Billet reading

Billet reading is a mentalist effect in which a performer pretends to read messages sealed inside envelopes by clairvoyance. Although billet reading is accomplished by a simple trick, the effect can give the impression of mind reading. Billet reading is usually performed as an entertaining parlor trick by magicians and mentalists. Psychics and mediums often use the trick to demonstrate their alleged supernatural abilities.

Method

The effect is often worked as follows. Members of the audience write messages on small slips of paper, or billets. The messages can be questions for the deceased, or simply statements that the performer could not know. The billets are then put into individual sealed envelopes, which are collected and given to the performer. The performer then takes one envelope at a time and accurately describes the message inside. After announcing the contents of each envelope, the performer opens it, as if to confirm the reading.

The trick used in billet reading is the one-ahead method. It relies on the performer knowing what is inside one of the envelopes beforehand, and using that knowledge to stay one step ahead of the audience. The performer may do this by having a plant in the audience submit a pre-arranged message as one of the billets, or by secretly opening one envelope. When the performer pretends to read the contents of the first sealed envelope, they are actually reciting the plant's message or the message from the secretly opened envelope. When opening the first envelope to "check" their answer, they actually read the first billet, which they then pretend to "read" inside the second envelope. This process is repeated down to the final envelope, which is either an empty decoy, or the plant's envelope, or the secretly opened envelope. It is necessary, of course, that no one but the performer see the billets until the trick is completed and all the billets are out. If the secret-opening variant is used, the performer must use sleight of hand to conceal that the last envelope is already open, or to "extract" the last billet from an empty decoy envelope.

This trick, and exactly how it is carried out, can be seen in the movie A Month by the Lake. Here the performer has his plant write something about mountains. When he receives all the envelopes, he puts the plant's envelope on the bottom of the stack. He then asks who wrote about mountains, and the plant responds. He opens the top envelope, and "confirms" his reading, but actually reads the next person's card.^[1]

Parodies

• Johnny Carson's "Carnac the Magnificent" sketches parodied the billet reading trick by having Carnac announce the (seemingly normal) answer to an unseen question, then open the envelope and read the question, which revealed the answer to be a pun.
• The Loren & Wally Show of WROR-FM parodies the trick with the "Answer Man," who sounds like W.C. Fields.

References

1. ^ "A Month by the Lake". Internet Movie Database. http://imdb.com/title/tt0113849. 

Further reading

• Ho, Oliver. How to Read Minds & Other Magic Tricks. ISBN 0-8069-7645-4
• Irwin, Harvey J. Introduction to Parapsychology. ISBN 0-8069-7645-4
• Anneman, Theodore. Practical Mental Magic. ISBN 0-486-24426-1