That telephone mystery is quite simple and easy when the lid is lifted. The use of drawings, word, and cards serves to make it look complicated and also keeps the mind of the person busy.
The 5 designs you use are those made famous by J.B. Rhine of Duke University in his extra-sensory perception experiments. In order they are: circle, cross, wavy lines, square, star. First you draw them on a sheet of paper. Ask the subject to look them over as long as he cares to, and finally choose any one. If he takes one of the first three you ask him to call your wife, or associate, and ask her what’s on his mind. If he takes one of the last two, you tell him to call and ask her which one of the drawings he is thinking about. Thus he either gives away the fact that he is thinking of drawings or merely asks what he is thinking about. This detail breaks the five drawings down to the first three or the last two.
If he doesn’t reveal what is on his mind (1, 2, 3) she starts by telling him it is some kind of a simple diagram. If he asks WHICH or mentions drawing she continues. She asks him to think of it and then tells him he’d better draw it quite large on a piece of paper and look at it intently. He can either reply that he has already done so, or take a few seconds out to do it. His reply or action gives a further clue. If in the second set (4,5), and he has already done it, the answer is 4. If he hasn’t done it, the answer is 5. In such a case she lets him do it, tells him to concentrate well, and then reveals the identity of the drawing he has made.
If working in the first set (1, 2, 3) and it is not already on paper she knows it to be 3. But if he replies that he has done so she knows it to be 1 or 2. And then, to get the final result she asks him to burn it. And he either has done that very thing, or hasn’t. If he says he has, the answer must be 2. If he takes time out to do so, it must be 1. We have used figures in explaining this, but, naturally, the medium’s talk is always about the drawings themselves. Here is the set-up which the performer knows and which the partner has beside the phone.
(1) Circle – what ? – on paper – not burned
(2) Cross – what ? – on paper – burned
(3) Wavy lines – what ? – not on paper
(4) Square – which ? – on paper
(5) Star – which ? – not on paper
The performer, on the scene, has operated a bit backwards according to the chart. Thus if the “cross” were to be chosen he would ask the person to draw it on a sheet of paper, look at it for a full minute intently, and then burn it and imagine he can see the diagram in the smoke. Then he would be told to call up the psychic and ask her what’s on his mind. On the other hand, should the Square be selected, he would be told to draw it, concentrate upon it, and then be told to call and ask which of the drawings he is thinking about.
The beauty of using the 5 Rhine symbols for the test lies in the fact that they are a logical group as a whole and a query as to which is being thought about does not seem to be strange, as it might were any other small group of objects not related as are these being used.
Now – if, once out of a hundred times, something goes wrong and the subject’s initial request is wrong or not clear, the medium has an even chance of things working out as she continues. If it hits, all well and good – but if she misses, she immediately says she’s sorry and “will you please ask Ted to try something else with you and call me back ? I’ve had a lot of things on my mind today. I’ll wait for the call, if you will.” And, the subject, not knowing you would have done another test immediately following anyway, is carried along into the next test which can’t very well fail!
So much for that part. The subject is given a copy of a current magazine. I suggest Reader’s Digest because it’s coat pocket size, but most any magazine or book will do. As he looks it over you take out a deck of cards, shuffle, and place them face down before him. The subject is asked to cut them once or twice and then deal 3 cards in a face up row from left to right. If a picture card shows up among them, the performer pushes them aside, saying “Try three more. Picture cards are too confusing to use.” This action is repeated until three cards are dealt with no picture cards showing up. Then the subject is told to consider the first two cards as indicating a page in the magazine.
Thus if a 8 and 3 showed up, the page would be 83. When the page has been turned to, the last, or third, card indicates the word, counting from the beginning of the reading matter on the page.
This principle was devised by me several years ago and printed in these pages as a book test. Here it serves a new purpose, still a book test, but capable of being done over a wire and with the additional details of the card revelation. It is a stacked deck – in the Si Stebbins manner. Each card is three above in value to the one before, and the four suits rotate in the performer’s favorite order.
If the instructions have been followed there are ONLY FOUR possible words that can be selected in the book! With combinations containing a court card thrown out (this is probably the most subtle psychological part of the stunt) only 4 combinations of three cards remain. A, 4, 7 locate the seventh word on page 14. 2, 5, 8 locate the eighth word on page 25. 3, 6, 9 find the word in ninth position on page 36. And 4, 7, 10 gets the tenth word on page 47. That’s all.
With the one man version as explained in issue #32, the performer turned his back during the selection of cards and word. In this instance he watches the proceedings which eliminates any chance of error by the spectator. It is needless to say that the wife, or medium, has the four words listed together with the values of the three cards which locate them.
With only 4 words possible the performer resorts to his former dodge of having the subject call and ask either “what” he has on his mind this time, or that he is “thinking of a word.” That is as far as the revelation goes, however. In the first case of “what” is signified to the medium that the word is on a left hand page, or, 7 on page 14 or 9 on page 36. In the second case she is made aware that the word is on a right hand page, in short, either 8 on page 25 or 10 on page 47.
With this much to go on she asks the person to concentrate (in the first case revealing that he is thinking of a word) and then names the first letter of one of the two words. If she hits it, all well and good. If she doesn’t she merely asks him to try the last letter and then she names the last letter of the other word and works backwards. Thus she reveals what almost seems to be impossible except for telepathy.
The performer put over a very cute bit of business just before the gentleman phoned. He picked up the three cards used to find the word, keeping them in order with the smallest valued card at the back, and put them into the subject’s right hand coat pocket with their faces nearest his body. Finished with the word the medium turns her attention to the cards. She says “How did you pick the word? By mixing up numbers or with a deck of cards?” Then she says, “Where are the cards now?” And then she says, “Take just one out of your pocket and look at it very intently.”
The old dodge of having cards thus removed from a pocket holds good here. He won’t ever fail to reach in and bring out the cards in order, starting with the outside one first. It is very difficult for him to do anything else. She now makes a stab in the dark at the color of it. She knows the value because of the word giving her the “value” identity of all three cards. If right, she then makes a stab in the dark at the suit. If wrong on color she makes a stab at one of the other color suits. And if wrong all the way she says, “I’m not getting a good impression at all. You must be getting tired. All I can see are —- hazy spots.” And she names the correct number.
Then she says, “Take another card out and try to picture yourself either wearing a big diamond, shaking a big club, digging with a spade, or receiving a valentine in the shape of a big heart.” And immediately she names the suit correctly. This is no trouble, for after getting the suit of the first of the three cards she knows what the other two are because of the stack order. And the naming of the last card is no more difficult except that she asks him to keep it in his pocket and she will try to project her mind to that very spot and attempt to glimpse it!
The performer can even add to things by saying that he doesn’t care to know the word himself. And so the mystery is unfolded. Drawings, a word, and cards have been revealed from a distance.
Leave a Reply