Does anybody know from who is the idea to give at the end of an experiment a sealed envelope to the spectator and say something in the style of:

“In this (sealed) envelope is my prediction. That envelope was in sight from the beginning of the performance. You may take it home and decide for yourself. Or you open it and you will know if my prediction was right or wrong, but then the mystery is gone. Or you keep it closed and it will be a mystery forever”.

I have read or seen somewhat like that, but I don’t remember anymore where. (a book, a lecture?)

Thanks in advance

I think there is a 50/50 chance you'll remember this on your own.

Haha

Lol.

Peter Turner, I think his second Penguin lecture.

Peter Turner yes, he came up with this.

Although he may have taken this from someone else.

I've used Pete's approach in walk around, with a 'diffucult' spectator.

Got me two more gigs.

It's in Jon Allen's book Experience. He calls it 'Schroedinger's Card'. It featured in one of his lectures too.

Barry

Max Maven made use of a similar idea in his stage show at the International Magic Convention in London in 2011.
I don't know when he first developed it though.

He's probably the expert on this.

Jon Allen credits film maker J.J. Abrams with the idea of the unopened mystery box and refers to a TED talk from March 2007.

https://www.ted.com/talks/j_j_abrams_mystery_box

I think the idea precedes Abrams as it has long been debated in the horror and suspense genre - when do you actually show the monster?
Stephen King analysed this dilemma at least 35 years ago.
And I'm sure Hitchcock had something to say about it way before this.

To the posters (who made a useful contribution): thanks !

You might want to read this post. http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......orum=109

Hi Guys,

I believe I was the first to use the format with Schrodinger's Card. This is not a prediction but a 'signed card to sealed envelope' routine. As mentioned, I put it in my book 'Experience: The Magic of Jon Allen'. I also discuss it with Dan Harlan on 'Connection'.

I heard that someone presented a prediction effect at Mind Magic a few years ago with the prediction in a bottle. The suggestion was that the bottle remain sealed and the prediction never revealed.

Personally, I don't think this works with a prediction that remains a secret. I think people want to know if a prediction is correct or not. With Schrodinger's Card, the envelope is handed to someone with instructions not to reveal its contents. Whether they do or don't has no bearing on the outcome of the preceding effect. if it were to be a predictor then it does.

Looks like there was some simultaneous invention going on by Jon Allen and Kevin Burke, both inspired by the J.J. Abrams TED talk.

The use of a prediction inside a glass bottle was debuted by Las Vegas performer Kevin Burke in 2007 in his residency at what was known at the time as Fitzgerald's, and is now The D Hotel and Casino. He cites the J.J. Abrams TED talk as his starting point.

His presentation was to have a bottle on display with a single, folded and stapled-shut card sealed inside it from the start. An audience member was invited to select a card; and after telling a terrific story which I'm not going to go into here, Kevin announced that amazingly enough, the card in the bottle was actually that exact selection. The participant was then given the choice to take the sealed bottle home, to never open it, and to enjoy the mystery. Alternately, he could smash the bottle open right there and have the identity of the sealed card verified, though losing the mystery in the process (for himself and the entire audience). His choice.

For Kevin's press opening in 2007, he did a special-occasion variation on this by starting not with a single, folded and stapled card inside a bottle, but with one of Jamie Grant's sealed "Anything Is Possible" bottles containing a deck of cards, which allegedly housed a single, reversed card as the prediction. (Because of the amazing nature of the object, Kevin expected the participant to take it home as-is and preserve the mystery; the participant instead chose to destroy Jamie's beautiful work and verify the card!)

Kevin performed the effect in seven shows a week for five years. He tells me that over the course of the run, audience members took the sealed bottle home 30% of the time.

He shared it with the fraternity at Magic Live six years ago during Danny Archer's "Mini Mindvention" session. Christian Painter did a full write-up of Kevin's performance of this effect with complete script (running time: six minutes), which can be found in the June 2012 issue of M-U-M ("The Totality of Art," page 44).

Footnote: Peter Turner's first Penguin lecture was in 2013, his second Penguin lecture was in 2016. I don't know which one contained his work on this effect, but I don't believe any credit was given to Kevin Burke or Jon Allen.

Neil, thanks for the history of the premise as used for a magic effect.

I was aware of the MindVention (now I got the name right) occurrence but was unaware it was based on years of performance. My book was published in 2009 but I had also been performing since 2007 when JJ Abram's TED Talk was shown. There was definitely a case of independent creation with the format but from slightly different approaches.

The original post sounds like a mashup between our two versions, asking about a prediction in an envelope Having said that, was it a prediction that was never revealed or a card that was signed? I had heard it was the former.

If the card is visible in the bottle and it's in view from the start, it sounds like the forerunner to the 'card in clear box'

Jon

P.S. If anyone hasn't seen the JJ Abrams TED Talk, you really should do as it is a fascinating watch.

I think this idea is artistically brilliant and intellectually fascinating... but I'm a little unsure though, how satisfying the routine's end result is perceived by the rest of the audience if the mystery is kept and the object is taken home?

That aside, the great thing about Jon Allen's presentation of this concept is that the actual object, a signed card, really is in the impossible location. The trick still maintains it's mystery 100% even if years later they choose to open the envelope.

I don't see that a folded, stapled card inside a bottle has the same quality in the same way.

If there's a folded, stapled card is inside a bottle from the outset, and this card is purported to be the actual physical card that was selected (assuming a card is physically selected and not just thought of) I don't believe that it takes a huge leap for the audience, or the owner of the 'mystery object' to realise that it could be a exact copy of the card they chose. Once this situation is imagined the intrigue that the routine is built on must surely dissipate.

However, a card reversed within a, 'deck in a bottle', as a prediction, does have the quality, like Jon Allen's Schrodinger's Card, of maintaining the mystery, albeit a different type of mystery, regardless whether the mystery is left sealed or broken open even years later.

In this case, the predicted card's selection process, like the loading of the card into the envelope in Schodinger's Card, would have to be beyond reproach for the situation to keep it's intrigue fully intact.

I do love the idea of this plot.... but I can't get past how it won't be largely unsatisfying for everyone, except one person, on those occasions when the envelope or bottle gets taken home. Maybe the rest of the routining deals with that though?

Here's a great idea to really mess with those who want to ruin the mystery and open the evvelope, even after you insist, "Don't open the envelope!"

Their signed card is always in the envelope. However, when someone opens the envelope and finds their card, on the back, written very clearly, is "I TOLD YOU NOT TO OPEN THE ENVELOPE"

Now they have another mystery to solve!

I shall leave it up to you to figure out how to do this...

To clarify: Kevin Burke's premise isn't that the card in the bottle is the same card that was selected, but a prediction of the card that was selected under very fair conditions. (The back of the bottled card is even a different color than the selection, to eliminate confusion that this might be a Card-to-Impossible-Location plot.) So the question of whether the prediction is correct or not is the mystery. Per Schreodinger, it both is and it is not.

As for the theatrical validity of the participant taking it home unopened, Kevin would argue (as he has to me) that the piece has very little to do with magic. His feeling is that the "magical" ending is the lesser one. What the piece is really about is whether someone can commit to mystery -- the deep, ongoing, forever kind of mystery -- even if it violates the artificial norms and expectations of a traditional magic performance. And as mentioned above, 30% of the time they could. I'd call that powerful, audience-tested theatre; but draw your own conclusions.

I agree Neil, Thanks for the clarification. That does make more sense.

There doesn't feel quite the same order of mystery and puzzlement in this presentation as compared to the others mentioned in this thread, but it's certainly worthy of note and well worth mentioning. The extra layer of the impossible situation/object that Jon's Schrodinger's Card has isn't present.

The card could, not be in the bottle and not be stapled and the essence (although not the theatrics and dressing) of the presentation would be the same. (Having said this, I guess the bottle's presence does mean the spectator has to make more of an effort in order to break the 'superposition')

Certainly an un-looked at prediction has a theatrical claim of a Schrodinger-esque style superposition ... i.e.: of potentially being both, the right card and the wrong card..... and so I can see that it has the potential to be a powerful, (audience tested) piece of theatre.

But still, not all theatre, powerful or not, is satisfying for an audience. My wife, for instance, can't stand films of any kind that end on cliff hangers, or have a, 'part two', to be continued or are designed to leave the audience... wondering.

While, for film, she maybe be in the minority in having this attitude, I could see more people feeling this way in the context of a magic style presentation. (it might have little to do with magic in the performers mind but it still sounds like a sort of magic effect and it's hard not to see an audience viewing it, to some degree if not entirely, in this light)

Of course I get that this risk goes with the territory of giving a presentation that violates the norms and expectations of normal magic traditions. With anything that is a challenge for the audience theres always the potential of the audience to, 'not get it'. (there's that potential even without a challenging presentation!!)

It could be argued though that, according to Kevin Burke, 70% of the time they don't really 'get it'. After all 70% of the time they choose to shatter the effect the performer is aiming for. And I still wonder if, ironically, the other 30% of the time some of the audience may find it too challenging an end point to be a satisfying outcome? That would result in there being some kind of disappointment 100% of the time!! (I'm just speculating and being the devli's advocate here.... of course I accept that Kevin Burke's audience's get something positive from it otherwise I'm sure he wouldn't perform it)

So if a specific theatrical experience, that's interesting and challenging and which doesn't necessarily include being a 'satisfying experience', is a goal, (and I'd be happy to argue that this would be a perfectly valid objective to aim for) then it seems it would fit the bill. But in this regard too I feel Jon's presentation would fit the bill more and provide a deeper (more unsatisfying?!?:eek: ) experience of this kind. But my words are just exposing my own personal preference. (That's if one can have a personal preference between effects I like the notion of but have no actual experience of and that I don't think I'd ever perform)

It's great, though, to know that there are performers out there who have different objectives to what mine might be. I like the idea that there are performers who have maybe more artistic fervour.... a different view... and are prepared to push the boundaries, and their audiences, in a direction that wouldn't suit my ideals. I'm all for that.

Jon, having 'I told you not to open the envelope' on the card's back is a nice touch but it feels like it damages rather than adds to the effect. Without the writing the signed card may, or may not, or does and does not exist inside the envelope. Having the words written on the back adds some 'magic', (how did the writing get on the back) but diminishes the metaphysical mindf ck element by making it feel like the cad was in there all along waiting to be opened...

I prefer the idea of the card in the envelope being, both the right one and the wrong one.... and this only getting established in one direction or the other once the envelope is opened. Having the writing on it seems to indicate that it was already in the envelope waiting to be opened.... and that retrospectively removes the superposition that was previously imagined.

Again just thoughts of someone who loves the plot but will probably never perform it... although I'm starting to think that maybe I might give it a try!