Mind-Reading Book Test (Magician) BONUS EP

This is a bonus clip from this week’s episode with magician Sean Borland.

During our conversation, I asked Sean whether he’d be willing to demonstrate one of his mind-reading illusions live on the show. What followed was a classic “book test” — eight books to choose from, hundreds of pages, complete freedom of choice… and a single word.

I chose a book.

Then a page.

Then a word.

Sean tried to guess it.

What makes this moment fascinating isn’t just the reveal — it’s the psychology behind it. Along the way, Sean explains how people tend to choose numbers like 67 or 167 when asked to “freely” pick one, why certain words feel more natural than others, and how subtle framing can shape decisions without us realising it. You’ll hear how association, memory, and suggestion narrow the field — without ever feeling forced.

How he got there is something you’ll have to hear (or watch) for yourself.

If you haven’t listened to the full episode yet, I’d highly recommend starting there. In it, Sean shares the story of performing for billionaires and royalty, the discipline behind mastering sleight of hand, and the seance in South Africa that he describes as “the beginning of the end.”

This bonus clip gives you a glimpse of the craft in action.

Enjoy — and let me know if you know how he does it! 

Links: 

WEBSITE - https://www.seanborland.com/

SOCIALS: 

https://www.youtube.com/c/SeanBorlandInternationalMagician

https://www.facebook.com/seanborlandmagician/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-borland-49a1aaa6/

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Transcript

Why The Trick Was Cut

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey everyone, Chris here. During my conversation with magician Sean Borland this week, I wanted to see whether he would be able to show me any of the sort of mind-reading illusions that uh he does live on the show. This particular one involved me choosing a single word out of eight different books and him trying to guess the word that I had chosen. We pulled it out of the show just to keep the story flowing, but it was way too good not to share with you guys. I highly recommend checking it out on YouTube so you can sort of see how the thing unfolded and of course see my reactions at the end. I hope you guys enjoy.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Um but do we have time to try one more thing? Can I try something else real quick? Absolutely, yeah, yeah, let's do it. Okay, so I've got a few uh books here. I'm just gonna uh hold these up for the people who are watching on YouTube. So I don't know if any of those are.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

So there's probably let's hold hold up hold up again. So we've probably got what one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, seven or eight books, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Yeah, so I'm just gonna take the books and I'm just gonna move them from this side to this side. And then when you want, you just say stop.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Okay.

Picking Page And Prime Number Bias

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Stop. Okay, so David Hastings A Mistake. Do you know this one? I don't know that one, no. Have you read it? No. Okay, the previous one was You Are Not Your Brain, okay? And the one after that is Ju Culture Estratégie. I don't know what this is. I've been I've been learning French recently. I think I got this in a secondhand uh okay. So I think this will work because um a novel is actually better. So I'll show you there are 200 and odd pages. If we go to the very end, I think go up to 300, yeah, 300, right? Wow, okay, yeah. You go ahead and just pick any page that you want. Now, normally if we were doing this in a a living room or on stage, I would get someone to come up, they pick the book, and then I'd just say go to any page, but I'm going to actually open the page for you. And a lot of people might be thinking, is there perhaps a mirror behind my screen? I assure you there's not. But when I show you the page in a moment, I will turn my head away and you can see hopefully there's no mirror behind me. I've never done this before on a podcast, but we'll we'll do our best. Give it a try. Yeah. Just go ahead and and name any page.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Uh 167.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Any particular reason why?

SPEAKER_01 2:30

It was even when you were sort of looking at it, it just was the first number that popped into my head. And it wasn't any other number. I I thought it was just that one.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

I'm I'm going to share something with you. When I say to people, name a number between one and a hundred, sixty-seven comes up disproportionately. It comes up like a lot. I don't know, I don't know why. I think people avoid the middle, they avoid the beginning. So it's usually either something like 43 or 67. Now, with that knowledge, do you want to change your mind or do you want to stick to 167?

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Uh, let's change to 17.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Are you sure? Because I mean, I don't want you to later think that I influenced you. Like, let allow this to be a free chance.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

I'm just going with the flow. I'm just going to go.

Finding A Vivid Word

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Oh, with the flow. Love it. Okay. So I will quickly go to page 17. So here we go. There is page 17 there. Now, what I'm going to do in a second is I will hold this book up uh closer to the camera. What I want you to do is just go through either from the top to the bottom or bottom to top or start in the middle, whatever you want, really. And I just want you to look for a word that jumps out at you. And again, we're going to go through a little visualization exercise. So don't choose and or if or at. Those words, unfortunately, are going to be quite flat and boring. We want uh like a long word, like an interesting word. Probably like eight, nine, ten uh letters, something that you can really visualize. Okay? Alrighty.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

So there is if hold it, I think because of the pixelisation, just hold it quite still.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Um and then if you can see my head. My my head is away.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

I'll try and direct you a little bit. So move it up a little bit so I can see more of the page, and then to your right. Yeah, keep coming, keep coming, keep coming, keep coming, keep coming, keep coming, keep coming, keeping up. Okay, stop there. I've got a pretty good view of both pages now. So let me just take a look.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Don't tell me, don't tell me which word that is, just make a note of it in your mind.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Okay, I've got a word.

Mind Reading Through Associations

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Got one? Yep. Okay, fantastic. Okay, so I mean, interesting, it's amazing how you can actually do magic on uh on a podcast. Yeah, yeah. Through the through the the magic of the of technology of the internet. Yeah. Okay, so just try and clear your mind for a second. Like take a deep breath. I know we're you know you're in work mode, you're doing a great job so far. Thank you. This has been a really good experience. It's my only my second ever podcast. So clear your mind and now just allow this word to sort of pop into your head and maybe think a little bit about some sort of image or an association, if it's a place, maybe imagine what that place looks like. If you've been there before, if it's an object, maybe you're interacting with it in some way, if it's uh something edible, you're eating it, if it's an animal, whatever. So we'll do the we'll do the um we'll do the screen thing again because that worked quite well before. I just want you to imagine the word on a big screen in front of you, you're sitting in the cinema, you're looking up, and you just go through the letters, and I want you to go through every single one and just get to the end and focus on the last letter. Look, I'm just gonna take a a random guess here. Obviously, I've got like a like a small chance of just randomly guessing this, but I'm just gonna say it's not it doesn't happen to be an O, is it? It's not okay. What what was the last letter?

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Don't you No, sorry, there yeah, the last letter is an E.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

It's an E. Okay. So let's let's try this. Focus now on the first letter. And I want you to think of a country that starts with that letter. Anyone, any country, anywhere in the world.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

Okay. Have you got one? Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Yeah? Okay, is this um again I'm just gonna take a random guess here. Is this is this a country that you've never been to? I have been there, yeah. Oh, you have been there? Interesting. Through work or was it on holiday?

SPEAKER_01 6:54

Uh it was a holiday. When I was holiday.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Okay. And is this is this in is this in Europe?

SPEAKER_01 7:04

No.

Narrowing To The Sea And Lighthouse

SPEAKER_00 7:06

It's not interesting. For some reason the the letter that's jumping out to me is is an L, like L for Lima. Is it an L? Correct. It's an L, yeah. It it is an L. Okay. Interesting. And I've I'm I'm gonna guess this is not something like Lithuania, right? You did not go to Lithuania on holiday. It's not something like that. I'm gonna say, is this something like I'm not sure, nothing is really jumping out at me. What was the country? Where did you go?

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Uh Lebanon.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Oh, Lebanon, interesting. Okay, so to Beirut, okay, interesting. Yeah, okay, so Mediterranean, okay, nice. Um, let's let's go back to this word. So, whatever this word is, and again, remember we've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight books here, right? And I think you picked page 17 out of about 300. Yeah. Go back to this word, whatever this word is you're thinking about, and imagine yourself somehow interacting with it. So, whatever that means, it doesn't have to be today, it could be in the past. You could travel through time. If this is something very futuristic, you could go into the future. If this is something from the past, you could travel back in the past. And I want you to think about the context of how you would interact with this. Is this something that you would use in your family life? Is this something professional? Is this something that is, you know, happy or sad? Like the more emotion you can connect to this, like the easier it's gonna be for me to try and pick up on something. Yeah, got it, got it, yeah. Do you have something in mind?

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Yeah, yeah, pretty clear.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

So I I feel as if this is if you were going to pick future now or past, this would probably be something more in the past.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

Yeah, and this is something is this something to do, is this now like an anachronism? Is this something which is outdated because of technology?

SPEAKER_01 9:06

No. Uh do you do you mean the memory or do you mean the the object?

SPEAKER_00 9:11

I mean kind of like the object. For somehow, I'm just picking something up here from like ancient times. I feel as if this is something like not quite like a carrier pigeon, but it's something kind of like used to be used a lot, and maybe its value has changed now. And I think specifically what I'm picking up on is the relationship that you would have with this, whatever it is you're thinking of. I think in the past it would be something is this something quite solitary? Is this would be something spend a lot of time alone in a remote place?

SPEAKER_01 9:42

Yes, correct.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Is it something to do with the sea? Correct. Okay, see this is where my pulse is actually starting to get a little bit quicker because it's it's genuinely exciting for me. So it's something to do with the sea, and I almost feel as if you would like physically suit this sort of like look or part. I could imagine you with a beard, maybe like a thicker beard. Uh-huh. And you're not a captain. It's not that. This isn't get something to do with like navigation or something. You're not, you're not like a roar or anything like that. Is this got something to do with this got something to do with like rescue or danger, something kind of Coast Guard related, something along those lines?

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Uh-huh. Related.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Yeah. Okay. Really see the object, whatever this is you're thinking of, really try and clearly see it as clear as you can in your mind. Is this is this is this a lighthouse?

unknown 10:37

Yeah.

How Spectator Selection Works

SPEAKER_01 10:39

It is a lighthouse. Wow. That is that's amazing. That is actually amazing. Because even on this, on that page, I I was bouncing between three different words. And uh Lighthouse was the first one I picked up. When the other one was gunslinger and the other one was photograph, but I really sort of picked on on lighthouse. Um that's amazing. And I watched, you know, when I watched Darren Brown, I um I'm I'm always trying to pick it apart to figure out what what cues because as you say, you know, I I can't even think of the number of possible words that we could have picked up on through the books, you know. It must have been thousands upon thousands of different options, and uh yeah. I I I know you're not gonna tell me, but it is it is one of those things where everybody wants to know, I think, what is going on and how you're doing it because it's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

Yeah, I mean, uh you can take this as a compliment or or not or whatever, but you would not typically be the person who I would choose to do that type of effect with. Um, I would say you're like a medium, like a five or a six out of ten, because typically I don't do the psychological stuff with men. I find women are a lot more open to it and receptive and actually less skeptical, and that's not anything to do with, you know, I'm not being um critical of women or being like a misogynist or anything. It just not all women, but some women tend to just be more um less competitive, you know. Sometimes men want to sort of almost block it because it's kind of like a it's like a oh, you're not gonna read my mind, where women are like, oh, this is what happens. Yeah, I'm a bit I'm a bit more open. But you seem to be very um you know, friendly and open, which is good, but normally the the success rate for that type of thing goes up a lot higher uh with a woman, and especially if it's someone who I get to interact with first. So that's to share a little bit of insight here into how these things actually work. I would say 90% of it is choosing the right spectator.

Trust, Improvisation, And Craft

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Because I I'd always wondered that because obviously if you're doing this in a crowd of you know several hundred people and you're you're trying to pick that particular audience member that you go, okay, great, I'm gonna choose you because I can already get an instant feeling from you. Because even the audience member, you probably can't uh you've never met them, likely, you know, so you don't know who they are, but can you just get a look and a feel from someone's body language that they're gonna be a good participant? 100%. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Yeah, I mean what I would typically do, I'll I've I'll talk you through the actual process if you want. So usually, and this is a this is a kind of trade secret here, but usually I would meet some of them beforehand. You know, I would maybe walk around, people who've arrived early, and I would just say hello and just make a little bit of chit-chat, you know, just small talk, nothing to do with the performance. And if they seem overly excited, you know, some people really love magic, and some people will go to uh an astronomer. Um, sorry, astrologer. Astrologer, yes, not astronomer. I don't mind the people who go to astronomers, astrologer, yeah. They'll regularly go to an astrologer, they might have a psychic, you know, maybe they're um, you know, have a guardian angel, whatever, just anything which is a little bit more about feeling, and they might not necessarily be able to explain if you were to say to them, how did you reach that conclusion? What was your thought process? They don't know. A lot of times people can't answer that. It's just more, well, it feels good to me and I like it. That's the type of person I want. The more someone becomes uh has like a falsifiable network. I mean, you're a scientist yourself, right? So you're actually the last person who I would want to do this type of thing with.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Well done. Well done, by the way. You're two for two for getting even over Zoom as well. And you're, you know, you're less you have less body language to go on because you're only seeing half my body as well.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, like I said before, like the start of the call, you know, you asked me if we'd be able to do something, and I said, I'll, you know, I'll I'll I'll I'll make it work somehow. I just think once you've done this thousands and thousands and thousands of times, the good thing is you don't actually know this is another little insight, you don't actually know what's going to happen in the end. So as long as you don't give someone this is the beginning, middle, and an end, and there's uh an expectation as to what's going to happen, uh, you can really in improvise. And that was a kind of turning point for me in my journey as a magician when I realized that if I just trust myself that I'll be able to handle any twists or turns, there is no right or wrong. And as long as you're always looking for opportunities, uh then you know something incredible could happen.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

And that's it for this episode. This podcast is independently produced, hosted, and edited by me, Chris Barron. Thank you so much for listening. Take care, and we'll see you next Monday.