A freely selected card, inserted face up into the face down deck while all is held behind a spectator's back, is further protected by his wrapping the cards in a handkerchief. The performer shows two slates, puts them together, and the deck in its covering placed on top. After an incantation the pack of cards is unwrapped and spread. The card below the faced one is shown. The performer slides slates apart to show its name written on one surface. Then the card above the reversed one is revealed. And the performer shows written across the surface of the other…
"There are people", begins the performer, "who just don't believe in anything, even when they see it before their very eyes. They are the skeptics of the world who hold back and retard progress in almost every line of creative endeavor. My experiment now is to duplicate the accomplishment of many spiritualistic mediums -- that of receiving a written message from "the happy summer land", that part of the veiled universe where departed souls live, and strive to make their thoughts and wishes made known to us still among the living." The performer shows a single slate to be clean…
In the almost innumerable versions of the slate effect, the conjurer has to force the choice of the particular figure, word, phrase, etc., he desires to magically produce. The trick I am about to describe enables the performer after having offered a perfectly FREE SELECTION of any card from a pack, to produce an enlargement of it on a previously marked slate. Of the two in use, one slate is previously provided with a large figure 1 drawn from one corner to the other through a chalk sketch of a pip card, say, the 8 of spades, as large as…
A fortune is at stake! Not yours -- the gullible sitter across the table from you. With a deck of cards you read his past and future, and answer any question secretly written. Then you prove your reading correct and that the cards do not lie! Spread the deck face up on table. Invite your consultant to remove any spot card. Upon its face he is to write a question. Gather up the remainder of the pack, turn your back, and during the writing of the question turn the deck face up and reverse the top card. Hold the pack…
Having finished the ultra-somber proceedings that prove the Fairy Goblet of value as a concentrative object, the performer-host, in full light, concludes with a version of "The Quick and the Dead". All sitters present are given slips of paper on which to record the name of some living friend, particularly personal. That is, all but one sitter. He or she, as the case may be, might well be one who was not a good subject in the previous tests. And this person is asked to write the name of some close friend or relative not now living -- someone in…
Did you ever hear of camouflaged thread? All of us either have seen a thread against a magician's background or experimented no end for complete invisibility of that "means" to a trick. Black against black is bad, in this case, and the best solution has been a black thread against a somber plaid or lined backing. Try this. Take a spool of white thread (of the required weight) and, with pen and ink, black out every other half-inch. For use on a séance the broken line effect masks itself against almost any backdrop. For closer work cut the spaces to…
Throughout the years, two person mental effects, in which the medium leaves the room while certain things are done (in the presence of the performer) to return later (after performer has absented himself) and reveal what has taken place, have not been varied much insofar as the general theme is concerned. In an effort to provide a routine, which is different in effect, and, at the same time, have it appear absolutely devoid of any possible opportunity for the employment of trickery, the following has been evolved. Accompanied by a committee of one, the medium is escorted to another room.…
On April 24, 1895, Dr. Henry Ridgely Evans had a sitting with the then popular medium, Pierre L.O.A. Keeler. This seance is described in detail at page 62 of Dr. Evan's book, Hours With the Ghosts. On January 25, 1939, I had a sitting with the same medium who is now almost eighty-four years old. During the forty-four years (he told me he has been in the "spook" business for sixty-three years) intervening between these two seances, there has been one change in Keeler's methods, and that change I believe is worth describing here. He gave one test (price $3.00).…
Magic can be performed as a trick after trick, or as a presentation of strange occurrences making themselves visible through the medium of the actor. The latter thought has been put into practice by myself and proven true. While I don't see fit to announce that I am an actor, when in front of the paid customers, my bearing of a magician leads people to believe all that I may say regarding other magicians. This is because a magician talks to his audience whereas an actor talks away from them. It has been quite some time since I have published…
Here's a candid picture of Oscar, the cute poltergeist who did miracles in Sefalaljia (Jinx #69). Oscar measures just 8 inches from the tip of his flat little black snoot to the tip of his dainty tail. Why anyone should want to know his plane area, I can't figure out, but suppose somebody did - could you be of any help? We'll be coy and hold back the simple truth until the next Jinx issue.