Well, last night I went to see mentalist Phillip Escoffey at the Sydney Opera House in which his show was appearing. And first of all I must congradulate him on his performance it was incredible and highly professional.

Anyway there are two effects that I must bring up and want to source.

1 - The first one was his opener to his show in which he used 5 ESP tiles with the 5 various symbols. He called someone on stage told them to choose one tile and put the rest in his pocket. Following this he asked a few basic questions. What is your job?, How old are you?, etc. and after a minute he guessed what the gentlemans tile was. He then did variation on this a few times making it more impossible. But the thing that baffles me is the man chose then in his own hands while Phillip was turned around, this also concealed the audience from seeing the tile too.

I was wondering if anyone would be so kind to tell me a source or such that such an effect can be found, and also if possible where ESP tiles can be bought (roughly the size of a domino they were).

2 - Now this would have to take the cake of all the mentalism effect I have seen. I think I know how he did it but I would just like to know if it has been published or heard of anywhere. Phillip thew a sponge brick to a spectator, and then they name how many letters in the word, spectator throws it in a random direction and each spectator names a letter until the word "AEFQRA" was spelt. he then has a board hanging on stage which has been there the whole night and he said that was on the back of the board. He claims to come back to it later.

Anyway at the end of the show (approximately 45 after word was made) he shows us what was on the back of the board. Which I shall not say because he asked his audience not to say. Never the less it was NOT the word. Anyways at the end because was all paid 50cents to see what was on the other side of the board (money went to guide dogs Australia charity) he says on your way out have a fortune cookie as i believe you make your own fortune or something along those lines. Anyways I open my cookie and on one side it says "Your beliefs are precious. Don't waste then on the impossible" and on the other side it says "The impossible word is AEFQRA". Now I have never heard of any effect like this. The fortune cookies were all sealed in plastic like in restaurants and were to the left of the stage the whole time. Has ANYONE EVER heard of such a trick or a trick similiar or like this and its source if possible?

Thank you!

I imagine 45 minutes is plenty of time for an assistant and a heat sealer to make up the cookies.

I'm not sure about the tile thing. There are several ways to do this, depending on how close he got to the chosen tile or the others. Could be anything from a force to a "peek" (if not physical, than virtual)

That was how I assumed he did the cookie effect, I just can't imagine hiring an assistant to make cookies and fill them? It just seems so out of the ordinary. . .

I'm positive it wasn't a force, the only this he remotly said about the tiles is the 3 squiggles gets chosen alot. He turned around while it was chosen and the tile was held in between the mans hands or in his pocket so I can't see how he could have "peeked" as such the tile.