Parents and students gathered in the University’s Illini Union last Saturday for a performance by Mentalist/Magician Jym Elders.

Elders, originally from Wheaton, Ill., has performed his magical skills for the last five years. However, he has had the ability to perform magic and use his mental skills for the last 20 years.

He has performed in San Francisco, Memphis, New York, Portland and as of last Saturday, the Illini Union. As the clock struck 2 p.m., students and parents gathered in the Courtyard Caf‚. He began by giving out objects such as a tape recorder and post-it notes to audience members, who reacted with confusion.

However, as the show continued, the audience members quickly found out the purpose of those objects. Julie and Megan Martin, mother and sister of Ryan Martin, freshman in LAS, were given a blank post-it note. After one of their family members had written a question on it, Elders used his mental connections and was able to blurt out the written phrase, “What color is your underwear?” in a matter of seconds.

Amazed by his performance, the audience broke into applause, not knowing there was an incredible amount of magic still to come. Since Elders involved the audience in all the tricks he performed, they gave their full attention, knowing that nothing had been set up. “Here’s something a college student has never seen before,” Elders said, holding a beer bottle and eliciting laughter from several students.

After carefully showing the bottle to the viewers up front, he hid it and then took an empty brown bag and crushed it with a hammer. As the hammer hit the bag, a sound of glass breaking was heard, revealing that the beer bottle from before had magically appeared in the empty brown bag. This caused the crowd to “aww” with shock.

After picking out two very enthusiastic students from the audience, he made them hide the broken beer bottle in four bags numbered 1-4. While the girls hid and taped the bags, Elders handed out four cards to random members of the audience. Each had a number on the back.

After the girls were done with the taping, he confidently collected the cards and revealed the four bags, all standing up. One of the bags had the broken bottle in it, but no one except the two girls knew which one. The object was to crush the brown bags with his hand without getting hurt. How was he going to determine which one he was going to smash was a question on everyone’s mind, but he quickly answered it by having an audience member pick three of the numbered cards out of the bag and place it in her back pocket. One by one, she took the cards out of her pocket and read him the number. Before he smashed it, he put his hands together and prayed for it to be the empty bag.

Bag number one and three were empty, now it was time to smash bag number two, the one many audience members suspected to be the bag with the broken bottle. With a nervous look on his face, Elders raised his arm and smashed it, surprising everyone who didn’t believe it was empty.

As the show continued, Elders performed many other tricks such as magically moving the hands on a Swiss watch with the touch of his palms, and bending metal spoons by only rubbing his finger to it. After shocking the audience with such out-of-this world behavior, he ended his act with a Halloween-themed finale. Using a black magic book, he made a stool rise from the ground, alarming everyone who saw the object rising by surrounding spirits. In Julie Martin’s opinion, “awesome” was the only word to describe it all.

As the magic-based show ended, everyone left with smiles on their faces, immersed in excited conversations.

Walking out, Ryan Martin agreed with his mom.

“Jym Elders is the crown prince of the mystic world and I’m a believer,” he said.By Roshni Rana

Contributing writer

Parents and students gathered in the University’s Illini Union last Saturday for a performance by Mentalist/Magician Jym Elders.

Elders, originally from Wheaton, Ill., has performed his magical skills for the last five years. However, he has had the ability to perform magic and use his mental skills for the last 20 years.

He has performed in San Francisco, Memphis, New York, Portland and as of last Saturday, the Illini Union. As the clock struck 2 p.m., students and parents gathered in the Courtyard Caf‚. He began by giving out objects such as a tape recorder and post-it notes to audience members, who reacted with confusion.

However, as the show continued, the audience members quickly found out the purpose of those objects. Julie and Megan Martin, mother and sister of Ryan Martin, freshman in LAS, were given a blank post-it note. After one of their family members had written a question on it, Elders used his mental connections and was able to blurt out the written phrase, “What color is your underwear?” in a matter of seconds.

Amazed by his performance, the audience broke into applause, not knowing there was an incredible amount of magic still to come. Since Elders involved the audience in all the tricks he performed, they gave their full attention, knowing that nothing had been set up. “Here’s something a college student has never seen before,” Elders said, holding a beer bottle and eliciting laughter from several students.

After carefully showing the bottle to the viewers up front, he hid it and then took an empty brown bag and crushed it with a hammer. As the hammer hit the bag, a sound of glass breaking was heard, revealing that the beer bottle from before had magically appeared in the empty brown bag. This caused the crowd to “aww” with shock.

After picking out two very enthusiastic students from the audience, he made them hide the broken beer bottle in four bags numbered 1-4. While the girls hid and taped the bags, Elders handed out four cards to random members of the audience. Each had a number on the back.

After the girls were done with the taping, he confidently collected the cards and revealed the four bags, all standing up. One of the bags had the broken bottle in it, but no one except the two girls knew which one. The object was to crush the brown bags with his hand without getting hurt. How was he going to determine which one he was going to smash was a question on everyone’s mind, but he quickly answered it by having an audience member pick three of the numbered cards out of the bag and place it in her back pocket. One by one, she took the cards out of her pocket and read him the number. Before he smashed it, he put his hands together and prayed for it to be the empty bag.

Bag number one and three were empty, now it was time to smash bag number two, the one many audience members suspected to be the bag with the broken bottle. With a nervous look on his face, Elders raised his arm and smashed it, surprising everyone who didn’t believe it was empty.

As the show continued, Elders performed many other tricks such as magically moving the hands on a Swiss watch with the touch of his palms, and bending metal spoons by only rubbing his finger to it. After shocking the audience with such out-of-this world behavior, he ended his act with a Halloween-themed finale. Using a black magic book, he made a stool rise from the ground, alarming everyone who saw the object rising by surrounding spirits. In Julie Martin’s opinion, “awesome” was the only word to describe it all.

As the magic-based show ended, everyone left with smiles on their faces, immersed in excited conversations.

Walking out, Ryan Martin agreed with his mom.

“Jym Elders is the crown prince of the mystic world and I’m a believer,” he said.