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Here you will find my 10 Most Popular Mind Reading Tricks Revealed!
If you've been banging your head against the wall each time you watch a mentalism trick happening, trying to figure out the secret behind its success, then this one is for you.
So many times we've floated through a trick and the only thing we could say we actually got to really enjoy was the final result, right?
Well, there is no more floating! If you have been wondering how to get yourself to crack the code behind each trick every time you see a mentalist using the attention he's been given by his audience against them, you will do this in just a few.
I've taken time to go through a few popular tricks that have been a real mystery for quite some time now and have spent a fair amount of time to think them through.
What I got to find out is this, most tricks are set with the sole purpose of either squeezing your mind to the answer the mentalist wants to say or using body language to interpret what is in your mind.
You are going to see for yourself how this works in the revealed tricks below.
So without any further delay, let's start the revelation. Here are the 10 most popular mentalism tricks revealed:
View The Most Popular Mind Reading Tricks, Below!
1. Classic Elephant Mind Reading Trick
In this trick, here is what you are told to do:
- Think of any number between 1 and 10 without saying out loud, just think of it
- Multiply your secret number by 2
- Add 8 to the number you got from your previous calculations
- Divide your answer by 2
- Subtract the original number from your answer above
- Convert the answer you get to a corresponding letter of the alphabet. Say, for 1 it's letter A, For 2 it's letter B and so on
- Think of any country that starts with that letter
- From that letter, skip one letter of the alphabet
- Think of an animal that starts with that letter
- Think of the color of that animal
- So you should have a color, an animal and a country.
And the answer for this is a grey elephant from Denmark!
Trick Explained
The math calculations you are going to do here is just meant to confuse your mind. Basically, after all these calculations you'll come down to one answer, and that is 4, always.
And then the letter that corresponds to it is D. When you are told to think of any country that starts with that letter, the first one that comes into most of people's minds is Denmark, you can try it on someone.
From there, you are told to skip one letter of the alphabet, which leads you to an E.
Then you are told to think of an animal that starts with that letter. The first animal that comes to your mind is an elephant.
When you think of its color, you get grey. In conclusion, you have a color, grey with an animal, elephant and a country, Denmark. And you have yourself a grey elephant from Denmark.
2. Ashes on the Arm Trick
Here is what happens in this trick:
- The mentalist writes the identity of a playing card you'll choose somewhere on paper.
- Then he ripples through a deck of playing cards and you are asked to choose a card in your mind.
- Once you choose, you keep it locked well.
- The mentalist shows you his prediction of what card you choose.
- It appears to be wrong, so, he burns the paper with the prediction.
- He then rubs the ashes he gets from the burnt prediction paper on his arm and the image of the card you choose in your mind appears on his arm.
Trick Explained
Before the trick is done, the mentalist draws the card he wants you to pick on his arm with a colorless lip balm.
The mentalist chooses mostly black cards because they are going to show up very clearly on his arm as you will be using ashes to reveal it. Then, he chooses a random card and trims just a tiny bit of it at the top.
Once it's cut, he places it right in front of his target card so that when he ripples through the deck, that target card is seen much longer than the rest
He then tells you to allow him to write the prediction first and he gets it wrong.
He does that purposely so that he can burn that paper and get the ashes he needs to rub on the arm with the lip balm to get his target card's image, which is the same you choose.
3. Red Hammer Trick
Here, you are given a piece of paper with the prediction of the last answer you'll give to the questions you'll be asked. You are told not to open it until you are through with answering the questions.
And then, you are told to answer the following:
- What Day is Christmas?
- What number is between 1 and 3?
- What are hamburgers made of?
- What side of the road do they drive on in Europe?
Then you are asked to name a color and a tool. And you are told to think of it quickly and then say the answer out loud.
The answer you give, and still which is written on the prediction paper is a red hammer.
Trick Explained
That exact series of questions has something about it that fires up the proper synapses in the brain and confine people to give the answer, red hammer.
It pretty much narrows you down to that. Read more about the Red Hammer Trick.
4. The Number Mind Reading Trick
Here you are basically told to think of an odd number between 1 and 50 with both of the numbers odd, but the digits shouldn't be the same.
And then you are told not to say it out loud but to lock it safe in your mind and then visualize it.
Once you are sure of it, the mentalist tells you the number in your mind, and that is 37.
Trick Explained
Here the actual secret lies in the performance of the actual trick. Basically, when you are told to think if two digits that are both odd and not the same, and between 1 and 50, many possibilities are eliminated.
Firstly, the fact that they are odd numbers, from 1 to 50, half of them are automatically eliminated as they are all even numbers.
Telling them that the two digits shouldn't be the same, you are indirectly telling them that they are not a 1 digit number, so the digits 1 through 9 are also eliminated.
What is now left are thirteen, fifteen, seventeen, and nineteen which most people don't think of, and the thirties, thirty one , thirty three, thirty five, thirty seven and thirty nine. Many people go for 37.
5. Touch Head Mind Reading Trick
Here, you are just asked to write any number you like on a paper and keep it secret so that the mentalist doesn't see it.
Now, he is going to read your mind by touching your head and get to read the number from your mind. And the number he gives is right!
Trick Explained
Here, what happens is that the mentalist will choose to “read” someone who is really close to him especially his buddies.
This way they are going to really connect.
Now for the “reading the number from his mind”, he will just listen to it from his friend's body through the point of contact, the head, and take note of the number of times they clench their teeth.
If he clenches subconsciously three times, the number is 3.
6. The Triangle and Circle Trick
Here, the mentalist will first draw a prediction of the most probable answer you are going to give on a piece of paper and keep it.
From there, you'll be told to draw two shapes with one of them inside of the other. And once you are done you are done, he gives you his prediction to compare your with.
The most common shape is a triangle inside a circle.
Trick Explained
Here, what happens is that the mentalist knows that the chances of you drawing a triangle inside a circle are high, so he'll make a prediction of that.
And once he's done that, he'll then use all possible means to get you to do that. Most of the time, he tries to hint you indirectly by illustrating it visually through the way he explains what he wants you to do.
He'll draw the triangle in the circle in the air and you'll pick it up subconsciously and draw it.
7. Reading Your Friends' Minds
Here, you and your friends will be locked in a room with 5 objects; deck of playing cards, pair of sunglasses, salt shaker, cell phone and a cup.
And then the mentalist will have you choose one of the objects and keep it secret. He will then come into the room, read your mind and magically know which object you chose and get it absolutely right!
Trick Explained
In this case, the mentalist just chooses a person whom he'll work with and get him to tell him through his body posture, specifically through the special signals he sends to the mentalist unknowingly.
When he gets into the room, here is what he looks for in you and your friends, for the:
- Deck of playing cards, hands will be on the hips
- Pair of sunglasses, hands will be crossed
- Salt shaker, arms will be crossed
- Cell phone, hands will be behind the back
- Cup, hands will be in the pocket.
8. Crystal Ball Trick
Here, you are handed a square piece of paper with a crystal ball drawn on it and that has also been folded twice.
And then you are told to write any number inside the ball.
Once you are done, you hand it to him and he tears it up in front of you, without looking at it and then gives you the exact number you had written in a creative way that appears as if he read your mind.
And he actually gets it correct!
Trick Explained
Here, you need to notice that you've been handed a folded piece of paper and it is a square.
The Mentalist does this purposely because that is what will help him get to the number you've written without you noticing it. After you've written your secret number and handed it over to him, he starts tearing it up.
This is where the deception happens.
As he tears, he cuts one side of the paper carefully while keeping track of the movement of the central part of it.
Why he does this, is because the number you wrote has been dissected twice by that part. After he tears it up twice or thrice, he'll wisely unfold it.
Read it and then dispose it carefully and then give you the number.
9. United States Trick
In this trick, you are told to think of any state in the United States. And then you are told to read it in your mind as though you are spelling it.
After that, you'll be shown a table with many letters with no specific arrangement and with a variety of colors. You'll then be told to identify the color of the last letter of the state you choose in the table and lock it your mind.
From there, the mentalist will look at you slyly and then tell you it is color RED, and it's always that!
Trick Explained
Here, the secret is so simple and you'd probably know it at a mere glance.
What the mentalist does, is to make the table have all the last letters of the US with the color red, so what they'll be doing all along is try to confuse and pose as if you are giving away the color with your mind, when they already know it.
10. Nail Roulette
Here, the mentalist will have to pick a nail stuck underneath a bottle which is among two other bottles. Ideally, you'll get a nail stuck onto the bottom part of a cup.
Then, the mentalist or you, will slide this stuck nail in one of the three cups placed on top of a table and upside down.
Then the mentalist will leave the room where this is happening to give you the time to shuffle them around so that it is difficult for him to know which bottle the nail is slid into.
After you are through with the shuffling, the mentalist comes in and starts pressing the plastic bottles downwards against the table to have them break.
He does that for two bottles without getting pierced by the nail. And you automatically know that the nail is in the third bottle which has not been touched.
Trick Explained
The secret is in the nail. The stand that supports the nail so that it is able to stand firmly while facing upwards is attached to a short and very thin fishing line which slightly extends beyond the bottle.
With this, he'll be easily able to tell where the nail is by looking at the bottle which had the fishing line hanging outside the bottle.
In fact, here is a video covering all the ten tricks I have discussed with you on. See how this works visually. Here is the video…
And that is how you get to catch tricky mentalists pants down. Not all magic is mysterious and unexplainable.
Most of it that you see nowadays is just made up tricks to slightly twist your mind and create the illusion that the actual magic show is happening when they are just using your body posture and leading you to the endpoint where you will be compelled by your own brain to say what they want.
It may sound like hypnosis but that is another thing altogether.
What you should do is to go and try out these tricks with your friends and see the trickery behind these so-called magic by yourself.
