Reminiscence.pdf

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Reminiscence

"Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? " Job XXXVIII 2

The Witchery" in Edinburgh, just next to the Castle, serves a starter of exquisite

locally cured salmon with fennel sorbet and a sprinkling of dill. The icy, savoury joy

of the sorbet has the peculiar effect of rendering the salmon hot and sweet to the

yearning, proud tastebuds. The discriminating diner will be aware of cuisine that has

him giggling with delight - this hors d'oeuvre has such an effect. When a thing of

beauty presents itself in all its splendour and exquisitely wrought symmetry,

sometimes one can only respond with Homeric fou rire. And 'I confess that as the

following effect came together, it had me grinning like a twat.

This is not to say that I have discovered perfection, but "Reminiscence" is for me

something close enough for now. It has its origins in an effect by Kenton Knepper to

be found on the 'Wonder Words' tapes, and perhaps beyond that in Docc Hillford's

Q&A act that I had seen some time previously. I have taken the notion of ambiguous

scripts and double-talk used in their effects to achieve some profoundly disturbing

mind reading. The first time I performed this at a magic convention, I had a good few

magicians and mentalists believe I was doing the real thing. Consider the following:

A genuine volunteer is taken from the audience (this is a parlour effect) and gently

hypnotised. Whilst entranced, she chooses an area of her life such as 'Romance',

'Health', 'Travel', 'Finance' and so on, by selecting a tarot-like card that corresponds to

that area. She is told to build in her mind a picture associated with that area, which

may be a memory or constructed from her imagination. Once she has a picture, she is

told to step inside it and look around, noting as many details as possible.

Nothing is written down or drawn by the spectator, and she need only answer the

performer briefly from her trance-state from this point on. The performer closes his

eyes too and begins to describe the picture that the spectator is seeing. She confirms

that the details are correct. Let us imagine that she has picked the 'Romance' card and

is remembering a meal with a boyfriend from when she was eighteen. The performer

is able to tell her precisely what she is picturing, and such things as the name of her

boyfriend and the type of restaurant as he wishes, without using cold reading. Using

hypnotic regression he encourages her to experience the picture more vividly and is

soon able to offer staggering detail such as the colour of the napkins, the music played

in the restaurant and a description of the waiter. Some of this information he merely

states and has her confirm. However, to ensure that the audience does not just think

that she is merely agreeing with whatever he says, he asks questions about the

memory but writes down the answers on a whiteboard or pad, in full view of the

audience before she replies.

Once the picture has been accurately described, right down to the last detail, the

performer suggests further tests. He asks her to think of a two-digit number, and then

invites another member of the audience to join him. The second volunteer is

hypnotised and given the pen and board. A demonstration of automatic writing

ensues, where this second volunteer allows the pen to move across the board outside

of consciousness. When the writing is finished, the board is turned around to show the

number. The first lady then names the number of which she was thinking - and it

matches exactly.

Finally the performer asks her to think of a celebrity, and he starts sketching a

caricature on the board, again in full view. He finishes and the volunteer names the

celebrity of her choice: the performer is correct again. Fin.

This may sound impossible, and indeed I hope that it does. The spectator is not

playing along or acting as a confederate, and she is genuinely remembering the

information asked for. The effect can be repeated with a different spectator who will

of course think of an entirely different event or image. There is no pre-show work,

and the effect is extremely strong in performance.

The effect was born out of a desire to perform mind reading exactly as it should look,

with no compromise in handling or presentation. The means of deception is, in

essence, rather simple, but there are layers of secondary deception that bolster the first

and make it impenetrable. Let us look at the methodology, which is almost

synonymous with the presentation.

If she is merely to think of the information and you are to know it, how can this be

done without genuine mind reading? Answer - tell her what to think. How to do this

without her being in on the trick? Answer - control two effects at the same time: in the

first trick, performed for the audience, you are describing a memory from the

spectator's past as described above. In the second, simultaneous trick, performed for

the individual spectator, the audience is able to pick up correct impressions from her,

as she visualises some information that she has been given to remember. The two

effects can run together due to the fact that when hypnotised, the subject on stage has

her eyes closed, and therefore cannot see your actions that tie in with the words you

speak. Those words will mean two very different things to the audience on one hand

and the spectator on the other.

So the spectator believes that she is to memorise some information and transmit it to

the audience. Where does she get this information from? The card that she removes

from the set of category cards. One card is forced. The audience do not see the face of

this card (although they do after you've exchanged it), and the subject does not see the

faces of the rest of the pack. Neither knows of the discrepancy involved.

The audience sees only cards similar to this:

Whereas your subject sees a card bearing the following:

ROMANCE: The Italian Restaurant

Remember and visualise all of this:

It is your 18th BIRTHDAY and you are having a meal with PETER The waiter is

VERY SHORT

There are RED and GREEN NAPKINS on the table. There is NO MUSIC in the

restaurant.

Peter has a BLACK shirt with a large number 22 on it.

FINALLY - Next to the table is a big picture of WOODY ALLEN.

I force the card by severely rigging the deck. Ten or so cards are made up bearing the

various category headings, and on top of these rests fifteen or so blanks that are strung

together through the centre. The face card of the strung packet bears the legend,

"TRAVEL". Between the two sections rests the force card, which is shortened and

narrowed. You must also make this card doublethickness, to avoid the problem of the

writing showing through during performance. When the subject cuts the deck, she will

do so directly to the force in a way that feels absolutely natural. On top of the

assembled deck is placed the real Romance card, which will be top-changed for the

subject's one a little later. For the start of the effect, place the force card on the very

top of the deck, where it must reside for now. There is our basic deception.

You must also use a white-board and marker, along with a cloth for erasing. In your

right pocket is a duplicate pen with the ink source removed and the nib also empty

and dried up. When you begin the routine, place this pen on the chair just to your

right.

Now we must look at the words used to make it elegant and appear real.

Firstly, a lady is borrowed from the audience and hypnotised. In my routine, I have

already hypnotised her for the 'Lift' effect, so I can re-induce the state quite quickly. I

look her in the eyes, place my hand on her shoulder, and tell her to look at my eyes

and to feel the weight of her own eyelids. I then switch my focus so that I am looking

though her, knowing that this will make her feel a

little dissociated, and then start to mirror her blinking, while relaxing myself fully.

She is seated and I am standing by her side, so she must look up at me. This means

that her eyes will naturally tire after a while. But my non-verbal suggestion given by

my blinking which becomes slow and heavy, and my accompanying encouragement

of "That's right" and so on as her blinking becomes more laboured, will soon have her

relaxing deeply and closing her eyes. I then gently push her head forward and down

and gently push down on her shoulders to slump her further. This will have the effect

of increasing the trance-like state that she is experiencing.

I then remove the cards, which I have often wrapped in a handkerchief to suggest that

they are tarot-like in nature. I use the following as a basic script as I talk, which will

suggest to the audience that the subject will invent a picture from one of the headings,

while for the subject slumped in the chair, I could just as easily be describing cards

that show lists of information that she is to memorise and visualise.

"People who perform psychic readings know that the areas of concern in people's

lives fall into some classic and predictable categories. These cards (I begin to casually

display them, peeling off the cards into my right hand, showing the faces) show such

headings, and as you can see, each heading gives you a whole list of images, and

details that can be visualised to form one picture. 'The Future', 'Finance',

'Dreams'...and so on. (I reach 'Travel' and peel the force card from the back onto the

back of the last of the category cards.) For example, if I picked Travel, I would think

of a recent trip to Germany, the chicken that the stewardess served me for lunch, the

coffee stain on the chair, the bumpy landing in Frankfurt - all these details and images

that I can put together to form one picture."

I walk across to the spectator and place the pile of cards face down on the table. I tell

the subject to open her eyes whilst still remaining in the trance, relaxed and heavy.

She does so, and I instruct her to reach over and cut the pack into two. She does so,

directly to the force. I take the force card from the pile and hand it to her, saying,

"Take the card and focus on it. Use it to form a picture visualise those details and

images that come under that heading and project it onto the card as if it were a screen.

This picture is what you will project to the audience, and we shall see how well they

pick it all up.á

A few points about this. By telling her to remain in the trance as she opens her eyes,

and by keeping her actions a little laboured by speaking rather slowly to her, the fact

that she is going to apparently stare at this card will be explained to the audience as

her still sleepy response. Similarly, telling her to project the image onto it and to "not

give anything away by looking around", she will have a motivation in the audience's

eyes for looking at the card for a long time. In reality, of course, she is spending time

reading the information written on it. This will now seem perfectly natural to the

audience. However, you now stand in front of her, blocking the audience's view, and

address the audience.

"The rest of you, please put your feet flat on the floor and your hands on your laps.

Your task is to relax and pick up the images in S's mind. Now, there is nothing

psychic about this. We have all had the experience of sitting in conversation with a

friend and suddenly knowing that they are about to look at their watch and say that

they must be going. How do we know? Because we are in strong rapport with them,

and when in that state it is common to suddenly know what they are about to say or

do. This is the same process. Let your breathing become relaxed, and just allow the

impressions to come into your mind as we do this. Sir, you may also wish to check the

pen and board that I will be using throughout this." I hand someone the pen and

board. All this has given our subject time to visualise the contents of the list.

I retrieve the props from the audience member, and place them on the table. To do so,

however, I first reassemble the cut pack and pick it up in my left hand. I take the card

from the subject and tell her to allow her eyes to close. In the action of bringing my

left hand to her head, I top change the top card for her force card, and leave the real

'Romance' card face down on the table. To facilitate this, I ensure that she is seated to

my right, and just back a little from the table. This way I can walk behind the table to

her, and take the card in my right hand as my left comes up to her face. The exchange

is done cleanly as the hands pass, with the right hand's card remaining, apparently

stationary throughout. I then drop the new card on the table, and ensure that no clutter

builds up throughout the routine, so that the audience maintains a clear view of the

card throughout.

The rest is easy, but there are some subtleties that improve the proceedings. I first tell

her that I will ask her some questions about the picture that she has in her mind, but

that I will be very specific when I want her to tell me what she sees - otherwise she is

just to answer 'Yes' or 'No'. I begin by asking her to think of the environment that she

imagines.

"Can you do that for me?"

"Yesá

[To audience] "I would like you all to now form a picture in your mind of where S is

in this picture. I shall write this down: What... is ... the ... place".

[I write 'Italian Restaurant' on the board, pause, and then show it. Remember that you

are trying to create in your volunteer's mind the idea that the audience is picking up

her impressions. She must think that you have written something like 'Where Is The

Place?' on the board and that the audience have formed their own answers]

"S, can you tell me the place that you are imagining?"

"A restaurant"

"Is there a particular nationality associated with this restaurant?"

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