So you want to win every game of "hangman" you ever play? How can you do that? Well we mentalists have a plethora of ways to know what your thinking. In almost all mentalism there are only 4 principals in play.
They are,
Force it; This means making someone choose what you want, without their knowing.
Find it out; After something has been done (like writing something down) we find out what it is . More on that in a minute.
Fake it; Act as though we know something (Like in cold reading) that we in fact don't know, but pretend that we do.
Fill it in; Where we can do double writing or use a swami gimmick. Look to future posts for those explanations.
For now lets deal with find it out. In our example we are going to play hangman with a participant, and we want to know in advance the word they are using before the game begins? Some might use what is know as "pre show work" This just means that before a performance we approach somebody before the show and ask them to help during our performance. They're not in, on what we are going to do, but are asked to think of something, which they are to recount latter on in our performance. Because we don't want them to forget, we have them write it down, like on a clip board or book cover, and to take the paper with them, (to prove what they will say latter on) This is where the dirty work happens! We as mentalists have developed special pads, clip boards, books and the like that will take impressions of what is written so that we can latter read the words or whatever has been drawn. These are called "Impression Devices" duh, and are readily available at most, if not all magic shops.
So here is how the scenario might go with the hangman game? "Excuse me sir. Latter on in my performance I'd like to use you would you mind helping out?" If he says yes we continue with "Good. I want to play a game of hangman with you and will be asking you to think of a word for the game. Do you understand?" If he says yes we continue, "Good. Now many people get nervous when helping out and I don't want you to forget the word, so just write it down so you don't forget." See how the mentalist makes it out to be for the participants benefit when in fact it's for his own. After the guy writes down his word (atop the impression device) the mentallist thanks the participant and sends him on his way.
During the performance the mentalist calls upon the "helper" and says something like " Now although I approached you before the show I have no way of knowing WHAT YOUR THINKING OF. Giving the impression (no pun intended) that all the guy did was THINK of a word. That's it, the whole trick in a nutshell. They go on with the game but since the performer knows what the spectator wrote, it's no big deal to recount it. This technique is used quite often, and should be suspected whenever these kinds of presentations are made.
There you have it another "secret" shared with you my readers. Remember I post purely my own opinions and for entertainment only. Thanks for reading and till next time.
