Several years ago I used to work for a guy whose 'party piece' was to guess a person's star sign. Needless to say, he was correct nearly every time.

I've not come across anyone doing this since. Is this a well known mentalist effect or is my ex-boss in line for Randi's million?

Didn't Nicky Campbell (ex Wheel Of Fortune, now Watchdog and Radio Five) used to do a similar thing on his radio show awhile back? I think it became a regular feature of his programme with his guests. However, if he knew who was appearing on his show a little research beforehand would assist enormously.

I remember Nicky Campbell doing that on his show, yes.
The way my boss presented it was to make you stand up straight then inspect the sloping of the shoulders, sharpness of the jawline etc. There was definitely no research involved. He correctly guessed the birthsign of my wife and me on our first ever meeting.

I will teach my own way of guessing a stranger's zodiac sign in my up-coming book:
'Without a Cape'.

Yaniv

It is not actually 'guessing' as you mean it, but TA Waters describes an excellent a*****m method for mentally 'reading' a persons birthsign. It is in his booklet "Collecture"

Jack D.

Thanks for the info. No, 'guessing' is probably the wrong word to have used, it's just that that's how it was presented to me, as an educated guess based on bone structure and posture.

There are several published methods for doing this (the one by T.A. Waters, called Signse, is actually the weakest of the bunch), including those by Ray Grismer, Banachek, Jas Jakutsch, Paul Ingram, and others.

My own Sign Language is well reviewed at http://www.oratory.com/mindsights/.

... Doug

This was a really good question Harry.

I have heard about this before, and it makes you wonder. If your boss used the method he told you, the bone structure and such, it's strange that he was right so often. I can't believe someone can see a difference in people like that. Michio Kushi claimed in his book "Your face never lies" that some decades ago it was possible to see in the shape of the head if someone was born in the spring, summer, autumn or winter. It was because the different foods available in different times of the year affect the body differently. He claimed it's harder nowadays, because we have so much imported food, that we can eat summer food in the winter etc.

It would really be interesting if there was something to this...

Mikael

Doug has covered most of the references you need (as always!) and if we wait a while for Paul Hallas to come along he can fill in any that Doug has missed! (Any references that these two together don't know ain't worth the knowing).

There's a very minor contribution I'd like to offer here which exploits aspects of typical spectator knowledge, but I'm afraid according to the rules it will have to go in Secret Sesh (if I can still get in there).

Speaking of Paul Hallas, did anyone ever get the cheap close up book from around 1985? some nice little effects in there, I'm waffling now

Thanks for the information ddyment. I'll take a closer look at your 'sign language'. For the past few years though I have been very happy with the Waters version... it's good to hear the alternatives may be better though.

Jack

Again, the prying eyes of the public and magic dabblers should not be able to learn that methods exist to figure out astrological signs.

Please relocate this thread to the INISIDE mentalism section. Thanks.

hi!
I got quite few emails asking about my own way of finding out someone's zodiac sign.
I hope it's ok to answer them all here.
The effect Palmstrology will be in the book
currently in the work,'Without a Cape'.
It's stractured around a short palm reading
you are giving for a stranger.
The climax is of course telling him his zodiac sign!

Yaniv

There is also Jack Dean's creations of "Destiny" and "Here's Your Sign" which will do similar.
PSIncerely Yours,
Paul Alberstat

Thanks to everyone for the information.
Of all the references listed I was wondering which you all think is the best. Is there one particular technique that stands head and shoulders above the rest or are they all variations on a similar effect?

Sorry Mystic1, I don't want to prolong this discussion and certainly have no desire to reveal any 'methods'in this public place. However, could anyone who can help please PM me... I'm hoping to glean a little clarification rearding Ddyment's comments. I continue to use the TA Waters an****m method for identifying an astrological sign. This method seems to produce the desired effect. I was wondering what made the other effects more powerful. Is it that they use a completely different method? Or, is it the same 'method' with added scripting? I hope I have made myself clear without making myself TOO clear! I am a newcomer here!

Thanks,
Jack

Jack wrote:
The T.A. Waters method "works", but it suffers from two problems that make it considerably weaker than other published solutions. First, it uses more steps than are necessary, which not only takes longer, but makes it more likely that the participant will intuit the method. Second, effects of this nature commonly result in some "micro-failures" along the way (is that sufficiently obscure?). Waters' approach offers little help when this occurs... one just forges ahead, hoping that the participant will not notice. Other solutions offer intelligently crafted methods for dealing with these eventualities.

... Doug

This is kind of interesting. If you have time, go to the following website:
http://www.emode.com/
and click on "What Zodiac Sign Should You Be" (on the left side close to the bottom), and take the test. I took it and it actually got my sign right. I doubt it's 100% though. I wonder if it would be possible to use some of their questions into a reading to ascertain their sign.

If Emode averages more than one in twelve signs right, I would be impressed (and surprised); it certainly didn't get mine.

... Doug (who is too skeptical to believe in the impossibility of anything)

What would you know..it got mine wrong too. But as this exercise shows - those people for whom it works well for are easily impressed.

Regards,

Kris Sheglova