Hi

I want to give you something, something good! Obviously! Maybe something that is brand new to you, something that is going to go straight into your act. Maybe just part of it is new to you and will inspire you to create a new effect for your repertoire Here, I present to you a piece of magic, something that anyone can perform yet looks just like a real piece of hypnotic based suggestion or mind control, mentalism or magic. Complete with pseudo rapid hypnotic induction. When you learn the simple and effective skills needed to achieve real rapid hypnotic inductions including rapid non-verbal inductions you can enhance effects like this, perform hybrid effects and real suggestion based Magic Effects with ease. The knowledge in my book: The Art of Suggestion and Influence will help you create some truly amazing suggestion based magic. I hope you enjoy this effect and make it your own.

By John Vincent

Copyright 2008

www.howtoreadminds.co.uk

With this I am giving you full reseller rights to distribute, give away as a bonus, or sell as you wish, provided this e-book remains intact with all its links.

You look at a spectator and they drop into a trance, while in the trance they experience your suggestions as if they are actually happening to them, and act accordingly!

To your volunteer your suggestions seem as real as anything else that is happening to them To begin with there is a rapid induction of trance, effortlessly performed by you. Then you correctly predict coconut (more on that later). Next you have your volunteer act as if they can feel something, something that is not really happening to them. Finally you ask them to think of anything associated with a beach and you predict in advance what they will think of!

At the Beach (when it is played well), is a dramatic demonstration of Mind Control or Mind Reading. It is a giant leap forward from the traditional magic and other forms of magical entertainment.* Because of the number of magical occurrences and the way they build in the routine, it convinces the audience of your startling abilities. Whilst your amazed volunteer is unable to explain what has just happened to them. Everyone is mystified and wonderfully entertained. This vivid, emotional, dramatic magic is presented to you and easily available to you. Take the time to learn this effect, perfect it, and feel great whilst looking good performing it. It does require an investment of time learning and should be performed when the time and situation are right.

*This new form of mind magic has been pioneered by the likes of Derren Brown, Banachek and Kenton Knepper to name but a few. This style of effect has been seen on TV by top names such as Chris Angle, David Blaine, Keith Barry and many more.

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This effect has a number of parts to it. The Trance The Prediction The Feeling The Thought of Item First we will look at the Rapid Trance Induction Here we are only concerned with it looking like a trance induction; we dont need to really render the volunteer into a suggestible state, making it an effect that can be performed by anyone regardless of any previous knowledge of hypnosis or suggestion and influence. So for this we are going to use the following as our rapid trance induction. You can of course use/create your own, or use the Handshake Pattern Interrupt of Milton Erickson, modelled and redesigned by Richard Bandler, and used extensively by Derren Brown on T.V.

The following is a description of what a rapid trance induction looks like, and, indeed, is. Fear not unless you are skilled in hypnosis you will not really put anyone into a hypnotic trance. The following description looks dramatic and will achieve everything necessary for you to perform, At the Beach. 1: Tell your volunteer to: Follow my fingers with your eyes the whole time they remain open. This sentence contains the presupposition they their eyes will at some point actually close. A simple presupposition. Suggestion is everywhere.

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Place your hand in front of your volunteers eyes, and begin to wiggle your fingers. Move your wiggling fingers into a figure of eight on its side (the infinity symbol), in front of your volunteers eyes. Make the statement: Thats right As you say this allow your hand to flutter, still wiggling your fingers down below their face and down in front of their chest, as their eyes follow so the eyelids start to close. Continue by saying: and all the way down, thats right, eyes closed now.

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Alternatively if you dont feel comfortable performing a pseudo hypnotic style induction you could ask your volunteer to just close their eyes and make themselves comfortable. ----------------------------------Ooo0ooO--------------------------------

First we are going to create the image of a tropical beach in the volunteers minds eye. This is done by simply instructing them to think of a tropical beach in their mind, for example: and I want you to imagine that you are relaxing on a beach, a tropical beach with a bright blue sky and just a few small fluffy white clouds lazily drifting by. There are palm trees next to you and you feel very relaxed here Next we are going to create the coconut convincer/prediction. So far you have seemingly induced a trance like state in your volunteer and suggested to them that they are at the beach. Now we are going to mix the image in their minds eye and the relaxing experience of a beach with what appears to be the correct prediction of a coconut! You continue: and as you can imagine yourself relaxing on the beach you start to notice a subtle aroma, a tropical delight carried by the breeze, and the more you start to notice the smell the more you realise that it is the smell of Well you tell me and

everyone around you, name it out loud, the tropical smell. While saying this you hold an envelope that says Coconut on it above the persons head, and your volunteer says Coconut. In this way you have an open prediction displayed to the audience before the volunteer has even thought of, or indeed named, the aroma. After the gasps of astonishment or applause (depending on what you wish to create) subside, you continue: Wonderful isnt it? A relaxing experience, beautiful beach, wonderful aroma and still with your eyes closed, enjoying even more yourself, I want you to reach out your hand and take hold of this So saying you place the envelope in your volunteers hand. Now it seems that your volunteer (still eyes closed) has in their imagination pictured a beach and imagined the smell of coconut. This to some people looks like a prediction, to others just looks like a coincidence, but all are of the opinion that the person you are working with is now engaged in creating vivid images and remembering smells inside their mind and that you know what they are! Why did they say Coconut? The modus operand here is in essence a simple one, it is essence! While staying at my house for a few days a friend of mine left her coconut essence/perfume in my bathroom. It is as far as I can tell a pure distillation of coconut oil. A very subtle but unmistakable smell even close-up, the other people watching, however, will not smell it due to its subtlety; but your volunteer will because you have a small

amount of it on your wrist and while making suggestions to your mesmerized volunteer you subtly wave your wrist under their nose. The audience thinks that your volunteer has imagined the smell. -Why would the audience think you had coconut-smelling essence on your wrist? Your spectators will have a real belief that you have instantly entranced your volunteer and can guess/predict their actions. This is all we are intending to create by this point in the effect, so doing you have created the perfect setting in which to perform something that will amaze even the most sceptic observers. This can be performed as a stand-alone piece in itself. Simply instructing your volunteer to close their eyes and imagine a beach, pay attention to the feelings of relaxation of the beach, any pleasant aromas and images that come to mind. You are then able to point out to your audience that your volunteer could have thought of a beach and the smell of chips, seagulls in the air and the sight of people sunbathing, or a walk as the sun sets at the waters edge If youre performing this on stage you could give your volunteer a box to hold at the beginning. Inside the box there is a coconut and a sealed prediction of things that are yet to happen!

there are many different situations a person can think of but you are fairly comfortable that you can accurately predict what the person was thinking of. You are on fairly safe ground when you make the statement:

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You are thinking of a beach with palm trees and fine sand a tropical beach (the smell of coconut suggests this), with a smell of coconut or Pina colada in the air Along with a tropical beach you can predict Palm trees and many other details. It could be an opener or inspire you to create something new or, you can use it if you want in the exact way I am describing it.

You confuse the visual memory as being as real as the memory as of the smell! A little touch but a big secret.

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Next you create the illusion that your volunteer is convinced that they can hear and then feel a small insect.

The Sound and feel of an insect

In the same way we mixed the visual memory and the smell together we are now going to mix the memory of a sound and the experience of feeling something together. Then we will add one more piece and fuse the whole lot together into one big sequence of events that you have caused the spectator to experience. The experience of feeling something is again real, just like the smell of the coconut was real. The memory of the sound of the insect is imagined like the memory of the beach is imagined. At the end of this demonstration the audience have witnessed a person dropped rapidly into a trance who then 12

vividly imagined seeing a beach, smelling coconuts, hearing an insect, feeling it land on them and Just like the coconut prediction/convincer was a real smell you are going to recreate the sensation of an insect crawling across someones face as you suggest it is happening to them. Your audience will witness your volunteer acting as if there really is an insect crawling on them and trying to swat the insect away. The method behind creating this is a simple one You will need to use some Invisible thread preferable on an Invisible Thread Reel. This thread is very fine and not seen by the naked eye even in a close up situation (in the right lighting conditions) it is strong enough for our purpose and easy to use. What you are going to do is to attach the thread to the back of the chair they are sitting on, a wall or any furniture behind them just before you perform this part of the effect. This is done by using a small sticky double sided pad or magicians wax on the end of the thread (the other end of the thread is attached to the reel pinned inside your jacket) and should be done casually while talking. To create the illusion of the insect landing on their hair and face you simply move the thread with your hand so that it touches/moves your volunteers hair and then gilds briefly across their face. This will normally produce an automatic response from your volunteer if not you can subtly suggest that they are free to act the way they would if they felt the insect. You can use just these words as the gaff. You can create, in a stage environment a

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dual reality where the audience think you have caused the person to act that way, when the volunteer thinks you have simply told them to act in a certain way and followed your directions. I dont intend to go in to Dual Reality ploys and concepts here, so I will merely allude to the fact that there are indeed methods of creating the entire effect using just words. If you are unfamiliar with the concepts of dual realities (maybe I will write on the subject in the future) I highly recommend reading the works of Kenton Knepper, as he is at the forefront of the Dual reality concept and has written extensively on the subject. You have now created the impression of an insect crawling on the persons hair and face and they have acted in a way that indicates they really believe they have felt something. All the while you were standing well over a metre away from them just talking and making magical gestures; a very impressive real time demonstration. Now it is time to get verbal conformation from your volunteers about what they felt and the sound of the insect that they heard. Again here we are blending their memory of the sound and their experience of feeling something happen, together. It was so real, wasnt it? that you could feel the insect crawling over your face, couldnt you? A typical response will be a simple yes. and was it a high pitched or lower pitched humming sound the insect made

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Here they will answer a number of ways. Either High pitched, low pitched or I dont know. Either of the first two answers are good and they help to create the illusion that you are able to have your volunteer imagine seeing, feeling and smelling things that arent there! The I dont know answer can be the best, because you get to say to your volunteer: Just remember it again, put yourself right back there again, remember the sound of the insect, if you cant hear it now just imagine what it would sound like and you can even remember the feeling so vividly that you can feel it again. So with the I dont know answer you get to create the sensation of the insect crawling over the spectators face again and, you will also get an answer to your question of pitch, thereby successfully blending the sound and feeling together as one experience in the minds of the onlookers.

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For the final part of At The Beach you ask a volunteer to think of something that they may associate with a holiday on a beach. You state that this could be an ice cream, a palm tree, a stick of rock, fairgrounds, a starfish or surfboard, absolutely anything. Once they have confirmed that they are indeed thinking of an object you ask them to open their eyes and as you hand them a small pocket dictionary you retrieve the envelope from them and hold it openly where everyone can see it (my copy of the Oxford English pocket dictionary cost me 3.99 and indeed does fit in my pocket, making this final part of the routine available also as a close-up effect, of course on stage you would use a larger dictionary and remove it from your case). Once you have passed the dictionary to your volunteer you ask them to turn to the page that has the definition of the word they thought of on it. Whilst the volunteer flicks through the dictionary you reiterate to the audience that there are many items from pebbles, pina coladas to postcards that they could have thought of, that are associated with a beach. You then ask your volunteer to announce out loud the page number that the definition of the word appears on. The volunteer announces which page number it is and you remind everybody of the envelope. You stroll over to the volunteer with the envelope (or retrieve from it semi visible location in your top

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pocket or table) whilst asking the spectator to close the dictionary and place it on the table if they are near one you casually nail-right the answer (page number) onto the card inside the envelope, through a hole in the envelope, being careful obviously not to let the audience or volunteer see. See Picture opposite: Next you open the envelope and ask your volunteer to remove your prediction. They remove the card from the envelope (a postcard with a picture of a beach, perhaps) and you instruct them to read aloud what you have written on the postcard. (A nice touch here if performing this on stage is to write the address of the venue on the right-hand side of the postcard where addresses is normally written? and also at the top of the postcard you could have: For The Attention Of and a blank space that could nail-right the name of the spectator onto). The spectator will then read your prediction, worded in whatever style you see fit, i.e. that you had a premonition or that you have been supplying unconscious suggestions or that the mystical magical powers of your trance were able to correctly predict the fact that they would turn to page number 239 in the dictionary. You thank your volunteer take the postcard from them and hold it in the traditional applauses cue position and receive yet another round of applause.

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Another nice touch is to offer the postcard as a souvenir of course if you're performing this close-up and wish to use a smaller envelope you may have just a piece of card in the envelope with the prediction written on and several other cards made up ready to reload the envelope with. Writing the word coconut in large bold letters on the ungimmicked side of the envelope and placing this window envelope in the volunteers hand is a bold one but whilst your volunteers eyes are closed they will not notice anything amiss with it. So there we have it, you have correctly and openly predicted an imagined aroma that your volunteer thought of caused them to feel an imaginary sensation and correctly predicted the word/image connected with the beach. If you wish to take a bold approach with the dictionary you can nonchalantly glance at the dictionary as your volunteer turns to the page. On stage this can be easily done by standing slightly behind the spectator and note the page number, or closeup, by virtue of being close up to the volunteer. Then as you stroll over to the envelope on the table and reiterate that this envelope has been here since before your volunteer even thought of an image, whilst you nail-write the page number down. Then ask your volunteer to remove the card from the envelope and hold it in their hand, then to tell everyone what the page number was and the word that they were thinking of. When your volunteer announces that it was on, for example page 239, you direct your volunteer to read allowed what is written on the card they are holding. In this way the spectator is clearly seen to be in

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possession of the prediction before naming out loud for the first time the page number. I don't feel this is necessary but I am certainly bold enough in my performances to have tried this method out, if it works for you use it. It is at this point you can if you wish take the dictionary turn to the page named and circle the word with your nail writer while strolling over to your audience and then show them the page in the dictionary and the word that is circled or underlined. For this you would need to use a clever set of words to create this illusion in the minds of your audience members that imply you had underlined it beforehand. You need to say to your audience that the page is marked and the volunteer also agrees with the statement. On stage it is so much easer to influence people because they are not used to being in front of so many people and will be much less likely to challenge anything that you say, but in order for this to work close-up I also use the following, ambiguous type of wording, that also contains a summation of the events thus far and a dramatic revelation at the end I have in advance, predicted what would happen. I knew, call it telepathy, clairvoyance, mystic powers, suggestion and influence, psychology, tricky thinking, call it what you like, I have presented to you two things, first a puzzle as to whether this was achieved by psychic means, psychology or complete psychobabble and tricky thinking, then you are to marvel at the skill set involved, to be able to predicted in advance the memory of the thought of Aroma, that of the coconut. Also that I created the real feelings of

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being at the beach, and you have been witness of (name of Volunteer) actually experiencing a feeling I created, and now have also predicted here in this envelope, that they would turn to the page marked, 239! As you show the audience the circled word in the dictionary you would repeat the phrase: Here look in the dictionary at the page marked 239. And point to the ringed word in the dictionary as you say marked When your volunteer (or you) read the prediction out loud he or she will be surprised that you have correctly predicted the page number and the phrase marked will go unnoticed. However when you display the dictionary with the page open to 239 and the word is marked or circled, the audience will believe that the envelope contains the page number and that the word in the dictionary was marked! The entire summation of this effect can be true without the use of Coconut essence, invisible threat, nailwritters, window envelopes etc. Instead it can be achieved with the use of Dual Reality ploys and genuine suggestion and influence techniques. As I have said Kenton has written extensively on the subject of Dual Realities and for those wanting to learn about the Suggestion and Influence techniques my book The Art of Suggestion and influence, deals with these and is the first book written by a professional magician on the subject.

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I hope that you perform this or even take just a few little ideas or concepts, maybe just a part of it is new and has ignited an idea in you that becomes one of your favourite pieces of magic and magical thinking, or that you build an entire effect round it, as either is indeed my aim with At The Beach.

Some frequently asked questions about the book The Art of Suggestion and Influence.
Q: Can I do some of these things right away? A: Yes, you can and will surprise yourself as you find you are able to perform some of the material in this book almost immediately, while some of the other effects definitely take time (I have yet to find anyone who hasnt been able to perform at least one of these genuine suggestion based pieces of magical entertainment right away!) Also you will learn the secrets of suggestion and influence that you can use right away in your performances. Q: What if I get something wrong when I am learning these effects, will I look stupid? A: No, there are failsafe ways to practice some of the more ambitious effects described until you learn them. Plus audio clips and a forum that you will have access to, for your ongoing learning and support, are available.

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Q: What if I have no knowledge of hypnosis, suggestion etc? A: Within the pages of the book, The Art of Suggestion and Influence I describe exactly how to perform the kind of magical looking hypnotic phenomena that you may have seen and been impressed by before. You will be taken through a series of technique simply and easily, that when learned and practiced will enable you to perform things that you once thought you would never be able to achieve. You can learn the skills that the magicians of the future will be fluent in. Enjoy If you have any questions please feel free to email me at [email protected] Best wishes John Vincent

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