5. Reducción de hasta el 50% de las ministraciones (conclusiones 14 y 16)
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(ODDS)
W
hat you are about to read has been one of my pet secrets for over 20 years. I have used it constantly in ever y imaginable situation and performing venue. I have never shared this with any-one and it is seeing print here for the first time. I shall explain the basic effect first, along with instructions for making the apparatus, then show how you can incorporate the idea in many other ways.You will then have a system that will enable you to do fantastic design duplication in any situation and with whatever items you may have lying around. The more you play with this idea, the more you will love it!
BACKGROUND
Many years ago, I read with great interest the techniques used to test Uri Geller in the laboratory for his telepathic abilities. The investigators would choose an object word from a dictionary and one of the scientists would then draw a picture of that object. Uri would then duplicate the picture while in another room. Without going into the particulars of the experiment, the basic premise led me to develop the following.
EFFECT
The mentalist displays a stack of cards with the names of dif-ferent objects written on them. A spectator freely chooses one and can change his mind if he wishes. He is now given a pad and asked to draw a picture of his object. The mentalist also takes a pad and draws a design on his from across the room. When the two pic-tures are compared, they are almost identical!
APPARATUS
You will need 26 cards. These can be index cards, ticket cards, blank playing cards or just your normal business cards. You must list the following words on the cards.
AUTOMOBILE
VIOLIN
ZEBRA
You will, of course, notice that there is one word for each letter of the alphabet. You will need to memorize this list and you will probably have it done by the time you have finished making up the cards. If not, running through the words a few times will set it in your memory.
There is something very distinctive about this list and the words chosen are ones that I worked on for years to get just the right effect. Each one represents an object that, when drawn, is unique.
Each object cannot be drawn with just a simple design, but must be elaborated on. For instance, the word ball might seem like a good choice, but many might just draw a simple circle. The word bicycle, on the other hand, requires a more elaborate drawing to get the point across. This is true with all the words and, again, these were chosen after much trial and error. I will show you how to use them in just a moment.
Next, you must stack the deck as follows:
AUTOMOBILE
ZEBRA
You can see that each card is three letters beyond the previous card. You will need to run through the alphabet three times to use up all the cards. The last card in the stack, Xylophone, will lead you back to Automobile. The cards can be cut as often as you wish and still the stack will be intact.
The reason for doing this is to hide the stack if the cards are picked up and examined. When a card is removed, break the cards at that point and give the stack a complete cut. The card that was above the removed one will now be on the bottom. You can then glance at that card, count three forward in the alphabet and know what card was removed. In essence, you have created a Si Stebbins deck with word cards!
You will also need two pads and marking pens or two slates and pieces of chalk. Make sure that the pens or chalk are of the thick kind making it necessary to draw the pictures in a fairly simple fashion.
THE WORKING
Have the cards and two pads, slates, etc. ready for the experi-ment. Select a spectator and mention that when asked to draw a picture, many people feel put on the spot and have difficulty com-ing up with somethcom-ing. Also mention that in that situation, many people tend to draw the same thing. So in order to make it fair and interesting, you have compiled a list of words of objects that are different and distinctive. Spread the cards and show the wide range of objects.
Close up the cards, turn them face down and give them a series
of cuts. Please do not make any card moves here, but just handle them as what they are, a small pile of cards. Spread the stack and have the spectator choose one. As he withdraws the card, cut the stack at that point and complete the cut. Ask him to look at the card and tell you whether he likes that one or if he would like another. You turn away during this and casually glimpse the bot-tom card. If he says he is happy with the card, immediately hand him the rest of the cards and tell him to replace it anywhere. If he says he wants another, take his card back, replace it on top and spread the cards for another selection. You, of course, will know his choice.
Have him place the cards aside as you hand him a pad. You take the other and position both of you on different sides of the room or stage. This is the first really nice part about this routine.
You will actually be doing this in the same way as a real ESP test and can therefore set up whatever test conditions you would like!
Make the most out of this by sending the person far away from you. If in a private home, you can send him into a different room;
if on stage, you can send him to the far end of the stage or perhaps even to the back of the audience! Make it look as impossible as you can.
Now you both begin to draw. Simply draw a picture of the ob-ject the way you normally would! Even though you may think there are thousands of ways for people to draw things, given the above objects and the fact that you both have stubby, fat marking pens or wide chalk, both drawings will be very similar! When you first try this, you will be amazed at how close the drawings will be. But there is more to help you and this is the part that I love!
Please think like a mentalist and not a magician doing a trick.
You are not supposed to have any idea of what the object is and you have taken all these precautions to make sure it is evident you cannot see the spectator’s drawing. You both make the drawings far from each other. Just the fact that both drawings will be of the same thing will be dynamic even if they both look very different!
But they won’t be. You also point out all the similar characteristics of the drawings. For instance, if the bicycle or the automobile are both facing the same way – point that out! (Almost always it will be
facing left.) If you both draw a tail on the kite, make a big deal out of it! If you both draw a similar number of stripes on your zebras, show that it must be real ESP! Most of the time, there will be so many similarities to point out, nobody will believe it could be co-incidence. That is what makes this play so strong. The fact that you really are hitting without seeing the drawing makes it seem impossible you could do it from just knowing the word alone.
I don’t believe this principle has ever been explored before.
Usually, the cards contain designs and pictures already drawn and you attempt to duplicate what the spectator concentrates on or you have the spectator redraw the design. This is how Annemann’s Extra Sensory Perception works as well as the Mental Pictoria deck.
Although they are strong effects, I don’t believe they have as much effect as the Osterlind Design Duplication System. In the Annemann effect, only the performer draws, so there is no com-parison at the end. In the Mental Pictoria deck there is really no reason to have the spectator re-draw what they have just looked at!
The ODDS looks just like a real ESP test!
Comparing a message reading routine and a question-and-an-swer act shows a further elaboration of this philosophy. In the former, you name only the items the spectators write down. Some may suspect you somehow saw the written slips. In the latter, you actually answer the questions and supply further details. It seems impossible that you could know so much, that the idea you some-how saw the questions doesn’t seem to really matter! That is the effect we are trying to achieve here. It should appear that even if you somehow knew what the object was which the volunteer is drawing, the similar nature of both is too close to explain by that means. This is truly a very strong item!
FURTHER THOUGHT ON THE ODDS
Making up the cards and carrying them around is an easy mat-ter. I have done so for years and if you have the right attitude (see my essay on Audience Management), no one will suspect them.
After all, they are really nothing more than innocent index or busi-ness cards. You could even make a set up on the spot if you needed to perform unexpectedly. Doing so right in front of the audience
would be fine if you made it look like you were dreaming up these words at that moment.
There are, however, other ideas that really make the ODDS an entire system. I will list a few here, but I am sure that, with a little thought, you will be coming up with ones of your own.
Instead of having a stack of cards, you can just give the specta-tor one blank business card and have him write the name of some type of object on the back. This you can learn by placing the card in some type of peek wallet such as a Jaks Wallet or one of Mark Striving’s Sight Unseen Cases. You could also use a sleight-of-hand method such as the peek I demonstrated on Volume One of Mind Mysteries in my Watch Routine. I would not use a Center Tear method for this effect as you might want to be able to compare the written word at the end to tie up all the loose ends. I should also mention that you could use an impression device to get the word, although I prefer a gimmicked wallet or straight peek myself. There are many methods for doing this and a study of my friend Richard Busch’s peek books is in order.
If you perform the effect in this way, it is very important that you give the spectator good instructions on what kind of word to write down. You must tell him the word should be of some type of object that he can picture in his mind. You should also instruct him that you want a more complicated object as something too simple might be misconstrued. One person might, for instance, picture a pen while someone else might mentally see it as a nail or a stick. The object must therefore be complex enough to make it distinctive.
Another possible in working the ODDS is to use a book test.
This really goes right back to the original intent of the routine.
There are many ways to force a page in a book and consequently a word. For purposes of explanation, let’s use the simple, but effec-tive, Hoy Book Test. Simply look through a book (or dictionary) and find a page where the first word on that page is an appropriate word to use. Take another book and riffle through it while having someone call out, “Stop.” You simply miscall the page number for the one you need and have the person with the other book open it there. Nothing could be simpler. There are many other ways to
force a page in a book with or without gaffed books. I cover a num-ber of such ways in my new video series, Easy To Master Mental Miracles. A quick look through Annemann’s Practical Mental Ef-fects or Corinda’s 13 Steps To Mentalism will give you many more.
And please don’t overlook Annemann’s 202 Methods of Forcing which is one of the best, and most overlooked, books on mental-ism.
As you can see, there are countless ways to present the ODDS.
If you analyze the intention, you only have to either force a single word or learn a single word. I have not even begun to exhaust the many different ways to do this. Change bags, window envelopes, and mathematical subtleties all can be used. There are many more which will occur to you once you begin thinking about it.
I sincerely hope you will try the above routine. Once you do, I am convinced you will have a brand new principle in mentalism that will serve you as well as it has me!
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