I often remark about writing things down , as Kiss said, it locks it in the spectators mind, after it is written, I say to the spectator,(depending on the crowd) now that is done, try to think of something else, another word or number perhaps, see you can't, as long as that paper is in your hand, your mind will always come back to what you wrote, go ahead and try, after a moment or two, I say, see your written thought is in your mind , in and I can see it getting stronger bolder. And like a pendulum works , so does this, try it.and watch the spectator react.

Very well put Christopher. There's so many people out there, magicians and mentalists alike, who totally skip or skim the work of Bob Cassidy and thus totally miss a understanding for mentalism that very few besides Bob Cassidy has explained with clarity and completeness. Pretty sad.

http://www.youtube.com/patrickgredford

Another application of Alone.

Not this again...

I merely think of those things, and lament that magic wasn't, well magic. I already know (dont we all), that mentalism can never reach that stage.

@PRedford

Great performance! Very clever way to avoid just writing it.

Just thinking of a routine for Alone; give the spectator the stack, take a stack yourself, then do a do as I do routine for one word or letter or number! Would make a great followup to a Do As I Do card routine.

Oh better yet, the ultimate book test! Man these possibilities are endless I have to get one of these. I hope the release price isn't too much higher then 300$

Terrific application Patrick, thanks for sharing that!

Fantastic idea.

Thanks for sharing.

If you thought of those things and then figure out solutions, don't point them out as faults then. If you can't handle working around faults that truly can not be avoided then it's your own fault. Simple as that. You stating that you see no sense in having people write things down (just as a easy example) clearly states that you haven't bothered to ever justify it in the first place. I can only comment on what you yourself have provided here on the Café, if you have figured ways around it you should have stated it instead of going off saying how you dislike things that have "weak links" when in reality, within the context and limits of what is available to us is actually NOT a weak link and only becomes a weak link when one can not justify and present it properly. If you had better ideas then what is currently available then state it or else work with it and put some time and effort into it.

Let's just put it this way, it's clearly evident that you haven't thought of all the possibilities of the which hand is it in plot. You see it as what it is on face value, a guessing game, thus you haven't tried to expand it and see what else can be accomplished. Another thing, you stating that you can very easily just use the Nose Knows method shows that you have a tendency to favour things without any evident method, which in theory is the holy grail but sadly it's not currently a viable solution. Psychological methods are great methods but they do not provide 100% reliability nor does it provide any control of the outcome (which is actually VERY important), thus they are not suitable in effects which are your highlight effects. Even Banachek acknowledges this fact in his book, he clearly states that these are tools to AUGMENT existing routines which you already perform to create more impact. It's the equivalent of repeating a card effect multiple times but using different methods each time to achieve the effect. Psychological methods are there to "flavour" what you are performing but they are in NO WAY reliable enough to stand on their own. There are exceptions to this but they are few and far apart. A few psychological method based effects that can be performed with 100% reliability in my experience has been psychological pulse stops as well as some suggestion material HOWEVER there is a caveat, for them to be 100% one must learn how to successfully qualify his/her audience very much in the same vein as qualifying good subjects for hypnosis. Bottom line is that you point out these "weak links" when in actuality they are not and at the same time you are trying to find true to life miracles which up to this point do not exist. How can there be any "weak links" when there is just simply no other real options available? Based on your personal framework of what is a good or perfect effect/routine it basically needs to be a real deal miracle.

Lastly, let me point this out and make it real clear for you. You pose the question along the lines of "If you can read someones mind why not just straight out tell them what they are thinking?" There's a few problems with this. Firstly, something of importance is pretty much impossible to accomplish without trickery. SECONDLY, and this is the most important point, if one was to just read minds like that it's theatrically VERY BORING. Your goal is to provide a ENTERTAINING EXPERIENCE to your audience. They want to SEE something. Just calling out thoughts is inherently BORING as there is no process for the audience to follow and it's not providing any theatrics. Take movie descriptions as an example. If the descriptions just pretty much described the movie in a very matter of fact way it's very BORING, what ends up happening is that movie summaries are written up embellishing the material which makes it INTERESTING. Not only does writing something down provide us the performer with a viable METHOD of acquiring the information it also provides the rest of the audience with a process in which they can follow along with. Remember, the destination is not as important as how one reaches that destination, the journey is the experience and a experience is what us as performers are striving to provide to our audience.

This is true.

Another thing; I hadn't noticed that the confederate from the audience in the second video was actually "steering" him with the business card. I thought he just had a tracking device on the object and was being "pulled" towards it. Obviously that opens up the options considerably.

Page 14 c mon I can't wait for it !

AG

What happens on page 14?

Page 14 has more of this.

Why levitate 4 inches? Its such a weak link. If you could go 4 inches you should be able to fly to the moon!

Nope, that's not true. You might not be powerful enough. However if it comes to writing if you can read their mind one word with a paper you should be able to do it without.

For the levitation, the weak link is not the moon, its looking under the feet If they can't do that, it shows there is something down there

well well well. It seems that in magic you have no problem letting your spectator know what limitations you have any why you can do what you can do. Why not in mentalism? You cant have limitations in mentalism? Its either I can do it and lets go win the lottery, or nothing?

I think we should let this thread go back to what it is supposed to be about. Magicfreak2 you are wrong. You will always be wrong. Everyone reading this knows that except for you. Writing is not the weak link. Performance is the weak link. Work on that and the writing will be an after thought for anyone. Work hard and have fun. Stop setting your own limitations and then projecting those to your spectator. You'll see a major difference in what you do. We all once thought like you do right now.

Nate

Back to Alone!

Magicfreak2: The first lesson for beginners who really wish to progress in any field of endeavour is to realize that there is a direct correlation between listening and learning.

[/quote]
Back to Alone!
[/quote]

Thank you Nate!

Christopher

I thought you were gone... Just came back to say that I am wrong again, no doubt.

I was trying to point out that the moon comparison is one of magnitude, vs Alone to real mind reading was the method.

So to compare with the moon, a weak link might be that you couldn't read minds with paper from 30 feet away, only 5 if you get my meaning. I understand what you are trying to say, but I was just saying that you said it wrong if that makes sense.

EDIT: No matter what, reading what someone wrote without looking is amazing and I will definitely purchase it.

Magicfreak.... who cares if you buy it or not?

if you think we do, skip buying it...you already are ALONE.

J

P.S. There is no spoon!

Can't wait for this arsenal... huhuhu...

I bought it last tuesday. I hope it's on its way now...
waiting...
waiting...
it must be a long way from Canada to Italy...
still waiting...

LOL! I'm in NY so when I order it won't take so long

Another routine I was thinking:

The magician asks a volunteer to think of a card, write it down, and then sign it as proof that they are only thinking of one card. Then he asks for another volunteer. Hands shoot up, the magician tosses a ball, which someone catches. The volunteer is asked to stand up, and guess the card. To the complete fright of the first volunteer who is just thinking of the card, the second volunteer is completely right, as the signed paper confirms.

The benefit here is that the attention is taken of of the performer and moves to a stooge (in the front, where there won't be much competition for the ball). The stooge then, without ever looking at the first volunteer "guesses" the card with 100% accuracy. The signing is they way I figured out to get rid of the weak link, it brings the attention to the signing.

Additionally, if you have multiple receivers, you can have multiple stooges among the crowd that are all "randomly" selected and then uncannily guess at the value of the card.

Magicfreak, based on how Alone works for such an effect, you would not need any receivers for your confederate. It's pretty plain as day for your confederate to "see" which card the spec has chosen. In that regard, it's not a good idea to go this route because it's pretty obvious how someone in the audience can come to the conclusion of which card has been selected. The strength of the divining a thought of card routine using Alone is that the performer sees nothing thus to the audience it seems impossible for you to figure out which card the person has selected.