of mind reading. Here it is: if psychological forces worked 100% of
the time, you would effectively be a mind reader, albeit limited to forces, but still, you would
I've revisited the idea off and on. It's arguably the most natural way to read minds; no
used psychological forces in the past, but with odds of failure being as high as 1 in 3 or 1 in 4,
they're generally not a nice route to go without heavy precautions that “this may not work” to
I needed odds far higher than that to feel comfortable using them on a regular basis,
one on one. Sure, I'll always have an ID or a peek wallet as an out, but it feels weak to have to
resort to them. Participants can feel if you're not into it, which in turn dulls the illusion at least
to some degree for them as well. Plus, there's nothing quite as thrilling as jumping in without
a safety net and doing a direct mind read. Stating their thoughts, without them telling you.
But how could I raise the odds? You can stack subtlety upon subtlety, but there's always a
ceiling to your level of success. It took me quite a while to come up with a solution that I felt
comfortable with. In this book, I'm going to give you the system, as well as actual forces that I
First of all, here is the secret. With a single psychological force, you can scrape the
ceiling at about 70-75%. Anything higher than that is generally overestimation, because we
tend to up-play successes and downplay failure. However.... As soon as you combine 2 or
more forces together, mathematically, your odds skyrocket. I can hear your thoughts now:
(pun intended) “I don't want to have to call out 3 or 4 forces in the hopes that 1 or more will hit!
That feels cheap and you will fail on most of them almost every time.”
You're correct. And that's not what we're going to be working with. But before I get into
the actual method, let's crunch some numbers. Let us suppose that we have a force that works
about 70% of the time and another one that works about 75% of the time. They fail about
All we did was combine 2 forces, and suddenly our odds of failure are less than 1 in 13.
Those are incredibly good odds. If we added in a force that works 65% of the time, our failure
rate drops to: 3%, with a success rate of 97%. That would mean that we would fail less than 1
in every 33 attempts. Those are incredibly good odds for someone merely thinking of
something. However that doesn't take into account that even with just 2 forces, you will still
miss at least 1 about 47.5% of the time. You'll nail both about every 52.5% of the time, though.
It works for the same reason that readings work: we apply ideas and don't even realize it.
So... what do you do when you miss? First of all, due to the structure of Direct, they will
never know when you miss. However you will still have 3 options. Pick up, drop, or pass on. I'll
get into how we get to this point in a bit. Pick up means that you can hone in on the “failed”
force because now you know that it's not the main force item, so you can work with say the
next 1 or 2 and progressively move in for the kill (I'll cover this later). Drop means simply talk
about how it worked and forget about the force that didn't hit. Finally, you can pass on.
Passing on just means to move it along to another effect that can work a bit like an out (e.g.
an imp pad, or jumping into ID with a number of letters if the force is a word, or a number
from 1 to 10). I'll cover this later, as well as Prime, which I have occasionally used as an out.
Most of the time I just pick up or drop, but passing on is always an option. Picking up is really
my favorite way to handle it. Now on to how to structure the force such that your participant
We are going to first of all take two psychological forces, and then find a commonality,
or choose them for a commonality. The commonality must be specific. Then you are going to
do a direct mind read using the commonality such that it appears you are doing a true mind
read, and then explicitly name their thought based on their response to your presentation of
the commonality.
So essentially what happens is this: you use several psychological forces on your
subject, and you can reveal the answers to the ones that hit. Hence you get near 100%
“What's a commonality?” I hear you ask. Here's an example: The color red is red. An
apple is red. The number 7 is 7. Lettuce has 7 letters. A rose is a flower with interleaving petals.
A lettuce is a vegetable with interleaving leaves. These kind of connections are commonalities.
If it only fits one of the forces, to realize that something was strange, a spectator would
have to go to the trouble of thinking of other things that fit the commonality in the “failed”
category, which is something they will never do, especially since we always drop, pick up, or
pass on after the force is complete, and also because it's incredibly hard to do and even if they
somehow successfully backtracked and forward tracked to other possible choices and then
looked for commonalities, all they would have is a potential coincidence of something that
you might have done. In other words, it will always fit to the level that we want it to, or it won't
fit at all. If it doesn't fit at all, we can still drop, pick up, or pass on one or both of the results,
but it won't have the same effect. Finally, you can have triple commonalities. These are far
harder to find, but once you get one, your failure rate is essentially zero and you can use your
force all the time with about a 100% hit rate on at least one item, and then probably close to
To clarify, the way you use a commonality is simple. You have your subject think of 2 or
3 things, then you say something along the lines of “I'm getting” or “I'm picking up X, how
does that make sense?” wherein X is the commonality. They will then tell you if it hits either
one or both. If it hits one then they won't know it was specially chosen to hit both. Based on
what they respond to the commonality, you then explicitly state their thought. For example, if
you used red as a commonality and they had thought of a tomato, they could say that it
makes sense because it's the color of their vegetable. At that point, you would directly state
that they were thinking of a tomato and either drop, pass on, or pick up the color red
As long as you pick half decent forces, your hit percentages will always be incredibly
high. Even if you had very low forces that came in at only 50% each, using Direct your odds
for at least 1 hit would be 75%, and your odds for both would be 25%.
Another thing to notice here, is that at least 50% of the time, a flip of the coin, you will
hit and explicitly mind read both answers successfully. Whereupon you will be perceived to
This is the core of the Direct system. It allows you to go into direct mind reads without
fear, wherever and whenever you like. In the following sections, I will go over a dual
commonality matrix that you can use to create routines or add to, as well as some routines
that I've developed using the matrix, tips on how to pick up, impromptu passing on systems
using Prime and the One Ahead principle, and one or two Triple Threat commonality forces.
What about asking them what they're thinking? Or getting them to right it down, just
to be sure? The beauty of direct is that since the odds are so heavily stacked in your favor, you
can just say it. You don't need them to do it for you. Sure, you're just saying most of it, but
It's an entirely different feel for them to think of something and seconds later you
speak their thought. If by some fluke you miss both, you can pick up the remaining 3-7% with
about 40-50% accuracy (assuming you're picking up 1 force). So even if you “crash and burn”
you still don't crash and burn, unless you're within about 1 in a 1,000+ runs, at which case you
can drop or pass on. But the odds of you losing out on both the first time around are
incredibly slim, and the odds that you won't be able to pick up are almost non existent.
Definitions and Structures
In the learning process, it helps to have all relevant information in one place, as well as
an visual organization of how it's used. In this section I will provide you with both a list of
definitions of various terms used regularly in this book, as well as a flow chart that covers how
words) have in common. For example, both red and an Apple have the color red in common.
Pushing – Lightly querying the spectator to confirm whether or not a result applied to their
thought. For example, if they responded that red was their color but they didn't mention
Apple, I might ask them to think of the color of their fruit and ask them “does that make any
sense?” and if they are confused then continue on. This is to double check if you got a hit or
Dropping – Either directly or indirectly stopping work with a particular force. Generally you
can do this if you get a hit on one force item. You can push, or you can drop it. You just
disregard it as if you'd never asked about it and continue on with something else. If they ask
about the dropped item however, then you should either pick up or pass on.
Picking Up – Working with a force that didn't hit on the first reveal. Generally you use this if
you hit with one of the forces but not the other. The spectator won't know that the reveal was
supposed to apply to the most popular choice of the “missed” force because they weren't
thinking of the most popular choice. It's a good idea to push before picking up, but then you
can fish for the secondary or tertiary items or just state them for the force that “missed” on
Passing On – Rather than trying to drop a force or do a pick up, you can instead pass it on to
another mentalism technique, such as having them write it on a billet, or methods I covered.
As you can see, the process runs through several phases. I've listed them below:
• From here it could be a double hit wherein you can continue how you please, a double miss (very low odds of the
• If it's a single hit then you should push (read the definition and the page on Pushing) against the remaining force to
be sure that it's not a double hit, and if not then you can do a direct or indirect drop (both are covered on the Direct
Drop page), or you can pass on (see Impromptu and Propless Passing on Techniques), you can do what I would do:
• If it's a double miss then push one or both forces to be sure, and then if neither are a hit you can either pass on one
or both forces, or you can pick up one or both forces. You should not drop at this stage as it will appear strange (see
Here's my table that covers forces, and similarities between force items. Some of the
psychological forces include the secondary and/or tertiary item(s) for your convenience when
There you have the dual commonality matrix. You can find forces in the second and
third columns, and the commonality of the two forces in the fourth column. Feel free to draw
up your own tables as connections rise to your mind; this is just a starting board.
Combinations
This section contains what I think of as routines, but in reality they are combinations
based on the Dual Commonality Matrix. I haven't gone as far as others have gone on testing
your spectators before using them, but essentially what I want is for them to want it to work.
It's also an imperative that they name the first thing that comes to mind. To this end normally I
“In a second I'm going to ask you to think of something” note I don't say things, this is in case I
feel like dropping a miss (again, about half the time both of them will hit) “and I want you to
go with your gut, just think of the very first thing that pops into your head, OK? You want to
experience mind reading? Then please work with me. Alright, first of all...” Essentially this sets
Sometimes if you say something, they might have thought of your target at some point
and to affirm you, they will say that they thought of it even though they didn't settle on it.
Since the target is the top choice, it's very likely that this will happen to you. I've had it happen
several times when doing normal psychological forces and it's always rewarding; you can
bring it back around to “picking up thoughts” and transition into other material or just talk
about it for a while, if at that point you don't feel like picking up or passing on.
With that said, here are some routines I've concocted based on the Commonality Matrix.
Rose/Red
“OK, what I'd like you to do is think of a pretty flower. Stick with the very first one that you think
of. Great, now think of a color in the rainbow. Again, keep in mind the first one that you think of.
OK I'm getting something about red... How does that make sense to you?”
As you can see here, I'm assuming that it makes sense, because the odds are high
enough that it must make sense. You don't need to draw the association between red and
rose, they will get it immediately or it won't be a rose. You might hit 2 for 2 here pretty easily.
It's also easy to mention that they thought of red at some point because colors are far more
vague and easy to mix in your head. This is one of the easiest in my experience, and comes
across as real, direct mind reading, while still retaining far higher percentages than either
single force could pull. If you fail on both then work with the assumption that the color is blue,
because it almost certainly will be. Say something about it being red and then quickly cooling
down into blue. If they're thinking of another flower you can say that you were thinking of
their type of flower just in red, as there are both red daisies and red tulips, even though they
Again, just a note, the phrase “how does that make sense to you” sounds like a
confirming phrase but at the same time actually asks them to explain themselves without
“Alright, what I'd like you to do is think of a weapon. The first one that pops into your mind, stick
with that. Think of a number from 1 to 5. Got it? Alright let me see here.... I'm getting a feeling
of a 3, does that make sense?” At this point they will affirm or deny your perception, if they
affirm it, then continue on with the number 3, and optionally pick up gun/knife. If they seem
confused at “a 3” then continue on this way: “It's a number of letters, 1, 2, 3 letters. Visually I
Gun has a very strong association with weapon. With this particular routine I deviated a
bit from the normal procedure and explained the meaning of 3. If you want to go according to
“Alright, what I'd like you to do is think of a weapon. The first one that pops into your mind, stick
with that. Count the number of letters in your head.” At this point you actually might get a leg
up as to whether or not it's a gun, as 3 letter words are instantaneous. “Think of a number
from 1 to 5. Got it? Alright let me see here.... I'm picking up the number 3, how does that make
sense?” They will then either explain that it matches their number or the number of letters or
“First I would like you to blank your mind. Now I'd like you to imagine going to church for a
ceremony. Think of what that ceremony is. I would also like you to think of a precious gem
stone. Just concentrate on the first one that entered your mind.. I'm picking up something about
a diamond.. does that make sense?” As you say diamond, tap your left ring finger with your
right index finger twice. This adds meaning to the word diamond that would imply a
wedding that they will jump on if that was the ceremony they were thinking of.
This is another high percentage hitter that you'll often pull a double hit on. After wards,
you can mention other choices such as rubies or funerals just to reiterate their level of choice.
When it comes to picking up, if they didn't make a note of a wedding even after a little more
prodding, then you can jump to a funeral and pick up with that. If they get the wedding but
not the diamond then you can pick up and fish for a ruby or emerald in that order, with ruby
“If you would, I'd like you to think of a type of transportation. Stick with the first one that pops
into your head. Great, now I'd like you to imagine looking out your window and think of the first
thing you notice when you look outside... I'm picking up a rather distinct sense of a car..”
This one is also very strong, this time because both forces are working towards the
same item. If you need to pick up, then say that they saw a car in their mind's eye but that
they saw a tree before the car. You're not explicitly saying that they're thinking of a tree but it's
heavily implied and frankly by far the most likely other choice. If they seem hesitant or deny it,
than say that they say the tree before the car, but before that they saw a neighbor's house.
All of that said, it's very unlikely that you'll even get to the picking up stage. Oh, and if
you do, then completely drop the method of transportation. Since you've mentioned car, they
will drop it automatically and forget you ever mentioned it because it seems redundant for
some reason. This force definitely has one of the higher hit rates and I urge you to try it, you
can't lose.
Red/Apple
“Alright, what I'd like you to do is to think of a fruit. The first fruit that pops into your mind, just
stick with that. Now think of a color that is in the rainbow. Stop at the first color that enters your
As with all of the other routines using the Direct method, you will get high rates on at
least one of these two forces, if not both. The exact same strategies that applied to Red/Rose
apply here, so refer to that section for picking up with red. This is basically a no lose situation.
Which brings me to the next section, impromptu passing on techniques if you don't
feel like picking up or you tried to drop and they pushed for you to do something with it. It's
“Alright, what I'd like you to do is to think of a fruit. The first fruit that pops into your mind, just
stick with that. Great, now think of a pretty flower. Again, keep the first one you think of... I'm
getting a quite intense sense of a color... red is coming through very clearly, how does that make
sense to you?”
I know that this one is quite close to the Red/Apple force, but I actually prefer this one
as both objects are red as opposed to an object being red and the other thought actually
being the color red itself. This requires less pushing and is more natural, not to mention
having a high hit rate. This is one of the easiest and deceptive forces to pull off.
Carrot/Car
“What I'd like you to do is see a vegetable in your mind. There, stick with the first one you
thought of. OK now imagine looking outside your window. Think of something you'd see outside
your window. Great... OK I'm picking up a sound, it's like Car, or Car” pronounced like care “...
the first few letters are C, then A, then R, does that make sense?”
Both of these are strong forces, but the particularly nice one about this one is that not
only is the commonality easy for them to detect and pick up without you drawing extra
attention to it (i.e. asking them to think of the color of their fruit if neither force seems to hit
right away), and at the same time, neither choice is particularly obvious.
Additionally, you have a strong pick up with both Lettuce and Tree on this one. This is
probably one of my favorite Direct routines to go with. The odds are good and it appears
amazing.
Pushing
Before picking up, if that's what you intend to do, you should always do what I call
pushing on any unnamed forces to double check if there was an unnamed hit. For example, if
And you hadn't mentioned the color of the fruit, before picking up with an assumption of
orange or banana, you should push. It's not exactly fishing, more confirming. Here's an
As you can see, here they will either be slightly confused and you can immediately pick up, or
they will acknowledge that it was red as well, and you'll have a double hit. It's always a good
idea to push first just to be sure that they didn't just forget it. Of course, you could always just
drop at that point, or pass on, etc. but if you are intending to pick up, remember to push.
Direct Drop
As I started using this technique, I came up with an idea that makes things much more
direct and easier. Due to the commonalities, you essentially get to use 2 or even 3
psychological forces, and then have your spectator choose the ones that fit and match them
to your responses. As a result, you have another option with dropping. You can simply own up
Unlike most tests wherein if you back down and say that you were wrong you are
actually wrong, here when you're “wrong” all you do is not say anything. So in other words,
let's say that I did the Red/Fruit force and they thought of the color red and an orange, and
for some reason I didn't pick it up and fish for an orange or a banana. In that case all I'd have
to say is, “Great so I got the color but the fruit was too hazy to pick out, but great work!”
Dropping is easier than just forgetting that it ever happened as you have to do with
normal psychological forcing tests, here you can admit that you just couldn't make it out, but
it's not like you took a stab in the dark and were wildly wrong (like saying they were thinking
of an apple when they were thinking of a banana), or even mildly wrong, you just decided not
to continue that part of the test, you weren't wrong at all. There's a world of difference and
your subject won't have a problem. That said... picking up is fun and easy and I enjoy doing it,
but if you don't feel comfortable, then by all means, do a direct drop.
Impromptu and Propless Passing On Techniques
Alright, let's say that you don't feel like picking up or doing a direct drop and you want
to pass on. Rather than resorting to a peek wallet, an imp pad, TT, or an ID, here are some
First of all, the classic one ahead method is always an easy one as long as you have a
pen and some paper. Here's how I run it. I take one of three slips of paper and ask them to
think of the answer to my force, and instead I write down wallet, then ball up the paper and
place it on the table. I then ask them what the force answer was for confirmation, and jot
down the confirmation on sheet expressly for that purpose. Then I grab another piece and
either ask them to think of the other answer (if it too missed), or else I have them think of a
city. Instead I write down the answer to the first force question, and ball up the paper and mix
it with the first one. I then ask what city they thought of, and write it on the confirmation
sheet. Finally, I write down the city, ball it up and place it on the table. Then I do a little
equivoque with my wallet and two or three other small items sitting around, and force the
wallet, and write it on the confirmation sheet. I then hand the three pellets to the spectator
Alternatively, I use my own technique called Prime. It's covered in more detail and
languages in my book, MindCraft: Perceptions, and a U.S. only version is covered in MindCraft:
Psionics. I'm going to detail the basic workings here in case you need something propless.
Have the spectator think of their word. Tell them to mentally choose a vowel in their
word. Then have them think of a country that begins with that vowel. Finally have them take
the last vowel of the country's name and think of a fruit/season that begins with that letter. It
will be Apple or Autumn respectively the vast majority of the time. From there you can do a
direct mind read. It's not as impressive as Direct, but if you have nothing on you and you miss
This is probably my favorite way to deal with a “miss”. I put miss in quotes because
again, unless you've missed both forces, your spectator doesn't even know you've missed.
They just think you hit on one force in particular, and you can always direct drop or pass on
When you pick up, as hinted elsewhere in this book, essentially what you are doing is
taking the 2nd and maybe 3rd most likely possible choices for a force and putting them out
there or revealing outright if the odds are especially high. What do I mean by “putting them
out there”? Here's an example. Let us examine the Rose/Red commonality. If we hit on the
color red but miss on rose, we know that the next two most likely choices are Daisy and Tulip.
We now put them out there. Essentially we fish lightly, and strongly. We just want to confirm
that the second, and barring that, the third most likely choice is correct. Personally I would
describe the daisy itself saying something along the lines of “the petals, would it make any
sense to say that they were spread out?” if they said yes, then I would go with Daisy. No, and I
would go with Tulip. There are other ways to approach this, but that's all there really is to
picking up.
With Diamond/Wedding, as another example, let us suppose that Wedding has hit and
Diamond has missed. At this point I would ask them to imagine the length of the name of the
gem stone, and ask them if it feels short. If so, I know it's Ruby, if not, it's probably Emerald.
Triple Threat
I wanted to cover a three way force that obviously has a stellar percentage rate. Three is
kind of pushing it when it comes to thoughts to manage, but that can also aid in dropping, as
“I'd like you to think of a couple of things. Think of a type of pet animal. Now think of a meal
that you eat every day. I'd also like you to think of a precious jewel. OK great. Let me see what I
can pick up... I'm sensing somethings starts with a D, how does that make sense?”
What's going to happen here is words that start with a D will rise to their mind and those that
don't, won't. That's the beauty of using a triple word force. It's just a little too much for them
to remember all of the questions and answers at the same time, so they will only think of the
relevant ones, and then explain them. However, as D isn't much to go on, they will probably
only reveal which categories matched: meal, pet, or gemstone. This is better. Then you can
You can also do easy pick ups on these if you feel like it. Dog has cat as a very strong
follow up, diamond has ruby as a strong follow up, and dinner has lunch as a very strong
follow up. So if they don't mention a category or word, you can jump directly to one or more
of the “misses” with little to no fear, as well as work with the hit(s) that are virtually guaranteed
Before I bring this to a close, I'd like to cover something that I discovered. I found a way
to do research quickly with a large number of people that I may cover in another book, but
the important thing here is that I have crunched some numbers and discovered something
rather interesting.
Essentially one of the ideas I explored was that certain names and concepts we
mentally associate with others due to the structure of our brains and how it organizes things.
For example if I showed you two shapes, a circle and a triangle, and then told you that each
shape had a name, a kiki and a bouba, you would most likely match the triangle with the kiki
and the circle with the bouba. There are a number of contributing factors to this phenomenon.
Kenton Knepper explored the idea to some degree in Principles and Powers and did some
What I wanted to do, however, was determine if there could be a more concrete
connection with existing, well known lists of data that have larger numbers of items. I'm still
in the early stages of exploring this, but some numbers I've crunched after querying 40ish
people on one such test gave me something usable. I asked the question: “Imagine a guy
named Mark. What color is his shirt?” The vast majority said either blue or red, with blue
pulling close to half of the results, and red pulling in close to the number of blue, if you
exclude shades (white, black, gray, etc.). This matches the traditional red closely followed by
blue psychological force quite accurately. Interestingly enough, if you substitute the name
Mark with Tom or Dave, the results are far more scattered to the point of being unusable.
However with Mark, if you exclude shades after the query, your odds will be upwards of 80%
in either the red or blue sphere. Just remember after you do the force to say “Make sure it's a
color in the rainbow, not a shade like black or white”. This alone will bump your odds up to the
Thus here is the test that I have devised, using a commonality of a thought of Fruit. Let
us say that the fruit test is about a 60% hit rate. Red comes in at about 40%, thus giving us
about a 76% hit rate for red, however, the pick up for the shirt color (what they will be most
interested in anyways, so the fruit will be an easy drop) is incredibly strong, tying in at about
83% as a pick up. So in other words, the odds of a direct hit plus a fast pick up (e.g. “and the
color of the shirt, I'm sensing it's blue”) is 96% percent, with an easy, well hidden force, and
without little if any need for pushing because it's not a direct color you asked them to
concentrate on, just to think of a color for his shirt. Of course there's about a 1 in 4 chance
that you'll need to pick up, but if you do, it will be a hell of a pick up. Alternatively, you could
write down something after they've thought of their choices, and write down blue, crossed
Although I enjoy performing Direct as direct mind reading, this section includes 5
powerful ways to use Direct with as little props as possible. These will work better if
performing for a larger group. Some of them are restricted to specific forces.
As always, feel free to improvise; it's impossible for me to anticipate what will best fit
into your particular style of performance. If you have any ideas that you particularly like, send
don't really need anything to get started. The object of Direct is the development of a skill
combined with facts and your spectator's natural aptitude for pattern recognition, so I didn't
want to choose presentations that would draw much away from that.
The Cloud
This is a propless presentation that focuses around the idea that everyone has a cloud
of ideas, concepts, current and even some future thoughts buzzing around them. You explain
that sometimes you catch a glimpse of something in someone's cloud, and that when you ask
them about it, it's something that they happened to be thinking of. I add something along
“Sometimes when people have strong rapport, parts of their clouds connect, swirling
around and influence each other in subtle ways. For example, if you've ever blurted out the
exact same thing as someone else for no particular reason, I believe that what it really means is
that your clouds have gained some form of traction with each other.”
This sets up the framework such that you don't need to worry about dropping etc.,
you're just going for anything you can get. And you don't even need to be explicit; they're not
expecting you to be. You've claimed a fuzzy ability that's unfalsifiable because it's more of a
hunch but at the same time a fascinating idea that people can to some degree relate to. You
can apply this to other mind reading principles as well, and other psychological forces. Again,
people naturally apply suggested ideas to their thoughts and in hindsight forget they applied
it and that the mind reader actually just gave more of a seed than the explicit idea. That's why
cold reading/readings work so well, and we're just harnessing the same principle to work with
mentalism. By using the Cloud they will expect less and apply more.
Madness
This is quite an interesting presentation. First of all you need either two business cards
or two index cards such that you have two white images. I've discovered that suggestion
allows you to change the color someone sees on a white background. Try it yourself. Look at a
white background (not necessarily a screen), and imagine that you notice it changing color.
This borders into suggestion and conversational hypnosis, as well as NLP where the focus is
on them realizing that it's changing color; an experience that's very easy to trick yourself into.
What you want to do is do any of the color combinations with red as the color of
choice. It doesn't matter which of them you choose, it's up to you, but you should be able to
get to the color red. After you've gotten there, give them the business card, and take yours as
well and stand a distance apart. Tell your spectator to focus on the strongest and most
passionate color they're thinking of (this will make them choose red if there happened to be
another color), and to look at the business card and project that color onto it. After a few
seconds, you can ask them “Right about now you're probably just starting to realize that the
business card is changing color to your thought of color. The interesting thing is that mine is as
well..”
The concept of suggesting a color change and you receiving the same color change
works out quite well, I must say. One subtlety I've used with this is to have both of us initial
both cards to give them some level of a connection to create a link between the two cards.
Speaking of link...
Link
This presentation is designed around the idea of a mental echo. We actually do have an
auditory echo; it's a known neurological fact and it allows auditory rehearsal to be a useful
way to transfer information from short term to long term memory. Of course there's no
scientific basis in regards to an interpersonal auditory echo, but that's what we'll be working
The force of choice for this routine is the Diamond/Dinner force. The forces are for a
precious gem stone and a meal they eat every day. In addition to closeup, you can do this one
with a spectator still in the audience for a different feel. After you've done the force, you're
“I'm hearing a sound, di [pronounced die] or di [pronounced dih as in dinner], sorry which
The rest of the audience won't know exactly what's going on, and the spectator will be
very surprised. If it's a double hit they'll say both and you'll take both hits and work with, if it's
just a single then they'll be impressed you got it; to them di and die don't sound any different
and they'll think you're just splitting hairs because they only hit on one so they won't be able
In the unlikely chance that you miss, you can follow it up with a pick up of something
about the sound by, pronounced bee and ask how that makes sense. This covers both
breakfast and ruby. If they're thinking of breakfast then they will hear it as the letter B, and you
have a hit. If they are thinking of a ruby, they will either hear the phoneme in the ru-by
section, or else they will get the letter and you can follow it up. The odds that both of these
combined sets of forces will miss is mind numbingly low, which makes this a relatively safe
routine to run with. In explanation for the change of sound, in hindsight after the second hit
you can say something about getting the echos confused without much of a hitch.
Drawing Duplication
This is among my favorite presentations (yes, I love them all but this one is particularly
useful when expanding an impromptu demonstrating beyond just say a book test or a swami).
You're going to do the car/car force (read the combination section on page 16). What will
happen here is they will virtually always hit car on one of the two forces (the “look outside”
force works about 60% of the time with a strong follow up of tree).
You're going to tell them to draw their thoughts in the typical back to back form or
whatever stance you want to work with. I give a bit of a distance between performer and
spectator to keep them from claiming you heard what they were drawing. Then you're going
to say you're picking up some general thoughts. You're going to draw a car, a tree, and
memory fails me as to which one). Below you can see what it all looks like. This sets up the car
as the main item. If they don't think of the tree, then the tree will appear to just be a
background, and you can explain that you were seeing a car driving through a forest. If the
tree hits as well as the car you've got a solid hit. Finally, the Universal Drawing at least gives
you something to grab at if the very worst comes to very worst, but statistically you'll almost
never have to use it. As an impromptu demonstration, this one can be incredibly powerful.
2 to 4 Way Envelopes
I've used 2, 3, and even 4 way envelopes in the past as multiple outs both with
predictions of playing cards and for psychological forces (i.e. the 37 force for example). With
this system however, it's a bit different, as the structure is different, but obviously the hit rates
and impact is higher. In terms of framing for why you decided to use an envelope, the tried
and true route runs along with seeing something in a dream a few days ago, but there are
The reason why the structure is different is because you can't simply ask your spectator
for the answer to the force and then reveal because they are thinking of two. Well you could,
and it would work the vast majority of the time, but most of the time you would only hit with
one (obviously the envelope is only supposed to contain one result) and then you'd be stuck
with a query that has no close (see Appendix A), so it would appear strange. If we just took
the normal route with psychological forces, then even after counting secondary and even
tertiary possibilities, our odds would remain only at about 80% to 85% at best.
Instead, you should have two envelopes with 2 to 4 pockets. In one envelope you will
load one of the force items and a secondary (and possibly tertiary etc.) force item, and in the
second envelope you will do the same with the other force items. Then you will say something
along the lines of “I got the general feel of X, does that make sense?”. Based on their response
you will reveal the correct force item from the correct envelope (they don't know which ones
are which). Then you push against the other force (read the section on pushing if this doesn't
make sense). This will let you know, just by double checking their response to your initial
statement, without actually fishing, whether or not the main force for the second force hit,
whereupon you can either reveal the main force, or reveal the secondary force.
Optionally, if you are using a four way envelope, you can do some minor fishing as
described in the picking up section to determine which choice they thought of and then
follow it up with the reveal. Everything you're saying will seem as if it's just double checking so
you don't make a fool of yourself by revealing if your prediction happened to be wrong (you
can even literally say that), so you should be able to almost sigh with relief when you are sure
The margin of error for this entire proceedings is virtually non-existent; at the very least
you will have a hit, and most of the time, just by stating the commonality, you will hit either
both or you will hit one and have a secondary follow up, because again, they don't know that
by not responding about a specific force they are actually telling you that it must be one of
To conclude, commonalities act as a safety net and a launch pad for pick ups. The
beauty of Direct is that your spectator never knows that you're picking up because 13-17
times out of 14-18, you're going to hit at least one, and you will know which one to pick up
based on which one they don't indicate (give or take a push). This lets you get both forces
correct virtually every time without your spectator being the wiser.
You now have the power to make almost any psychological force and make it work
almost every time without struggling to add subtlety after subtlety to push your rates higher.
Furthermore, you can now read anyone's mind whenever you like, directly. Great for off the
thinking of my favorite book test, Mark Paul's AAA book test). You have them run through a
force, have them unknowingly tell you which force hit, explicitly state it, and then work with or
name the other force. And even when both forces fail, you now have some tools to pass on
One of the ideas I've been toying around with is the idea of strange. Before I get into
the secret and methodology of Direct, I'd like to cover strange. I define strange as an event
that occurs when a subject notices something that seems, well, strange. I've come up with
some general guidelines of things to avoid in effects to prevent strange. It may be impossible
to incorporate all of them in any one effect, but they are good to watch out for.
1. Justifications. Glaring unspoken and all spoken justifications cause strange. Spoken
can glide by but it's more difficult because they're in the conscious sphere by default.
Overly obvious justifications even if unspoken can rise into the conscious sphere and
trigger strange. In general, cliches are not seen as strange. For example, covering
someone with a large silk cloth before vanishing them is so cliché that it's not strange.
Putting someone in a large metal tube on wheels before vanishing them is not cliché in
the magic world and would thus draw attention to why the tube was needed and
trigger strange. A spoken justification might be “write this down so you can
concentrate on it” depending on how the justification was explained and how much
attention was focused on it, it might or might not trigger conscious or subconscious
strange in participants.
2. Fishing without closing. Fishing without revealing (closing) is strange. In fact, any
information that you elicit from a subject without using it to a degree beyond what you
gimmicks and systems for manipulating paper, cards, pens, and other things that are
invisible to our spectator's eyes for one reason or another. Without them we are
constrained to popular choices and structures of words and lists. If all you ask is that
they think of something however, not tell you or anything else, then generally you'll
find that dropping (as discussed later on) is much easier, but still slightly strange.
If you keep these two rules in mind when developing effects and acts, your effects will
pack more power and less question from your audiences. I've tried to take these two factors