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Eshly: The blindfold blackboard Test:
It can be done with Sound Reading.
See 13 Steps Step2; pages 38 to 42.

A longer more detailed read is Sound Mentalism by Sam Dalal, published by Supreme Magic around 1980

The ESP Test is remarkably simple. I've even done it with an Art Pad & felt tip pen

There is a complete Blackboard Act detailed in 'You Too Can Read Minds' by George B. Anderson; pages 11 to 18 with 2 pages of photographs
Published 1968 Magic Inc Chicago

Allen Tipton
PS Derren B has had a bit more experience than you!

Then there is:
The Al KoranMiracle Blindfold Act in Routined Manipulation LewisGanson
Eyeless In Gaza by Stephen Minch.
Both using ordinary blindfolds.
You need to read the principles they use.

And various Blindfold books from:
Intuitional Sight by Eddie Joseph. Vampire Magic the 50's
X Ray Eyes by Sam Dalal.. Edwins Magic Arts 1992
The Blindfold Book by Richard Osterlind. Jeff Busby 1987
Super Blindfold Act Booklet. No author, Came from MBBP in the 90's
The Blindfold Enigma by Carroll K. Priest. 1982 Martin Breese

to start with

Allen Tipton

bmat wrote:Eshly you are never going to get an act if you don't start performing. You can come up with all the wonderful ideas you want. They mean nothing until you start to perform. I don't think you fully understand what Corinda meant when you read those words.

Reposting this because it is more important than any discussion on methods. You must perform SOMETHING, anything. Methods are simply a tool, magic is about your showmanship and entertaining an audience.
If you sit around and don't go out and actually perform Eshly, then what good are any of these suggestions to you. Complex and intricate magic is nothing if you can't sell it as entertainment (I don't mean that in a monetary way). I've gone through some rediculously complex card methods and just given up because I can do a trick with using nothing but a DL, throw in a bit of banter with a spectator and get a far better result.

Im no grandmaster or anything, not by a long shot. But I know that I learned way more from actually performing for people and that you won't get anywhere until you do, the whole game changes when you have people staring at your every move.


My advice: Learn some simpler, smaller illusions that these grand things you have planned. Do them to death in front of friends and family, school/work colleagues, anyone that wants to watch. Then work your way up to the bigger stuff.

My point to this? If you don't perform at all, on any level, you're not a magician. If you're not a magician (or mentalist, whatever) then its time you stopped asking for methods. Put the advice these very clever people are giving you into practice or its not worth anything and I think to say the advice of some of these guys is worth nothing is a grave injustice.

Done now, thanks.

IAIN wrote:what does solving a rubix cube prove/show?

I've only ever seen people solving them at juggling conventions.
You see where I'm going with this...

Matthius is dead right, magicians have a really bad habit of over thinking things. Keep the methods simple and spend your time on the presentation and making it entertaining. I know you've got a lot of ideas, Eshly but if I were you, I'd jot them down in a notebook to come back to later. work on perfecting a small set first and once you've got that then start looking to expand it.

Thanks very much Allen, theres a lot there to think on. Cheers!

=========
WARNING: The following is a rant about my practise, and my worries. It is slightly off-topic, but I ask that Mandrake does not lock it for going off-topic, as I hope this will be useful to me, or someone, in the end.

And I do practise a lot. I cannot practise my exact script, but I have performed 357 atleast 20 times today alone for groups of people. They love to see it.

I have nightmares where I perform badly, I don't mean method wise, I mean I am unentertaining. I try to prevent that happening by doing mentalism all the time. I practise lots and I think I am getting better.

My worry is that things like 357 will be hard to use on stage. I know it CAN be used on stage, but I am not too sure how. It is not the props/methods/effects fault, so I am not blaming that, but I do worry that the rest of the audiance won't care once the spectator is selected. (357 is performed FOR one person)


I can entertain 5 people with a routine of 357, and I can hold a crowd of 20 to 30 or so people while busking. But I often have small fits when I realise that I must entertain scores of people, with one simple effect.




Banachek's advice on this is clear:
"Theres no such thing as boring mentalism, there just a boring Mentalist."
I've always considered myself a very good performer, I've been acting since I was tiny and have played to audiances of thousands at big theatres before. But that was always with a firm script of Shakespeare or such; never just me and a single audiance member!



I know its possible, other Mentalists do it all the time, but I'm not sure how to practise performing to a big audiance instead of a small audiance. Small audiances are everywhere, in the street, in pubs and clubs.... but to hold the attention of 100 people is scary.

Nerves are something we all face. There is no solid advice that works for everyone on this topic, other than starting to enjoy what you are doing. I can tell you the anticipation and nerves before a large performance and often the nerves when you first go on can be quite daunting. You're brain is saying 'don't do it' and you head is sayind 'do it'. Then you walk on- it is just a matter of pretending you're not nervous, or as a good actor, acting as though you do it every day even if you don't. Then and only then, you start to enjoy performing. And perhaps it may take a minute ir so to get into the swing once you do there is NOTHING like it. If you enjoy performing your audience enjoys watching you: after all, what is the point in practicing a performing art if you can't enjoy performing. And that, in my opinion, is all there is to it.
Just a point though, I was once performing and enjoying the performance. The audience-performer rapport was there, it was theatrical and fun and I was really enjoying it. But, so much in fact, I completley forgot to do the method to the effect and it nearly completley failed: I laughed it off and enjoyed it, didn't play the failure up- and because of the connection with the audience nobody else did and sometimes a healthy dose of failure can be a great convinser (and I will never forget to do the neccesery 'thing' for the effect).
The thing is to not treat the audiences too differently- the intimacy should still be there to the best of the performer's ability, be it 100 people, 1000 people or 10 people- indeed they are still different in all practicality, but if taking on that belief means the reduction of the connection between audience and performer then that can never be a good thing. Perhaps stage magic is much more difficult to create the intimacy of the close up or drawing room situation, but that intimacy and entertainment is still a worthwhile objective.

Eshly: IF it is just this one effect--357 that gives you fits etc.in front of Big Audiences then the answer is simple:

Perform it just in front of audiences you are comfortable with'
Leave it out in front of big audiences

Allen Tipton

I like you Allen, you're handy



Honestly however it is not just 357 (which is a brilliant trick by the way, can highly reccomend it). Its any trick which involves just me and one other spectator at a table, with cards.

My ESP routine, 357, Crossroads (a card trick)... all of these make me worry about the audiances overall viewing pleasure and enjoyment.

Can they tell that I just matched 5/5 ESP cards?
Will they care if they cannot see the cards?
What if they loose interest and I die on stage, then my world implodes, killing untold billions?!



Thats the sort of thing I worry about. It might seem silly, but I cannot affort a projector to 'show' the cards, and equally I cannot afford to NOT use card effects.



Its nerves... I hope...

You need to fail some. I think the best antidote for the level of anxiety you're talking about is to screw up badly and survive. And you will survive. Very few people have actually died of embarrasment. In standup they tell you that you need to do 100 gigs before you find out if you're any good. 100 gigs. No-one but no-one does those 100 without dying a few times. Most, even the good ones, will die many times. The skill is learning from those times and having the strength and tenacity to go out and do it all again.

I have next to no performance chops, and have structured this year's learning not around developing bullet proof methods for tricks but by finding ways of getting some proper experience where methods won't be something I need to worry about. There's, I think, an error a lot of people make in learning magic, and that is to try and learn the wrong stuff first; the e-lusionist kids who can run perfect clip shifts on their YouTube account but have next to no experience performing to real people. One would be much better off learning a clutch of self-workers and selling them to the best of your ability than going all out for technical excellence. And out of this world is a self worker, so it's not like one would be limited to weak effects.

My best friend for long time now has been a pre-written billet. I don't rate myself that highly when I use it but I recognise that I get more out of a switch and a bit of acting than I would out of Proximity, or any number of professional closers.

I know you like to keep planning shows -- it's sort of a "rumination hobby", and I know how compulsive they get. But moving from doing single "hey, watch this" effects to planning a full-blown stage show seems way too big a step.

Let's be honest here, neither of us is going to be handed a theatre and all the trimmings. Nor a thousand avid fans eager to shell out their hard-earned cash to see us, and prepared to hang on our every word. So...

You can use some of that planning energy more efficiently by thinking about small shows for small groups, the kind of show you can realistically aim for now. Half an hour at a party, that sort of thing. If you're already busking for 25 or so people at a time, then you already know what individual effects work for this size audience. So you can concentrate on planning coherent, entertaining shows using these effects.

Stepping up from this, somewhat longer shows for small to medium-sized groups, up to an hour for 50-100 people. You can learn what works and what doesn't on this somewhat bigger scale. And so on.

I'm not particularly talking about doing any of this for money right now. Concentrate on getting the practice under your belt. Is anybody you know throwing a party? Is a school or church fete being planned for this summer? Any local charity thinking about a fund-raiser?

Eshly, I really think that you need to think about giving yourself some direction. You seem to flip from one idea to the next over night. What is it that you want to do, is it a stage show? If so then if I were you, firstly I'd forget about the effects and certainly their methods for now and just think about the show's structure. What do you want to do in this show, not specific routines but more an abstract idea which could simply be a "20 minute memory routine". Build up a plan for your show like this and you'll have more direction when it comes to the routines and effects themselves.

Eshly: Finally--

REMEMBER what John Mendoza & I have always said:

PRESENTATION FIRST: Method second.

and from Fred Kapps

Magicians LOVE Methods; AUDIENCES love PRESENTATIONS.

and Finally, Finally:

SCRIPT everything you say. Cut it shape it, after performances.
Scripting gives you a breathing space if something goes awry or interferes.

A New Routine: Learn the handlings,Improvise the patter several times, script it on paper. LOOK AT IT. Hear it in your head.
Speak it ALOUD again & again & again. Learn to listen to the SOUND of your voice

Try it out on a recorder. Rehearse it till you can speak the patter in your sleep.Get a friend to listen to you saying it.
Learn it till you can say it in your sleep.

WHEN Pattering approach it as though for the first time.
It must NOT sound rehearsed.That is the REAL trick to acquire.

Remember actors all over the world speak the same script every night and make it sound fresh everytime.

Relax. Read 'The Relaxation Response' by Herbert Benson M.D. (ask at the library or PM me & I'll send you a copy of the main system chapter)
Use his simple breathing sysgtem. It has worked for me and several thousand of my drama students for the last 30 years since I discovered it.

Allen Tipton

My Elshy,

Do we have any videos of your performances yet?

Thanks

Actually, if you post them here or not, getting some of your busking videoed would be a great way to see how you come across as a performer.