When you have something you want to peek at, how do you do that in a way that doesn´t look suspicious? Even if there is a reason to hold something up in front of you, it can take too long before you actually see what you want to see. A glimpse is not enough, at least not for me, especially if they have written something.

Mikael

The main secret, I believe was esposed by Vernon, bring the object to the eye. not the eye to the object. Don't use pencils unless you have great eyesight. Markers, crayons. The best work on peeks ever is Richard Busch's Peek Performance
from
Ford

Another ploy I have used, is to direct the viewer to the object you are peeking (while holding it up near your eyes) and ask them to focus on it. This gives you the excuse to look at the object as well.

Of course "waiting" before you do the peek is always good misdirection.

-Asmayly

As Ford said, if you are interested in Peeks you could do with Peek Performances on your bookshelf. Despite Mike Close's undeserved criticism of this book there is more information on peeks than you will find anywhere else! This is for the serious mentalist and needs a lot of study...speed readers need not apply

Paul.

You can get better at glimpsing things quickly by practice, just like everything else. In fact, there is a device called a tachistoscope that card sharps use to practice this. It flashes a card (or word) onto a screen, and you try and name what you saw. You can practice this without the device. The tachistoscope is used to measure progress.

I agree with Fordkross that Busch's book is a great source of information on peeking. There are some techniques in there that give you plenty of time to see the word.

Asmayly's advice is also well taken. A peek works best when the point at which it occurs is some time away from the moment at which it is revealed.

Jim

1. May I add another vote for 'Peek Performances' by Busch. Excellent.

2. The best solution, surely, is to construct your routine to accommodate the peek. If you want adequate time to peek at something, then you presumably want your audience looking at something else while you do this. So construct your routine accordingly. Make sure there is something else for them to look at.

3. One 'cheeky' or 'brave' solution (or 'absurd', depending on your point of view) is to not disguise the peek at all, but make a point of it. There is a prediction effect I've had some fun with, which involves two specs each mentally selecting a letter of the alphabet. I won't go into irrelevant details. However, at one point in this routine I'm holding up a medium-sized envelope package with "676" scrawled on the front in bold marker pen. I try to get EVERYONE looking at this, and I invite anyone to guess its significance (it's 26 x 26, or the total number of possible combinations). Precisely while everyone is staring at the front of the envelope, I'm doing something sneaky round the back of it, for which I need several seconds cover.

This may not be the cleverest approach, but there's a certain satisfactin in getting away with it successfully (and I devised the routine after reading 'The Case of the Purloined Letter' by Edgar Allen Poe, if that helps).

4. Asmayly makes a good point. Delay between opportunity to peek and actually peeking is your friend.

I agree heartily with the above recommendations and tips.

Keep in mind that a peek alone is nothing more than a method of secretly obtaining information. While it is not always (strictly speaking) a sleight, it is a method. The disembodied sleight or peek without a routine or context is not a fully really complete on its own. The context of a routine gives it the appropriate context.

I often peek at the information I obtain as I'm holding it up in front of me to show the spectator what I want them to do with the items (that contain the information). Also, at the point when I get a peek, the routine is not at all about me ever having access to the information. They don't know that I am aware of the information until several minutes later after they have been handling it. I mention this frame in another post on The Magic Cafe where I wrote about the deception of teaching someone and using that mind frame to cloak deception. Analyze and understand how people think and how they do not think and turn this to your advantage in the structure of a full routine. You'll thank yourself many times over for doing this.

One other tip, and I consider this a big tip. For great business card peeks and switches, study card magic. I regularly take cards moves that are very subtle and put them into use with business cards and/or billets. I figure, cards are great if that's what you and your audience want, but if I have a great way of obtaining any kind of information, then I'm not going to squander that on learning the identity of a card, I'm going to use this to gain information that is personally relevant to the participant. I prefer to conjure with information. I do perform some card magic, but the information I would obtain in a peek has much deeper personal meaning to my audiences and to me.

I will add my voice to the opinion that the best way to accomplish the peek, is to peek and then look away while you 'obtain' the information mentally.

I've also seen a nice psychological ploy pulled off by a certain performer who made the point of removing his glasses before he discerned what was written inside the envelope.

Ian brings up what I feel is the most important issue: Routining!

Structure what you and when you do it, and you'll never even be suspected.

I agree with so many of these things mentioned here. If you need to absolutely know what is written or drawn then you must structure the effect so that there is either verbal or physical misdirection to allow you the time you need. However, if you are doing something that looks like an experiment then I go for the fastest peek possible and just go with whatever I was able to see. I use this principle with the TT. I always put the wallet away into my top breast pocket and I do as soon as I turn around with a comment such as, "Was this an important place to you?'" I put the TT away then and if you attempt this you'll see that when putting something into that pocket there is a natural tendency to track the object until it is safely in the pocket. That microsecond of tracking is all I use to peek and then just go with whatever I was able to catch. Someone mentioned that by practicing peeking you will be able to build this muscle. I think it's true because the more times I do the TT the more I realize that I can get most of the info in that microsecond and then I tend to give move faster into the pocke to test myself.
Happy Peeking!

Hi,

You can use a pencil if it is soft.

Numbers, block letters and information in a predetermined range is easiest to read with a quick peek.

Yours faithfully


Dan Kirsch

I don't know if this is of any use, but there is computer software to help with this..

http://www.acereader.com/ (Windows & Mac)
http://www.icebreaker.net/gnomersvp/ (Linux)

Lesault.

In case it might help another method is to make them think what you are about to read is something else and routine it so that it is neccessary for you to look at their billet or whatever. I do this in a couple of routines and gives me more than enough time to not only understand what was written or drawn, but also HOW it was written or drawn. If they think you are taking out another piece of paper to write something on it or read it whatever but you are actually reading their billet...it works very well.

That was a horrible job trying to explain it. Sorry! Oh well...

Jonathan GRant

Interesting twist!

I have Acereader, but have stopped using it since I noticed no improvements in my reading speed. But it might still be useful for this purpose, since reading a long text with Acereader is very different from reading one word, or a few words. It would be interesting to hear if anyone else here have increased their speed of reading with Acereader, or ANY mehod at all. In any case, the classical tips, using a pencil or your fingertip and so on, as taught by almost everyone did not work at all for me. Double your reading speed in an hour feels like an insult.

Opinions?

Mikael

I have a book lying somewhere... think a friend of mine has borrowed it. Anyhow, it was about reading, memorization so forth and so on. In short; improving your mental capability, or whatever. I've learned to read alot faster since I read it. It's all about fixationpoints, at least when it comes to reading books. A normal person would use I'd guess, 4-5 fixationpoints per line, I use two. Those fast hardly uses one. It's an interesting thing to study, when you're in school, it's invaluable. You read a lot faster and it's a lot easier to understand the context this way. I dont know if we're even talking about the same thing. Though it's always worth mentioning this

I hope it'd helped some...

Sincerly yours,
Daniel Young

When re:reading what I wrote, it doesn't make much sense I believe
And when I checked out that website I saw they mentioned alot of what I said above.
Though a peek seldomly involves more than two or three words, but there are more areas which fast reading can be used, for those who have and perhaps even use Lee Earle's Silverbullet can use it for the booktest.

Ask me to explain if there's any point I'm not clear at.




Why a jumping hamburger you ask, I dunno...

Hi Daniel.

Yes, it´s the same thing. The problem for me is that if I look at more words at the same time, it takes longer for each fixation. It´s said that if you look at two words instead of just one, you will read twice as fast. For me, I´ll have to look twice as long when I look at two words, so it doesn´t work.

Mikael

Then I guess you have a problem. Not a problem per se, but some people read in different ways. I look at the words and interpret the meaning of a line in the book, I'm not reading it word for word, but rather line for line. Well, I guess some people can some cannot. But keep trying man, perhaps you get it as we magicians tend to say: "After years of practise and selfdenial"...

This may be offtopic but you mentioned the silver bullet. Is this useful for stage work?

Jonathan Grant

If silverbullet is useful for stage? I'm sure you can adapt it to some routine, all it is is a utility device which enables you to do some cool stuff. And if you can come up with something for stage, it's great! Though I consider it more of a parlour type of thing. If you have the silverbullet, and you know the booktest that comes along with it, you understand how you can use quickreading technique.