A version of Ray Grismer's "What's my sign".

Effect: You reveal the zodiac-sign of someone you never met.

This is what happens:

A participant is handed a chart with all the zodiac signs and the gemstones which on the basis of astrology are allocated to these signs. While the participant focuses on the name of the gemstone of his sign, the mentalist first discloses some letters of that name and then reveals his zodiac sign.

How?

The original uses the branching anagram principle. Since the names of zodiac signs aren't really suited for that principle the performance can result in an obvious guessing game. The design of Astro Gems eliminates that risk, so now you can be certain of success presenting this wonderful feat.

Astro Gems also has the following advantages:

• The maximum number of statements to secretly determine the sign is six.
• Inherent to the progressive-anagram principle there will very likely be a moment you get a No for an answer. However you don't accept the denial. You are sure that the letter is there! And yes, it turns out that the thoughts of the participant must have gone astray to the letters of the zodiac sign as the letter is indeed in the name of his sign. After having turned the denial into a definite Yes, you can immediately reveal the zodiac sign.
• Almost no memory work! Remembering the two strings of letters: amtog and erinc, is 95% of the memory work you have to do.
• No mistakes when the participant doesn't know the spelling of his sign.
• There is a comedy presentation included with a wonderful joke about an astrologer. For a professional just the joke is worth the price of Astro Gems!

"Astro Gems is based on a very clever idea and well thought out." - Patrick Schlagel (Authority on the progressive anagram principle. Author of Mnemosign.)

1st edition 2016, 11 pages.
word count: 3170 which is equivalent to 12 standard pages of text