Although I like most magic, mentalism is my favorite kind. Much can be done with virtually nothing. In most cases, business cards, paper, and envelopes are all you would need to perform. Interspersed with some prop-less mentalism, you can have an hour show in your pocket. Proponents of such type of prop-less mind reading are Peter Turner, Mark Elsdon, Atlas Brookings, and Phidon Bilek to name a few. There are others as well who have taken concepts such as linguistics and mathematics and created an entire mentalism movement. One routine which I purchased and like very much is Navigator by Reese Goodley. Reese Goodley is new on the scene and out of the box, he created a fantastic mind reading effect that is fairly easy to learn and makes you look like Derren Brown (Google him if you don’t know who he is).
Navigator is a thought of country revelation. The method to guide the thought process of the spectator is natural and does not look forced. By creating a scenario in the participant’s mind and through the use of association, the mentalist is able to divine the thought of country the participant has only thought of. The spectator can think of one of several countries. No country is ever mentioned by the mentalist and the spectator looks at and writes down absolutely nothing. With as little as one question the thought of country can be revealed. The process is clever and for the most part, can be adjusted to where you live. I myself found it easy to add a couple of countries not originally on the list.
You may ask, can this fail? Like many aspects of mentalism, the answer is yes. Also, like many magic tricks spectators can make or break the effect. First, the spectator has to know how to spell the name of a country. Secondly, they have to have some idea where it is in the world. Third-grade knowledge of where Europe, Asia, North and South America is a prerequisite for this to work. Believe it or not, there are adults that don’t know that. I have performed this routine about a dozen times and it worked flawlessly for all but one, for reasons previously stated. If you want to start on the road to prop-less mentalism but didn’t know where to start, I highly recommend Navigator by Reese Goodley.