Nico Heinrich - The Psychic Pickpocket

Ni c oHe i n r i c h THEPSYCHI C PI CKPOCKET

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CONTENT The Basic Concept..............................................................................3 The Reading.........................................................................................6 The Answer..........................................................................................7 No-Reading Versions.........................................................................8 Version 1.........................................................................................8 Version 2.........................................................................................9 Center Tear Combo..........................................................................10 Progressive Anagrams....................................................................11

THE BASIC CONCEPT Stories with predictable endings are pretty boring, right? Now, most mind reading effects are just like that. They think of something and the performer reveals it. The audience expects him to succeed as he calls himself a mind reader – so, there are no real surprises in the performance. You might argue that the audience can’t be 100% sure if the experiment would work or not – true, but the finale still isn’t surprising. I don’t say you have to make your mind reading more unpredictable to be a good mentalist – however, I will show you a way to achieve that. This special framework, which works for ANY telepathy demonstration, has some pretty cool advantages that you will love. I call it THE PSYCHIC PICKPOCKET. Imagine this … Your participant is thinking of a random word from a book. You take her hand and concentrate for a moment. Then you begin jotting down something on a piece of paper, so she can’t see what it is. After the first word you pause for a second – just to write down another five or six words. “You know, mind reading is a lot like pickpocketing. When you are focusing on your wallet, no pickpocket in the world will be able to steal it from you, right? However, they can steal everything else that you are not focusing on. In fact, while you were holding onto that word in your mind, I wrote down a few other things about you, that are even more interesting.” 3

You give them a quick reading, only to conclude with: “By the way, did you notice how you let go of that initial thought? You were thinking of the word ‘house’, right?” This is the basic script. I guess you have already seen through it – however, I will break it down real quick. You start by having them think of ANYTHING at all. You can force a word or a playing card, you can use an impression device or a peek – so you already know what they are thinking of. While they are concentrating, you grab a piece of paper and write down a few words – the keywords of your reading (see the following chapter). Make sure they don’t see the writing. Now, here comes the first surprise: You state that mind reading would be like pickpocketing and that you didn’t try to reveal their chosen thought at all – but other things about them. In order to do so, you would have had to distract them. At this point you do a personal reading on them, using the key words you just wrote down. Finally, you are able to reveal their initial thought – as they have let go of it. This is another very surprising moment. As you may have noticed, the whole presentation can come across as sneaky or even rude since we “steal” their thoughts, as they let go of them. If that fits your character, perfect!

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If not, here is a softer version ... You can use the core concept without the pickpocketing metaphor. Let’s assume, they are thinking of a word again. “I’m not getting any letters. I think you are trying too hard, you want it too much – but that’s fine because I’m getting something else from you. (do the personal reading) Now, that you’ve stopped concentrating so hard on the initial word, it just popped into my mind – you were thinking of ‘house’, correct?” Just to make it clear one last time: In both versions, you cannot read thoughts they are holding on to (by focusing on them) – they have to let go of their thoughts in order for you to receive them. This is a huge advantage, as you will see later on.

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THE READING Now, what kind of reading do we use for THE PSYCHIC PICKPOCKET? It can be anything. You can reveal personal information that you gathered beforehand, like their date of birth, hobbies, their job, names of friends and family etc. or you can use stock lines/Barnum statements – or a combination of both. In fact, THE PSYCHIC PICKPOCKET is an amazing way to train your own cold reading skills. You don’t have to be a great reader to perform this since at the end you can always go back to the initial thought for a hard hitting sure-fire finale. Actually, you cannot really fail when you just do something here. If you want to start learning classic reading techniques and stock lines, I would highly recommend IAN ROWLAND’S Full Facts book of Cold Reading. Of course, there are a LOT of good works on the subject – however, you only need to read ONE decent book to become a good reader. The rest is to practice what you already know. Another great source for learning such “written readings” is KENTON KNEPPER’S book Mind Reading (Page 88, Writing Down The Inventory of the Mind). As the book is currently out of stock though, I suggest you take a look at KENTON’S Mind Reading Lessons, which are available in PDF-format. For those of you, who still fear doing readings, I will explain two no-reading versions later on. 6

THE ANSWER “Can you read my mind?”, they ask. “Sure, think of anything you want!”, you say. You write down something on a sheet of paper and ask: “What was it?” “I thought of my son Jeff.” “Well, mind reading is a lot like pickpocketing ...” … In this version you completely dismiss reading the initial thought – you just ask for it. Since you have written something down, they must assume it’s your guess on their thought, so they won’t hesitate to answer. Of course, for this approach, you have to be good at giving readings, as this is the only thing you really do here. You just frame it as mind reading, which is not new. JEROME FINLEY wrote about it, for example in his book T&R. However, this slightly different strategy has evolved from my original idea, so I thought it would be nice to share it here. It really is nothing I perform every day but it’s good to have it up the sleeve, I guess.

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NO-READING VERSIONS VERSION 1 My very good friend THOMAS ROSENKRANZ (known as TOM ROSE in the magic community) invented the following variation, which doesn’t require any reading skills. You start as usual with a force/peek and ask them to focus. Let’s assume it would be a number. “You know, mind reading is a lot like pickpocketing. When you are focusing on your wallet, no pickpocket in the world will be able to steal it from you, right? However, they can steal everything else that you are not focusing on. That’s what I was doing. In fact, I wasn’t trying to divine that number. I just wanted to distract you, so I could get to some more personal information. There is a problem you struggle with. You think about it a lot when you are alone … and you just thought about it again! At the same time, you’ve let go of that number … 23, right?” This is so sneaky. It seems like you would know more than you actually do. Instead of a full reading, you make them believe you would know their biggest problem at this time by telling them the exact moment they think of it again. When you say the following line, their mind automatically wanders to their most present conflict:

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“There is a problem you struggle with. You think about it a lot when you are alone.” Their eyes will go to the side (most probably their left), as they recall that problem in their mind. As soon as they do so, follow up with: “You just thought about it again! At the same time, you’ve let go of that number … 23, right?”

VERSION 2 Another option is to write down some “personal thoughts” on a piece of paper, without revealing them. You actually write down a philosophical quote, that could be the answer to a personal question. “You know, mind reading is a lot like pickpocketing. When you are focusing on your wallet, no pickpocket in the world will be able to steal it from you, right? However, they can steal everything else that you are not focusing on. In fact, while you were holding onto that number in your mind, I wrote down something else, that is even more interesting. It is the answer to a very personal question of yours. I won’t read it aloud but you can read it for yourself later on. By the way, did you notice how you let go of that initial thought? You were thinking of the number 23, right?” This version is better when you are performing for an audience since their imagination will make the effect bigger than it actually is.

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CENTER TEAR COMBO Even though this combination might be self-explanatory, I will describe my step-by-step choreography to you here: •

Have them think of something

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Ask them to write it down real quick

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Have them concentrate on their thought and write down a few impressions on another sheet of paper, which you fold into quarters (just like they did with their piece of paper)

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Exchange billets

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Explain that mind reading is like pickpocketing

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Tear their thought into pieces, as it’s not important anymore

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Ask them to take a look at what you wrote down and give them a reading

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Reveal their initial thought (as they have let go of it by now)

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PROGRESSIVE ANAGRAMS At first, I thought progressive anagrams wouldn’t work with THE PSYCHIC PICKPOCKET, as you would have to read thoughts they are concentrating on (which a psychic pickpocket cannot do). However, the opposite is true! You can start out TRYING to divine what they are concentrating on – and then fail. Imagine having someone to concentrate on their zodiac sign. You name a few letters, make one mistake, a second mistake. Then you say: “You know, mind reading is a lot like pickpocketing. When you are focusing on your wallet, no pickpocket in the world will be able to steal it from you, right? However, they can steal everything else that you are not focusing on. In fact, while you were concentrating so hard on that zodiac sign, I received a few other things about you, that are even more interesting. (do the reading) By the way, did you notice how you let go of that star sign? You were thinking of ‘Capricorn’, right?” See, how well that works together? Besides progressive anagrams, it works with almost every other fishing method. Now, that you know various approaches and methods to achieve the same thing, feel free to experiment with THE PSYCHIC PICKPOCKET and make it your own. Have fun! 11