Imagine this: you are at a friend’s home. After a moment of intense concentration, you write a prediction on a slip of paper, which is folded and left in full view. Your friend is asked to select a book from his book shelf. A second prediction is written, and your friend now makes a free selection of any page in the book. Finally, a third prediction is made, and then a single word of text is isolated on the chosen page. Everything seems fair and above board. Yet, when the three predictions are read, they are found to be precise and exactly correct! Isolation: you have forecast the specific book, page number, and word!
The spectator may open the predictions himself. No switches, carbons, swami gimmicks, or indexes.
The spectator never writes anything down.
No ambiguous word-play, no multiple outs. Do it as prediction or as straightforward telepathy!
Do it on stage or close-up, with newspapers, book, magazines, even telephone directories!
You can tell the spectator exactly what word he’s thinking of, without guesswork, fishing, or elimination.
Famed mentalist Tony Shiels wrote,
“It strikes me as a very useful item. The best thing about it is its simplicity, its ‘innocence;’ any working mentalist should be able to make much of it. There are very few practical, variable force gimmicks; especially rare are the methods of forcing a word in a borrowed book … and this makes Isolation particularly valuable. Congratulations!”
Isolation comes complete with the necessary some thing plus an illustrated manuscript with several routines and ideas by Phil Goldstein.