David Devlin, the guy who brought you Coincidence & Fate, gives you a three-phase routine with an E.S.P. deck. And best of all, the entire routine is self-working!
Phase 1: The deck is shown to consist of five different symbols repeated five times. The cards are then mixed and the squared deck is placed face-down in front of a spectator. The mentalist turns his back to the spectator, and tells her to cut the deck wherever she wishes, and to complete the cut. Once that is done she is to take the top card of the deck (the card she freely cut to, no force!), look at it and then hold it behind her back so that when the mentalist turns around, the card cannot be seen. She does so, and the mentalist turns to face the audience. The mentalist closes his eyes and begins to sense what the spectator is thinking of. He calls out, say, the wavy lines. The spectator shows that her thought of symbol is in fact the wavy lines! But that is not all. The mentalist (still with his eyes closed) places his hand above the deck, but does not touch it. A moment of concentration, and he announces that the card on the bottom of the deck (the card touching the table) is the square. The spectator turns over the deck, and the face card is indeed a square! This phase may be repeated if wished.
Phase 2: The deck is mixed once again, and is then ribbon spread across the table. A spectator slides out any one card (no force!), and places it sight unseen to the side. The mentalist squares up the deck and honestly deals twelve cards to the spectator. That means that the mentalist also has twelve cards. The mentalist and the spectator each turn cards face up in unison. Whenever a matching pair shows up, that pair is placed off to the side. After both packets are exhausted, it is seen that there were only two matching pairs. In this case, let's say that the two matching pairs were the circles. The card that was originally selected in now for the first time revealed. It is a circle!
Phase 3: This is the big finish that will put everyone's jaw on the floor! The deck is gathered up and mixed once again. The deck, as in phase two, is once again ribbon spread, and a spectator, freely, selects any card, and places it sight unseen off to the side. The deck is gathered, and handed to the spectator who then deals the deck into two piles. The spectator is then given a choice as to which pile she wishes to use. She then eliminates all but one card from her packet. That card is placed with the unseen selection. The deck is reassembled. The two cards on the table are turned over and are seen to both be squares! Now…here it comes…the deck is then picked up either by the mentalist or the spectator (when David performs this he does this part himself, but it can be done by the spectator). The top three cards are dealt face up onto the two squares…they match! The next five cards are dealt face up. They are all stars! The next five are dealt. They are all wavy lines! The entire deck is dealt and all of the symbols match perfectly!
Though it is not necessary, everything may be examined.
1st edition 2008, 8 pages.
word count: 2203 which is equivalent to 8 standard pages of text
