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So I've been performing a book test using a deck of cards to select the page of a book but I'd much prefer to perform it where the spectator chooses the page. Does anyone know where I can find such an effect?

Edited to remove spoon feeding

Depending on your performance location/style, any way you can think of forcing a number and you can force a page/word.

My personal favourite is to have both a page and line number selected freely from two seperate audience members which is then given to the spec to read from. As fair is it's ever going to look.

I'm glad that you've seen the need to remove the cards from the selection process though, it's about as natural as Katie Price. Even if the majority of your repetoire IS card work and the book test is a little 'mental bonus' then it's still a transparent method to the lay audience. If you can read minds then why not let someone just pick any page they like, right?

Exactly! I was sitting with a group of people who asked me to do something with them, I performed a book test using the cards and they just said "pah! You've learned that page!" and it was a bit of a failure

Well, there you go, nice to have you back btw

Thankyou I didn't even know i was missed

What about the Hoy Book Test? Any book, anytime.

Demitri wrote:What about the Hoy Book Test? Any book, anytime.

+1 for this suggestion!

I spent a while looking at book tests (a few enquiries on this very forum) but have found nothing to match the Hoy test. No gimmicked book, no memorization, no forces - it's about as purely magical a demonstration you can get!

In fact, at a family birthday party this year, I broke the cardinal rule and repeated the trick not just once but at various points throughout the evening - no-one even got near the secret!

Marc Paul's AAA Book Test.

Barry

I've used the INSIGHT Book Test for close to twenty years now (since it was first released) precisely due to the fact that there are multiple ways of knowing what information the participantS (yes, plural) are looking at... you can literally move from person to to person, using random pages and reveal a ton of details... it's worth every penny and then some, as far as I'm concerned.

I loathe all the "older" force a spot type systems in that most aren't appropriate to today's audience when it comes to keeping their attention without boring them (and some of those contrived methods of finding a random page, paragraph, etc. are exceptionally boring and anti-climatic).

You may look up Dr. Bill (Cushman) book THE FOURCE however, it has some thoughts for a devilish means for doing a Book Test that appears uncannily random, is flexible, and the sort of thing that any fast thinking performer can practically do impromptu. This will allow you a similar effect to what you've been doing but in a format that's far less contrived as doing a card trick to get there... Then again, you can use any number of Add a Number methods to gain similar cleanliness.

Bob Cassidy offers several different book tests that are worthy of study as well, if I recall it would be on the "Mentalism of Bob Cassidy" CD (look for his Elemental & Principalia topics).

Finally, there is the simple and most elementary means of being right with any kind of book tests;

* Pocket Writing
* Swami Writing
* Simple Billet Work
* Muscle Reading (Pendulum)

The four most rudimentary skills in all of Mentalism; why get complicated?

Another vote for Hoy here. I use a clever 2 stage variation of it a friend came up with, but essentially Hoy is great.

That and MOABT.

Looch and Joshua Quinn's booktests are mighty fine...

As I mentioned earlier in the thread - I spent a wee while looking at book tests a year or two ago and came down on the side of the Hoy book test.

However.... as I've also mentioned on the boards over the last couple fo days, I've been running through the new Colin McLeod DVD and he has a terrific handling of a book test that is based (apparently) around the AAA test.

Absolutely terrific, totally impromptu, no gaffs, only uses a single (borrowed) book...

Between that and the Hoy - you need never worry about repeating the effect if asked. The methods are so different, there's no danger at all if you mix the two

My favourite and the one I have used most is by my friend, the late Val
Andrews

The Unfaked Book Test
although I use 5 books not 1 as Val suggested.

Also look up:
Eddie Burke's book-- Ultimate Telephoney.

This has 6 variations and one you can do in front of an audience whilst your volunteer is on a mobile phone to someone you have never heard of!

Allen Tipton

The Clip Book in Corinda is very nice. Any page and any word can be chosen, it one that I use quite often.

And I had forgotten Nicholas Einhorn's 'Word In A Million'
JB magic put this out.

It is based on Al Koran's 'Word in A Thousand'--see Tarbell 6, page 247.
Harry Stanley's Unique Studio originally out this out and later harry included an 'improvement' which I still have. This cut down, considerably, the preparation that was needed in the original Koran version.

Nicholas Einhorn's version is as the 'improvement' BUT with a neater, simpler, modern approach

ANY book.In the spectator's hands--ANY word

Allen Tipton