Hello:

I was just wondering what the justification is for tearing the paper? I just wanted to hear some of your ideas.

Thanks,

Blake

In most cases when people present it, it is so that the mentalist cannot retrieve the information or in a sense, the writing is destroyed. Someone who has 13 steps on them might be able to correct me, but I believe that 13 steps has a few notes on this in the center tear section.

EDIT: I do have 13 steps but its about 150km away right now.

I can see that, however, why write it down in the first place? If you don't want to be able to retrieve it, then it should just be thought of. Right?

Obviously I won't give you the reason I have for using a center tear, cause that's the way I do things. I'd rather not have everyone do things the same way that I do them, for the same reasons. This is not too hard to look into yourself. Some good books for both theory and explanations of effects are:
13 steps to mentalism
PRISM
Practical mental magic
Mind, Myth and Magik (I may have spelled the title incorrectly but magic is spelt weird in that one)
Pure effect and
Absolute Magic or Strong Magic

If you don't want to tear it, use a peek.

It is torn to give the sense of destruction, it makes it harder to put back together, so if you were to look, you'd only see little bits...not the complete thing.

It also makes it easier to burn, which is the way a lot of the older routines were used.

My favorite center tear was in a David Copperfield show. He never went near the pieces other than to squirt lighter fluid on them and set them ablaze after Joanie Spina did the "dirty work" for him. Joanie had some of the best misdirection in the business.

A lot of the time a mentalist would light fire to the remaining pieces of paper. That's what I always thought anyways.

I highly reccomend you to get ahold of the Acidus Peek, there are various sources teaching it, from the original author, or by Richard Osterlind in his DVD, (in Mind mysteries 1 he teaches it), You don't need to switch the billet or tear it, you just hold it for a second and get the information.

Much better than any impression device IMHO, all you have to do is keep normal index cards with you, it has been my ''show me something'' out.

If you are proeficient with cold reading, you can ask your volunteers to write down the names of people they know well, and you can then start to describe the person or the link they have with them.

Max.