3. “THE QUICK AND THE DEAD” TRICK
1st Method. Slips of paper are handed to several spectators; one is asked to write the name of a deceased friend, the others to write the names of living persons. The papers are folded and mixed, yet the performer spells out the name of the dead person.
From a sheet of typewriting paper tear off a strip about two and a half inches wide, and rule it off into six equal parts. While you explain what is to be done, tear off the piece at one end of the strip. Show how it is to be folded—in half the long way, then twice the other way. Make a motion of dropping this into your pocket; in reality, finger palm it. Note that this piece has one machine-cut edge. Tear off the first piece from the other end of the strip of paper; this will also have a machine-cut edge on one side. Hand it to a spectator with the request that he write the name of a deceased friend and then fold it in the way you have just shown. As he does this, tear off another slip (both sides of which will have rough edges) and hand it to a second person to write the name of a living friend. Take the folded slip with the dead man’s name and apparently drop it into a glass; in reality, switch it for the dummy slip—which goes into the glass, while you retain the written slip finger palmed.
Tear off the three remaining slips and hand them out for the names of living persons to be written on them. Have all four of these rough-sided slips folded the same way and dropped into the glass. Now you have to get an opportunity of opening the palmed slip and reading the name. For example, you may take a chair and sit down with your back to the spectators; instantly drop the slip into your lap and, grasping the seat of the chair with both hands, alter its position a little. Both hands are thus brought into full view quite naturally, and palpably hold nothing. Then open the paper, read the name, refold it, and finger palm it again—the work of a few seconds.
After a moment or two, say that you are not getting any impressions and decide that contact with the slips will help. Face the spectators; take from the glass one of the slips with two rough edges and hold it to your forehead, without any result.
Drop it on the table and take a second rough-edged slip; again you get no impression, so you drop it with the first. The third time take the slip with the machine-cut edge (the dummy slip) and, in raising it to your forehead, switch it for the finger palmed duplicate. Now get the letters of the name one by one, hesitatingly, making mistakes and correcting yourself as the impression becomes clearer and so on, until you have the full name.
Give the folded slip to the man who wrote it, to be opened and verified. Take the remaining slips from the glass, adding the palmed dummy slip; add the three to the two slips on the table, tear them in half, crumple the pieces, and put them aside. Your hands are then empty and you are free to go on with the next experiment.
2d Method. This depends entirely upon a mental subtlety. Any piece of paper and any pencil can be used; close observation is all that is necessary. Having picked your subject, you ask him to think of some deceased friend—someone he is sure will be entirely unknown to you. Impress upon him to picture the name mentally very clearly. When he has fixed on a name, give him the paper and pencil and instruct him to write the names of four living friends, also unknown to you, and at any place in the list to write the name of the dead, person. Rule five lines on the paper, making spaces for the names, and walk away.
While he is writing, you move about the room but you keep in such position that you can follow the motions of his hand. In fixing on the names of living friends, the subject will hesitate a little in writing them; but when he comes to put down the name of the dead person, on whom his thought is fixed, he will dash it off very quickly. Even if you were not watching him write, the very formation of the letters would reveal to you the name you want.
It is practically certain that no subject will write the name he has fixed upon in the first space and it is very unlikely that it will be written in the second space; the most likely position in which it will be found will be in the third or fourth place. These two spaces are the ones you will watch most closely, and the one which is written without hesitation is the one you pick. With very little practice you will find that the two clues will enable you to divine the name unerringly.
You may reveal the name by drawing a line under it, a rather bald conclusion. A better way is to take the paper and, in turning it over, read the name you have fixed upon as that of the dead person, and then reproduce it on the other side by automatic writing. Hold the subject’s hand with your left hand, impress him to think intently of the name, make some meaningless scrawls at first, then write the name in very large letters.
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