Those nomads of Normandy with their descendants upon descendants can keep the secrets of Romany chiv unto themselves. It isn't given to our races ever to fully understand the words and thoughts of that ever-traveling tribe. Superstition has it that these people possess powers of unlimited value. Modern gullibility keeps that legend alive. Wanderers, yes. Soothsayers in reality, no. However, who are we to fly in the face of opinion? As we cannot defy such a person on this spot and at this moment we can but try to outdo him or her by presenting a means for the answering…
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…
Handwriting is something which may or may not identify one person from another. It's a moot question and therefore leaves the path open for a magician to make the most of things. From a newspaper clipping reproduced here we have seen that the effect might be of use to many readers. What we reveal here is an effort to give a method so that all may accomplish the same thing, if not genuinely, as per the English newspaper man, by underhanded trickery as per nearly all magicians. In a room from 10 to 20 people the performer passes out a…
The "dupe" seats himself at the seer's table. He wants his fortune told. Complying with the lady's or gentleman's request, the old faker mixes the cards about and deals four of them face down. Assuming that it is a lady, she turns up any one to suit her fancy and writes her name across it while the merchant in future's back is turned. She puts it face down among the others and moves them about to lose the card, even unto herself. The magician (for he is no better) returns to the table, picks up the group of four, puts…
If you have one of the P&L metal card boxes sitting around, this makes an excellent effect as an after dinner or parlor trick. Any card box that locks though, can be used. In short, the spectator writes the name of some dead person on a small card which you give them, and it is placed writing side down and covered with a Queen from the deck. You then put the Queen to your ear, leaving the card with the dead name on the table, but she says nothing. You try again, but still no result. Then, with the remark…
Of all the single or group reading methods that have been invented and created, I think none have been as practically simple as the window frame idea. I've always thought that it was mine but after eleven years I'm not so sure. I made my first note of it on January 12, 1924 and thought of it while reading about an alcohol envelope feke on page 92 of Alexander's Dr. Q book. I handled a lot of correspondence then and passed it around. Later it was advertised in The Sphinx. Howard Albright used it in his Super-Psychic Mental book, and…
So many have asked me for something along mental lines that can be done practically impromptu and yet has the appearance of genuine mind reading without cards, etc., that I am disclosing a secret that I have been using for a long, long time, in fact, since October 1929 it being so dated in my notebook. I know this may sound difficult or rather long winded, but if you follow the routine with the material at hand, you will grasp the principle very quickly and have no difficulty. All that is needed is a thumb tip and seven or eight…