Effects used in this routine of one man mentalism are seven in number, and with the exception of the slate, everything can be carried on the performer’s person. All of the numbers are suitable for club, lodge, banquet and platform performances where the audience consists of any number with about 250 being the limit.

The running time of the routine as given is approximately twenty-five minutes.

The necessary apparatus, if it can be called that, for the routine is as follows :

The program list of effects as taken from and titled in The Jinx during past issues is given below in the order of their performance throughout the routine. While the individual performer may include an additional item or two that he may favor, or for the purpose of making the program longer, the routine as it stands is varied, consistently strong, and effectively long enough for the average presentation. It would be well to give it an impartial test.

• Two Papers and a Spectator — Jinx #1
• Synthetic Sympathy — Jinx #2
• The Lie Detective — Jinx #5
• 20th Century Newspaper Test — Jinx #4
• Triple Coercion — Jinx #21
• Slate Immortality — Summer 1935 Extra
• Extra-Sensory Perception — Jinx #10

Make the opening address short, and to the point enough so that people know you are going to emulate a mindreader and psychic rather than do tricks. If you lead off this way, they are of a frame of mind to accept what you do in that light. Don’t interpolate any puns or gags, although it is just as bad to be too serious as too funny. Tell them you are a psychic and they’ll believe it if you apparently prove it. Don’t stall long when revealing the chosen ad, nor when duplicating the drawings or rubbing out the living names on the slate. It is better to take too little time than too much. If you act like a normal person with an abnormal faculty, people like you much better. If you act like an abnormal person you become freakish, and people will be afraid to ask you home to dinner. Dress according to the gathering. For noon luncheons and parties of any type, a dark suit with a white shirt is perfectly all right. This applies also to men’s clubs, lodges and smokers when there are no ladies present. Too many magi go to these strictly informal places looking like a stiff dressed up monkey. Unless the affair is very snooty, wear a dinner coat, or tuxedo for mixed audiences and formal men’s dinners in the evening. The best way always is to ask the agent or committeeman what will be in order. And don’t forget that a GOOD suit even every two or three years is better than a cheap one every year. People, especially ladies, do know the difference, and it makes a big difference in their respect for you.

For your opening address, we might suggest something along the following lines :

“Down through the dim corridors of time, Ladies and Gentlemen, has come the everlasting desire of man to penetrate the innermost recesses of the mind. There are many phases of mentality and from among them I have selected a few which I shall illustrate with your kind help.

However, before starting, I want you to know that no matter what I try, no matter what I say, and no matter what I am able to accomplish, with your cooperation, I am here as an entertainer playing the part of a thought reader and psychic.

You alone are to be the sole judges as to the source of my powers. With the assistance of some gentleman, someone whose mind, perhaps according to his wife, is difficult to read, I want to begin with a test of thought perception.” — and so forth unto renown.

After an opening it is entirely up to the performer. I never can be guilty of writing routine patter for magicians because it just won’t work, and patter books to me, outside of bits and gags to be worked in, are a waste of energy both in the writing and reading. If a person can’t talk, they should do a silent act.

So much for that? Now to pick up a few loose strings. When setting the act, take ten stacked cards from one of the decks and put them in the clip for the Lie Detective stunt. Take the same ten cards from the other deck and discard. Thus the two decks are alike for the Sympathy test. The spectator handling the cards may know they aren’t all there, but no one else will, and the cards seen are all different so it doesn’t make any difference.

For the Immortality effect, use the side of the slate not keyed with the drawings for the closing trick. An idea that just came to mind would be for those who do this last effect regularly and might want to have them printed up. Your name and address could be on the back so at the finish, the packet could be tossed into the audience, and their chosen sketches left with the ones assisting.

For the Coercion test use only the name of a card and a number. I have eliminated the color part as I wanted to keep apparatus in this routine to a minimum. Have the card to be used edge marked at both ends in both decks so you can get to it immediately when needed. I think that’s about all. The whole act costs about $3.