The mystic shuffles a deck and asks three of his audience to step forward. They stand to the left of the performer's table, facing the audience, and in line. The deck is spread in a fan face down across the table. The man on the far end is requested to come over, take any card he may wish, and put it in his right side coat pocket. He is told not to look at it, because, as the performer then tells his audience, this will not be a case of mindreading, but an experiment of new relations between animate and…
There is one magical adjunct long since neglected - the mirror glass. We don't mean the tumbler which catalogues of other days said was perfect for the exchange of a handkerchief, but the 3 x 4 inch or larger straight sided and fluted glass jar which used to have a lid. We can dispense with the lid, and the flat piece of nickeled metal which divided the jar into halves. We won't replace the lid, but we will replace the other item with a zig-zag piece of nickeled metal, each zig and each zag of which is about a half…
There seems to be a trend towards gambling exposes, with performers digging back into their copies of Erdnase, Maskelyne, and Quinn, for material. Heretofore the performer has been content to do his stuff at a card table and let the watchers be properly amazed. But now it "is the thing" to talk about the cheaters and show "how" it all is accomplished. So, the demonstrator picks up his pack of cards, talks quite knowingly about sharpers, detailing an anecdote or two of meetings (?) between the wary and unwary, and then proceeds to deal hands of cards, under strict conditions,…
The performer writes a prediction upon a slip of paper which is folded and placed aside. He shuffles a deck and gives it to a person for cutting. The spectator looks at the top card of the deck and puts it face down on the table. Onto it he deals seven cards, and then deals eight cards in a pile for the performer. The performer picks up his eight cards, remarking that the spectator knows the name of the card at the bottom of his (spectator's) pile, so therefore he will look at the bottom card of his pile ---…
Three cards are selected from a thoroughly shuffled and cut deck. The first spectator puts his card into his coat pocket, while the other two cards are returned to the deck which is again shuffled and cut. The magician patters about the common superstition that a black cat crossing one's path presages bad luck. They seem to think such an occurrence a jinx. However, such is positively not the case where magicians are concerned. He takes from his pocket a card with its back to match the deck in use, and shows its face to contain the picture of a…
The performer puts a single slate and a pack of cards on the table. Before leaving the room he asks a spectator to shuffle the deck (all of this after he is out of sight, of course), cut it several times, and then put the top card face down under the slate. The mystic returns when this has been done. He peers at the blank upper surface of the slate. He may state that he is going to prove that man can, with proper training, use his eyes and brain to surmount normally impassible barriers. He draws a picture of…
The performer shuffles a deck before a volunteer and gives it to him for further mixing. He cuts, looks at the top card, and buries it in the center of the deck, or thereabouts. Next he is asked to fan the deck out and hold it with faces towards himself. All of this time has seen the performer at a far side of the room. The performer now holds a slate and chalk. He attempts to get an impression, but is dissatisfied. He moves toward the spectator, asking him to hold the fan of cards up and directly before himself.…
The performer shuffles a deck of cards and deals off three of them face down before a spectator who is asked to pick them up, look them over, and take one he'd like as his "hole card" in a stud poker game. He puts his choice face down to one side of the table. The performer next offers to fill in a poker hand for him by allowing the spectator free choice of 4 extra cards. Asking for any number from 10 to 20, the performer counts down to the card at that number and deals it off, face down,…
Tonight, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am going to tell you the thrilling story of Diamond Jack (JD) who was the flying ace (AS) of the Army. "Jack was in love with a beautiful Queen (QS) who lived on Petticoat Street - that's somewhere near the outskirts, so one day he went down to a Jewellery Store and bought her a large Diamond (AD). And, being out of his mind at the time he bought her the BIGGEST DIAMOND (Expanding Ace) in the CASE (Show card case). He took out of his pocket a ROLL (take a bread roll from pocket),…
This effect is an easy version of You Do As I Do getting away from "that hackneyed and utterly ridiculous exchanging of decks back and forth" as Ted puts it. The deck handed to the spectator is arranged in Si Stebbins order or any other favorite stacked manner. The one retained is a Brain Wave Deck of all blue-backed cards with a short Joker on its face. The face-up card of the tenth pair from the top, or back, is turned face down. The spectator's deck contains no Joker. Instruct the spectator to duplicate all of your moves, only, however,…