Have a "short" card in your deck. The spectator shuffles. Taking the deck back you cut at the 'locator' card bringing it to about the deck's center. Spread them across a table and have one removed. Pick up the spread. A riffle tells you if the "short" card still is there. If not, you have a miracle at hand. Otherwise riffle for the return of the chosen card and have it deposited at the break caused by the short card. Thus it goes on top of that pasteboard and the deck is squared. Now riffle to the short card and…
This little test always has a curious effect on the spectator. He is handed two playing cards to be mixed face down without his seeing either of their faces. Actually, one of these cards is any Ace except the Ace of Spades, and the other card is any ten-spot. Secretly you have pushed your thumb nail into the back of the Ace at some inconspicuous point. After the mixing the spectator lays the two cards side by side, still face down, onto the table or floor. You give him a dime and a penny, telling him to put one coin…
I think it was Ralph W. Hull who suddenly made popular, with his Mental Discernment of a decade ago, the feat of locating a mentally thought of card by a system of procedure not easily recognized by the thinker. There were many who used this idea, because it made possible a dream of card men. As time went on, though, and as with all things, there came a demand for a more simplified way of handling the cards and the method of "discernment". Borrowing a pack of cards the performer has them well shuffled by anyone of the audience. Six…
There are several such effects like this, accomplished by the use of an extra card, or a double faced or double backed one. Others make use of the one handed pass as the deck is given spectator behind his back. Mulholland, Farrelli, and McAthy each describe a method using this pass. (See Editrivia. Ed.) I never could do the one-handed pass well enough to make use of it. Another disadvantage of that pass is if the spectator accidentally (?) brings deck to front he sees that the top card is face up. In my method a deck is shuffled and…
Dabblers of things of a spiritualistic nature should be interested in the following effect which has been put together for the small gathering and intimate type of performer. It can be carried in one pocket and, performed practically impromptu, runs about seven minutes with great impression. The performer asks the spectator to write the initials of a dead man on one of seven small white cards, explaining that from this point on the card will represent the deceased person and that his burial will be re-enacted. On the six remaining pasteboards, the spectator is told to write the initials of…
Performers who have used the effect of a card being placed second from where it jumps to the top will like this really new version which takes away the necessity of much skill. It is necessary only to have a short card in the deck, a short card made by trimming across the entire end of one card about one-thirty-second of an inch. Have it on the bottom and the usual card selected. The noted card is then returned to the top of the deck which is undercut, effectively burying it. Another cut and a riffle shuffle at the ends…