An audience tested routine directly from a working performers act... TeKyay by Christopher ThroneburyPage 2 of 20 Breface This routine is essentially my take on Anneman’s Fourth Dimensional Telepathy. What | have done to improve it is to remove the necessity of a force by using a progressive anagram for the first choice. | have also developed it so the routine now has a definitive climax as opposed to the same effect all three times. Lastly, | have associated the routine with a game that audience members are familiar with. Additionally, throughout this manuscript | have included some handling tips and nuances that | have developed after performing this routine hundreds of times. These nuances have been worth their weight in gold to me, | hope you find them of value. All Content Copyright 2009 © Christopher ThroneburyPage 3 of 20 A game of clue is played with three different spectators. The first spectator is asked to think of one of several locations, the second spectator is given a choice of weapons and the last is allowed to think of any person in the world. The spectators write their thoughts on business cards and seal them in pay envelopes. The envelopes are opaque and the performer cannot see through them. Despite these stringent conditions, the performer is able to ascertain with 100% accuracy exactly what each spectator is thinking of, All Content Copyright 2009 © Christopher ThroneburyPage 4 of 20 Paes Nga: RARITAN DRAWIN = 3 Pay Envelopes = 3 Business cards, blank on one side = 3 Sharpie Fine Point Markers - 4 Sharpie king Size Marker* - Large pad of paper* * Chatk board and chatk can be substituted for King Sized Sharpie and pad of paper. All Content Copyright 2009 © Christopher ThroneburyPage Sof 20 elit Prepare the three business cards by drawing a line lengthwise down the center of the card. Place a small “” on one end of the line to indicate that the spectator should “write here”. Fold each of the business cards in half with the line inside and place each one into a separate pay envelope. All Content Copyright 2009 © Christopher ThroneburyPage 6 of 20 For this routine, you will require the assistance of three different spectators. | usually start by saying, “By @ show of hands, how many of you here have ever played the board game Clue?” If there are kids in the audience, | usually point to one and say, “Or in some cases, Clue Junior?” | continue with, “Wow, quite a few..By a show of hands, how many of you have not ever played the board game clue...Interesting...By a show of hands, how many of you just don’t want to raise your hands?” It’s a corny joke but it usually gets a laugh since one or two people always raise their hand at this point. “Well, tonight we are going to play a game of clue. | am going to. require three people to help me out. One person will think of the location, the other the weapon and the other the murderer, and | will try to figure out the three. If this doesn’t work....1’ll do a card trick!” At this point | point to a person in the audience. | always use a woman for this and | will explain why later. “What is your name? Mary? Mary, you are going to think of the location. | want you to think of one of these, Kitchen Dining Room, Conservatory, Cellar, Library, Ballroom, or Billiard Room." It is All Content Copyright 2009 © Christopher ThroneburyPage 7 of 20 absolutely necessary for her to think of one of the locations you have mentioned. For quick reference, here is the list of locations again: Kitchen * Dining Room * Conservatory * Cellar + Library * Ballroom © Billiard Room “Mary, are you thinking of one of those? Perfect, here's what I'd like you to do?” At this point | hand her one of the fine point Sharpies along with one of the pay envelopes containing a business card. “Mary, inside this envelope is a business card, I'd like you to take the business card out of the envelope, write the name of the location you are thinking of on the back of the card, fold it back in half and seal it in the envelope. Can you do that for me? Great, we'll be back with you in just a moment Mary.” I'd like to take a minute and mention several important points. You have pre-folded the business card at the beginning. Now when Mary is finished writing, she will fold it back along the same crease. You will be misreading the business cards later in the routine and you want each All Content Copyright 2009 © Christopher ThroneburyPage 8 of 20 card to look identical. By pre-folding the card, you are avoiding the chance of Mary folding the card in a manner differently that the other two cards. Another reason why | use business cards is that since one side has my logo and information on it, it is only logical that Mary write on the back of the business card. Again you avoid Mary writing on the outside and having her card look different than the others. The last, reason the business cards are folded is because you are going to have the spectators hold their cards up to the light before handing them to you to ensure you cannot see what they have written. If you look close enough, it is possible to see through the pay envelope, so you want to make sure the card is folded in half so they don’t suspect you peeking. One more point | want to make here is that you have told Mary that you will be back with her in a moment. This is very important as you don’t want her to be unsure as to what to do when she is finished sealing the envelope. Because you must keep track of the envelopes, you don’t want the spectators handing the envelopes down to the end of the aisle or giving them to one person to collect. You now approach a second spectator. | usually choose a man for this one, “You sir, what's your name? Mike? Mike you are going to choose the weapon...you look like a weapons type of guy to me Mike. Please think of one of these...rope, wrench, knife, candle stick, gun, or poison.” |t does not All Content Copyright 2009 © Christopher ThroneburyPage 9 of 20 matter what weapons you name for Mike to choose. You can add or remove weapons to this list to suit your performance. “Mike, are you thinking of one of those? Perfect, here’s what I’d like you to do!” At this point | hand him one of the fine point Sharpies along with one of the pay envelopes containing a business card. “Mike, inside this envelope is a business card, I'd like you to take the business card out of the envelope, write the name of the weapon you are thinking of on the back of the card, fold it back in half and seal it in the envelope. Can you do that for me? Great, we'll be back with you in just a moment Mike.” Now | approach the third and final spectator. | usually use someone who has reacted well throughout the show. “What is your name? Amy? Amy you are going to think of the murderer. | am not going to limit your choice, you can think of anybody in the entire world. However, I'd like you to think of somebody that everybody here would be familiar with...like a celebrity. It doesn’t have to be a murdering celebrity, it could be any celebrity. in fact, you can get creative with it. It can be somebody living or dead. It doesn’t even have to be a person. It could be a cartoon character or even @ famous animal. Do you have one in mind? Perfect, here’s what I'd like you to do!” At this point | hand her one of the fine point Sharpies along with one of the pay envelopes containing a business card. “Amy, inside this envelope is a business card, I'd like you to take the business card out of All Content Copyright 2009 © Christopher ThroneburyPage 10 0820 the envelope, write the name of the murderer you are thinking of on the back of the card, fold it back in half and seal it in the envelope. Can you do that for me? Great, we'll be back with you in just a moment Amy.” I have to make another point here. As you will notice after reading the rest of the routine, we could have allowed the second spectator to think of any weapon in the entire world also. However, by only allowing the final spectator to think of any random choice, we have a natural climax to the routine. Also, | have the spectator think of a celebrity so that when | misread the card later in the routine, even if the handwriting is horrendous, | can still make it out since it’s someone | might be familiar with as opposed to a random Joe. In my opinion it’s also more theatrically sound. | now collect the envelopes from the spectators starting with the first spectator. Before | take the envelopes back however, | must make sure they have sealed their envelope and can’t see through it. | say something along the lines of, “Mary, have you sealed the envelope? Perfect. Now before | take it back, can you please hold it up to the light and make sure you can’t see what you have written. Even if you can see through the envelope, the business card is folded in half...correct?” | now take back the envelope and say, “Mary, you will be person number one!” | then follow the same procedure for each spectator, assigning the spectators numbers 1-3 All Content Copyright 2009 © Christopher ThroneburyPage 11 0f20 respectively. As | take back the envelopes, | put them one behind the other in my left hand so that when | have collected all three, spectator 1’s envelope is on top, #2 in the middle, and # 3 at the bottom. Now you are going to have to switch the positions of the envelopes. This is not a difficult thing to do since people are not expecting it and you are going to cover it with a joke, | take the top envelope (belonging to spectator #1 Mary} into the right hand and hold it up while saying, “Now, I only asked you guys to write this information down for two reasons. First, so that you don’t forget what you thought of, and second, so that you can’t change your mind and try to make me look stupid at the end.” At this point | return the envelope held in my right hand to the bottom of the stack in the left hand. Now the situation is that #2 is on top, #3 is in the middle and # 1 is on the bottom. Now | mislabel the envelopes. | number the envelopes 1-3 from the top down using the King Size Sharpie and toss them onto my table. If you have followed the directions so far spectator #2’s envelope should be labeled as number 1, spectator #3’s envelope will be labeled as number 2 and finally spectator #f1’s envelope will have a 3 written on it. All Content Copyright 2009 © Christopher ThroneburyPage 12 of 20 Now | look at spectator #1 and ask her to concentrate on her location. | pretend as if | am havinga hard time. “Nothing, | am getting absolutely nothing. | thought you might be alittle difficult.” Pointing to her husband | usually say something along the lines of, “Is she usually this difficult?” At this point | ask her to just think of the letters that make up the name of the location. “Here’s what I'd like you to do Mary. Just think of the letters that make up the name of the location. Can you do that for me? Great! Spelling counts!” | now use the following progressive anagram to determine the name of the location she is thinking of: All Content Copyright 2009 © Christopher ThroneburyPage 13 0f20 R- Kitchen - Dining Room - Conservatory - Cellar - Library —o- erp 1 Ballroom Billiard Room Basically how it works is you pretend like you are psychically receiving their word letter by letter. You start calling off the letters R,A,L,8,0, and | in sequence. “Iam seeing the letter R, there’s an R in your word isn’t th Yes, am also seeing the letter A as well correct?” As soon as the spectator says “No” you know what location they are thinking of by referring to the location next to the letter they said “No” to. For example if their word contains the letters R and A but not L, you know the word is conservatory. If they did not say “No” at all and you have went through the entire list, then that means they are thinking of Billiard Room. If you don’t want to memorize the anagram, you can print it out and tape it to the King Size Sharpie where you can peek at it behind the pad while starting to write. Note: Stefan Oischewski has been kind enough to send me a German version of the anagram. For those of you interested in this, you can find this in the Extras section at the end of the book. All Content Copyright 2009 © Christopher ThroneburyPage 14 of 20 As | stated earlier, | like to choose a lady to participate in this part of the routine. The reason for this is that in my experience, ladies have been consistently more willing to play along with the progressive letter by letter mind reading than men. Another technique | use when utilizing the progressive anagram is to make a joke to lighten up the situation and hopefully get the spectator to cooperate a bit more. For example, after | tell Mary to think of the letters in her word | concentrate a bit and then say, “Okay, great! I'm getting a vowel movement!” All Content Copyright 2009 © Christopher ThroneburyPage 18 0f20 Now that you know the name of the location that they are thinking of, you don’t just blurt it out. You pick up your pad of paper and write down the name of the location using the King Size Sharpie. After you have finished writing, rest the pad on the table, ensuring that nobody is able to peek at what you have written. Pick up envelope number one, tear it open, pull out the card and open it up. To the audience, it looks like you are just checking to see what the name of the location is; in reality, you will now be looking at the name of the weapon that the second spectator is thinking of. However, you misread it by naming the location that you have just written on your pad. As | look at the card | usually say something along these lines, “Mary, let me ask you a question. Are you a doctor?” Unless she really is a doctor, she will say no. | then turn the business card upside down as if the writing isn’t clear. "A nurse perhaps? No? Maybe it smeared a bit when you folded it. I’mnot quite sure if this is correct but does that say cellar?” Of course you name the word you wrote on your pad. The spectator will agree. Pick up your pad, turn it around and accept your applause. The reason | do the joke about the bad handwriting is that although this works most of the time, the problem with progressive anagrams is that there are occasions when a spectator will say “No” to a letter that actually was in the word they were thinking of. If this happens, it would look quite awkward for you to open the envelope and misread the wrong location. The spectator would be quite confused if you opened the All Content Copyright 2009 © Christopher ThroneburyPage 16 of 20 envelope and boldly named Library when the word they wrote down was Cellar. At least this way, if you are wrong, and have the wrong location, you can still continue with the rest of the routine. You now ask spectator # 2 to concentrate on the weapon. You pretend to get. psychic vibrations and then write the weapon you read earlier on your pad and rest it on the table. Recently, | have started to make several comments about the selection before writing it on the pad. | find that this at least gives them some insight into your process. Additionally, it gives you an opportunity to add some humor. | usually say something along the lines of, “Mike would you stand up for me. Hopefully, this will be a little easier to get than Mary’s.” At this point | start to receive the vibrations. “Wow Mike. That came through fast. That's creepy. You didn’t think of the gun like most people would have. You got creative on us. Wow! How long have you been married?” This is another humorous moment as the spectator usually replies “Too long”. (Most of the time, the second spectator will think of anything other than the gun. | think this is due to the fact that the gun would be the obvious choice.) Now you open the envelope labeled 2 and take out the business card. You are now looking at the name of the person spectator #3 is thinking of. Again All Content Copyright 2009 © Christopher ThroneburyPage 17 of 20 misread tt for what you wrote on your pad. The spectator will agree. Pick up your pad, turn it around and accept your applause. Now that you know the name of the person spectator # 3 is thinking of, you can really build this up. From your standpoint, the routine is already over. | usually express to the audience the impossibility of me knowing what she is thinking of since | didn’t limit her choice at all. “Now this would be impossible if | got this one, wouldn’t it? | mean I didn’t really even limit your choice did I? | even told you to get creative with it! Would this impress you guys if | got this?” Usually at this point the audience replies with a big resounding YES! “Yeah, it would impress me too!” | now write down the name on my pad. | have come to really love this moment of the routine. At this point, if you have done everything correctly, you will be able to hear people in the audience murmuring to each other. As you write, you will get comments like “No way!” or “This is impossible!” Now, instead of opening the last envelope, | just ask her to name the person she fs thinking of. I turn around my pad for the final revelation. All Content Copyright 2009 © Christopher ThroneburyPage 18 of 20 § . Srorcluston From the audience standpoint you increasingly got better and better. The first spectator was a little difficult, so you had to receive letters one by one. The second spectator was a little bit easier and you reached right into the mind of the last spectator to pull out the name of the unknown random celebrity. The beauty of this routine is that every method is subtly cancelled out. Audiences tend to look for one solution that would explain the entire routine. Therefore, the progressive anagram is cancelled out when you read the mind of the second spectator. Just when some of the audience members believe that you are fishing for letters, you then read the mind of the second spectator without any questions at all. Likewise, when you read the mind of the last spectator, they may think that all three people could have thought of anything and you would have still had no problem reading their minds. All Content Copyright 2009 © Christopher ThroneburyPage 19.0820 f Sr reoits Again, this is my take on Ted Annemann’s classic Fourth Dimensional Telepathy. There have been countless other versions of this routine in print. Most notably, Bob Cassidy’s version of the routine which can be found in his book “The Artful Mentalism of Bob Cassidy” or his DVD “Mental Miracles”. Both of these tombs contain outstanding versions of the routine as well as many other priceless mentalism gems. The concept of having three pieces of information that relate to each other stemmed from reading Max Maven’s routine “Middle Telepathy” contained within “The Blue Book” chapter of his wonderful book, “Prism”. Although developed independently, Max Maven also suggested using a celebrity for the final selection. The idea of taping the anagram to the marker was also an idea picked up from Max Maven on his Video Mind series of videos. While there may be others that came up with the idea of using the progressive anagram for the initial selection, | developed the idea independently. The same goes for the concept of using the board game of Clue as a presentational hook for the routine. All Content Copyright 2009 © Christopher ThroneburyPage 20 of 20 German Version: As | mentioned earlier, Stefan Olschewski has come up with a German version of the choices for the routine. The Locations: The Weapons: * Salon © Pistole * Keller © Seil * Speisezimmer © Leuchter * Eingangshalle © Heizungsrohr * Wintergarten © Rohrzange * Arbeitszimmer * Dolch © Billiardzimmer The Anagram: E- Salon 1 Ketter * Speisezimmer Re Eingangshalle Hi - Wintergarten 1 arbettszimmer Biiardetmmer All Content Copyright 2009 © Christopher Thronebury