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Mentalists! Do any of you do Punx's Great Minds Think Alike as detailed in Corinda? What a great effect.

Without giving anything away, which brand of paper do you use?

Thanks.

I've tried it once, but unfortunately it didn't work. Not because they didn't 'notice', but because this being britain, they just thought of another number thinking that they were supposed to.

The negative point to this routine is that there isn't really an out either...

I think this effect sounds great in theory but in the real world I just can't see this being even 50% successful.Then again I havent worked it

I'm not familiar with this effect, what page in Corinda is it on?

I remember when I first read it going out and trying it out on a few unsuspecting people. Success rate at first was not the best. I had to word things very carefully and then my success rate was no better.

Edantes, it's in step 6, p192.

Everyone else, thanks for your replies. I note your critiques of the trick, but still fancy giving it a go. Richard Osterlind does it in his DVD adaptation of 13 Steps (you can find a video on YouTube) and I like the look of it. I'll bear in mind the things you've said though and see if I can think of any ways to up the success rate.

Can you remember what paper you used?

I tried it once and the person noticed. I laughed it off as though it was a joke and surprisingly got away with it, although I still felt that horrid demotivated feeling after a dreadful performance. That made trying it again somewhat intimidating, but I tried it again anyhow and it still failed. I can't remember what paper I used, but I tried to decypher Corinda and I did use a certain kind of paper for it, if I remember correctly- which I rarley do- it was normal paper the first time and then some kind of slightly glossy one the second.

I don't see why you shouldn't perseveer though. As has been pointed out, Osterlind got it to work and Corinda said that it worked so evidenltly there is something in it worth persuing. It just tends to be the case that the best effects require the most amount of failure to begin with.

Cheers Sam. That was my thinking on it too. If both Osterlind and Corinda thought it was worth it, well ... there's gotta be some way!

Caligari wrote:Cheers Sam. That was my thinking on it too. If both Osterlind and Corinda thought it was worth it, well ... there's gotta be some way!

Oh no, I'm sure it could be made to work. Whether it can be made to be reliable enough to be a worker is something that is more of an issue.

It might be worth looking into making it into a dual reality type routine if you like the effect?

That's an interesting idea Philip. Thanks.

Caligari, have you managed to get it working yet?

As others have said, I'm not convinced by it. I just can't help but think people are more cynical these days. You'd need to be confident that the participant truly believed in "ethereal messages". I'm tempted to try it but don't hold out much hope.

I'm pretty sure that Derren did something similar with David Tenant in Trick or Treat. But he got Tenant to draw something and told him that he was going to go up to someone and pretend to read their mind (rather than suggesting that someone was going to read his)

So if you think it about it like that, it makes it logical for the second person to draw whatever they see on the paper rather than question it, as they were under the believe that Tenant was about to read their mind.

This may not be the method Derren used though, but the Punx method is a more than plausible way of doing it, and i'd do it a similar way too.

me_simon wrote:I just can't help but think people are more cynical these days. You'd need to be confident that the participant truly believed in "ethereal messages"..

me_simon, I know what you mean about people's cynicism, but I was thinking of a bizzarist presentation anyway which ought to take care of some of that belief deficit.

Kroots wrote:I'm pretty sure that Derren did something similar with David Tenant in Trick or Treat.

Kroots, I remember that - I'll have another look at it and see if I can get any ideas. Thanks.

As for whether I've got it working the answer at the moment is no. I haven't had a chance to seek out any suitable paper, but I have been discussing a similar method with a friend using Post-It Notes. It seems to work well with my partner, but I've yet to road test it on anyone else. It's not quite the same principle, but it has promise. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for your comments people.

Kroots wrote:I'm pretty sure that Derren did something similar with David Tenant in Trick or Treat. But he got Tenant to draw something and told him that he was going to go up to someone and pretend to read their mind (rather than suggesting that someone was going to read his)

So if you think it about it like that, it makes it logical for the second person to draw whatever they see on the paper rather than question it, as they were under the believe that Tenant was about to read their mind.

This may not be the method Derren used though, but the Punx method is a more than plausible way of doing it, and i'd do it a similar way too.

If my memory serves me correctly, it was a cat was it not? Derren has people draw cats in a few of his shows.....