Below is a repost of something I just posted in the mentalism section of the café for a discussion on how (or not) to justify the center tear. In the post I offer a justification, but also a presentational angle that turns a standard of mentalism into a demonstration of a metaphysical phenomena (an unusual one in which the meanings of words are given separate existence from the words themselves). It occurs to me that there are many ways in which the techniques of mentalism can be put to use to demonstrate various odd phenomena (other than those usually invoked in mentalism). This is something which might be discussed here (examples, thoughts etc.). To start things off here is (most of) the post on the Center tear.

Ask a person to think of their favorite word, something that just sounds good to them. Content is not important, just the sound.

Tell them that they are going to forget the word in a minute so they best write it down. Well actually they may not forget it, but it will loose its meaning!

You then speak about how words loose their meaning when they are quickly repeated numerous times. Most have probably tried this when they were kids, saying a word again and again until it didn’t make any sense.

You ask the audience member to read the world silently repeatedly until its meaning starts to slip away. When the word starts to seem meaningless they are to fold the piece of paper.

You take the folded paper and say something like “The word means nothing now” as you tear the slip into pieces. The tear is an illustration of the loss of meaning (and the initial writing of the word is a part of the process).

Ok so that’s the justification. Obviously you need to tie the revelation to the justification. There are many options. I’ll give you two:

(Modern mindreader slant) Perhaps the state of temporarily having lost the meaning of a word makes people easier to read by some procedure, like word association or reactions to a list of key words.

(Bizarre slant) Perhaps the meaning of words is something that has a separate existence/reality. When they are lost they actually end up somewhere. Perhaps they float in the ether available to the performer to sense, or perhaps they physically manifest in the Book of Lost Meanings (performer shows word on last written page of book).

I really like your thinking on that justification. In my opinion, it makes all the sense in the world. And, natural mental functions, properly framed, can seem rather bizarre. With what you are doing, it becomes very easy to take that next step beyond(thanks to the center tear)...and to believe in the whole package enough to make it very real to the participant. Finally, I really like your idea about the Book of Lost Meanings. I could imagine a book with many entries listed by date, name, and word. The last entry would show the current date, the individual's name and their word. I've paid for effects that aren't nearly as good as this one. Thanks for sharing!!!
Nicholas