ESP ERROR

Ray's Black Series No. 01

A selfworking Miracle
with endless possibilities

by Ray Gordon

English translation: Mirko Ferantini

Layout and Graphics: Ray Gordon

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the author.

Copyright © 2017 Ray Gordon

 Foreword
Many years ago, I read a routine by Roy Johnson in the German magic magazine INTERMAGIC 11
in which a spectator correctly matched – against all odds – the right ESP cards hidden in small
envelopes.
This effect had a surprising finale differing from the usual path of demonstrations of this kind, in
which the spectators already knows how the performance will end after the third or fourth match.

The drawback of Roy’s routine was the considerable amount of preparation needed. You need 2ed
a large amount of coin envelopes and at that time it was quite difficult to get them in Germany.
Nowadays, with the Internet it's no problem to get them, but back in those days, I had to build my
envelopes myself and additionally, in every performance some of the envelops were ruined.
Because of this I had to ensure a constant flow of supply and eventually the routine became a
victim of my laziness.

A few years later Max Maven‘s Videomind tapes hit the market and I bumped into the ESP routine
titled "ZENVELOPES"2. After some reflections I got to the idea to combine elements from both
sources. Max Maven's routine influenced the props and the preparation while the climax was Roy
Johnson's idea.

With great Thanks to the two masterminds, I achieved a substantial simplification of the handling
while giving the routine an unpredictable and exciting climax.

I hope you have a lot of fun and success with this routine,

Ray Gordon

1 Roy Johnson "ROY JOHNSONS ESP-VORHERSAGE", INTERMAGIC Volume 18 (1993) No. 2 Page 72
2 Max Maven "ZENVELOPES" - Max Maven's Videomind - Phase 1: Parlour Mentalism, L&L Publishing (1999)
 DESCRIPTION OF THE EFFECT
The mentalist hands out a prediction for things to come.
Then a spectator mixes five envelopes, each envelope containing one of the five ESP cards 33, he
places them next to each other on the table. He has full control over the order.

Five more envelopes with ESP cards are shuffled and placed on the table, each on top of one of
the other envelopes. The spectator has a free choice, where to place the envelops and he can
change the order again if he wants to. At the end there are five paired envelopes on the table.

After opening the envelops it turns out that three out of five symbols match. So, without knowing it,
the spectator has generated three correct mates. It could be that e.g. the cross, wavy line and star
symbols do match and only the square and circle signs are mismatched.

The mentalists explains that nevertheless this is a 60% hit rate and still better then every so-called
clairvoyance, but at least a little bit of the result was also the work of the mentalist.
The prediction which was held by the spectator the whole time, is opened and read out loud:

Now the amazed audience should react with the well-deserved applause.

3 ESP- or Zener cards have been developed in the 1930th from the psychologist Karl Zener, in order to test subjects on
extrasensory perceptions. The five different cards show either a circle, a cross, wavy lines, a square or a star on a white
background.
 PROPS
You need:
• Two identical sets of cards with the five ESP symbols
(Please find the templates in the appendix of this manuscript)
• Ten matching envelopes in a size of approximately 4.5x6.4 inches, which are opened at the
short side (the exact specifications can be found at the templates in the appendix of this
manuscript)
• A predictions of your choice (like in the description of the effect)

PREPARATION
The big advantage of this effect is that you have full control on how the spectator will fail at
matching certain pairs. Even if everything seems to be fair, you determine exactly the result of the
“experiment” so that it is comfortable for you to predict the outcome.
Lets assume that your spectator will mismatch the circle and square card. For this, setup the
following symbols of the two ESP cards in advance:

cross + cross
wavy lines + wavy lines
star + star
circle + square
square + circle

Take care that the misfits are in the correct order, one symbol on top in one package (circle/square)
and the other symbol on top (square/circle) on top of the other package.

Now take five of the envelopes and place them so that the address side (the plain side without the
sticky edge) is face up.
Place each pair of cards face down in one of the envelopes. In three of the envelopes there will be
identical pairs and two envelopes will contain the misfits.

Take this five envelopes in no special order into a stack and put the empty envelopes underneath
them. If you like you can hold the bundle together with a rubber band.

Now you can write your prediction. In our example it could look like this:

“You will perform above average on arranging the symbols. But if I succeeded in
influencing your thoughts, you will mix up circle and square.”
It’s up to you to put the prediction into an envelope or just fold it. That’s all, the preparations are
finished!

IMPORTANT: You can freely choose the mismatching symbols (let’s call them symbol 1 and
symbol 2). Place symbol 1 with symbol 2 on top in one envelope and put symbol 2 with symbol 1
on top in the other envelope. It is important that the two pairs are reversed! With this you make
sure that the symbol cards are taken out of the envelopes in the right order and you don’t get any
inconsistencies later.

PRESENTATION AND METHOD

Start by explaining that you would like to make a test on intuition 4 and give someone in the
audience the prediction to hold.
Ask another spectator to help you and give him the upper five envelops with the cards. Explain that
each envelope holds one card with a special symbol on it.
The spectator is free to shuffle the envelopes until he's happy and then he can place them in any
order in a row on the table.
Give him the other five envelopes and explain to him that they contain the same symbol cards and
that he should shuffle them too and distribute each envelope on one of the envelopes already on
the table. In other words, he should set up pairs. Finally, he has the possibility to change the order
of the upper envelopes.

Now there are five pairs of envelopes on the table. Always one envelope on top of another one.
Each envelope at the bottom contains two cards, each envelope on top is empty.
Now take the first pair flush into your hand, with the address side (upper side) pointing towards the
palm of your hand.
Hold the side with the sticky edge either pointing to your body (the opening pointing upwards) or
point the lower side to the ground and the opening in direction of your other hand.
This makes sure that the symbol cards will be face down when taken out of the envelopes.

Push the envelopes slightly together at the long sides, so that they open a bit. The opening
procedure should be a noticeable procedure for the spectator and is part of the illusion. As an
example you could also gently blow on the upper small side of the envelopes, so that the air helps
to open the envelopes.

With the thumb of the other hand you now reach into the lower envelop (the one containing both
symbol cards) and take out only the upper card. Lay this card face down onto the table.

Now here is the bluff. Again, you push the edge of both envelopes together. Again, blow into the
envelopes, apparently in order to open the second envelope. But since you hold the envelopes
close together, the spectator should not be able to see from which envelope the card comes from.
Obviously the audience will assume that you opened the second envelope. But in reality, you reach
into the same envelope as before and take out the remaining symbol card and place this card (also
face down) on the card already on the table. The whole procedure is quite deceiving and well
covered, even up close.

Proceed like this with the other four pairs of envelopes. You can put the empty envelopes on one
pile or you can hand them out for examination. 4

Finally, you have five face down card piles on the table. Turn each pair face up and since the cards
are unmarked and have been shuffled beforehand, the matching and mismatching pairs can be at
any place. You too have no idea what you turn over next. Here you need a bit of acting.
Congratulate the spectator on his matches and feel sorry for his fails.

After all cards are turned face up, you can comment on the spectator’s performance like this:

“Well, you had some errors. Nevertheless, you have 3 out of 5. That’s a success rate of 60%
and this is more than a self-proclaimed clairvoyance can achieve. You haven’t been bad at
all. But I think I have also added a bit to that result.”

Turn to the spectator with the prediction and ask him to open it and read it out loud.

Now you can take your well-deserved applause!

NOTE
If you fear that the helping spectator could feel the difference between the empty and the filled
envelopes, you can use two spectators, each one shuffling one set of envelops. In this case it’s not
important who places his envelopes on the table first, just remember if the empty envelopes are on
top or on the bottom and act accordingly.

If you choose to let the spectator change the order in this version, the first spectator can only
shuffle his envelopes before the second spectator has placed his envelopes down. Only the
second spectator can then alter the order of the upper envelopes and with this, each spectator
touches only his own set of envelopes.
In another version the spectator can have the envelopes with the cards while you can shuffle the
empty set yourself. Ask the spectator who should place his envelopes on the table first.
If the spectator is first, just put your envelopes in a separate row on the table and then let him
decide which envelope of your row should be placed on which of his. If he then decides on
switching pairs, he can tell you which one and you handle the envelopes.
If you are the first one to lay the envelopes down, the spectator can freely determine the final
distribution and if he chooses to switch, he can handle the uppermost envelopes (his original set)
himself.

Of course you can handle and shuffle both envelope sets and the spectator holding the prediction
can decide how to distribute the envelopes. He can then direct you on what envelopes to switch.

This experiment is very versatile in its presentation and you can sell it as an example of
psychological influence, telepathy, a prediction or even clairvoyance.
In any case you should take your time to think about what suits you best, how you would like to
present it and then you can write the prediction accordingly. This is the only way to take any magic
trick and make a personal show piece out of it.

4…or whatever phenomenon you prefer. You can also test your spectator on his clairvoyance skills. Or have you thought
about psychometrics? You have endless possibilities.
As an example, you don’t need to use five envelopes. You can use more or less of them. If you use
more of them, you can incorporate more fake mistakes.
Sure enough you don’t have to use ESP cards. Take color cards, logos, drawings, photos, playing
cards or number cards.

Here a variation of the theme with names: build two sets of business cards. The first set with the
information of husbands and the second set with the matching information of their wives.
(Alternatively, you can also write the names on blank cards.)

The preparation and presentation would then be just like in the original routine, and at the
end two names would not match, e.g. Kunz/Meier and Meier/Kunz. The prediction could then
look like this:
And all of a sudden, a serious mental routine becomes a charming comedy act. Just let your
imagination run wild.

APPENDIX
You can get the ESP/Zener cards from magic shops, on eBay or even from Amazon. But to get you
started, I added a professional template.

You have different options on which envelopes to use. One possibility would be to use ordinary
coin envelopes, since they are easily accessible. You could than simply cut off the flap (as in
picture 1).

Another option would be to use the envelope size C7 as defined in the ISO 269. They are easy to
find in many colours and quality via the Internet. You have the freedom of choice, but you should
aim towards a paper stock that is not too thin. Prepare them by sealing the envelopes and then cut
off less than 0.1" from one of the short ends (as in picture 2).
A third option would be to build all props by yourself. Beside the template for the ESP cards I have
also added a template for the envelopes (picture 3).

Print the template for the envelopes on thick paper stock or carton and then cut it out. You can then
place the carton template on coloured paper of your choice and trace the outline of the template
onto the paper with a pencil.
Cut it out, fold and glue it to get your customized envelopes.
Using thicker paper will make it harder for the spectator to feel if the envelopes are empty or not.

Finally print out the ESP cards on thick paper, cut them out and you're ready to go. However, if the
paper used makes it difficult to get the symbol cards out of the envelope, it could help to treat the
cards with fanning powder55 or to even laminate them. The latter makes the symbol cards almost
indestructible.

If you indeed want to laminate the cards, then it could be helpful to print the page with the ESP
symbols first and then laminate the whole page. Afterwards you can cut out the individual cards.
This makes it easier and the result is cleaner.

Generally speaking, envelopes made of relatively stiff material in combination with rather thin ESP
cards, help to hide the difference between empty and filled envelopes.

Best of Luck!

5 Available from most magic dealers