photo credit: Outdated Productions
From Lee in the U.S.
Hi Rosemary – On 2 occasions my husband and I have gone to sessions with a blind billet reader – Is there a trick to what he is doing? My husband insists there is and he has not told us anything of value other than to be able to repeat everything we have written down but he had some of the audience in tears from what he told them.
I must confess that I had to look up what ‘billet reading’ is. I don’t know if it is unique to North America or whether we use a different term in Australia, but I had never heard of it until now.
So, I hoped, guessed, figured (wrongly assumed ??) that I’m not the only one to be in the dark on billet reading. Hence this post.
Billet reading is an illusion and Lee’s husband is right. It is a sideshow trick performed as magic.
According to Wikipedia it works like this:
The effect is often worked as follows. Members of the audience write messages on small slips of paper, or billets. The messages can be questions for the deceased, or simply statements that the performer could not know. The billets are then put into individual sealed envelopes, which are collected and given to the performer. The performer then takes one envelope at a time and accurately describes the message inside. After announcing the contents of each envelope, the performer opens it, as if to confirm the reading.
The trick used in billet reading is the one-ahead method. It relies on the performer knowing what is inside one of the envelopes beforehand, and using that knowledge to stay one step ahead of the audience. The performer may do this by having a plant in the audience submit a pre-arranged message as one of the billets, or by secretly opening one envelope. When the performer pretends to read the contents of the first sealed envelope, they are actually reciting the plant’s message or the message from the secretly opened envelope. When opening the first envelope to “check” their answer, they actually read the first billet, which they then pretend to “read” inside the second envelope. This process is repeated down to the final envelope, which is either an empty decoy, or the plant’s envelope, or the secretly opened envelope. It is necessary, of course, that no one but the performer see the billets until the trick is completed and all the billets are out. If the secret-opening variant is used, the performer must use sleight of hand to conceal that the last envelope is already open, or to “extract” the last billet from an empty decoy envelope.
This trick, and exactly how it is carried out, can be seen in the movie A Month by the Lake. Here the performer has his plant write something about mountains. When he receives all the envelopes, he puts the plant’s envelope on the bottom of the stack. He then asks who wrote about mountains, and the plant responds. He opens the top envelope, and “confirms” his reading, but actually reads the next person’s card.
Over to You
According to Google, 260 people search the mind reading term billet reading each month, and this month I’m one of them. So, there is obviously a small demand to know more about this illusional trick.
Have you ever been fooled by a mentalist trick? I haven’t – well, not that I know of – but then again, maybe I just didn’t notice? What about you?
Leave your memories below.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I think you missed the word Blind in the question about billet readers. I have been to them and they really seem to cover their eyes completely and read the billets.
Any mystical work and demonstrations can be fraud. Who knows what your Medium was doing.
I have witnessed this Blind-fold Billet Reading by multiple Mediums in the USA. I know the true character of each. I can honestly say i KNOW they are receiving their Mediumisitic messages from their spirits regarding your question and names on your billet. There was no fraud involved. I am a huge skeptic and always pay attention to slight of hand and psychic tricks.
How can fraud be involved when a Medium looks at you and say “Your grandmother wants to know what those other folks you wrote down in the billet have that SHE doesnt have!?!? Why wasnt her name written down?” No THAT, is mediumship! (That was my grandmother teasing me! I started crying as I was so happy!)
You need to talk to the church you attended and ask them their opinion of the Medium doing Billets..or ask around.
What I love about your story Kevin is the reminder that the paranormal is not all doom and gloom. It is also about light, hope and in this case….humor.
Love it.
Our personality doesn’t die
Cheers
Rosemary
While undoubtedly Billet Reading has been performed by many illusionists and ‘mentalists’ in both the 19th century and beyond, it is not necessarily a trick and genuine Billet Reading does occur.
The ‘Billet’ (from the French word meaning ‘note’) was initially used in early Spiritualist circles and was a means of ‘testing’ the spirits who were purporting to communicate via raps and later through trance. In the early days the sitters would write a name or a question on a small piece of paper and after it was folded up the billet was placed on the table. It was not touched at all by the medium, but the ‘spirits’ would rap out the answer to the question or appear to communicate as the person named.
Subsequently, a number of mediums in the 19th century developed the process of having a billet placed in a sealed envelope and they would either place their hands over the envelope or put it to their forehead or against the back of their head and attempt to answer the question or make a connection with the person whose name was on the paper.
Of course it was not long before the illusionists, often in an attempt to ‘expose’ Spiritualist mediums as frauds, developed the techniques for appearing to do Billet Reading while actually cheating along the lines described in your notes.
To say that Billet Reading IS a trick and nothing more, is, therefore, not really correct. It MAY be performed as an illusion, but it may also be a REAL exercise of psychic ability.
I note that your enquirer writes of “blind billet reading” which suggests that the billet reader is probably blindfolded and therefore unable to actually see what is written on the pieces of paper. Of course, some of the best illusionists of the past (Anna Eva Fay is one that comes to mind) could indeed perform fraudulent billet reading while blindfolded but to do so there would need to be an accomplice who secretly feeds the information to the billet reader.
Perhaps the person your enquirer saw was fraudulent, but then again, they may just have been genuine as well. Without a lot more information as to how the billet reading was performed it is perhaps premature to come to any definite conclusion. Many genuine mediums in the past and today have demonstrated billet reading, which in many respects can be likened to psychometry, and have done so in Spiritualist churches and halls with entirely genuine and sincere intent. Many don’t widely advertise the fact that they do billet reading exactly because of the fear of being unfairly called fraudulent.
Hi Rosemary-He certainly is marketing himself as a psychic. But he puts bandages over his eyes and then a scarf – this is called Blind Billet Reading. He puts the billets up to his forehead and reads them and supposedly tells you information about the three people in spirit that you have listed.I know of two mediums? who do this Blind Billet reading. All the billets are mixed up in a basket so it’s different than the mentalist trick. One is named Hoyt Robinette and the other Reverend Ron Fredrics. The second one does not have a website but I don’t know about the other. I will let you know if I find any info. Thanks so much. Lee