The trick is ruthless, but effective. The audience sees four envelopes passed out, and four cards taken from the pack by those people. The cards are sealed, collected by a fifth person, mixed well, and laid, BY HIM, in a row on a table between performer and audience. Now the magus speaks out. He wants to show that a sympathy exists between people and the objects they have touched. To emphasize that sympathy he will let each of the four people pass through a sieve of chance. Each of the four persons is given his chance. Each, in turn, keeps…
The performer picks up a fair size ball of wool with a pair of knitting needles through it, saying, "My grandmother used to be quite renowned in our village because of her ability to tell fortunes. I never could get her to read the cards for me because she said I was too young to understand. That she did possess some weird powers was believable, though, for night after night, at bed time, and while she was knitting, she'd call me to her, ask if I had studied my school lessons, and then do the very thing I'm going to…
If this routine is given the proper practice and presentation it will prove to be a reputation builder. After steady use for four years I know it is good. It can be done at any time and anywhere with borrowed material. EFFECT #1. First of all the magician is securely blindfolded. I always borrow two coins, half dollars or quarters, and place one over each eye. Then a pad of gauze is placed over each coin, followed with a cloth blindfold over all. This is a genuine blindfold and the method has a decided appeal to the layman. The magician…
That telephone mystery is quite simple and easy when the lid is lifted. The use of drawings, word, and cards serves to make it look complicated and also keeps the mind of the person busy. The 5 designs you use are those made famous by J.B. Rhine of Duke University in his extra-sensory perception experiments. In order they are: circle, cross, wavy lines, square, star. First you draw them on a sheet of paper. Ask the subject to look them over as long as he cares to, and finally choose any one. If he takes one of the first three…
The sitter is ushered into the "reading" room of the medium. He is seated behind a flat top desk or table. The seeker of enlightenment is seated opposite and invited to write his or her most important queries, not upon a pad or file-board, but upon a plain blank business card. From a small box the seer takes a crystal ball. He gazes into the sphere of so many hidden mysteries, shakes his head and then advises the sitter to drop his card into the now empty box, writing side down. The box is closed and remains in full view…
Requirements for this impromptu mystery are very simple and ordinary. A pencil, a slip of paper, and a single die complete the list of necessary apparatus. The basic principle is a mathematical oddity which seems to be little known, and, in this particular instance, quite easily overlooked by the very few who might have heard of the idea. It is excusable on their part for misdirection at the beginning makes the feat appear far from being mechanical. The performer has members of his audience give him "any single number" until six are named. Should one of these be repeated another…
Quite some years ago our trade journals were seldom without an advertisement by a person named A. Honigman, of Canada. Mr. Honigman was selling an intrigue labeled The Language of The Eyes and the gist of the adverts was that one could read another's thoughts merely by looking "deeply" into his eyes. Now this may be true when practised by soul mates but it isn't readily applied by the mystical fraternity. Mr. Honigman's denouement, after seeing with his own eyes a certified check or money order, gave a system of glancing at another person without moving the head, and through…
Every bit of action in this effect means something, and I have no doubt but that there will be not a few who have discarded the number addition trick who will find the following idea a welcome new face for their routine. After other card effects the performer attempts a mindreading experiment. He hands the deck to a spectator for shuffling, and that person is to think of a three figure number as he mixes the cards. The deck is given a second person who shuffles and also thinks of three figures. The same thing happens with a third person.…
Stewart James introduced this principle in Jinx #25 under the title of Numismatigic. That erudite discoverer of oddities had found that Canadian five cent pieces were magnetic while the like coins of the U.S. were not. (It should prove both interesting and probably practical for residents of other countries ((and we get to 22 other countries, too! Ed.)) to test their own metal currencies for magnetic qualities.) My presentation here is completely different from that of Mr. James. I have also added a subtlety not heretofore used (in print) by those who have made use of magnets. It is simply…
Quite some years ago Mr Hull published an effect which he called Sheet Readings and which embodied a very effective method of presenting an old principle of sealed message reading. I made a few notes on it at the time for the action seemed very fair from the audience's viewpoint. However, there were also a few little points that didn't suit my own way of working and a detail or so which I subsequently added to make the working even more effective to the onlookers. In the original effect the performer passed out small envelopes, cards and pencils for the…