Adding Texture to Predictions…

A friend of mine who is a mentalist from Ireland is in town and we had coffee yesterday. We were chatting about mentalism and the struggles to make it play big. One of the things he showed me was probably the coolest thing I’ve seen this year (more on this in a minute). Part of … Continue reading “Adding Texture to Predictions…”

A friend of mine who is a mentalist from Ireland is in town and we had coffee yesterday. We were chatting about mentalism and the struggles to make it play big. One of the things he showed me was probably the coolest thing I’ve seen this year (more on this in a minute).


Part of the challenge of mentalism is you need normal-ish looking props. Once you know make a die 24 inches big, or use a calculator that’s build for bigfoot, you lose what makes mentalism great, which is the lack of propy props.


This is where what he showed me comes in. He showed me Phil Smith’s Quinta Force.

This is an amazing way to force one object out of five that feels very free and has some theatrical build up to it as well.


My idea is to borrow five different objects from people in the audience. You introduce a padded envelope that has your prediction in it. They give you a number, let’s say it is 28. You count to that number per the Quinta Force and let’s say we end up on a cellphone. You open the envelope and inside is a cellphone…then for the kicker on the back written in marker in giant numbers is 28!


I haven’t finished reading the book, so someone may have thought of this already.


That’s something that will play fairly large, I guess it could be done with paper prediction that unfolded into a large display. My thinking was to try to get away from a printed prediction as that’s fairly common way to reveal things and I wanted something that would add some texture to the show.


Play Big or Go Home…

One of the things that really dislike about a lot of mentalism that is performed is size. The props and predictions are small, and I can’t see or read them from the fourth row of the theater. Sure there’s always video projection, but it’s not always used, or can be used due to the method. … Continue reading “Play Big or Go Home…”

One of the things that really dislike about a lot of mentalism that is performed is size. The props and predictions are small, and I can’t see or read them from the fourth row of the theater. Sure there’s always video projection, but it’s not always used, or can be used due to the method.


Here’s an example, someone locally in Seattle does the Kurotsuke effect, where you have five marbles, four are one color and the fifth is another. Then five people reach into a bag and grab a marble, and you tell who has the odd colored one. The problem of the trick is there is no visual payoff for the audience as we can’t really see the marbles. Sure, it’s how you play it, but the center of the trick is the prop, and we can’t see the prop.


Personally I’ve been working hard to make my props play a lot bigger, so the whole audience is doing the trick, not you doing the trick for one person. An example of the difference would be a prediction written on the back of a business card, versus a prediction written on a sheet of paper that’s three by four feet.


TLDR: Make the payoff of your tricks play BIG!

Split Deck…

In a post a few weeks ago I mentioned that I was learning to rip a deck of cards in half. I’m up to consistently being able to rip about half a deck of bicycle cards, but and able to rip a whole deck of cheap cards about 95% of the time. Every now and … Continue reading “Split Deck…”

In a post a few weeks ago I mentioned that I was learning to rip a deck of cards in half. I’m up to consistently being able to rip about half a deck of bicycle cards, but and able to rip a whole deck of cheap cards about 95% of the time. Every now and then I’ll hit a pack that for whatever reason just gives me a hell of a time ripping.


Last night in Seattle we had a magic jam and I threw a few decks of cheap cards in my bag. My routine is basically the “Split Deck” but without any gimmicked cards (aside from the cheap deck). It played well for the magicians, and then later we ended up doing some magic for the table next to us it played for them as well.


In between the two times I did the trick, a little bit more framework had developed in my head. The trick started with two people each looking at a card and they end up having picked the same card. Next I put out a prediction card, and I rip the deck in half. I say that they both will pick a card that matches my prediction and they both take a card (from different halves of the deck). They compare their cards and they aren’t the same card…but then we look at my prediction and the front is two ripped cards glued together and they halves match the selection.


This played pretty well, and I think it’s going to be something that I start to explore as a routine bit more in the future.