Telethot

Back on the day of March 1, 1929 I got a brain wave from a Charles T. Jordan masterpiece and proceeded to revamp a quite perfect force of his into a two person stunt with numbers and names. Now there are two types of effects which do not find sale with magi. Two person ideas and tricks using a dark room. I will grant the latter as being highly undesirable only because the condition is not easily attainable. The former, though, can be moderated by getting away from tedious study and rehearsal and allow of a friend or associate being inducted into the secrets within a very few minutes. Such a thing is worthwhile provided the effect is really a strong one. And I truly think this is just that type.

The thought transmission of pictures has been a bugaboo of telepathists. Everything else has fallen but pictures. So, if one cannot successfully code them, one must falsify the whole proceedings.

The performer has a piece of paper perforated into eight strips for tearing apart. He asks his audience to think of simple diagrams and steps among them. Spectators approached draw a simple design or figure themselves upon the paper. The performer steps back, tears the paper into strips and counts them into a bowl or hat. The medium now enters and is seated with back turned and given a slate and chalk.

Any person from the audience now freely selects one paper from the bowl or hat and retires to a far corner with a slate and chalk given to him by the performer. He awaits there while the presentation goes on.

The performer reaches into the hat and removes one paper which he silently looks at. At once the medium is heard drawing on the slate. She holds it up. The performer asks whose drawing it is. The design is acknowledged as correct and the performer takes another paper. The effect is repeated quickly, and one after another, the spectators check on their drawings when correctly duplicated by the medium. The performer is always silent as he picks a slip and looks at it.

When seven (there are always eight slips) are gone, and the hat empty, the performer asks the person across the room, the one who freely selected one from among the many at the start, to draw upon his slate the picture he selected. This person returns to the front and shows all.

The medium, who has finished her work and is standing before the audience, turns her slate. Both drawings are the same!

Charles Jordan’s Yogi Force does the trick. It is still (and after 16 years of existence) my idea of a perfect force. The paper used by the performer is about 2 1/2 inches by 6 inches. It is of an opaque quality and there are really two sheets used. Mark off the front sheet in 3/4 inch pieces. On the back piece draw the design of a triangle eight times so as to conform with the spaces on the front piece. Place the two together, the triangles on the inside of under piece and run a dressmaker’s tracing wheel across the marked off lines on the top piece. Putting the two sheets through a sewing machine without thread will do the same thing.

The perforations, dividing the paper into eight sections for tearing apart hold the sheets together securely until pulled apart. Such a prepared paper can be shown blank on both sides and quite freely handled.

After his opening, the magician steps into the audience. He passes from one to another and each is allowed to make a drawing. Simple design has been stressed as well as the word geometrical. In eight chances, there won’t be one in a thousand or more trials when a triangle will not be made. Audiences never think clearly when attacked, and the simplest of patterns are about all of which they can think. However, and it is for that magus who is afraid of the one in countless chances, if a triangle hasn’t shown up at the seventh place, merely look at someone a bit away, say “A triangle for you?” write it in yourself and walk away. And you do not have to yell it so everyone in the place can hear, either.

Hold up the paper. It is all you have in your hands. As you talk about what has been done, tear it up. How? First fold in half with drawings inside. Open out only a single thickness and tear off, placing in front to the audience side. The strip, now four sections long is folded in half and TWO single thicknesses opened out, torn, and placed in front. The packet is folded in half for the last time and FOUR single thickness opened, torn, and also put in front. With prepared paper in hand you’ll see how easily this works. You now hold a packet with eight separate slips (all alike) in front and behind is a folded up bundle of eight still together (the original front piece of the sheet). Turn the packet over in hand and count the eight separate slips into the bowl. The folded packet remains in hand finger palmed and this hand immediately grasps the bowl and shakes them up.

The medium is called for and comes on. The performer takes her by the hand and sees that she is seated in a chair with back to the audience. And in doing so the untorn packet is left secretly in her hand. She is given a slate and chalk.

Now a spectator steps forward and has a free selection from among the slips. Naturally he gets a triangle and bears it off to a corner with another slate and piece of chalk.

Dipping into the bowl, the performer removes one paper, looks at it, says nothing. The medium draws on her slate. What? One of the drawings on the strip she has before her, skipping, of course, the triangle, wherever it may be. She then holds her drawing up for all to see. The performer glances back at his paper (one of the seven triangles left in the hat), then at the audience, and asks who drew the —, naming whatever the medium has drawn. It is acknowledged. Quickly, and as fast as they can be run through, the medium duplicates the other six sketches. In each instance it is apparent that the performer is looking at the sketch first and by some mental force sending the picture to her. Wise guys will go crazy watching for cues and signals. With the seventh slip gone, the person in the corner is asked to make his drawing on the slate and bring it forward. The medium stands and keeps her slate back outwards. The spectator shows his drawing, and as a finish, the medium turns her slate around to show a duplicate. So now you can do a picture sending effect with just fifteen minute practice.