The
mentalist/magician shows a chalkboard or whiteboard that is
covered up on the bottom half by a cover that is bolted in place
with wing nuts and locked with a padlock. The top half of the
board is divided into three segments by white or black lines, and
the cover is made of solid wood with brass studs and grommets for
decorations.
The mentalist
states that he has made three predictions during the last night
of the full moon and that his predictions concern something that
the audience is about to make come true by their actions this
evening. He explains that he wrote his predictions on the bottom
half of the board, points out that it is sealed and bolted
(padlocked, if you wish) so he can’t change his mind, and
tells the audience that he wrote his predictions in white chalk
or black marker pen. He now gives a spectator a choice of red,
blue or green to choose the marker pen that he will use to write
the results on the top half of the board. Let’s say they
choose RED. He then asks the first choosing spectator to point to
three people in the audience, preferably ones she doesn’t
know. They stand. The mentalist asks each of them to shout out a
digit from zero to nine. They should pay no attention to digits
that others have given, but fix on one digit NOW and be prepared
to call it out when the spectator randomly points at each one.
Let’s say that the random three digit number thus generated
is 187. The mentalist then records the number in the left section
at the top of the board.
The last person
to call out a number then becomes the new chooser to select
someone in the audience to call out a color. The mentalist asks
this spectator to give her name, nickname or initials. He then
records in the center segment at the top of the board (for
example) Green; Rita. This spectator then chooses the last
spectator who will think hard and then come up with a single word
that describes his present mood or emotional state (my example
choices are just made up- you can freely have almost any choices
you want, but they have to be brief enough to write in the space
provided on the board!). Again the mentalist records this in the
right segment at the top of the board.
At this point the
mentalist brings the board over to the spectator and asks him or
her to help in unfastening the bottom cover, by twisting off the
wing nuts that hold it securely in place, unlocking the padlock,
etc.
The bottom cover
is removed and it is seen that the mentalist’s predictions,
all written in a different color chalk or marking pen, match
almost exactly the results on the top of the board. The
differences are minor. A seven on the top might have a slash
through it, while the one on the bottom does not. Rita’s
name might be shown as Riba. The word chosen might be misspelled
on the bottom of the board, but spelled correctly at the
top… and so on. This is all good mentalist’s theatre to
make the effect more memorable in the eyes of the audience.
The board really
is ungimmicked and may be left with a spectator who could be
asked to erase the information for another effect in which the
board might be used.
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