Secret Origin of The 100 Book Test Project

I am standing outside the front door with a book no one has ever seen before in my hand, and one small trickle of sweat boiling up on my forehead. 

It’s not that I’m nervous exactly. I guess in a weird way I am. I’ve worked on this book for a long time and I have no idea if it works. Is it fooling? Is it even entertaining?

I’ve written and performed comedy, and understand the nature of having an audience as the final barometer of a bit. It stands for most entertainment and art, comedy being at the top of the spectrum. For me though, magic has always been much lower. In most cases, you kind of know if a bit of magic is fooling or not, even without an audience. 

Not so with this thing. 

Since it was a book, before I had it printed, it was a PDF. I sent it around to some people over email but it was hard to understand exactly what was happening. 

More than anything, I had no idea if the secret would fool anyone. I can explain the secret in one sentence to both magicians and mortals. 

But nothing like this (as far as I know even to this day) had been done before. Maybe there was a good reason?

Anyways, I’m at the front door of my friend Dave’s house and there are about 13 magicians there in the backyard, hanging out and casually talking and sessioning. 

I’ve never done the book test before. But it’s not like any of the standard book tests, where you use the book to have someone pick a word. It’s kind of the anti-book test in that the book is used for revealing something. 

Someone had mentioned Andy from The Jerx had done something like this in the past, I had no idea when I came up with this idea (more on that later) – thankfully his idea and method are completely different.

So I make it to the backyard, book clutched firmly in hand. There is no doubt that I will try the trick – anyone who knows me well knows that I am drawn to magic, stunts and anything else where I truly don’t know if I will be successful. Over the years, I have balanced that out with carefully prepared pieces, but I love leaving things open, with room for live exploration and spontaneity. In the past that might have been an excuse for lack of preparation (these days I don’t leave the house without rehearsing something hundreds of times). In other words, even if I will crash and burn, it’s ok. In fact, I kind of welcome it, someone once said on the other side of a breakdown is a breakthrough. 

The only way to know if this will work (much like anything else), is to actually get on the dance floor and boogie. 

But I guygress. 

I don’t remember much else about the night, because I was such a heat seeking missile of book test wielding intent. I had one goal and that was to see if the juice was worth the squeeze. 

And so it was time. Gathered around the table are a dozen or so magicians. 

I put the book on the table. It’s called This Book Will Figure You Out. 

I tell everyone that I found this book on Ebay, that I bought the last copy. That they figured out how to put Artificial Intelligence into a book. Now this was several years ago (pre-Covid), before every 3rd word out of people’s mouths was AI. These days I usually throw a rock through a window any time someone says the words Artificial Intelligence. 

But I guygress.

So, almost in a whisper, I tell them about the book. About how I think the government bought up the rest of the copies. All very much tongue in cheek.

If it was the 1930s, someone would call this patter. For me, it’s just kind of a weird story to hang the trick on, I don’t expect anyone to actually believe me. 

I hand the book to a very clever sleight of hand person who shall go un-named, and I can tell from their face that they have no idea what to expect.

They open the book and read the first question out loud.

“Do you think a Hot Dog is a sandwich?”

If Yes, turn to page 34.

If No, turn to page 123.

The book is a love child between a Choose Your Own Adventure book and those Dumb Internet Quiz. 

The sleight of hand man continues answering a few more questions. 

Then the book says something like (sorry too lazy to look up the exact verbiage) – I’m starting to get a read on you. Turn to page 52.

And on that page is the big-timey reveal.

YOU ARE A CAPRICORN.

And sure enough, this card conjuror’s parent’s had some romance in late March early/April. 

I was kind of waiting for someone, or rather everyone to yell out how it was done. But they didn’t. Instead, everyone wanted to be next. They wanted to see if it would work with them (and even now, with non-magicians it’s the same response).

I couldn’t believe it. 

And so I watched as 12 more people went through it. Out loud. Answering dumb questions, everyone laughing at their answers, and them landing on a page where the book told them their correct astrological sign. 

And no Brotato, none of the questions have anything to do with birthdays, star signs or awkward questions about your parent’s dating patterns. 

The even cooler thing that I couldn’t have anticipated, is since I was 95% hands off, it just looked like the book somehow was figuring it out. I mean that is supposed to be the illusion, I just had no idea if it would play.

The other thing I couldn’t have anticipated, is afterwards one of the magicians came up to me and asked if I really got it on Ebay, and how much of that was true. I did

They were really asking, they had no idea how it worked and so wondered how much, if any, of my WW1 era patter was true.

So from there, a whole sprawling library of book test was born and started growing. I’ve been working on this project for the last 6 years. Originally, inspired by a book test brain fart by Paul Harris (a story for another day) – I am happy to say there are now currently more than 100 book tests in various levels of production. 

The secret to this very first one (and many subsequent ones) is very simple, and you only have to do a wee bit of work, then it’s all in the spectator’s hands and is “almost automatic.” In fact, I almost called these The Almost Automatic Book Tests because you are so hands off. And this was not planned, but it does give the feel of a kind of wonder object, a strange artifact that knows things it could not and should not know about you. 

I have a fond nostalgia for the very first book….and after hundreds of performances it is still one of my favorites. But there are so many more riffs on presentation, effect and even method that I’m very excited to start getting these out into the world. Admittedly, this is a passion project, but I think some of the advances in method will make people smile, because they allow you to secretly communicate more and more complex information to the book all while in the spectator’s hands. Completely analog, nothing digital, nothing complex or any hard sleight of hand. I’m excited to show you how all this works (I still remember the big Aha moment I had on a long road trip). There are hundreds of exciting possibilities. 

Anyways, I’m giving away “This Book Will Figure You Out” completely free with Purchase of the “This Book Knows Your Card” book, when I relaunch the series  later this week. Each month will be releasing multiple new books. If I can pull it off, and you’re interested in these kinds of things, September will be a big month with lots of surprises. 

Future books will include drawing duplications, fortune telling, I-Ching, any card thought of, which hand, muscle reading and a lot more. There are also a few really wild ideas I don’t want to spoil before they are released. 

I even figured out a way (finally) to create a book you can use to have people select things, and also have it reveal those things….but with a little bit of an interesting twist.

If this kind of thinking interests you, then complete these two side quests:
1. Check out my free book The Secret Wisdom of Magicians
2. Buy the latest book test here