No Such Thing As Luck

It has been observed that three of the fundamental tools of a Mentalist are faking, finding, and forcing.

Faking can include deceptions like a billet switch or the Hoy miscall of a page number.

Tools and techniques such as an index or peek might fall in the arena of “Finding.”

Forces are numerous, but each presents a particular set of challenges: Are the objects natu-ral? Is the selection process suspicious? Can I vary the information that is forced for each performance?

This issue’s offering is a re-examination of an unusual force applied to a One-Ahead rou-tine. The presentation is crafted as a display of precognition, but it would be a worthwhile exercise for the reader to figure out how to present this as mind reading.