Gary Jones - Thoughts

Thoughts by Gary Jones Effect....The magician places a playing card face down in front of a spectator who now names any card, they turn the card over and yes, it’s the thought of card. What you’re going to read will sound impossible, trust me, this WILL work and I even catch magicians with this. You must follow this script to make this work. Method....Have any deck shuffled, remove the Jack of Diamonds and place it face down in front of the spectator.........Now say the following........ You shuffled the cards--pause--there are 52 cards all different—pause—red and black— pause—four suits—pause—number cards—pause—all well mixed—longer pause (2/3 seconds)--DIAMONDS AND PICTURE CARDS, NAME ONE OF THEM (you say this last part of the script very slowly and in a firm voice while maintaining constant eye contact with the spectator). The spectator will name the Jack of Diamonds 9 times out of 10. Mention that before you started the effect you placed one card down in front of them, now say “I didn’t ask you to choose a card, only to think of one, and the card you thought of was the Jack of Diamonds. Ask them now to turn over the card you placed down in front of them way before they even named their “thought” of card. Notice you don’t say “the card you named” which is actually the real situation. What you’re actually doing is re-framing the spectators mind into believing that they thought of the Jack of Diamonds. OK let’s get down to why this will work and also I will also cover some “outs”. First I want to cover some of the psychological reasons as to why this works. (1) At no point do you tell the spectator what you are going to do and you do not make any mention to the face down card. (2) During the initial part of the script you keep your gaze on the cards just glancing up to the spectator during the pauses, but only for a split second. (3) The spectator will only take in the last line of the script, diamonds and picture cards. What you have actually done is to force only three cards, the Jack, Queen and King of Diamonds. The spectator’s brain will only take in the last line of the script (diamonds and picture cards, name one of them) this is due to you emphasizing these words along with continuous eye contact.

(4) When you say “DIAMONDS AND PICTURE CARDS, NAME ONE OF THEM” you do not say “please” as this will change the way their brain will work (by saying “please” their brain will pause, then it will think about the question, something we don’t want to happen). For this to work on a regular basis we must not give the spectator time to think. We also want the spectator to only take in the last part of the script. (5) When you deliver the last part of the script close up the deck and make sure it’s face down, you want all of the emphasis on the force. (6) After the spectator names the Jack of Diamonds re-cap, but say “so the card you THOUGHT of is the Jack of Diamonds”, notice how you say thought and not named. When the spectator back-tracks this effect they will swear that they just “thought” of the Jack of Diamonds. The above is based on performing this to a male spectator, who will name the Jack of Diamonds 9 times out of 10. If performing this to a female spectator then substitute the last part of the script to “HEARTS AND PICTURE CARDS, NAME ONE OF THEM”. 9 times out of 10 a female spectator will say “the Queen of Hearts” (so make sure you place the Queen of Hearts down at the beginning!) Outs..... First and foremost, when placing the force card down pay no attention to it, just place the card down but don’t look at it and don’t comment on it. Next while delivering the first part of the script locate the Queen and King of Diamonds (Jack and King of Hearts if performing for a female spectator) and get them to the top of the deck in a known order. If they should name one of the other picture cards and not the Jack of Diamonds (Queen of Hearts) you can now end the effect by placing the card onto the deck and double/triple lifting, or perform a top change, or use any other switch you have in your arsenal. I know what you are thinking, what if they don’t mention the force card, no problem; remember that you haven’t told them what you’re going to do. You could remove the named card and go into another effect with this, you could cull the named card and produce it from a pocket/wallet, or you could switch it for the card you place down onto the table etc. The point to remember is, THE SPECTATOR DOESN’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO DO SO AS FAR AS THEY THINK YOU HAVE NOT EVEN STARTED TO DO A TRICK. Another presentation, you can do this effect without a deck of cards. Go through the script but with an imaginary deck of cards, have the three picture cards in different parts of your wallet/purse. This is now my preferred way of doing this effect, it’s a killer. Please give this a try, I’ve caught some of the best card guys with this (just ask top UK card magician John Carey for his reaction to this).

I would like to thank my good friend and great magical thinker Mark Bendell for all his help in putting this together, also many thanks to John Carey, Christopher Williams and Christopher Congreave for having to sit through this effect until we all got it down to the finished project.

Afterthoughts The following was sent to me from Christopher Williams.... Ok, what I would do should they NOT name the card... Well, first off, I know the card on the table...and the way I would have it there, is to have it on top of the face down deck, shuffle and cut, retaining that card, then classic force myself (Just spread and stop on the card), and place the card on the table. This way, there is no heat on the card directly due to the fact that you haven’t said anything about it, and haven’t even looked at it, so you supposedly don’t even know what it is...obviously you know it is the Jack of Diamonds.   Shuffle the deck, and go through the spiel trying to force the card...if you miss, which can and will happen at times...here is what you do. As you already know what the card is on the table, say ‘Ok, that is a card merely thrown out of the back of your mind, lets choose one from the front of your mind, something you are consciously aware of and in control of deciding’...however, you say, before you will get them to do this, take out the MATE of the card they named (Whilst secretly cutting or culling the Jack of Hearts (Or mate of the tabled card) to the top of the deck), and place it on the table NEXT to and overlapping for half its length on the first card to the right of it. Now, to them, the first card now makes sense, it was a prediction for the first card, and you have openly just removed a second prediction. You now FORCE the top card of the deck, which is the mate of the Jack. Get them to have a look at it and get them to place it face down in front of them, and then give them the deck to take out the card they merely named. So now they have one card consciously chosen (The force card) and one subconsciously chosen (The one they thought of due to the word play earlier).. They place the card face down on top of the other card they took out. Now all that is left to do is do the old Monte style switch, to switch the positions of your cards, showing your predictions, which will match theirs!   Enjoy guys!                                                                                                                                            

Copyright Gary Jones 2008