A Suggested Out For Ben Harris’ & Steve Shufton’s: “x-ray”

EX-RAY A Suggested Out for Ben Harris’ & Steve Shufton’s “X-RAY” © Felix (”Nicolino”) Schellenberg, 2010 [email protected]

You are authorized to keep one copy of this manuscript on your computer and to print a single copy for physical reference. All other rights reserved. The end user (you) agree to abide by international, territorial, state and local copyright laws in regards to the manuscript herein. You agree not to allow any part of this publication to be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, the internet, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author in writing. You agree not to make this manuscript available via any P2P networks.

“The magicians I admire most are the ones who think deeply about their magic, and knowing that an effect is always a “work in progress“, continue to put in the work. With his addendum to X-Ray, Felix (’Nicolino’) Schellenberg has won my admiration.“ Steve Shufton "A clever addendum, a perfect and consistent out! Impressive thinking...” Ben Harris

EX-RAY A Suggested Out for Ben Harris’ & Steve Shufton’s “X-RAY” © Felix (”Nicolino”) Schellenberg, 2010 [email protected]

© Felix (”Nicolino”) Schellenberg, 2010 [email protected]

The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the creator of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, the internet, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author in writing. This edition Published by Media T Marketing Pty Ltd www.wowbound.com

This manuscript is supplied free of charge to all X-Ray owners. It is not to be sold separately.

EX-RAY A Suggested Out for Ben Harris’ & Steve Shufton’s “X-RAY” © Felix (”Nicolino”) Schellenberg, 2010 [email protected]

Introduction There’s rarely a new effect released that seems to please everyone. X-Ray is one of them – and nothing has to be added to the plethora of raving reviews which currently flood the magic scene. The only drawback to many was the possibility of missing when presenting this “experiment“. Although this will happen rarely, it still can. However, X-Ray is too good to be left unused, and I feel no one should be deterred from presenting it due to the risk of failure alone. The Out It is often recommended to use an Invisible Deck as an Out. While appearing a practical solution at first glance, I think it is wrong to use it here! Sounding a little bit harsh? Please let me explain this point of view: in my opinion, a mentalist should be crystal clear in what phenomenon is being presented - is it clairvoyance? ... or telepathy?? ... or precognition??? Unless you change the patter dramatically, X-Ray starts off as a feat of clairvoyance – (resp. telepathy): you either “see“ through the card box or “sense“ the card in your participant’s mind, depending on whether you follow the original approach or the one Richard Busch suggests (with the card face down).

Using an Invisible Deck, however, the stunt would suddenly turn into a piece of precognition after the failure ... how illogical: if you knew the outcome before – then why did you miss in the first place?? Therefore, my goal was to find an Out which fulfills the following two criteria: - the original premise should be left intact, even after the miss - the effect should be self-contained (one regular deck, no additional IDs or indexes etc.) What I’m about to describe in the following sections is the solution I finally found to suit my needs the best; just as Steve has combined two well known principles into a brilliant new creation, my approach merges two great effects into one. How the effect plays You introduce a deck of cards, show them to be all different (shuffle if you like) and ask a spectator to cut the deck anywhere while you turn around. She is asked to look at and remember the card at the bottom of the pile she has just cut and replace this pile back on the remainder of the deck (the thought-of card is now face down as per Richard Busch’s suggestion). The deck is cased - and you turn around pretending to read her mind. Unfortunately, you fail and cannot get a clear impression ... So you beg her to try harder. While you turn around again, she is asked to grab the deck once more, search through it until she finds her card and burn the impression into her mind again – but this time even deeper!! The deck is cased again – and luckily you now can successfully sense her thought-of card ... The Secret To achieve the described outcome there’s minor memory work to do (again, no memorized deck!) and you end as clean as in the original effect (the deck can be given away if desired). The secret is simple – as your deck is kind of stacked anyway (with the five target cards in appropriate positions), why not simply use a full deck stack? However, in order to avoid any

needless mental gymnastics, I deliberately discarded the idea of using a memorized deck like Aronson’s or Tamariz’, but instead decided to utilize the great “Breakthrough Card System“ (BCS) by Richard Osterlind, found in the book of the same name1. The reason is simple: The “Breakthrough Card System”... 1) ... doesn't require significant mental work or training, 2) ... ranks very high among the list of well-camouflaged cyclical stacks that can be handed out without any fear, 3) ... and last but not least, it's quite known and appreciated among magicians around the world. We are lucky enough to find a certain sequence of cards within the BCS (with almost perfect distances to each other!) which qualifies perfectly for the routine. 9 of Diamonds 4 of Diamonds 2 of Spades 10 of Hearts Jack of Diamonds If you cut the 2 of Diamonds to the bottom of the BCS stack, the five cards lie at the desired positions, namely 11, 18, 25, 32, 40. You’ll notice only at position #40 there’s a slightly different interval than in the original setting (#39) but fortunately that’s totally irrelevant in real life conditions. The “procedure“ would now look as follows: Red? No: 2S (#25) Diamonds? No: 10H (#32) Higher card? No: 4D (#18) Picture Card? No: 9D (#11) JD (#40)

1. Richard Osterlind: Breakthrough Card System, http://osterlindmysteries.com

You only need to memorize the position of these five cards – and the script of course ...! Alternatively, you can print out this small text box as a crib sheet. One additional beauty of this sequence is that the only black card (“... one question and you’re done!“) finds itself already in the desired strategical mid-position (#25) as mentioned in the original effect! As for the presentation, I instruct my participant as follows: “I’m afraid that our minds didn’t connect yet, so I need you to help me: try again to pin your card into your mind ... So please take the deck once more while I turn away and fan through it until you see your card – don’t name it yet, don’t touch it, don’t show it to anyone! The only thing I’m asking you to do is to burn the image into your mind ... deeply and clearly! Wow .... much better now, you are doing a great job! – And you know what? To keep your mind focused and not get distracted by any other card, why don’t you cut all the cards in front of your card to the back of the deck so that only your card is visible to your eyes? Now, please concentrate one last time on your card to help me sense it ...! – Thank you, that should be sufficient! Please, take your card and replace it anywhere in the middle of the deck so it gets really lost ...! When you’re done, please put the deck back into the case ...” Attention: This is when you turn around halfway towards the spectator, the card case in your hand to “help” him put the cards back into it. However, what you really do is an utterly innocent card case peek! Steve Shufton was kind enough to point out that the idea of using a stack and a box-peek to discern a "thought of" card was invented by Larry Becker and is called “A Simple Case of Logic”. Basically, as the deck is put back in the case with the exposed side closest to the flap, a glimpse of the card is made as the performer tucks the flap in and seals the deck – all done in the blink of an eye! Since you still have never touched the cards, nobody will care about this tiny instance when you have not been turned away!

That’s basically everything – you name the thought-of card! A clean, bulletproof deceptive Out for a killer effect with everything needed: 100% success rate, totally hands-off, with just one regular pack of cards that is completely examinable – try it ... Out! I hope you keep enjoying X-Ray!