I’m going to share with you my ESP mind-reading trick. A friend of mine taught me this years ago. It works great at Halloween parties. It even manages to confound adults! For this to work, you need be sitting a little bit away from the group so that no one can see over your shoulder. You ask for a volunteer to tell you his or her three favorite TV shows, or three favorite books, or three favorite anything.
Let’s say the first TV show the volunteer says is “Arthur”. You write down “Arthur” on a small strip of paper. You then fold it so that no one can see what the inside says. It’s very important that people can’t read what you wrote. Place the paper in a cup or hat. The second favorite TV show might be “Sponge Bob”. What you do though, is write down “Arthur” on the next tiny strip of paper. Then you fold it so that no one can see what it says. For the third favorite, you also write down “Arthur”. It’s best to distract your audience at this point. You can say “Oh, my kids loves Sponge Bob, too” as you are writing down “Arthur”. You can even be very sneaky and say things like “How do you spell Avatar?”, all the time writing down that first favorite.
Tell the volunteer to take out one piece of paper and to think very hard. You can ham it up at this point, closing your eyes, or saying something like “it’s not Sponge Bob”, or “it starts with an A”. Then you open your eyes and tell your answer!
You audience will be amazed at your amazing mind powers! I do find it best to not repeat this trick more than once or twice. People start to notice that the first answer is always the one that turns up. For some reason, changing the topic of the favorite seems to distract the audience.
Have fun with your mind-reading!
For More Magical Fun:
Jumping Rubber Band Magic Trick
Party Games that Don’t Cost a Dime–For Teenagers and Adults