I am currently working on two book test ideas that involve gaffed books. In the course of developing these, I came up with an impromptu book test. I don't want to give away any details yet, but am enlisting the help of mentalists to assure that I am not "re-inventing" someone else's book test idea. There is no way I can buy every mentalism book or video that has a book test in it.

Here's the question. I am looking for any impromptu book tests that involve having a page selected similar to The Hoy Book Test and Larry Becker's Ultimate Flashback—in each case, a page is randomly flipped to. Hoy and Becker use different methods, even though from the audience's perspective, it looks the same. I have thought of something quite different than Hoy and Becker, but it also involves a random page selection via flipping through the book.

Pages are determined in book tests in many ways: dice, cards, slips of paper, number games, etc. But Hoy and Becker are the only ones I know of where you randomly flip to a page and the spectator calls stop. Are there any others out there? I want to know that my idea is original. The rest of the book test and presentation do not concern me here—please let me know if there are other "page flip" selections that are out there.

Thanks guys!

Dave Kilpatrick

P.S. "No" is good feedback too. If you are familiar with various booktests, it's okay to indicate that you are not aware of any with a page flip besides Hoy & Becker.

hi Dave,

i am not shure if this is what you need so i will give it a try....

Orvil Meyer was know to riffle the page of a page and peek to others side of the book for information.....

Chan Canasta is problably the innovator of the riffle thru a book to find a page at random....he use it in a lot of defferent occasions, like riffle force a page, choose a random page, of even try to psychological riffle a page number force on someone...

the late Al Mann also have couple of way of peeking from a riffle page....

Alan Nu have couple of nice touchs for this kind of handling...

i personaly use little gimmick that i insert in the book ( any borrowed book ) after the page riffling procedure...this way i can peek after, to glimspe the word....

if you want to make shure what you have came up is not a regular handling....try to find a book call " MAINLY MENTAL VOL 2 " by C.L BOARDE.....

it the encyclopedia of book test, in my opinion a little old thinking but very for food for thought....

hope this help....please let me know....

take care

kuffs

Patrik's correct, there are lots out there using either a force or a glimpse to/at a riffled page. If you don't want to post publicly, feel free to email me privately and I'd be glad to help out with checking it out against what's already been done.

I think that Richard Busch's work with a paperback book in Peek Performances might be what you are looking for.
It's the best I've seen for impromptu work.

Sn!per

Thanks you guys. I will PM some of you guys for more details shortly. Others, please follow up on these if you know of anything. Again, I am not looking for impromptu book test ideas, per se. I am looking to determine if an idea I developed has "been done" already. In may respects, I'd be surprised if it hasn't, but you never know.

Check out Mind, Myth & Magick by T.A. Waters for several book test suggestions.
Greg

Look at Keith Field's Insight. The spectator flips to any page within the book. Any page as many times as they wish. No forces of any kind are used.

Thanks Gary,

However, I am not really asking about gaffed books. I am asking about unprepared books. I got some great suggestions above, and some good PMs to follow up on. Some suggested gaffed books also, but again, the idea I came up with is impromptu, and I wanted to see if it had been done already. Based on one of the PMs I got, I think it has, but I'm not sure yet because I didn't ask follow up questions to that PM yet.

Anyway, thanks everyone for your help. I really didn't want to "reinvent" something that had been done by someone else.

It is one thing to rip off someone else's idea. Most (but obviously not all) magicians would never do that. However, the more complicated problem is to come up with something on your own but to make sure someone else hasn't done it already. I really appreciate all of your responses.

Thanks guys.

Mark Leveridge had one called "The Word" he marketed. A straight book, pages riffled through. But...something had been added to the book.

Phantini had a nice addition to Hoy with choice of paragraph and a prediction.

Bob Ostin had one (as did someone else) with a secret finger break and the actual page switched on opening.

If the spine is broken or you have a short page it can be timed so you stop at the "automatic" break when riffling through the pages.

Paul.

I've received help via comments above, PMs, and texts to follow up on. One of those sources demonstrated to me that the idea I came up with for an impromptu had been done before. Thanks for your help guys (I am not mentioning the method to protect those who thought of this idea before I did). I will continue to use it (it's a great effect and method), but will not make its way into anything I publish in the future.

Thanks guys for helping me avoid an awkward situation.

Dave

P.S. I'll let you know more about the gaffed book ideas in the not to distant future (one of which I am quite certain has never been done before).

........

Hi Dave,

Richard Busch here. I would love to know what you've come up with. It could be very close to my Peek Performances imp. book stuff. If you'd like to share it for my "hear it from the horse's mouth" <G> comment, please send it along. I'd be honored to discuss it with you.

mindful@telerama.com

If you need a copy of the book or other goodies I have, just ask for details.

All good wishes,

Richard