Psychic Secrets Revealed

[Garrette]

It was an hour show on public television last night. The style was similar to the "Secrets of Magic Revealed" series (or whatever the title is) but with far less time spent on build-up and revelation.

They had a few mentalists who performed one at a time for a small audience who had been told the mentalists were actual psychics. Effects were shown out of sequence and edited just to give the effect and then an explanation.

I didn't take notes, so from memory here are some things they showed:

1. Prediction sealed in envelope
2. Distant psychic reveals chosen card over telephone
3. Needle through arm as a demonstration of psychic healing
4. Spike, but with a dagger placed in a recessed stand
5. Drawing revelation
6. Remote viewing (not really, but it's what they called it)
7. Reveal chosen card while blindfolded
8. Mediumship with hot reading along the lines of John Edward
9. Psychic cold reading as per a visit to a fortune teller
10. Spirit slates

The prediction in envelope was the sum of three randomly chosen numbers. A headline prediction would have had greater audience impact, but I'm glad they didn't do that.

The card-revelation-over-phone was the old, old method that still catches people off guard, but it came across as a magic trick and not a psychic effect.

The needle through arm was clumsily performed, but sufficient to get the point across.

The magician who did Spike was the same one who did phone-over-card and the 'remote viewing.' He seemed out of place as a mentalist but fine as a magician. His verbiage was inconsistent regarding how he was purporting to accomplish the effect: was he reading minds, doing muscle reading, or traveling astrally somewhere? The script needed work. It seemed as if he was a talented magician who got roped in at the last minute to do mentalist stuff and didn't have the time to perfect the changes in presentation. In addition, the method for Spike is one obviously not accurate for the common presentations of it.

The drawing revelation method was accomplice-based and I think did a disservice by making it appear that an accomplice is necessary for this sort of trick.

The remote viewing effect was a very nice effect but somewhat sloppily presented--this is the one I think is a magician suddenly turned mentalist. The method involved an accomplice visiting the sitter's house (name and address obtained from information provided when getting the ticket) and gathering information under false pretenses. Nice to show how easy this is.

The revelation of a chosen card while blindfolded was perhaps the silliest method of them all. Certainly doable, and perhaps some mentalists actually use this method, but it's certainly the hard/expensive way.

The John Edward style mediumship used no cold reading, so that was a bit disappointing. Instead, it used accomplices mingling with the crowd prior to the show. Good that they showed that method, too, but I really wish they'd shown cold reading.

The psychic cold reading was the best of the show and very well done by a charming, convincing, lady magician I do not know. They showed her reciting a virtually identical script to three different people, each of whom swore to its accuracy before the big reveal.

The same lady psychic did the spirit slates. The method was fine, but it would have been nice if they had updated it to non-slate effects. If they didn't want to reveal the updated method, that would have been fine; they could have simply said "And fraudsters can do the equivalent with a paper and clipboard, though we won't tell you how because some honest magicians still use that method."

All in all, worth a watch, though nothing to froth about.

[Denver]

I enjoyed this show as well, though it seemed to be a repeat and actually first shown in 2003. And was discussed here:

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=4365

[Brown]

I saw the show too, and recognized it as a re-run. My local Canadian cable company billed it (incorrectly) as the Nova show featuring this obscure fellow named James Randi, and the program appeared on commercial television rather than public television.

I recognized that there are a lot of variations on these effects, and there often are multiple ways to achieve the same or similar results. Banachek and Richard Osterlind both do summing effects similar to the one depicted in the program, except that they can actually confirm with all of the participants that the numbers being summed have not been, er, handled in the way that was shown on the program.

In other words, if you saw this program and thought you knew how the trick worked, and then saw Banachek or Osterlind perform it, you'd be sorely tempted to believe that Banachek and Osterlind didn't use trickery. In fact, they might simply use modest variants of the same trickery.

[Garrette]

I didn't realize it was a rerun. I should pay closer attention.

Reference different methods a ala Banachek and Osterlind, that's what I was trying to get at in some of my descriptions and is my real beef with the program. The same thing applies to Spike, the blindfolded card revelation, and the drawing revelation at least, perhaps others, too.

[Azrael 5]

There was a big hoo haw on Magic Cafe at the time I recall,due to Ian rowland exposing a billet peak or something.If it's same show.Or maybe they made a UK version.

[Garrette]

Originally Posted by Azrael 5

There was a big hoo haw on Magic Cafe at the time I recall,due to Ian rowland exposing a billet peak or something.If it's same show.Or maybe they made a UK version.

Must be different. I don't know if Ian Rowland was on there as I don't know what he looks like, but there was no billet peek of any kind.

[AgeGap]

There is a picture of him on his website.
Also this
Hour
Youth
Income
Ache
Sad
If
Ran
Stow
Watch
Oath
Ink

[Garrette]

Originally Posted by AgeGap

There is a picture of him on his website.

Could possibly be him. The performers were younger than the picture, but the show is older than I knew.

[Brown]

Ian Rowland was not a part of this particular show, although Ian did participate in a psychic exposure show hosted by actor Judd Nelson.

In the Nelson show, Ian exposed at least two billet peek methods. It is worth noting that the same comments made above were applicable to Ian's show, namely, it was strongly implied by the producers of the show that these techniques were the only ways to achieve the results. In fact, good performers have many more techniques at their disposal.

Garrette is correct, in that nearly every effect on the show could be done in multiple ways. The trick with the blindfold was, in my judgment, the "howler" of the bunch, as it implied that the blindfold had to be specially rigged in a particular (and ridiculously obvious) way. As many attendees of TAM2 can attest, the blindfold need not be rigged in such an obvious manner, and usually need not be rigged at all!

[Azrael 5]

Originally Posted by AgeGap

There is a picture of him on his website.
Also this
Hour
Youth
Income
Ache
Sad
If
Ran
Stow
Watch
Oath
Ink

Huh?

[AgeGap]

Originally Posted by Azrael 5

Huh?

Don't know! It was there on his homepage but has now been replaced by ads. It was white writing on a pale blueish background. I just copy and pasted it. I thought it was strange but now I think it was just an error in the web pages code.

It's here!!!

[DJM]

It's supposed to be some kind of wordplay if you combine it all together, but forgot how it works.

[Azrael 5]

Originally Posted by DJM

It's supposed to be some kind of wordplay if you combine it all together, but forgot how it works.

Fake grass?

[AgeGap]

Originally Posted by DJM

It's supposed to be some kind of wordplay if you combine it all together, but forgot how it works.

Well done! "How you think.................think"

[AgeGap]

How you think makes a difference to what you think-How very apt.