Jumping to Conclusions by Harapan Ong

A super easy-to-do, fooling effect from Harapan Ong with a stunning ending they’ll never see coming.

“Jumping to Conclusions” is Harapan’s take on Max Maven’s classic “Drawing Conclusions” effect (released with his permission). Harpan’s modified handling makes the concept fairer than ever. Your helper makes genuinely free choices and the result is different each time.

A pack of abstract images is given a quick mix. Your volunteer can even cut it as many times as they want before you turn your head away and start dealing cards to the table. Whenever they want, they tell you to stop. It’s a totally free choice and they can even change their mind.

With your head still turned, they look at their image and then shuffle it back amongst the other cards (let’s say they chose the “door). There is seemingly no way you could know what image they chose, or where it’s located in the pack. Despite these impossible odds, you start searching through the cards as you attempt to pluck the thought from their brain. Without them saying anything, you remove a few possibilities and line them up on the table. They still don’t say a word as you start eliminating some of these cards.

With just a few possibilities remaining, you finally ask if you’re on the right track. Shockingly, they say “no” because you’ve already eliminated their image…or so they think.

Without any switches or weird moves, you prove that you knew which image they chose all along. You cleanly rearrange the remaining abstract images to show that they’re not as random as they seem. They actually spell out the word “door” (or whichever image they chose).