“Accomplice,” “Mule,” “Stooge.” These are just a few of the terms that have been used to describe a particular kind of secret assistant. Most performers are either over-reliant on their secret helpers or shun the use of them completely. It is useful to at least consider the middle-ground where the infrequent and judicious use of someone posing as a spectator can be safely used to produce results that are both convincing and confounding. We’ll examine a hybrid use of a secret helper and discuss how to avoid the errors that can cause your audience members to think, “that guy is in on it.” You’ll learn new and novel ways to silently code information through action and location, and an alternate path that intentionally creates a moment of real difficulty to strengthen the believability of a faux success.

“House Seats” are seats in a theater which have been identified for use by cast members, producers, the creative team, or others directly involved in the production. In this issue of The Journal, you’ll learn that there are some situations where the location of one person’s seat can tell you a lot about what another audience member is thinking.

Duis tongue vestrum fac,
The Journal of Psience

Michael Weber The Journal of Psience  (Vol 2 Issue 3)

At the time of this writing much of the globe has been under quarantine for more than six months, with no certain end in sight. Many mentalists and mindreaders have responded by offering physically distanced shows through video platforms like…Zoom.
…
Our hope is that this issue’s simple offering will serve as a useful real-time tool that provides a fast and fooling way of knowing the thoughts of three or more of your on-line audience members.

Michael Weber The Journal of Psience  (Vol 2 Issue 4)

We confess…

All of this distanced interaction and performance has us impatiently long- ing for a future time when we’ll be able to hand a physical object to our spectators.

In anticipatory celebration of a return to hands-on magic, we are sharing a personal favorite we’ve been keeping for ourselves.

The idea began while working with the folded Keno ticket force. Our first experiments quickly revealed that the digits did not have to be in numerical order for the method to succeed. The results of those explorations can be seen in our commercial release, Lucky Numbers.

We then wondered, “What if the informational elements were something other than just numbers? Maybe…letters?”

The result was a way to allow our spectators to make a series of free choices (which way to fold the paper, which letters to pierce, how to arrange the re- sulting letters to form a word) and still end up with a secretly knowable outcome that could be exploited for an apparent demonstration of mind reading.

Next came a deeper examination of the remaining elements on the page (Like the indigenous peoples of North America, we always look for ways to use every part of the Buffalo.) By adapting an ingenious methodology pio- neered by Ned Rutledge, we ended up with a single page, seemingly torn from a book of puzzles, with which we could present a variety of thought- reading demonstrations involving one, two or three participants.

We suggest that you print out the puzzle page so you can follow along with the materials in hand. When the time comes that you can leave the house and actually perform this for people, please take the extra time to print the page on newsprint and add one of the convincing images to the other side of your prop to complete the illusion of an innocent page torn from a book of puzzles. Word.

Michael Weber The Journal of Psience  (Vol 2 Issue 5)

This issue offers some new thoughts on [Mark] Elsdon’s original method and presentation [for Tequila Hustler]. When we contacted Mark to seek his blessing he not only agreed but went above and beyond by providing a complimentary digital copy of his manuscript for every Journal subscriber.

In addition, Mark shares a previously unpublished collection of his latest notes, thoughts and improvements to his original Tequila Hustler.

Michael Weber The Journal of Psience  (Vol 2 Issue 6)

Presented here is an unusual effect distantly related to Add-a-No, but rooted in a surprising, yet real, aspect of social science. In addition to the presentational frame, we added a new and fooling bit of penultimate honesty along with a collection of improvements on a modern classic of calculated deception.

“You have taken something TOXIC and made it even deadlier!”
– Robert King, Creator of The TOXIC Force