Evolutionary Slate of Mind
By Professor Spellbinder

Note: This is NOT any related to commercial effects on the market today that have usurped the Slate of Mind name, such as Lefler's version of the Hen Fetsch Mental Epic, or the Book Test by Maverick Magic. They each call themselves Slate of Mind. This is the original, as named by the great U.F. Grant himself.

This effect can be traced back to the 1940's when German magician Stanley Jaks invented his Supersonic Card Prediction. We trace its evolution through several generations of magicians' "improvements" up to the present day Slate of Mind, and end with my own 2009 completely ungimmicked version which is the simplest of all (in my humble opinion). Meanwhile the effect remains about the same; a prediction is made, a card is chosen, and the card matches the prediction. How each version gets the job done is the fun.

The name of the effect came from U.F. Grant, who was inspired to improve Jaks' invention by combining the card holder directly on the prediction holder. He named it Slate of Mind (by 1947). Al Aldini made two improvements to Grant's version, one in the early fifties and one in the late sixties. Why has this wonderful effect been all but forgotten? Not by me, it hasn't, and once you finish my e-Book, you'll put the information right to work and make at least ONE of the nine different versions I explain. Naturally, I think you'll choose MY version as the fairest of them all.

Thanks to Dean Tellefson, Joseph Fox, Larry Wilfong and others for their interest and support of this project, and for providing me with information about several of the different historic Slate of Mind variations that found their way into this e-Book.

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