The Effect:
A male volunteer places his wallet, watch and a coin on the table. Turning your back, you invite him to place each of those objects into his front left and right and one of his back trouser pockets.

Turn around and explain that through subtle use of body language, you can determine which object was placed in which pocket. After looking him up and down for a while, you correctly name the location of each object,

The Effect:

David approaches a passer-by and asks that they hold a pack of cards and to merely think of any card that is in the pack.

"Are you thinking of one ?" - "Not the Ace of Spades ! " - "Think of another ."

"OK - got one ? - Yes ? - OK, I want you to visualise your card turning around, can you do that ?"

"What's the name of your card ?"

The spectators announces his 'Thought card' - "The 5 of Diamonds".

David takes the pack from the spectator and removes the deck - fanning the cards face up he comes to one face down card.

"What was your thought card ?" asks David again.

"The 5 of Diamonds" replies the spectator.

The spectator takes the face down card and turns it over - it is the 5 of Diamonds !!

WATCH FREE MAGIC TUTORIALS

An uncle taught me this trick when I was young -- it always amuses children, but can be a cool feat of close-up mentalism for any audience.

In this trick, you place a card flat on the back of your palm. Apparently using only the powers of your mind (look mom -- no hands!) you slowly cause the card to bend right before your audiences eyes.

This is powerful little piece of mental magic. You will need 3 small slips of paper, a pen and 3 markers (a green, red and yellow.) With the pen, draw a simple traffic light on each of the three pieces of paper. Each of the drawings should feature three circles in a single column, inside a rectangle.
In one of the drawings, color in one of the lights at one end of the rectangle GREEN. In another drawing, color in one of the lights at the other end of the rectangle RED. And in the third drawing, color in the light in the middle of the rectangle YELLOW.

Many mentalists and magicians use a book test in their act. Here's one that you can easily do:

Effect:

Give someone a paperback book. As them to hold the book behind their back and open to a page. (Even they can't see their page selection.) Hand them a thin marker and tell them to draw an "X" on one of the pages.

I have here a really new principle for effects of this nature. It occurred to me in the latter part of 1927 while conversing with Max Holden on a principle of which he is the originator.

The first thought was to use the trick as herein described, with two blank cards of a calling card size, and as a possible publicity stunt to be used impromptu and at random when the opportunity was forthcoming. For a while I used it as a sort of "self introducer" where my own name would appear upon the blank and numbered cards. Then I discovered it much more effective to use the observer's name when possible, as it takes but a second to get it ready. I first introduced the effect to magicians at the 1928 Lima convention where I was continually "loaded" for as many as 16 names at one time. So upon meeting a performer I could work the effect apparently impromptu. So much for presentation possibilities.

In short, it is the only effect of its kind where with a pencil and two cards, four blank sides are shown and numbered, the spectator actually seeing four blank sides with a different number on each. Yet a name appears, filling one side of a card and everything may be kept and examined. There is neither anything else to add nor get away with.

The following is a super little effect that you can do anytime, but it's particularly effective when done casually at the dinner table or restaurant or anywhere that tea or coffee is being served and teaspoons are available.

THE EFFECT:

You casually lift a teaspoon or while it's still in your hands after stirring your tea, - you glance at it with a quizzical look and waggle it a little, as if it's kind of flimsy and flexible.

You then casually bend the bowl of the spoon back and forth and look a little bemused. Now you do the impossible and twist the bowl of the spoon round and round, several times.

The Effect:

The magician approaches a passer-by and asks that they hold a pack of cards and to merely think of any card that is in the pack.

"Are you thinking of one ?" - "Not the Ace of Spades ! " - "Think of another ."

"OK - got one ? - Yes ? - OK, I want you to visualise your card turning around, can you do that ?"

"What's the name of your card ?"

The spectators announces his 'Thought card' - "The 5 of Diamonds".

The Performance:

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyiMDqDRml4]

EFFECT: The magician asks a spectator to name the first letter of someone's name who is close to him. The magician then tells the spectator to grab the magician's hand, and to squeeze it tightly as he concentrates on his letter. The magician then instructs the spectator to release his hand. As the spectator stares at the red marks left on the magician's hand, the marks slowly begin to morph into the letter the spectator was thinking of.