When Ed Marlo created his Olram Subtlety for apparently cleanly displaying the backs of all the cards in a small packet (while craftily hiding half of them), it spurred the creation of many packet mental effects, notable Al Cohen's Dot's Impossible, and of course, Nick Trost's Eight Card Brainwave.  Over the years, the same basic Olram handling has been applied to many different packets of specially printed cards.  Well, here's another very fun one from Steve Hollifield. 

Steve calls this trick "Poison Brainwave", but I'm a sucker for alliteration, so I have re-dubbed it "Borgia Brainwave" (after Lucrezia Borgia, the famous femme fatale of medieval Italy... see more alliteration).  Either way, it is fun and has instant interest for audiences because we all know that poison is a matter of life and death.  (And the pictures of the bottles have lots of pretty colors, too!)

The mentalist shows eight specially printed cards that feature colorful pics of bottles that say DRINK ME.  The spectator chooses her favorite, or maybe her least favorite, or just one at random -- whatever one she chooses is set aside on the table.  The remaining seven cards are shown to all have BLACK SKULL poison warnings, and the one freely chosen bottle card is turned facedown to show it has a 100% NON-TOXIC back design.  

 (NOTE: the effect sometimes is opposite of above, where the spectator chooses the only Black Skull, and the other seven cards are seen to be the Non-Toxic choices.)

  Great for table hopping or strolling, too, as the trick instantly resets for the next table or group.     Highly recommended.

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