Photographic Memories

This is a mentalism item that I came up with after watching my friend Andy Nyman's DVD 'Get Nyman'

Somewhere on that DVD Andy talks about the possibilities of using accomplices in the audience to transmit certain information to the on stage performer. Understand that such plants are not 'stooges' (not that theres anything wrong with that) but rather hidden assistants akin to sound operators and lighting technicians...kind of. You need five photographs of some family members, pets etc, and a large black envelope. Do not show what is on the photos until the end. This adds to the mystery and helps this effect to be less than 'perfect' The fact that you use photos of your own family adds a nice touch in the presentation and patter.

1 Establish a code between you and your friend so that he/she can signal you the numbers, one through five, with their fingers around a drinking glass. i.e: if they hold the glass between thumb and first finger they are signaling the number one. If the thumb first AND second fingers are curled around the glass the number is two and so on up to the number 4, four fingers and a thumb holding a glass. Number five is represented by not holding the glass at all but rather leaving it on teh table or having it in thier lap with their hand over the top.

2 Each of the photographs corresponds to the numbers one to five. A simple way for your friend to remember this is the order in which they are positioned on the table or in a stand. An easy way for you to memorise it would be the number of bodies in each of the photos.

You instruct your on stage participant to take one of the photos and place it into the black envelope. The others you say should be placed face down with the envelop eon top of them. The sizes of all of the items should be designed in such a way that the envelope completely covers the photos once it is placed on top.

3 When they have done this they are to remember the photos image and ring a small bell so that you know they have done this task (the bell idea belongs to my friend the mentalist Mark Mayer who has performed this trick several times to great reactions.

4 You turn around and look at your friend in teh audience. Your friend now signals you as to which photo was selected and you done.

5 You reveal the photos that are under the envelop first one by one and then after that you slowly reveal the on eon the inside.


6 The fact that you did not show the photos at first adds an element of mystery to the effect. It will lead the specs to think that there may have been duplicate photos and switches involved which ofcourse there are not. Still a good place to have your specs though as it is a very good red herring. They will be racking their brains to try and figure out where the duplicate photos went. For this reason it is also a very good magician fooler.

When Mark Mayer performed this trick at 'Magic Mondays' about three years ago he totally nailed Charles Gauci with it. For all the above mentioned reasons you might want to keep it under your hat.