"Very nice. Sweet effect, well done!" - Martin Lewis
David Devlin has done it again! This time with a new piece of mentalism that has fried both lay audiences and magicians alike. This is a stunning display of not only your psychic abilities, but also those of the spectator. It is so fair and so "hands-off" that there just does not seem anyway possible for this to work, but it does, and it is 99.5% self working, and it is under your control. David has combined two principles to create this incredible mystery, one of which is grossly under explored.
Bonus: This eBook also features a fantastic false shuffle courtesy of Martin Lewis that has been one of David's favorite's for more than the last 25 years!
Effect: The performer produces three small envelopes of the Pay variety. It is explained that each envelope contains a prediction. These are laid out in a row on the table according to the whim of the spectator.
Next, the performer shows the audience a deck of the standard ESP Testing Cards. The deck is mixed and placed before a spectator. The spectator then legitimately shuffles the cards. The spectator is asked to call out a number between one and six. Suppose he calls out "four". Four piles of three cards are dealt, and the spectator picks any one of the four piles (absolutely no force). The unchosen piles are gathered up and returned to the deck. It is shown that the piles could have contained any three symbols, making the three in the pile freely chosen by the spectator are truly random symbols.
The cards are turned face up and are seen to be (perhaps) a cross, wavy lines, and a star. These cards are placed in a row across from the envelopes.
The performer says, "The interesting thing about these cards is that even if you mix them up or move them to new spots in the row, they are inseparable. Where you find one, you will find the other." He then instructs the spectator to move each of the ESP cards to new locations in the row. The spectator is free to move the cards to any new position that he desires. Again, there is absolutely no force.
Once the cards have been moved, the envelopes are opened. Inside each envelope is another ESP card that matches the one directly across from it, proving that "where you find one you will find the other!" But that is not all. The performer reminds the spectator that he shuffled the deck, and chose the three cards, so it may just be luck that those three cards matched the ones in the envelopes. It was not luck at all. The envelopes are then turned over and drawn on the back of one envelope is a cross, the second has wavy lines drawn on it, and the third has a star drawn on it!
- No gaffed cards
- No gaffed envelopes
- No forces
- No sleight of hand (other than the super-simple false shuffle!)
- Only one card per envelope
- The spectator genuinely shuffles the deck himself
- Everything is examinable at the end (as long as you do as David suggests)
- Quick reset
1st edition 2014, 22 pages.
word count: 3905 which is equivalent to 15 standard pages of text