Eddie Joseph's Jasonism

You borrow a deck of cards and have a spectator shuffle it until he is completely satisfied the cards are thoroughly mixed. Next you ask him to cut the deck anywhere he likes and to place either half on your outstretched left palm - discarding the other half.

After reinforcing the fact that the deck is borrowed and has been thoroughly mixed, you say you are going to attempt an experiment in thought reading. You now proceed to show him one card at a time - asking him to make a mental note of just one card and its position. You say it can by any card at all, however under no circumstances is he to give you any clue as to which card he is thinking of, nor should he stop you before all of the cards in the packet are dealt out. The card and its position will be known only to him.

You proceed to show him the faces of all of the cards, as stated. Afterward, you hand him the packet and say that in order for both of your minds to work together, you must now raise his mind to an "ACTIVE STATE." Tell him to concentrate on his card and its position. Reinforce that the success of the experiment depends upon his cooperation, because thought reading is not a one-sided matter. He must, therefore, take an active part. Ask him to form a clear mental image of the card in his mind and while he is doing that, to transfer one card at a time from the top of the packet to the bottom to equal the position of his card.

Once he's done that, have him turn over each card from the top, one at a time, and call out its name. He begins doing that. Suddenly, you stop him, saying you've intercepted a mental vibration. "I am getting a very strong sense that the card you are now holding in your hand is the one you were thinking of. Am I correct?" You are!

From the spectator's standpoint, not only did you have no way of knowing which card he was thinking of or its position, but you didn't even know how many cards he would cut. It all seems impossible.

How it works
The strength of this effect lies in its simplicity. After the packet of cards is placed on your left hand, you announce that you will show the face of every card. The spectator is told to make a mental note of any ONE and to remember its position. You now push off the top card with your left thumb. Your right hand takes the card and displays it. Your left thumb now pushes of the next card. The right hand takes this next card in FRONT of the last and continues this way until let's say NINE cards are dealt off. We'll use nine for our example, it can be a different number if you like. The right hand now drops its group of cards face down onto the table. Continue showing and counting the cards (silently to yourself) in the same manner with the right hand taking each card in front of the previous one. Remember when counting, after dropping the first lot (in our example Nine) to begin the next batch as Ten ... Eleven ... etc. When all of the remaining cards in the left hand have been shown with the right, place that group on top of the first (on the table).

You should now have two numbers in your mind. The number of the first batch (Nine) and the total number of cards in the packet. Let's say, for example, you had 26 cards in all. You're now going to subtract the number in the first batch from the total in the packet. 26 - 9 = 17. All you have to remember now is the result (17).

The entire effect hinges on this innocent subterfuge of placing one card in front of the other and dropping the first packet with a known number of cards. Both of these things go completely unnoticed.

Continue with the presentation. Hand the spectator the cards and have him transfer one card from the top of the packet to the bottom to equal the position at which his card originally stood. Once he's done that, he is told to turn over each card from the top and name it outloud. All you have to do is silently count down as he does this until he reaches the 17th card (in this instance). It will be his card! With good patter, this is a suprisingly strong effect and it works with a borrowed and shuffled deck!