Mind Reading

 

The Trick

The performer takes a subject from the audience, and asks a series of questions or to think of an item. The subject will write their answer on a piece of paper, and the magician writes what he thinks the subjects answer is, then both place their answers in a jar or some other container. After the last question, the papers are removed, and the answers are compared to find that the performer has predicted all the answers correctly.

 

How

It's very simple, the magician know what his last question is going to be. They will pick something where most people give the same answer, such as "Name a vegetable", where the most likely answer is Carrot, or "Name a tool", where the answer would be a hammer. Here's the trick, the performer writes the answers to the questions he asks one question out of step. After each question and both parties have placed their answers in the container, before asking the next question, the subject is asked what answer they gave. That's what lets the performer 'predict' what answer will be given.

When the magician is supposedly writing the answer to the first question, he is in fact writing the answer to the last question he will ask, the one with the easily predictable answer. When he is writing the answer to the second question, he will in fact be writing the answer that he was given for the first question, and so on, until the last question is answered.

 

Question	Magician Writes:	Subject's Answer:
What's your favourite sports car?	Hammer	Ferrari
What's you favourite food?	Ferrari	Pasta
What's your favourite colour?	Pasta	Red
Name a tool.	Red	Hammer

You should probably ask six or seven questions, on the off chance that you get the last one wrong, that way, it still looks like you got the rest right. Happy Mind Reading!