Simon:

How about your sequence, and then if Hansen wants to segue back into cards, he can do Kennedy's Mind Power Deck? Powerful stuff!

Final Leap...

Nuff said...

seek out Jim Callahan's work...

I'm very surprised noboby mentionned "DEVASTATION" by Geoff Williams. It uses cards... it's self working ... It's powerfull. One of the (if not the) best mentalism effect that's totally impromtu out there. One of my favorites!

Danik

When I first moved from card magic to mentalism, I found that quite a good deal of classical card tricks can be presented as mentalism. And for that matter, the simple ones actually work even better. Even Derren Brown in one effect used a rather simple card trick to create an amazing effect where he seemingly forces the other person to stop at the card he wants, and then to "freely" deal him a forced card.

Nowadays I have forgotten some of the more complicated card tricks I used to do, but the rather simple ones comes quite handy from time to time.

Rectifying my previous mistake of selective reading:

I believe Nick Trost has a booklet called "Mentalism with Cards" that was awesome.

Arnon, absolutely, I think that would be very strong, especially with Derren's Smoke - I think that combines mentalism and magic quite beautifully.

I think to use card tricks in mentalism is not an issue, as long as you have some stringent rules. I personally only do one, maybe two card effects, and they must be very hands off - so BCS, Mind Power deck, etc etc. If you are following card tricks, then this is even more important in my opinion.

Simon

Question: should a complete deck of cards be needed?

a lot of you have mentioned Kolossal Killer.
but is that really (really!?) convincing?
if I was a spectator asked to think of a card, I'd like to see
the magician's exact prediction, nothing else.
why not make the statement clear? (only the ESP prediction):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuOL5QQGzjQ
we know that it can be done with "normal" cards, too, even with a full deck
(typical magician's thinking: "...better effect with a full deck than only using 5 cards...").
think about it.
just an idea.

The Phil Deck.

John

Si Stebbins stack will open the door for multiple effects.

Bermini - indeed. But I think the BReakthrough Card system is even more effective.

Never really got on with KK - personally I don't think it is strong enough. I think the ID is probably the best card prediction you can do. Or, you can do away with cards altogether and just make them think of a card....

Simon

For some unknown reason this thread has turned into 'good mentalism with cards' insted of the intended 'good mentalism WITHOUT cards inbetween card magic effects'

The guy wants to do some mentalism as a break from card effects during his set

I would get away from anything to do with cards whatsoever - even if you use an ESP deck the audience will just assume the effect used just 'more sleight of hand' as you had already demonstrated using a pack of cards

Why not just do something really simple on scraps of paper - like a three stage one ahead with a psychological force for the force item.

How about some simple NW or PW effects? Or Center Tear. Sometimes the simplest, quickest routines can be the most devastating. From what I read, the original question here was about non card mentalism routines. I'd check some of Osterlind's work. There's a ton of it out there. Thought Scan is quite powerful and can be a pretty long routine. As is anything involving his PCT.

Just a thought....

b

Hansen,

See Psychologial Subtleties for effects similar to the one where somebody thought of a 3-digit number, etc.

I've given this some thought and I think the reason I haven't listed more effects for you is that I don't know what your set is like. A small "change of direction" break is great but, IMHO, there should still be some sort of thematic link (even if you make it up yourself through patter and routining). This could be especially effective if the effect could bridge between two card effects.

What kind of effects would be on either side of the effect you are looking for? What kind of effects total in your set?

-Carlos