Quite some years ago our trade journals were seldom without an advertisement by a person named A. Honigman, of Canada. Mr. Honigman was selling an intrigue labeled The Language of The Eyes and the gist of the adverts was that one could read another’s thoughts merely by looking “deeply” into his eyes. Now this may be true when practised by soul mates but it isn’t readily applied by the mystical fraternity. Mr. Honigman’s denouement, after seeing with his own eyes a certified check or money order, gave a system of glancing at another person without moving the head, and through a rather complicated coding ritual, one could undoubtedly become very proficient at sending letters and numbers with the speed of a telegraphist. That is, until the optic nerves did tie themselves into a Gordian knot to end all Gordian knots. Ted Annemann played around with the idea in its original form but, like others who experimented, had to drop it as impractical for magi because it required the partners to be facing each other too steadily and called too much attention thereby to the possibility of a signal of some sort. (Honigman’s original use for the code was for detective work and secret messages between operatives in a crowd. He spent most of his time doing demonstrations for police departments, etc. How he started advertising it to magicians we don’t know, but evidently he found it lush territory for several years. Ed.) Ted then tried transmitting numbers from 1 to 100 which required but a short glance at his assistant in a careless way. He later adopted the mnemonic system with cards and, by sending numbers from 1 to 53 was able to “send” any card in the deck. Last summer, at lunch, he told me of this simple method for coding cards, but, although he made use of it in his En Rapport act, he had left it out of his En Rapport book because it entailed a study of mnemonics on the part of both people and he wanted that publication to cover an act that could be mastered in only a couple of evenings.
Mrs. Thompson and I have been very happy and contended with various second sight tricks and routines, probably so because we have kept to direct methods which entailed little study and effort on our part. As non-professionals we could not see spending a life time mastering one of the more complicated systems of question answering and article describing. After some study I practically fell onto an idea which simplified the sending of cards by eye to a matter of learning in minutes. I have Ted’s permission to explain this (you better have, or I’ll be behind the eye ball. Ed.) as the only reason for his not printing his method has been mentioned before. AND THIS IDEA IS NOT PRESENTED AS A MOST PERFECT WAY OF CHEATING BETWEEN PARTNERS ACROSS A BRIDGE TABLE.
Sit or stand opposite your assistant. Catch her eye. That’s dead center. Now shift your glance to the left of her head about a foot without stopping on dead center or catching her eye. Then check with her that she has seen the glancing. It’s amazing how just a bit of a side glance registers on another person who is looking at your eyes. How many times have you turned your head and looked in a direction when someone before you glanced that way? Next glance directly above her head about a foot, and, staying on this new level, glance to the right and then to the left. Lastly look to a spot a foot below her eyes, and then cover the right and left positions.
This gives a square of nine position with the assistant’s eyes always determining dead center, or the center square.
And before going any farther determine once and for all time whether your assistant wants the square numbered:
1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
or
3 2 1
6 5 4
9 8 7
depending upon whether she wants to count them from left to right or right to left. 5 is the only square not affected by the change and it is well to give your partner first choice to keep her in good humor.
The figure 0 is signaled simply by letting the glance go away out of the phantom square of nine. The stop is when the performer’s gaze drops to his hand or hands.
Now take a deck of cards, but for the moment pay no attention to the faces of the cards. Fan them before you and an imaginary spectator. You both are facing your assistant who is at a little distance facing you unconcernedly (?). Look at the spread of cards and think of a number of two figures. Glance up carelessly and let your gaze hit the proper square for the first figure and then shift (without moving your head) to the second position. Then it drops to the fan of cards again, and your assistant should now have that number, i.e., any number from 1 to a hundred. For repeats of the same figure the gaze merely does a repeat – first to the number, to the hand, and immediately back to the number, and back to the hand.
Practice this for the next half hour and let the assistant call out the numbers as sent each time. Then consider the cards. The first thing to do is give the suits a value. For example: Clubs – 0; Diamonds – 13; Hearts – 26; Spades – 39. That’s all. When a card in the fan is indicated to the performer by a spectator he notes the suit, remembers the value for that suit, adds to it the pip value of the card, and sends that total to the assistant.
She merely subtracts from the number received the nearest suit value which is LESS than the number transmitted.
That leaves her with the pip value, and the number subtracted indicates the suit. Thus if the Queen of Hearts were chosen, Hearts would mean 26 to which would be added the pip value of 12. The total is 38 and that is sent. The next value less than 38 is 26 whereupon the medium subtracts 26, indicating Hearts, and gets a remainder of 12 which tells her all she has to know.
A variation from having a spectator indicate a card facing both he and the performer would be to have one chosen from the deck, noted and returned. Just before this the performer would make it clear that he would like the spectator to ask the medium himself, and in his own words, the identity of his pasteboard after the performer had concentrated for a moment. The card returned would be shuffled to the top or bottom and glimpsed while the pack was being squared on the hand. A glance at the spectator would get him started and a follow up glance at the medium as the spectator puts his question would do the trick.
On the other hand, the performer might be up against another condition where the spectator might like to keep his card. Mentioning that he may pocket the card he takes, the performer having noted the top or bottom card of the mixed deck, glances her way and transmit the card then, she being ready after such a remark. Then the card is deliberately forced and she doesn’t hesitate long before climaxing things.
Once learned between two people, this system will never be forgotten. Even if not used for months it cannot help but work, although needing a very slight stall, perhaps, to not make a decided error.
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