Hello!

Firstly, thank you for purchasing my very first eBook. To know that someone out there has
taken an interest in something I have created is a very strange but welcoming feeling.
This is my first release of what I hope to be a series of releases dealing with “propless
mentalism”. I have certain rules on what counts as propless, I will outline them for you now:
1. Propless mean propless: nothing used except your voice and mind.
That’s it.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love using actual playing cards, billets (and their other uses),
notepads, swamis etc... However, I also like to enjoy performing effects where I don’t need to
use anything at all. I don’t always carry around a deck of cards, gimmicked wallet, swami, coin
for bending, notepad, pencils and other paraphernalia on a daily basis, so it’s nice to be able to
have these effects I can perform at the drop of a hat.
They are also some of the most fun to perform too! If I were to ask someone to think of a card,
write it down onto my business card, place said business card into my wallet, somehow gain
knowledge of what they wrote without them noticing and then finally revealing it, I find it more
rewarding to somehow verbally find out what their card is without them noticing, this feels
almost like I am actually reading their mind.
I am using, to a very broad extent I might add, genuine psychology and linguistic techniques to
access their thoughts and tell them what they are thinking about without them explicitly telling
me. I certainly believe that it qualifies as mind reading.
Anyway, I believe you purchased this to find out how to reveal a thought of playing card. Read
on then...
The “think of a card” routine has been explored by a countless amount of magicians over the
years; some have taken some very bold approaches to achieve this effect whilst others have
stuck to more reliable methods. I have attempted to merge both bold and reliable approaches
to create what I believe to be a fool proof method of being able to be divine any card a
participant could think of.

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Whilst the ideal effect would go something along the lines of:
Me – Think of any card
Participant – Ok, got one
Me – You are thinking of the 7 of clubs
Participant – I hate you now
Somehow I don’t think we will ever be able to reach that level of clarity and streamlining unless
we resort to pre-show methods or genuinely being psychic. There is obviously a “system” or
“procedure” to follow in order to secretly gain knowledge of their thought of card, however I
have attempted to give rationale for each step in the process and through trial and error I
believe I have found a very solid and fool proof effect.
I have included all of my ideas from the very first attempt at this, to what I now perform on a
daily basis. I include each of my solutions to you so that you can see how my thought process
works, see how the effect evolved and also you may find a previous version more to your liking.
I do have to mention a few names right off the bat, if it weren’t for these people, this effect
would not have seen the light of day:
Ben Harris, Art Vanderlay, Ben Steward & Bob Farmer
These people have inspired me to create what you are now reading. You will see similarities
with each magician and their “think of a card” effect, and I have tried to credit each person to
the best of my ability.
I genuinely hope that you find some use to this effect and try each of my methods to see which
one you feel suits you the most.

Silas

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The First One

I began my journey many, many moons ago. I was pondering the notion of asking someone to
merely think of any playing card, and then reveal it. I set myself a few rules as I have mentioned
above, and set to work.
My first inspiration came from an effect by Ben Harris called Silent Running. The effect was
fantastic, a participant was guided through a process to think of a card, you then asked three
questions (actually you made three statements but these subtleties will come much later in this
eBook), and then you could reveal the exact playing card they were thinking of. The participant
really feels like they had any choice of the 52 playing cards when in fact they had a very limited
choice, it was brilliant and I used it for ages; however I still wanted something with more
freedom for the participant. Then came the streamlining of his effect by Art Vanderlay in the
sequel, Run Silent Run Deep. This simplified the wording and changed the order of the cards to
simplify the process. This is where things really took off.

I started with Arts three fishing questions:

Is it a red card?
Is it above the number 5?
Is it odd?

This works great for Silent Running; however I required a small change to expand the amount of
cards in my version:

Is it a red card?
Is it above the number 7?
Is it odd?

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From here I devised 8 short branching anagrams to determine each outcome that could happen
from asking the three fishing questions. There are 8 different branching anagrams and you need
to memorise each one. Yep. Memorise every single one for every single card in the deck.
It sounds daunting, and it is, believe me I know! But it’s not as hard as you think.
If you were to ask these three questions to somebody, and supposing that they said YES to each
question, in just three questions you have narrowed down 52 cards to just 8 cards. In fact, 6
times out of 8 you will only have to deal with 6 cards.
Below are my notes which will give you all the information you need. At the end of this eBook I
will be going through scripting techniques, how to understand and perform a branching
anagram and other subtleties when working with fishing questions and branching anagrams so
please be patient until then!
You may notice that there are no letter “O”s or letter “F”s in the anagrams either. This is
because every single card has the word “OF” in its name. Also, and this is very important, Aces
are high.

THINK

RED CARD, OVER 7, ODD

POSSIBLE OUTCOMES:

YES YES YES NO NO NO

YES YES NO NO NO YES

YES NO NO NO YES YES

YES NO YES NO YES NO

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BRANCHING ANAGRAM FOR: YES YES YES

D – K – C – NINE HEARTS

+ - ACE HEARTS

G – JACK HEARTS

+ - KING HEARTS

K – C – NINE DIAMONDS

+ - ACE DIAMONDS

G – JACK DIAMONDS

+ - KING DIMONDS

BRANCHING ANAGRAM FOR YES YES NO:

D – N – EIGHT HEARTS

U – TEN HEARTS

+ - QUEEN OF HEARTS

I – U – TEN DIAMONDS

+ - QUEEN DIAMONDS

+ - EIGHT OF DIAMONDS

BRANCHING ANAGRAM FOR YES NO NO:

D – U – T - SIX HEARTS

+ – TWO HEARTS

+ - FOUR HEARTS

U – T – SIX DIAMONDS

+ - TWO DIAMONDS

+ - FOUR DIAMONDS

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BRANCHING ANAGRAM FOR YES NO YES:

D – V – THREE HEARTS

I – SEVEN HEARTS

+ - FIVE HEARTS

V – THREE DIAMONDS

EE - FIVE DIAMONDS

+ - SEVEN DIAMONDS

BRANCHING ANAGRAM FOR NO NO NO:

D – R – T – SIX CLUBS

+ - TWO CLUBS

+ - FOUR CLUBS

R – T – SIX SPADES

+ - TWO SPADES

+ - FOUR SPADES

BRANCHING ANAGRAM FOR NO NO YES:

D – V – THREE CLUBS

I – SEVEN CLUBS

+ - FIVE CLUBS

T – I – SEVEN SPADES

+ - FIVE SPADES

+ - THREE SPADES

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BRANCHING ANAGRAM FOR NO YES YES:

D – K – N – ACE CLUBS

+ - NINE CLUBS

G – JACK CLUBS

+ - KING CLUBS

K – N – ACE SPADES

+ - NINE SPADES

G – JACK SPADES

BRANCHING ANAGRAM FOR NO YES NO:

D – N – EIGHT CLUBS

T – QUEEN CLUBS

+ - TEN CLUBS

U – N – EIGHT SPADES

+ - TEN SPADES

+ - QUEEN SPADES

Now this in itself can be quite impressive and I performed this for quite some time before I
started to streamline it. However, eventually I started to feel that the process could somehow
be shortened without limiting the amount of playing cards for the participant.

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 The Second One
My next development was to eliminate the last question, “Is it an odd card”. This resulted in the
branching anagrams decreasing from 8 short ones to 4 medium ones. Even though you are
doing pretty much the same amount of work, sometimes a wee bit more, for the participant
and for the flow of the effect, it feels much quicker and cleaner.
Below are my notes on these anagrams:
THINK V2

RED CARD

ABOVE 7

POSSIBLE OUTCOMES:

YES YES

YES NO

NO NO

NO YES

BRANCHING ANAGRAM FOR YES YES:

D – N – C – EIGHT HEARTS

K – ACE HEARTS

+ - JACK HEARTS

I – U – TEN HEARTS

+ QUEEN HEARTS

G – NINE HEARTS

+ - KING HEARTS

E – G - JACK DIAMONDS

+ - KING DIAMONDS

T – C – U - NINE DIAMONDS

+ - QUEEN DIAMONDS

+ - ACE DIAMONDS

G – TEN DIAMONDS

+ - EIGHT DIAMONDS

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BRANCHING ANAGRAM FOR YES NO:

D – U – V – I – W – THREE HEARTS

+ - TWO HEARTS

+ - SIX HEARTS

I - SEVEN HEARTS

+ - FIVE HEARTS

+ - FOUR HEARTS

E – T - SIX DIAMONDS

+ - TWO DIAMONDS

V – THREE DIAMONDS

EE – FIVE DIAMONDS

+ SEVEN DIAMONDS

BRANCHING ANAGRAM FOR NO NO:

D – R – V – T – SIX CLUBS

+ - TWO CLUBS

I – SEVEN CLUBS

+ - FIVE CLUBS

T – FOUR CLUBS

+ - THREE CLUBS

R – V – T – SIX SPADES

+ - TWO SPADES

I – SEVEN SPADES

+ - FIVE SPADES

T – FOUR SPADES

+ THREE SPADES

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BRANCHING ANAGRAM FOR NO YES:

D – E – A – KING CLUBS

+ - JACK CLUBS

N – T – ACE CLUBS

+ - EIGHT CLUBS

T – I – QUEEN CLUBS

+ - NINE CLUBS

+ TEN CLUBS

I – C – T – QUEEN SPADES

+ - TEN SPADES

K – ACE SPADES

+ - JACK SPADES

G – NINE SPADES

T – KING SPADES

+ - EIGHT SPADES

The Final One (Sort Of...)

Whilst I was happier with my previous version, I was unhappy with how clunky the anagrams
were, the routine flowed better and felt cleaner for both the participant and myself, however I
was still trying to find a way to clean it up some more and lessen the memory work. My final
breakthrough came to me whilst walking in the English Countryside...
Just blag it.
(“Blag it” is an English expression which roughly translates to: an act of using persuasion or
guile to obtain something)
I was contemplating the effect when I remembered years ago teaching a friend my basic
version, he didn’t quite fully understand it and began to bombard random people with the
worst possible demonstration of my original effect, however he forgot to do the branching
anagram, he continued with the fishing questions until he got to the card. At the time I was
blown away with how he managed to impress people with his shambles of a performance. It
finally hit me on that beautiful walk; it was his attitude during the effect. He seemed so sure of
himself whether he was getting a NO reply or a YES reply.

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I began to work on a script that would flow naturally, feel natural and appear natural to the
participant. What you now have is my final version (Sort of...):

THINK V3

THE FIRST THING PEOPLE ASK ME WHEN I TELL THEM THAT I AM A MIND READER IS, GO
ON THEN, WHAT AM I THINKING! THE THING IS, IT’S NOT THAT SIMPLE. I CANT JUST
WALK UP TO A RANDOM STANGER AND KNOW THEIR INNER MOST THOUGHTS, THAT’S
IMPOSSIBLE. YOU SEE MIND READING IS A TWO WAY THING; IF THE OTHER PERSON IS
TRYING TO BLOCK THE TEST THEN NOTHING WILL HAPPEN. HOWEVER, IF THE OTHER
PERSON IS OPEN, FOLLOWS INSTRUCTIONS AND DOESNT TRY TO BLOCK ANYTHING, SOME
VERY INTERESTING THINGS CAN HAPPEN, COULD I SHOW YOU

SINCE I DONT KNOW YOU TOO WELL YET I THINK WE SHOULD START WITH SOMETHING
SIMPLE.

PLEASE CAST YOUR MIND BACK TO WHEN YOU WERE AT SCHOOL, MAYBE YOU HAD JUST
BEEN CAUGHT BY A TEACHER DOING SOMETHING YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE BEEN DOING AND
YOURE CURRENTLY SAT IN DETENTION ALL BY YOURSELF. YOU DECIDE TO WRITE
SOMETHING INSULTING TO THE TEACHER ON THE BLACKBOARD BUT ONCE YOU REACH IT,
FOR SOME REASON YOU ARE COMPELLED TO WRITE THE NAME OF A PLAYING CARD
INSTEAD. PLEASE DO THIS IN YOUR MIND FOR ME.

ALLOW TIME FOR PARTICIPANT TO DO THIS AND CONFIRM THEY HAVE DONE SO.

PLEASE CONCENTRATE ON THIS CARD FOR ME, FOCUS ON THE COLOUR, IF IT IS RED
PLEASE MAKE IT AS BRIGHT AS POSSIBLE, IF IT IS BLACK PLEASE MAKE IT AS DARK
AS POSSIBLE.

1 – OK I SEEM TO BE GETTING SOMETHING HERE, YOU’RE NOT THINKING OF A RED CARD

ARE YOU

1A – NO – NO I DIDNT THINK SO, THE IMAGE IS COMING THROUGH REALLY DARK WHICH
TELLS ME IT’S EITHER A CLUB OR A SPADE BUT IM NOT TOO SURE WHICH RIGHT NOW.
TELL YOU WHAT, JUST FOCUS ON THE VALUE OF THE CARD FOR NOW.

1B – YES – I KNOW YEAH, IT’S COMING THROUGH REALLY BRIGHT WHICH TELLS ME ITD
EITHER A HEART OR A DIAMOND BUT IM NOT TOO SURE WHICH RIGHT NOW. TELL YOU
WHAT, JUST FOCUS ON THE VALE OF THE CARD FOR NOW.

OK I WANT YOU TO GO BACK IN YOUR MIND TO THE CLASSROOM AGAIN, WALK UP TO THE
BLACKBOARD AND FOCUS ON THE VALUE. IF YOU WROTE DOWN A HIGH CARD, SAY ABOVE
THE NUMBER 7, IMAGINE THE CARD YOU WROTE ON THE BLACKBOARD START TO EXPAND ND
GROW UNTIL ITS TOUCHES THE EDGES OF THE BLACKBOARD. IF YOU WROTE DOWN A
SMALLER CARD, SAY 7 AND BELOW, IMAGINE IT SHRINKING DOWN AND DOWN UNTIL IT
BECOMES SO SMALL YOU CAN BARELY SEE IT.

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2 – HMMMM, THIS IS REALLY DIFFICULT. I THINK IM WRONG ABOUT THIS TO BE HONEST
AS IT’S SO CLOUDY IN MY MIND, BUT IT LOOKS LIKE YOURE THINKING OF A HIGHER
CARD

2A – NO – DAMN IT, I DIDNT THINK I WAS GOING TO GET THAT, I SHOULD HAVE
TRUSTED MY INSTINCTS. OK, NOW JUST FOCUS ON WHETHER IT’S AN ODD OR AN EVEN
CARD.

2B – YES - YOU ARE! OH FANTASTIC, I WAS STARTING TO GET WORRIED THEN! OK, NOW
JUST FOCUS ON WHETHER IT’S AN ODD OR AN EVEN CARD.

IF YOU ARE THINKING OF AN ODD CARD, IMAGINE THE BLACKBOARD BURSTING INTO
FLAMES, OBLITTERATING YOUR WRITING SO IT BECOMES JUST A MEMORY, IF YOU ARE
THINKING OF AN EVEN CARD HOWEVER, IMAGINE THE BLACKBOARD EXPLODING INTO A
BILLION SHARDS OF WOOD AND CHALK.

3 – OH! THIS WOULDNT HAPPEN TO BE AN ODD CARD WOULD IT

3A – NO – NO ITS NOT, IT’S ALMOST LIKE I FELT AN EXPLOSION OF ENEGERY COMING

FROM YOU JUST NOW AND...

3B – YES – YES I KNOW, IT’S ALMOST LIKE I COULD FEEL THIS BURNING ENERGY
PULSING AROUND YOU AND...

FROM HERE YOU NEED TO DO SOME DANCING. GET SUIT & GET VALUE

4 – ...HANG ON; THIS ISNT A SPADE/CLUB HEART/DIAMOND IS IT

4A – BLACK & NO – NO I’M SEEING A SHARP POINT ON TOP WHICH TELLS ME ITS A
SPADE/DIAMOND, AGAIN JUST FOCUS ON THE VALUE FOR ME.

4AA – RED & NO – NO I’M SEEING BUMPY BITS ON THE TOP WHICH TELL ME IT’S A
CLUB/HEART, AGAIN JUST FOCUS ON THE VALUE FOR ME.

4B – BLACK & YES – YES I KNOW, I CAN SEE A SHARP POINT ON TOP WHICH TELLS ME
ITS A SPADE/CLUB, AGAIN JUST FOCUS ON THE VALUE FOR ME

4BB – RED & YES – YES I KNOW, I CAN SEE BUMPY BITS ON THE TIP WHICH TELLS ME
ITS A HEART/DIAMOND, AGAIN JUST THINK OF THE VALUE FOR ME.

YOU ARE NOW DOWN TO 3 OR 4 CARDS – TIME TO BLAG THE NUMBER

Let’s just take a break here to discuss something, in just fishing questions, you know if its red or
black, if it’s above 7 or below, if it’s odd or even and the exact suit. In four questions you are
now left with just 3, sometime 4, playing cards to work with. This is now where the routine
needs to change slightly; you can use the fishing questions with the remaining cards as it will

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become blatantly obvious what you are doing. Instead, we need to secretly figure out the value
of their card in a different way.
Since we have narrowed it down to 3, sometimes 4, cards, we are already at a major advantage.
From here you could use any of the psychological techniques to find out the value such as the
stop sign tell, muscle reading, heavy hand tell etc... However I wanted something more fool
proof.

EXPLAIN THAT THE COURT CARDS HAVE VALUES IF NECESSARY, ACE = 1. JACK = 11.
QUEEN = 12, KING = 13, ONCE UNDERSTOOD ASK PARTICIPANT TO CLOSE THIER EYES

PLEASE COUNT FROM ONE TO THIRTEEN IN YOUR MIND FOR ME. ONCE YOU GET TO
THIRTEEN YOU CAN OPEN YOUR EYES.

WATCH THEM AS THEY DO THIS AND SEE HOW LONG IT TAKES – SILENTLY COUNT ALONG
WITH THEM

THANK YOU, PLEASE CLOSE YOUR EYES FOR ME AND COUNT TO THIRTEEN AGAIN, EXACTLY
THE SAME AS YOU JUST DID.

SILENTLY COUNT ALONG WITH THEM AGAIN TO GET USED TO THEIR SPEED AND RHYTHM

THANK YOU, I WOULD LIKE YOU TO DO THIS ONE MORE TIME AS SOON AS YOU GET TO
YOUR CARDS VALUE, YOU CAN OPEN YOUR EYES AND STOP COUNTING.

BECAUSE YOU ARE COUNTING ALONG WITH PARTICIPANT, ONCE THEY OPEN THEIR EYES,
YOU WILL NOW KNOW THEIR CARDS VALUE

REVEAL THAT BAD BOY.

Since you know their card is one of 3 or 4, counting along will be extremely easy. There will be
little chance of error since you know it isn’t certain values already.

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 The Subtleties & Extra Bits

As you can see from reading the notes for version 3, the fishing questions are asked in such a
way that either a negative reply from the participant or a positive one can be twisted in such a
way so that it appears you were right all along:
“You’re not thinking of a red card are you” – The inclusion on the word “NOT” gives the
mentalist a win/win situation, you can never be wrong:
NO – No I didn’t think so
YES – Yes I thought so.
There are multiple phrases you can use that no matter what the participant says, you are
always correct:
You’re not thinking of a red card are you?
This isn’t a red card is it?
You wouldn’t happen to be thinking of a red card would you?
This wouldn’t be a red card would it?
You aren’t thinking of a red card are you?
~
One thing that I have been doing for around 3 years now, is to perform this for two or more
people at the same time. This means I can slightly alter the way in which I am receiving the
information from the participants and also create a routine that flows more consistent than a
single person demonstration.
When working with two or more people, instead of using the fishing questions, I will instead say
something along the lines of:
“You are all now thinking of a playing card, because I am receiving so many different thoughts,
it can get quite muddy. So if you are thinking of a black card, close your eyes tight for me now
and really try to visualise that card in your mind.”
By watching who closes their eyes, you will know who is thinking of what colour.
I then carry on with this presentation throughout the effect:
“If you are thinking of a card above the value 7, close your eyes and attempt to send it to me,
concentrate really hard now.”

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“If you are thinking of an odd card, close your eyes again for me and visualise the card growing
bigger in your mind.”
“If you are thinking of either a Club or Heart, close your eyes and see the suit in 8K ultra high
definition...”
You will notice I change the visualisation process each time, visualise the card, send it to me,
imagine it growing bigger etc... This is to mainly keep things interesting for the participants
whilst doing the process, if they were just sending the card to my mind each time it would get
quite boring for them. Variety keeps them invested in the effect.
~
You can also use eye accessing cues to figure out the card too. Taking an inspiration from Ben
Stewards effect “COG”, you can ask them something along the lines of:
“If you are thinking of a Red card, please imagine all the spots on your card starting to bleed,
dripping down the face of the card. (Pause) However if you are thinking of a Black card, I want
you to visualise the entire card turning to black so that the spots engulf the entire card.”
Naturally you pause slightly after asking them to imagine the spots bleeding if it’s a red card, if
they are thinking of a red card, they will noticeably move their eyes somewhere to visualise
this, you then carry on the rest of the script about the black spots engulfing the black card to
make it appear as though you don’t know what colour they are thinking of.
However if they do not move their eyes after mentioning bleeding red spots you can be pretty
confident that they are thinking of a black card and when you continue the script and finish
with asking to imagine the spots engulfing the card if its black, you will then see their eyes
move to visualise this.
This process can be carried on for the rest of the effect up until you get to the final 3 or 4 cards.

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Think Lite

After a while I started to mess around with a slightly easier version of the effect. Whilst I don’t
use this very often, I think it’s worth mentioning here because whilst you are limiting the
amount of cards the participant can think of, to them t feels like they can think of any card and
it makes the final process of getting the exact card much easier.
In this version, you will be asking the participant to think of a number between 1 and 10.
This will naturally lead them to think of either 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 & 9 since you said BETWEEN 1
and 10. I have never had anyone think of 1 or 10.
Next you ask them to think of a suit. This is a totally free choice.
Next comes the three fishing questions. Because we are limiting the amount of cards they can
think of, the second questions goes back to Art Vanderlays original fishing question:

Is it red?
Is it above 5?
Is it odd?

You then ask the final fishing question regarding the suit:

Is it a Heart/Diamond?
Is it a Spade/Club?

You have not in just four fishing questions narrowed it down to just two cards.
For the purposes of this demonstration, let’s assume they said NO to each fishing question. This
would mean it’s a black card, below the number 6, an even card and a Club. We now know it’s
either the 2 of Clubs or the 4 of Clubs.
We can now use the counting method to correctly figure out the value.

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Branching Anagrams

Are they branching or progressive? After much research I have come to the conclusion that
they are in fact, branching. I won’t go into why since half of you will agree with me and half of
you will not. I will therefore skip that bit and go straight into a brief lesson on how to perform a
branching anagram.
I will attempt to explain this by using a very simple branching anagram of the ESP Symbols:
S – CIRCLE

A – CROSS

R – WAVEY LINES

E – STAR

+ - SQUARE

For anyone who is unfamiliar with Branching Anagrams, the above, and most of this eBook, has
been complete nonsense.
You first by asking if there is the letter “S” in their ESP Symbol. If they say NO, then you instantly
know it is the CIRCLE and can stop there. However, if they say YES, then you move down the
anagram one letter and ask if there is an “A” in their ESP Symbol. If you get a NO you then know
it’s the CROSS and can stop there. If you get a YES then you move down to the next letter.
This process is carried out until you finally reach their ESP Symbol.
So for every NO you receive, you move right. In the ESP Symbol anagram it takes you to the
correct symbol, in more complex ones such as the ones to divine a playing card, when you get a
NO, you move right and then call out the next letter in that “branch”.
For every YES you receive, you move down the anagram.
This is the basics on branching anagrams. The hardest part is to try and make it seem like you
are not just calling out a sequence of letters and using the process of elimination.
There isn’t enough room here to teach you all the subtleties in branching anagrams, I assume
the reader is already aware of them and this little explanation is to help you on your journey if
you do not.
For a very detailed look on how to create, perform and remember branching anagrams I highly
recommend the works of Atlas Brookings & Art Vanderlay as both have fantastic eBooks on the
subject.

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Contact

I sincerely hope you have enjoyed this eBook, if you want to send me thanks, hate mail or soiled
underwear as some sort of dirty protest, then please feel free to contact me via:

silaslindenpsychic@gmail.com

I respond very well to flattery and my favourite drink is Vimto.

Big thanks to: Ben Harris, Art Vanderlay, Ben Steward & Bob Farmer.
Massive thanks to: Pablo Amira at Mentalism Center

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