Have you read Hilliard's Greater Magic? In that gargantuan tome of ephemeral mysteries emphasis is placed on subtlety rather than on "finger-flinging", which Hilliardesque term is undoubtedly destined to live through the ages. Tricks of inspired artistry, gleaned from the minds of those high in subterfuge, seem to live for the sole purpose of refuting that misguided adage, "The hand is quicker than the eye". I feel quite sure of having here evolved a new and different effect for card table entertainment, but there is no reason why the presentation cannot be used before an audience of a size to…
Every once in a while a principle makes its appearance and allows of being used in many varied ways. Over a year ago Dr Daley, in Jinx pages, introduced a method of using four pieces of plain silicate (four flaps) to obtain a spirit message. The following effect combines that with another idea which has found favor, and thus a magician's dream easily becomes a reality. In an impromptu manner and at any time or place, you can produce a phantom answer THAT IS A DIRECT REPLY to any question written by the spectator! Carry with you merely four silicate…
:: EFFECT :: From a set of road maps any one is selected, opened to full size and placed on a table. Any three persons then scan the map and mentally select any city or town that may strike their fancy. The medium is placed in a far end of the room facing a corner. The magus then instructs the three persons to write down their mentally selected locations on a small piece of paper so as to have an accurate check at the conclusion of the test. The last person to write upon the slip of paper is told…
An assistant from the audience distributes nine numbered slips of paper, the performer asking each person to write a question or bit of personal data. The written slips are collected in an unprepared envelope by the distributor and sealed. In full view at all times, the envelope is placed before the audience by the performer and another assistant recruited to watch it. The medium is now introduced and seated with her back to the audience, well blindfolded. During this, the envelope and slips are burned by the spectator. A large slate is shown to contain a square divided into nine…
Enabling the performer to get into a climax with but very little preliminary preparation, this item forms an effective opening for a mental act. The effect is based on an idea from Secrets of Magic by Blackstone. However, it will be seen that a new principle and method of handling is brought into play which will confuse those who may know the older secret. The performer shows a packet of cards, say from 50 to 100. Each card is blank on one side; the reverse side carries a six figure number. The packet of cards is shuffled and several members…
You begin this one by having your wife leave the room (or does she do that anyway when you begin doing tricks ?). Have her hidden as far away and with as many closed and locked doors intervening as possible. Play this fact up. Then shuffle the deck and have a spectator cut. With the deck face down before him, the spectator now cuts off any number of cards up to half the deck. Without looking at it, he places the bottom card of his cut off portion in his pocket, keeping the rest of the packet himself. The performer,…
Radio sets of the short-wave type have been tinkered and experimented with by magical acts and dealers for the past six years at least. And, with all the effort so far expended, there are very, very few such sets in operation today. It can be attributed both to the cost and to the complexities of the electronics which go into the making of such apparatus. For all the experimenting has been done in a "shooting at the moon" vein, the idea being to transmit, by ultra short-wave, the human voice of the performer to the assistant, or the actual voice…
Did Joseph Banks Rhine innocently receive a "rooking" in some of his Duke University experiments in Extra-Sensory Perception? Is it possible that two of his "best" subjects, close enough in companionship to later marry, conceived of a simple method by which they might outwit conditions imposed by the professor? The tests followed by Professor Rhine over a period of seven years resulted in world wide publicity and comment from learned mathematicians and psychologists. Students of the University were drawn upon to take part. Can it be that college prankishness and the lure of acclaim led them, at times, to "put…
Embodied in this effect will be found a demonstration of both magic and mindreading, a triple mystery and a novel presentation. The performer tells the following story : There once was an old man, a friendless recluse known to his neighbors only as Mr X. (Small white card, Fig. 1, is shown and placed in drug envelope representing Mr X's home) One day Mr X applied for police protection, stating that he feared for his life. A guard was assigned to his home. (Envelope is folded and stood tentwise (^) before a spectator who acts as guard) Although it was…
Choosing a prominent member of his audience, the performer gives him a piece of chalk with a slate, and stands this person at one end of the room or stage. The performer, also with chalk and slate, stands in a distant opposite location. Four more of the assembly are asked to stand at their seats. The first is requested to concentrate upon his year of birth. The second thinks of the year in which his wife or her husband was born. The third person mentally selects any important year, in the last 20, during which an event of consequence has…