Jes Hansen - Journey.pdf

JOURNEY Seeing Through the Eyes of a Stranger by Jes Hansen

“For me nature is not landscape, but the dynamism of visual forces.”

- Bridget Riley

JOURNEY

Copyright © 2018 Jes Hansen All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.

INTRODUTION Welcome dear readers of minds, I want to invite you to take your audiences on a journey! The JOURNEY you are about to discover is a corner stone of my current act. It is also my first release since the highly acclaimed and limited Emotional Connector. There is always some time between my releases because I don’t create for the sake of creating but for my own performances and only a few years ago I decided to share the fruits of the work with the community because I think that other performers can benefit from these. I may not be a big innovator in method but that comes from the fact that I don’t want to be clever but create lasting impressions with my audiences. What is important in my work (in my own opinion) are the performances and full scripts that I share. They are my main artistic output and are highly influenced by my background as a professional actor and work in theatre. You will only ever receive worked, theatrical material with my original performance script from me and the JOURNEY is no exception of this. I decided to not limit this release as I did with my last, even if this routine means just as much to me as a performer. The main reason is that the last one was pirated extensively and therefore the eBook spread even if I did not want that to happen with my personal closer. So please get it from me or one of my resellers rather than pirate shops. I won’t take this one off the market. That means a great deal to me and I am very thankful for every person who obtains this eBook over legal ways.

But now to happier themes! I want to thank all the people who contacted me about my material and shared their thoughts with me over the last year. I want to especially mention Steve Wachner, Jacob Smith and of course Pablo Amira who I still feel very connected with. Also, I want to thank my German friend Dr. Ralf Fröhlich for supporting me and my art in many ways. Another big thank you goes to Sudo. Not only for proof reading this work, but he created an alternate method for this piece that I will outline later. More than that he has become a true friend in the arts and he continuously blows my mind and teaches me what being a mystery entertainer means. A thank you goes to Peter Turner for inspiring me to create this routine through his now legendary book Bigger Fish! Now I will no longer hold you back from going on your very own JOURNEY! Enjoy yourself and create memories. Jes Hansen, Spring 2018

OUTER REALITY “Welcome on-stage Charly! I hope you have enjoyed your evening so far. Do you like to spend time in nature?”

She lets the performer know that she does indeed like to spent time in the wild. “That’s wonderful and who doesn’t, after all. I have a second question for you. Do you know these moments where the smallest of things you see sparks a world of imagination? I think that’s something everyone has experienced in their lives. Let me combine the two aspects of my question to a piece of imagination in your very own mind. Please sit down in that chair and make yourself comfortable. Place both feet on the ground and listen to me. On the table next to you lay a few cards on which you will find different colours. Please take a look at the different colours while I continue and make sure they are all with the colour downwards in a minute.”

Charly begins to turn around the cards on the table facedown and mixes them a bit on the table. “Our imagination is able to create worlds. Worlds that are completely imagined but at the same time as real as stepping out of the door. The great authors and artists have shown us what is possible and the moment we open a book a world is unfolding in front of us. The abstract form of the written word becomes picture, becomes smell, becomes emotion in us. We will now try something along these lines!”

The mind reader takes a few steps back and addresses Charly directly. “Charly, you have turned over the colour cards and know now that there were many different of them. The colours on them will be the abstract information that will be translated in a complex imagined thought by you in just a minute, but don’t worry. Please take now one of the colour cards while I turn away and hold it against your chest for a moment, so I can remove the other cards to prevent cluttered results in what we are going to attempt”

After collecting the cards, the performer takes a few steps away from Charly and proceeds. “Please take a look at the colour now and don’t show it everyone else while doing so! Now you have a colour in your mind. This colour will be the abstract thought that will turn to a complex imagination in you mind in just a second.”

Soft and meditative music starts in the background as the mind reader continues. “Please close your eyes for me now and leave them closed until I ask you to open them. I want you to create a landscape in front of your inner eye with your chosen colour as a starting point. Take the colour and see what landscape you would associate with it. Make it a landscape you have visited for a clearer picture. Now develop this mental picture and let it get clearer and more and more detailed in your mind. Make it vivid, hear the sounds, smell the air and let it all come together to give it a life of its own. Behind your eyes is now a fully formed image of landscape that you have brought to life. Please nod if that is the case. Thank you!”

The performer inhales deeply and exhales slowly before closing his eyes too. “Charly, I have now closed my eyes too. Sometimes, if someone in the same room as myself develops a strong mental image I can pick up on certain aspects of it. It may not be much because this is not under my control and has a lot to do with the energies present on the day. I ask you to just keep concentrating on the picture in your mind while I describe what I see. Please don’t interrupt me until I specifically ask you a question. Please nod if you have understood that. Thank you!”

The eyes of the mind reader begin to flicker, and he seems to drift of in another realm. “This is quite interesting, normally the first thing I get is an impression of light or dark. This time it is a bit different, but that may not be a problem. I smell air. Very fresh air. And there is a warmth over my body. I hear something, but I am not yet… wait now my body cools down, but the sounds did not vanish. This happens sometimes but I am happy that it didn’t on this occasion. Now the thing I mentioned earlier is happening, and I can see clearly the light. This has nothing to do with the stage lightning, it comes from within me and in me it works like light on a photographic paper. The noises set back in!”

The performer shields his eyes from the stage lights and proceeds after a pause. “Now I feel that I am standing on something warm and its quite soft too. It does not give me too much resistance when moving around.”

The performer moves carefully around the stage. He stops directly in front of the end of the stage before falling. The audience takes a deep breath! “A second ago I touched something with my feet that was very revealing. This gave me a big leap forward in perceiving my surrounding with all my senses. All six! The sound that irritated me a moment ago was the sound of, I believe, a bird. It is kind of a shrill noise but embedded in a wash of a soft sound in the background. There are people around us but not many. I think I have a pretty clear picture now.”

The eyes of the mind reader are opening slowly and adjusting back to the light. He arrives back in the room and moves over to Charly that still sits in the chair on stage with her eyes closed. “Charly, I want you to slowly delete the detail out of you picture. Please make the visuals blurry and let the sounds fate out. Let it all move backwards and return to just seeing the colour you initially started with and then let even this fade out and make your mind go blank. If you just see white let your eyes slowly open.”

After a short moment Charly begins to slowly open her eyes and orients back in the room. Our mindreader continues. “Charly, now you are back in the room with me has your trip into your imagination been as relaxing as mine? Great. Am I correct in assuming that we were, just a second ago, at a beautiful beach washed in sunshine?”

Charly laughs out in amazement and confirms the mind readers impression! The mind reader retrieves the card and continues.

“Thank you very much Charly! You’ve been amazing. A great applause to Charly while she is returning to her seat!”

Raving applause sets in. The light extinguishes.

INNER REALITY I hope you enjoyed the performance of THE JOURNEY. It is an amazing performance piece and keeps audiences captivated everywhere I’ve performed it. I decided to write out the stage performance of this piece to illustrate its theatrical potential. Of course, this routine is not limited in any way to the stage. Like most Mentalism, this also makes an awesome close-up piece - even for intimate one-onone performances. There are some variations I make for that circumstance and you can find my thoughts on that in the following chapter. I will now give you the explanation of the routine as annotations in the performance text. The text you already read in the previous chapter is greyed out. The explanation is in black. These annotations should help you to understand everything you need to know in the routine to be able to go out and perform it. To prevent clutter, all the further thoughts on the routine - the performance and the methods, are to be found in the next chapter so make sure to read that even if you think you understood everything. These further thoughts where developed over many performances of this routine and have some valuable content - especially if you want to perform it out of the stage context I described until now. Let’s get into it!

“Welcome on-stage Charly! I hope you have enjoyed your evening so far. Do you like to spend time in nature?”

She lets the performer know that she does indeed like to spent time in the wild. “That’s wonderful and who doesn’t after all. I have a second question for you. Do you know these moments where the smallest of things you see sparks a world of imagination? I think that’s something everyone has experienced in their lives. Let me combine the two aspects of my question to a piece of imagination in your very own mind. Please sit down in that chair and make yourself comfortable. Place both feet on the ground and listen to me. (These kinds of instructions are something I very regular use because I know it’s power through my extensive use of hypnosis in all performance circumstances. Checking for the compliance of an audience member is especially useful when you attempt a routine like the one described in this pamphlet. Generally, it is always helpful to check on your audience member before giving a performance of eight minutes just to discover that the person is not able (or does not want) to follow the easiest instructions. The repositioning of an audience member is a fast and motivated way of checking the compliance.) On the table next to you lay a few cards on which you will find different colours. Please take a look at the different colours while I continue and make sure they are all with the colour downwards in a minute.” (The last two sentences are very logically placed and make sure that you do not have to ask the idiotic question of “Are these normal?” or “Please check them

carefully!”, that are so unbelievably misplaced in mentalism that I won’t get deeper into the matter now. The cards are rendered normal in the eyes of the audience because you let the spectator on stage handle them freely and that happens without pushing any more attention to them than you must. Just continue with your script and let your audience member do their assigned job. That is really everything that is necessary.)

Charly begins to turn around the facedown cards on the table and mixes them a bit on the table. “Our imagination is able to create worlds. Worlds that are completely imagined but at the same time as real as stepping out of the door. The great authors and artists have shown us what is possible and the moment we open a book a world is unfolding in front of us. The abstract form of the written word becomes picture, becomes smell, becomes emotion in us. We will now try something along these lines!” (The last sentence you just read is something I read for the first time in a routine of Ben Blau. Since then, I’ve been in love with it and use it more than I possibly should. Just for your information.)

The mind reader takes a few steps back and addresses Charly directly. “Charly, you have turned over the colour cards and know now that there were many different of them. The colours on them will be the abstract information that will be translated in a complex imagined thought by you in just a minute, but don’t

worry. Please take now one of the colour cards while I turn away and hold it against your chest for a moment, so I can remove the other cards to prevent cluttered results in what we are going to attempt” (Here lies the first and most important layer of the method. You are, of course, not removing the cards to prevent clutter, but to find out which colour your spectator on stage is holding at the moment. I use marked colour cards for that purpose. How I made mine is explained in the next chapter. The available colours are green, blue, yellow and white. I have more blue cards than green, yellow and white. I first check if I am able to spot the mark on the card the audience member is holding. In two of three occasions that is possible, and you are good. If not, you just collect all the cards from the table - I most often use fifteen cards - and see which colour is missing from the stack. Just note the colour and memorize it. The moment you know the card, you are more or less done with your method. If the audience member chooses: •

Green - you will describe a forest.

•

Blue - a seascape.

•

Yellow - also a seascape (but not include too much water information).

•

White - a snowscape.

That is the core principle of JOURNEY! If you allow a spectator to construct an imaginary landscape from one of the four given colours these will be the outcomes. In a stage setting this works 100% of the time because of the pressure on you

audience member forces him to go with the first thing that comes to his or her mind. In an intimate setting you may want to make use of a two way out for some colours, but we will get into intimate performances in the next chapter. The moment you know the colour, you instantly have the landscape and can leave method behind and just perform. After all that’s what we love most, isn’t it?)

After collecting the cards, the performer takes a few steps away from Charly and proceeds. “Please take a look at the colour now and don’t show it everyone else while doing so! Now you have a colour in your mind. This colour will be the abstract thought that will turn to a complex imagination in your mind in just a second.”

Soft and meditative music starts in the background as the mind reader continues. “Please close your eyes for me now and leave them closed until I ask you to open them. I want you to create with your colour as a starting point a landscape in front of your inner eye. Take the colour and see what landscape you would associate with it. Make it a landscape you have visited for a clearer picture. Now develop this mental picture and let it get clearer and more and more detailed in your mind. Make it vivid, here the sounds, smell the air and let it all come together to give it a live on its own. Behind your eyes is now a fully formed image of landscape that you have brought to live. Please nod if that is the case. Thank you!”

The performer inhales deeply and exhales slowly before closing his eyes too. “Charly, I have now closed my eyes too. Sometimes if someone in the same room

as myself develops a very strong mental image I can pick up on certain aspects of it. It may not be much because this is not under my control and has a lot to do with the energies present on the day. I ask you to just keep concentrating on the picture in your mind while I describe what I see. Please don’t interrupt me until I specifically ask you a question. Please nod if you have understood that. Thank you!” (The sentence “Please don’t interrupt me until I specifically ask you a question.” is especially important to make the routine work in terms of method as well as well as theatrical. The last thing you want is a spectator that interrupts you in the middle of your description going “No. actually there are no birds.”. You now continue with describing the landscape which fits the chosen colour. I strongly advise you to create a personal script for them fitting to the landscape surrounding you. For example, you can incorporate special sounds, flora and fauna, smells or if it works a local landmark that fits into the description. You will see in a second that what you describe has not essentially to be what the audience member imagines to bring the routine to a very successful conclusion exactly as described in the performance.)

The eyes of the mind reader begin to flicker, and he seems to drift of in another realm. “This is quite interesting. Normally, the first thing I get is an impression of light or dark. This time it is a bit different, but that may not be a problem. I smell air. Very fresh air. And there is a warmth over my body. I hear something, but I am not yet… wait now my body cools down, but the sounds did not vanish. This

happens sometimes, but I am happy that it didn’t on this occasion. Now the thing I mentioned earlier is happening and I can see clearly the light. This has nothing to do with the stage lightning, it comes from within me. And in me, it works like light on a photographic paper. The noises set back in!”

The performer shields his eyes from the stage lights and proceeds after a pause. “Now I feel that I am standing on something warm and its quite soft too. It does not give me too much resistance when moving around.”

The performer moves carefully around the stage. He stops directly in front of the end of the stage before falling. The audience takes a deep breath! (This is the kind of theatrics that are worth gold. Still the majority of mystery entertainers would skip on this, but it is really what drives this routine home. You can not improvise something like this but have to rehearse it again and again until it looks fresh and created in the moment every time. Going through that kind of trouble will have a great impact on how your audience sees you not only as a performer but as an artist.) “A second ago I touched something with my feet that was very revealing. This gave me a big leap forward in perceiving my surrounding with all my senses. All six! The sound that irritated me a moment ago was the sound of, I believe, a bird. It is kind of a shrill noise but embedded in a wash of a soft sound in the background. There are people around us but not many. I think I have a pretty clear picture now.”

The eyes of the mind reader are opening slowly and adjusting back to the light.

He arrives back in the room and moves over to Charly that still sits in the chair on stage with her eyes closed. “Charly, I want you to slowly delete the detail out of you picture. Please make the visuals blurry and let the sounds fate out. Let it all move backwards and return to just seeing the colour you initially started with and then let even this fade out and make your mind go blank. If you just see white let your eyes slowly open.” (These instructions maybe remind you of the end of a performance of hypnosis and is exactly what inspired this passage of the script. It gives the process the meaning it deserves. This is what transforms a routine into a piece of theatre – something we should always strive for. Everything in this routine is about the imagination and the possibility to create a complex imagined world out of abstract given information. We don’t want to rush to the reveal here in any way. Take the time to make the JOURNEY memorable for all your audiences.)

After a short moment Charly begins to slowly open her eyes and orients back in the room. Our mindreader continues. “Charly, now you are back in the room with me has your trip into your imagination been as relaxing as mine? Great. Am I right in assuming that we were just a second ago at a beautiful beach washed in sunshine?”

Charly laughs out in amazement and confirms the mind readers impression! The mind reader retrieves the card and continues.

(Here now lays the final piece of method that we use to accomplish the impossible feat of describing an imagined landscape of an audience member in minute detail. The truth is we don’t or better put we don’t do exactly that all the time. Most of the time your description will be really accurate and for two reasons. The first reason is that we all, when asked to imagine a landscape, imagine very similar archetypal kinds of landscapes. So, chances are that when you imagine a beach your spectator will imagine a very similar beach right next to you. Its unbelievable how similar we all are. The second principle I employ to make sure that the imagined landscapes are as similar as possible in our two minds is a popular mind trick. Don’t think of a pink elephant! Now you will have thought of exactly what I asked you to not think about. This will happen during the routine. If you describe the noises in your own imagination your spectator on stage will have no chance but to incorporate this into his or her imagination too. That is true for all the small details. While you asked them to create a landscape in their mind you are entering theirs and form it the way you would want it to be. I have created other material using this principle over the last months and realised how powerful it is. I will leave it to you to develop this further at this point in time. In this JOURNEY its just one of many elements that work together to create a miracle. For the case you are not 100% accurate in your description it doesn’t matter at all because we make use of a clever ploy. Please re-read the question I asked Charly in this performance. The question is “Am I right in assuming that we were just a second ago at a beautiful beach washed in sunshine?”. To this question she will answer yes. Peter Turner masterfully observed that this yes will give the impression

that Charly at that moment approves to the whole description of the landscape while she really just says yes to the fact that she thought of the beach. This really is no dual reality and nothing you will have to fear during performance. As I described earlier the chances are very high that your imagined landscapes are very much alike. You are now finished with your performance and can enjoy your well-deserved applause after sending your audience member back to her seat.) “Thank you very much Charly! You’ve been amazing. A great applause to Charly while she is returning to her seat!”

Raving applause sets in. The light extinguishes.

FURTHER THOUGHTS In this section of the eBook you will find the parts of the methods that had no place in the initial description in the context of the fully scripted performance. I hope you will find all your questions answered in here that are still open after reading the description. If that should not be the case don’t hesitate to ask me directly over mail or social media. There are no stupid questions! I want to begin this section with an alternate method for the routine. This method is not my creation but was given to me by friend Sudo. I am sure you have heard about him and his genius creations in our art. If not stop reading now and head over to his website and get some of his work! After sharing the routine with him, Sudo came up with an alternate idea to get to know the colour by forcing it. The thoughts behind forcing the colour were several. The first was to be able to force the ideal colour for the most descriptive landscape every time. The second was so that cards didn’t have to be used and no marks needed to be read. I liked the idea of this for two reasons. One being the fact that I simply liked the visuals of his idea and second being the possibility to get to the snowscape every time. I will outline why I like this outcome best in a moment but first let’s get to Sudo’s solution. He advised me to try using gem stones or coloured glass pebbles and a change bag to force the outcome I want. To clarify for anyone not following a change bag is essentially a two way out bag. We fill the first compartment with many different coloured pebbles and the second one with many stones of the same colour. This

enables us to show all the stones different but force the outcome of the selection. After Sudo gave me the idea I tried it in performance at a gig a few days later. It really worked like a charm. I used a small black velvet two way out bag that does not in anyway make you think of these awful magicians change bags. I asked my participant to grab one stone and bring it out enclosed in his fist and without looking. After the selection I threw the bag into my case and continued with the performance. This is a very fair and direct way to get to the colour and may be the best solution for you if you don’t feel comfortable thinking on your feet when performing this. I will definitely keep this solution in my repertoire in the future and it will be used. This will not replace the original method completely because I love working intuitively on stage and create a unique experience for myself and my audience. There are time and places where that is not suitable and for these occasions I will get back to Sudo’s concept. I mentioned earlier that I forced the white pebble with the change back which leads to the snowscape. The reason to do so is because of the added reveal that can be used when your spectator thinks of the snowscape. This is of course applicable for the regular method too. The added reveal is a childhood memory of your participant! The concept behind it is essentially very simple. If you ask someone who already thinks of a snowscape to think of a childhood memory there is not much to choose from. They can go for a snowball fight or building a snowman. Again, through the Ploy of the Pink Elephant you are able to direct the imagined memory in the way you want to. The beautiful thing with adding this is the fact that you can get a positive, direct response at several times while still describing the memory. Don’t

do it as a separate reveal make sure to interlace it with describing the landscape. I leave it to you to explore this deeper from this point on. There is the potential for miracles in here! I will now close this section with the answers to some questions that are maybe still on your mind.



What landscape do I reveal for each colour?

As already described in the main explanation here are the colours and the corresponding landscapes: Green: Forest Blue: Beach/ Seascape Yellow: Beach White: Snowscape (Optional colour: Orange with corresponds with a sunset that’s most of the time located at a beach.)

I highly advise you to create a script for every possible landscape in advance. This will ensure that you don’t have to make something up on the spot which will enhance your performance quality massively and give you the possibility to improvise on this basic framework.



What can I use as an out if I am unsure?

I personally don’t use outs in the stage setting. The only time I would fall back on outs is in an informal close-up setting. In this case it occasionally happens that the person you are performing for thinks for green of a meadow, for blue of a flower field and for yellow of a dessert. This really happens very rarely but just in case you could do a written revelation that incorporates physical outs. For example, with the use of an index and pre-written index cards. For the reveal you just remove an index card and write the name of the most likely landscape on it. Ask now for the landscape. Should it not be the one you have written down just palm the right one from you index and switch it with the previously written business card. That covers this problem. The problem with that is that you have to be very, very vague in the description of the landscapes what takes a lot of punch out of the routine, so I personally would try not to fall back on outs and just trust in your ability to nail it!



What changes do you make if you perform in a close-up context?

The main change I make when performing the JOURNEY in an intimate close-up setting is checking with the spectator when going along with the presentation. For

example, when I describe the sounds I ask the person I am performing for if they can hear that too. Or when I describe the texture under my feet I ask them to try if they are also able to feel the same thing. All these is of course possible due to the described Ploy of the Pink Elephant. When performing this in an intimate situation I also make the description phase longer and more detailed. In an intimate setting the reveal is actually the least important point and the focus should be more on the shared experience and the synchronized minds. For the rest it works exactly as the described performance.



Which cards do you use?

For most of the time I performed this routine I used self-made cards from my business cards which backs I coloured with Copic markers. I placed marks in the back design of the card to inform me which colour is on the face. I had one set with very bold marks for stage and another with very subtle marks for close-up performances. These have now lasted me for over eight months and worked great. So, if you are starting out to perform this or if you just want to give it a try this is possibly the best way to go for you. Currently I perform the routine with custom produced cards that look like taken from a vintage colour chart. This ties in with a section in my performance where I talk about my grandfather who was a painter. I sadly don’t have his original colour charts anymore, but these look very much alike and fit perfectly to me and give the piece another more personal note without directly mentioning it.

CREDITS Peter Turner – Wish You Were Here The inspiration for this routine came from performing Peters Wish You Were Here on a regular basis for quite some time. I saw immense power in reinterpreting the routine for my performance style that is very much focused around imagination and hypnosis. From there it evolved to what it is now. I don’t try to force the landscape anymore and don’t use a reading in the context of this piece. Also, I wanted to make it a longer full fleshed theatrical piece. I still perform Peters original routine as a short piece in my close-up set. Peter Turner – Confirmation Principle Peter described the Confirmation Principle in his book Bigger Fish as well as in many other of his video and written releases. It has become since then a staple method of modern mentalism. Sudo – Alternate Method The credits for the alternate method described in this piece go to Sudo who came up with it after I explained THE JOURNEY to him one evening.