![Billet switching method (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Billet_switching_method_%28cropped%29.png)
Billet reading, or the envelope trick, is a
mentalist
Mentalism is a performing art in which its practitioners, known as mentalists, appear to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities. Performances may appear to include hypnosis, telepathy, clairvoyance, divination, precogniti ...
effect in which a performer pretends to use
clairvoyance
Clairvoyance (; ) is the magical ability to gain information about an object, person, location, or physical event through extrasensory perception. Any person who is claimed to have such ability is said to be a clairvoyant () ("one who sees cl ...
to read messages on folded papers or inside sealed envelopes. It is a widely performed "standard" of the mentalist craft since the middle of the 19th century. ''Billet'' is the
French term for note or letter, referring to the rectangular shape of the paper.
Effect
The mentalist provides paper, pencils and envelopes to the audience, who are asked to write statements on the paper and then seal them in the envelopes. The envelopes are then collected and handed to the mentalist. The mentalist takes the first envelope and magically examines it, typically by holding it to their forehead. After concentrating, they announce what is written on the paper. The envelope is then opened to check that they have read it correctly. The mentalist then selects the next envelope and proceeds to mind-read the contents of the rest, one by one.
History
![Billet reading trickery](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Billet_reading_trickery.png)
Billet reading has been a popular trick for mentalists and
mediums
Mediumship is the practice of purportedly mediating communication between familiar spirits or spirits of the dead and living human beings. Practitioners are known as "mediums" or "spirit mediums". There are different types of mediumship or spir ...
and
spiritualists
Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century, Spiritualism (when not lowercase) b ...
. It was one of the main acts that brought fame to
Charles H. Foster, an American medium who popularized a version using folded slips some time in the 1850s or 60s. In the 1870s he was joined for a time by
Bert Reese
Bert Reese (1851–1926) was an American-Polish medium and mentalist, most well known for his billet reading demonstrations.
Biography
Reese was born Berthold Riess in Posen. He was a spiritualist and friend of Aleister Crowley. He claimed to ...
, who further popularized it. Magician
Theodore Annemann
Theodore "Theo" Annemann (born Theodore John Squires; February 22, 1907 – January 12, 1942), stage name Ted Anneman, was an American professional magician who specialized in the field of mentalism. He is most famous for inventing and ref ...
talks about several of Reese's variations on the theme in articles in his mentalist's journal ''The Jinx'' which were republished after Annemann's death in the book ''Practical Mental Magic''.
[Theodore Anneman]
"Practical Mental Magic"
, Dover, 1983, pp. 7-11. Reese's work became well known, and was the subject of several explanatory full-page articles in ''The New York Times''.
In his book ''The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism'',
Hereward Carrington
Hereward Carrington (17 October 1880 – 26 December 1958) was a well-known British-born American investigator of psychic phenomena and author. His subjects included several of the most high-profile cases of apparent psychic ability of his times, ...
revealed the tricks of billet reading (with diagrams) that fraudulent
mediums
Mediumship is the practice of purportedly mediating communication between familiar spirits or spirits of the dead and living human beings. Practitioners are known as "mediums" or "spirit mediums". There are different types of mediumship or spir ...
would use. The psychical researcher
Eric Dingwall
Eric John Dingwall (1890–1986) was a British anthropologist, psychical researcher and librarian.
Biography
Born in British Ceylon, Dingwall moved to England where he was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge (M.A., 1912), and the Unive ...
observed Reese in New York and claimed to have discovered his cheating methods; according to Dingwall the exploits of Reese were "not worth any serious scientific consideration" and that Reese came into contact with the sealed notes.
Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writings of Lewis ...
wrote that Reese was an expert
mentalist
Mentalism is a performing art in which its practitioners, known as mentalists, appear to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities. Performances may appear to include hypnosis, telepathy, clairvoyance, divination, precogniti ...
no different from stage magicians of the period such as
Joseph Dunninger
Joseph Dunninger (April 28, 1892 – March 9, 1975), known as "The Amazing Dunninger", was one of the most famous and proficient mentalists of all time. He was one of the pioneer performers of magic on radio and television. A debunker of fraudulen ...
but managed to fool a number of people into believing he was a genuine
psychic
A psychic is a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws, ...
. Another magician to expose the methods of billet readers was
Joseph Rinn
Joseph Francis Rinn (1868–1952) was an American magician and skeptic of paranormal phenomena.
Career
Rinn grew up in New York City. He coached Harry Houdini as a teenager in running at the Pastime Athletic Club. He remained a friend to Houdin ...
.
Many magicians take delight fooling billet readers in any number of ways. When used as a spiritualist act, the simplest method is to write questions to people who are not yet dead or are just made up, and then watch as the spiritualist pretends to contact the fake name.
[Joe Nickell]
"The Mystery Chronicles: More Real-Life X-Files"
, University Press of Kentucky, 2010, p. 40. Another method is to write a statement that is so ribald, funny or startling that it trips up the performer when they read it. Exposing billet readers has a long history.
Method
One-ahead
Most billet reading is an example of a generalized class of tricks known as "one ahead" reading. It is accomplished by having the performer know one of the statements beforehand, typically through a
plant
Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclud ...
, or through sleight of hand by opening one of them before starting the act.
To start the act, the mentalist selects the topmost envelope on the stack and pretends to mind-read the contents, typically by holding it to their forehead. Instead of announcing anything related to that envelope, they instead read aloud the memorized statement. The plant in the audience then cries out some variation of "that's mine!" Another variation is to claim to be unable to read the first card due to some problem, perhaps that the audience member's mind is closed or too powerful. In either event, the mentalist then opens the envelope to "make sure they got it right" or perhaps to "see what is so confusing" and is then able to read what a real audience member wrote on ''their'' billet.
The trick proceeds to the next envelope. The mentalist pretends to mind read it, but reads aloud the statement from the envelope ''previously'' opened. This time a real audience member is impressed and agrees they got it right. The mentalist then reads the contents of the second envelope and repeats this sequence. The trick then continues until the envelopes are exhausted, the last one being empty or the envelope of the plant. Throughout, the mentalist is "one ahead" in the envelope stack, pretending to be reading one while actually reading the next one.
To disguise the reason for opening the envelope, the typical variation used by mentalists has the audience members write questions on their cards, which the magician will answer. The magician then starts by making a statement like "I feel beautiful!", expresses some confusion about why he would say that, and then opens the envelope to read the question, "will the weather be nice tomorrow?" (while actually reading the next card, "what is my shoe size?"). As the questions may be impossible to guess, like a random person's shoe size, comedy or misdirection is often worked into the routine. For instance, "a size larger than last year" makes a reasonable answer to shoe size no matter who asks the question. Mediums may use the question and answer format as well, except that the questions are to be asked of the deceased, or perhaps are simply names of people to be contacted in the spirit world.
Other methods
There are numerous variations on the theme of reading sealed notes which use
sleight of hand
Sleight of hand (also known as prestidigitation or ''legerdemain'' ()) refers to fine motor skills when used by performing artists in different art forms to entertain or manipulate. It is closely associated with close-up magic, card magic, card ...
to achieve the basic effect. Many of these involve quick
palming
Palming is a technique for holding or concealing an object in the hand. It is used frequently by magicians to conceal a card, coin, or other object. When it is done skillfully, the hand containing the palmed object is perceived to be completely ...
of the billet, substitutions with pre-made billets, and other similar tricks. Annemann describes several such methods in depth, and many hundreds can be found in other works or on the internet.
[
]
Parodies
Johnny Carson
John William Carson (October 23, 1925 – January 23, 2005) was an American television host, comedian, writer and producer. He is best known as the host of ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'' (1962–1992). Carson received six Pr ...
's "Carnac the Magnificent
Carnac the Magnificent was a recurring comedic role played by Johnny Carson on ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson''. One of Carson's most well-known characters, Carnac was a "mystic from the East" who could psychically "divine" unknown an ...
" 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. No attempt at magic is even suggested; Carson simply used the trappings of the well-known trick as stagecraft for his jokes. The bit was borrowed from similar routines performed by Steve Allen
Stephen Valentine Patrick William Allen (December 26, 1921 – October 30, 2000) was an American television personality, radio personality, musician, composer, actor, comedian, and writer. In 1954, he achieved national fame as the co-cre ...
("The Answer Man") and Ernie Kovacs
Ernest Edward Kovacs (January 23, 1919 – January 13, 1962) was a Hungarian-American comedian, actor, and writer.
Kovacs's visually experimental and often spontaneous comedic style influenced numerous television comedy programs for years afte ...
("Mr. Question Man").
References
Citations
Bibliography
*
*
Further reading
*Ho, Oliver.
How to Read Minds & Other Magic Tricks
'.
*Irwin, Harvey J.
Introduction to Parapsychology
'.
* Anneman, Theodore. ''Practical Mental Magic''.
{{Magic and Illusion
Magic tricks
Mentalism