Project 365 (20/365): The Book Test

.:20/365: The Book Test:.

While yeah, the example of Black Ops Hypnosis I showed last time was also a book test, I do believe that the whole scheme of finding out what word a person is thinking from among thousands of possible words has got to be one of the most astounding feats in mentalism.

There are a million and one types of ways to pull it off, albeit the most obvious solution still stands as the most difficult and impressive of them all: outright memorizing the entirety of a book in order to know which words can be found on which pages. It’s quite an impressive thing to do, but that’s not quite the mentalism feat that we hope to observe, since it’s not particularly involved in “reading” somebody’s mind, as it were, but a case of showing off that one’s faculties are continually sharp and at the ready for anything.

What I believe is the best book test out there would have to be Marc Paul’s “AAA Book Test.” What sets it apart from other performances is that it is absolutely impromptu and never fails to leave your audience aghast over how you could’ve possibly achieved such an impossible feat. Marc Paul is one of the most underrated mentalists out there in the industry, so it would certainly do well to take a gander at his works, because he is quite a hidden goldmine of powerful advice and material for the working mentalist, such as myself.

There are many other versions out there, such as the Flashback principle by Larry Becker, or the Dracula principle, or the Sherlock Holmes principle, but ultimately, any mentalist worth his salt would have a book test or two up his arsenal, as that is one of the simplest ways to demonstrate mind-reading without putting yourself entirely at the mercy of a skeptical and ruthless audience who might try throwing you off if other forms of mind-reading were employed.

Learn it, love it, use it. The book test is fun, impressive, and if you could ever possibly use the “obvious” method, then you don’t even need to do anything else. Just impress people with your monster memory, and take your brain to the bank (P.S. It also helps to play card games. Heh.).