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I recently bought a "Mental Epic" board for doing a one ahead routine. One issue I have always had with such routines like this is that usually the last last chosen item in the sequence is usually the weakest as it involves a force. (i.e. 1. Pick any famous person past or present, 2. Pick any city in the world, 3. Pick a card)

I am struggling with ideas for the force part of the routine. I really want to go with a non-card force for the final prediction. Something a bit more 'impossible' than "pick a card". Any suggestions?

well, if you were the audience member, what would amaze you?

T.A. Waters has a wonderful essay on this subject, alongside an entire chapter of effects and methods in Mind, Myth and Magick.

Predictions are very tricky things to sell at the best of times, and there are many strategies to improving them. The simplest is to make all three predictions approximately the same level of impossibility, or indeed to build up the final selection as if it were something more incredible than the previous two.

i have a notion, but it will only work in a formal setting.

it involves a line of 6 items.

you give the spectator a free choice of any item, then a second, then a third.

you then show that you knew which items they pick, and in which order.

As i stated at the begining, this is a notion.

It may well not work for you.. I can see myself making it work for me though

Try and work it out.. you need 6 items.

forgot to mention something....
If you buy Paul Brook's D.B.S.D You will find a routine of mine, that does away with your problem once and for all.


http://www.paulbrook.co.uk/heknows/dbs.htm

There are some wonderful Mental Epic routines that don't require a force - or any special boards for that matter.

They do require some guile and composure, though.

But also, ask yourself this: If you got two out of three right, wouldn't that still be really effective?

If you were cheating and using trickery, you'd get all three - so the one miss proves that you're the real deal, right?

So why not take a chance with the third one? Go for a 'likely' hit, aware that it's not the end of the world if it turns out to be a miss.

Pete

I have to agree with "The Man above"

I was working on Fri night and i closed with a type of Casino Royale'y thing.

For some reason i had a blonde moment and wrote down the wrong amount of bank notes.

The comments from the floor, (That i heard) was that it must be real as if i was using trickery i would have got that one right.

I still got a standing Ovation!!!!!

for mental epic I just pick up any note pad (preferably a post it note pad) and I'm off and running, no set up required. Its an idea by Jay Sankey. Interestingly enough I just posted this in a response in the misc area. Go figure.