IMPROMPTU MAGNETIC CARDS
I mentioned the Magnetic Cards earlier and today I remembered an impromptu version that was described in The Magic Wand magazine many years ago, October 1925 to be exact. I hasten to add that I didn't read it the first time around. It's reproduced here with permission of Martin Breese, the copyright holder.
A CARD TRICK
Writing of Cosmo, here is a curious card trick which he exploited one day in the MAGIC WAND Office. Taking a borrowed pack he dealt six cards, face downwards, in a row. The remainder of the pack he placed adjacent to the separate cards on the table. With the fingers of the right hand fully extended, he now brought the entire surface of the fingers (not the palm) in contact with the first card in the row, lifted the hand, and the card adhered. Quickly placing this card on the next, he lifted the hand as before; the second card adhered to the first, and so on, until the whole six had been thus raised and the entire stack transferred to the top of the pack. Under the guidance of Cosmo, we tried it - lifted two cards and failed at the third. "Ah," said our hypnotic exponent, in that mysterious manner of his, "you must make up your mind that you are going to do it." We duly "concentrated," and got up to four. This seems to be the rationale of the queer experiment. The hand must be a trifle moist; the problem of the first card is therefore quite simple. When this card is, instantly, applied to the second, the air is excluded from between the two cards to a greater extent than is the case between nether card and the tablecloth. As a result, the moderately good vacuum betwixt numbers one and two overcomes the poor vacuum between the card and tablecloth. The rule holds good throughout, but, as each card is lifted, the stack gets heavier. Clever, and nimble, is the wight who can transfer the whole six cards without mishap.
Clever indeed but four are easy enough. It would make a good prelude to a full Magnetic Cards (or Hypnotised Cards, if you prefer) demonstration. I still haven't worked out a way of accomplishing the Edward Victor effect previously described. Any ideas?
Incidentally the cover of this issue of The Magic Wand features a new illusion, The Whirling Wheel. A girl walks right through a large spinning wheel. It was the creation of Stanley Norton and Stuart Luciene and looks remarkably like those giant fan penetrations that illusionist have recently taken a shine to.
Saturday, July 20, 2002
CHANDU’S PSYCHOANALYSIS
Back in 1950, George Armstrong published a manuscript called Chandu’s Psychoanalysis. It was advertised as:
Here is an entirely new idea in Mentalism. Several spectators think of various objects. The performer Psycho Analyses them and divines the objects being thought of.
Positively No Force
Any Object Thought Of
No Chance of Failure
Performer is Right Everytime
No Skill Required – Just the Ability to Talk
It sounded like a mentalist’s dream. The manuscript had been long out of print when I read the advert in an old issue of The Magic Wand and it was some time before I eventually found a copy. Sadly, I found the method disappointing. That was more than twenty years ago. I’ve been rereading The Wizard recently, another magazine edited by George Armstrong, and was pleased to find it contained some contributions by Chandu. See Vol 6, No 63, April 1953 and the following issue). To my surprise, I thought them excellent. Chandu in his youth had an insight into mentalism that I didn’t. And just other day I reread his Psychoanalysis manuscript. What a gem it is! What a fool was I.
Chandu’s Psychoanalysis stands the test of time, it’s not difficult to do, the patter may need updating but the core effect of convincingly appearing to divine the thoughts of volunteers under the guise of a pseudo word association game is excellent.
I’m not going to explain it here. You can probably buy a copy for a £1 at your local magic sale. It’s another one of those manuscripts that no one reads. Or worse still, like me, reads it and fails to realise its value.
But I will pass on the following idea, inspired by Chandu’s work.
Let’s call it Rorschach Revelations, purely for the sake of alliteration.
It’s a stage/club/television item. With several volunteers seated in a row on stage, you show a large pack of cards to the audience. “They’re used in psychometric testing,” you say, “to open up the subject’s innermost thoughts, like a word association test in which one image leads unconsciously to another.” The cards are in fact a series of Rorschach blots and while the audience may not have handled them they are familiar with them. You mix them up a little. They’re oversized and so not easy to handle, but you do your best. Then you go up to each volunteer and ask them to take one, “Any one, it doesn’t matter. We’re going to play a game of imagination.” The rest of the cards are placed aside.
“What I want each of you to do is look at your card quickly. Not yet, but when I give the command. Just raise the card, look at it then put it down. And then imagine whatever it brings to mind. Form a picture in your mind. Fill it with colours, even movement if you want. Use your imagination. Is that clear?” The volunteers say that it’s all perfectly clear. You snap your fingers, say “Now, look at your cards!” and they do.
Each volunteer is now thinking of an image that no one else could possibly know. Yet you can pick up a pad and marker pen and draw pictures of what lies only in their imagination.
How’s it done?
Very easily. As in Chandu’s Psychoanalysis, all you need is the ability to talk because the whole thing is a con from start to finish. While you show a set of Rorschach cards to the audience, the volunteers are actually selecting cards that have words written on them. And because the cards are marked on the back, they are selecting words that you already know. But when it comes to revealing those words, you talk as if the volunteers have been looking at inkblots and have been able to create any image from them. That’s the swindle.
Use a pack made up of a few Rorschach blots and the rest are word cards. And just make sure the volunteers never see the faces of the cards when you display them to the audience. Keep your patter ambiguous so that the volunteers and audience can read into it entirely different meanings. When each volunteer has an image in mind, have them drop the cards face down onto the stage, preferably just behind them. That puts them neatly out of the way.
Use your best mentalistic skills to make it appear that you are interpreting images not divining words. The pad lends you the authority of a psychoanalyst and is a good place for making all sorts of scribbles and even a drawing or two. Finish on a high note by asking the last volunteer what she was thinking of. Then turn your pad around to show that you have made a drawing of that very image. If you read the Chandu manuscript, you’ll get a better idea of how the demonstration can be framed to look like a genuine example of psychoanalysis rather than some unbelievable psychic feat.
Back in 1950, George Armstrong published a manuscript called Chandu’s Psychoanalysis. It was advertised as:
Here is an entirely new idea in Mentalism. Several spectators think of various objects. The performer Psycho Analyses them and divines the objects being thought of.
Positively No Force
Any Object Thought Of
No Chance of Failure
Performer is Right Everytime
No Skill Required – Just the Ability to Talk
It sounded like a mentalist’s dream. The manuscript had been long out of print when I read the advert in an old issue of The Magic Wand and it was some time before I eventually found a copy. Sadly, I found the method disappointing. That was more than twenty years ago. I’ve been rereading The Wizard recently, another magazine edited by George Armstrong, and was pleased to find it contained some contributions by Chandu. See Vol 6, No 63, April 1953 and the following issue). To my surprise, I thought them excellent. Chandu in his youth had an insight into mentalism that I didn’t. And just other day I reread his Psychoanalysis manuscript. What a gem it is! What a fool was I.
I’m not going to explain it here. You can probably buy a copy for a £1 at your local magic sale. It’s another one of those manuscripts that no one reads. Or worse still, like me, reads it and fails to realise its value.
But I will pass on the following idea, inspired by Chandu’s work.
Let’s call it Rorschach Revelations, purely for the sake of alliteration.
It’s a stage/club/television item. With several volunteers seated in a row on stage, you show a large pack of cards to the audience. “They’re used in psychometric testing,” you say, “to open up the subject’s innermost thoughts, like a word association test in which one image leads unconsciously to another.” The cards are in fact a series of Rorschach blots and while the audience may not have handled them they are familiar with them. You mix them up a little. They’re oversized and so not easy to handle, but you do your best. Then you go up to each volunteer and ask them to take one, “Any one, it doesn’t matter. We’re going to play a game of imagination.” The rest of the cards are placed aside.
“What I want each of you to do is look at your card quickly. Not yet, but when I give the command. Just raise the card, look at it then put it down. And then imagine whatever it brings to mind. Form a picture in your mind. Fill it with colours, even movement if you want. Use your imagination. Is that clear?” The volunteers say that it’s all perfectly clear. You snap your fingers, say “Now, look at your cards!” and they do.
Each volunteer is now thinking of an image that no one else could possibly know. Yet you can pick up a pad and marker pen and draw pictures of what lies only in their imagination.
How’s it done?
Very easily. As in Chandu’s Psychoanalysis, all you need is the ability to talk because the whole thing is a con from start to finish. While you show a set of Rorschach cards to the audience, the volunteers are actually selecting cards that have words written on them. And because the cards are marked on the back, they are selecting words that you already know. But when it comes to revealing those words, you talk as if the volunteers have been looking at inkblots and have been able to create any image from them. That’s the swindle.
Use a pack made up of a few Rorschach blots and the rest are word cards. And just make sure the volunteers never see the faces of the cards when you display them to the audience. Keep your patter ambiguous so that the volunteers and audience can read into it entirely different meanings. When each volunteer has an image in mind, have them drop the cards face down onto the stage, preferably just behind them. That puts them neatly out of the way.
Use your best mentalistic skills to make it appear that you are interpreting images not divining words. The pad lends you the authority of a psychoanalyst and is a good place for making all sorts of scribbles and even a drawing or two. Finish on a high note by asking the last volunteer what she was thinking of. Then turn your pad around to show that you have made a drawing of that very image. If you read the Chandu manuscript, you’ll get a better idea of how the demonstration can be framed to look like a genuine example of psychoanalysis rather than some unbelievable psychic feat.
Tuesday, July 16, 2002
THE AUTOMATIC INDESTRUCTIBLE GOLDENTINE PEN
Have you seen those fountain pens that are so strong they can be stabbed through a tin can and yet still write? Well, bear that in mind as you read the following extract from S. James Weldon’s marvellous book 20 Years A Fakir. It was published in 1899 and contains dozens of scams and swindles that Weldon, a travelling salesman, used to sell his wares. It’s a great read, particularly for anyone looking for pitch lines. Here is Weldon describing the first time he saw his mentor Professor Carter in action, setting up his stall outside someone else’s show:
He was selling pens.
The article was good enough of its kind, and one probably familiar to the reader. It was brass, but looked like gold, and so flexible that it could stand any sort of abuse, except continuous writing, without being harmed in the least.
He had his little folding, three-legged stand, a torch, and a rough piece of board. He would rub the point of the pen up and down and jab it into the rough surface of the board, spread the points apart, put them together again, and then, filling it with ink, write and shade as artistically as you please. All the time he was so maltreating the poor pen he was keeping up a running fire of talk:
“Hey there, everybody! Come right this way. There is plenty of time. The show won’t open for half an hour, and meanwhile I want the chance to do you good. I would like to give away lots of money – fives, tens, twenties, fifties – everything up to a hundred dollar bill. I’m a down-town Eastern Yankee millionaire, and I’ve got more money than I know what to do with. If you’ll lend me your attention for a few moments I’ll make every mother’s son of you rich and happy – in your mind at least.
“Here is a little article known as the automatic, Goldentine pen. It reads, writes and talks in sixty-four different languages, and is one of the handiest little articles you ever gazed on.
“It is small, gentlemen, but one of the toughest little staples that was ever brought into the world to bless mankind.
“In the first place, I will ask some gentleman from the audience to select a pen from the box. Any one in the lot will do. They are all exactly alike, so it makes no difference which one you take. Ah, thank you, sir. Now, I will take this pen, place it in this handsome penholder, and then rub the point up and down on this rough, pine board, in this manner, just as you would a stick. That should be good enough test to convince anyone, but we will not stop at that. I’ll take the little pen and stick it into the board, just as though it was a knife-blade. And not only that. I’ll take the little points of the pen and bend them apart till they have the appearance of just getting over a drunk.
“I know it looks hard to abuse a little thing like this – but like a careful curator, we’ll just place the points back in their original position, like this, stick the little pen in the ink like that, just as though nothing had ever happened to it. There is its work on the paper. You saw it done or you wouldn’t have believed it. Is it not beautiful? The lines are fine enough, and grateful enough, to satisfy the dreams of an artist – ‘fair as the sun, clear as the moon gentlemen, and beautiful as an army with banners.’
“If you want to write cross-eyed, or left handed, it works just the same; and when it comes to German, French, Spanish, Danish, Irish, Scotch, Latin or Choctaw, the employment is identical. If you wish to come up and try before you buy, you are at perfect liberty to do so.
“I have here, also a stock of beautiful silver-nickel penholders, that cost you a quarter the world over, and I couldn’t sell them to you at any less. As a special inducement for your patronage, I’ll make this proposition:
“Every man who buys a box of pens, one dozen in a box, gets two of these elegant holders, free, gratis, without cost or consideration. Who is the first man to pass up a quarter?
“Hurry up, gentlemen, I’ve only got about ten more minutes to talk to you before the show begins.” (The wretch was perhaps postponing the beginning of that show until the outer end of eternity, for there was a suspicion in the crowd that he belonged to it, and that nothing would be done in the hall until he had ceased talking outside.) “If you came to me after that and offered me fifty dollars for a single pen I wouldn’t sell to you. Live and let live is my motto, and I never would do anything to interfere with another man’s business. It is probably the first, last and only time in your lives that you will have the chance to buy the Automatic, Indestructible, Goldentine Pen at any such figures, and if you go to your jeweller he will charge you a dollar and a half or two dollars for an article not half so good. Where are – ah, yes. Here they come, here they come. Don’t crowd so, my friends. I’ll get around to you all by and by.”
Weldon suspected that he first buyers were stooges but the rest of the crowd soon joined in and Prof Carter did a “roaring trade.” So he should, the pens that he sold at twenty-five cents a dozen cost him thirty-five cents a gross! Judging by the advertising in stores and television, I’m not sure much has changed in the intervening century.
Have you seen those fountain pens that are so strong they can be stabbed through a tin can and yet still write? Well, bear that in mind as you read the following extract from S. James Weldon’s marvellous book 20 Years A Fakir. It was published in 1899 and contains dozens of scams and swindles that Weldon, a travelling salesman, used to sell his wares. It’s a great read, particularly for anyone looking for pitch lines. Here is Weldon describing the first time he saw his mentor Professor Carter in action, setting up his stall outside someone else’s show:
He was selling pens.
The article was good enough of its kind, and one probably familiar to the reader. It was brass, but looked like gold, and so flexible that it could stand any sort of abuse, except continuous writing, without being harmed in the least.
He had his little folding, three-legged stand, a torch, and a rough piece of board. He would rub the point of the pen up and down and jab it into the rough surface of the board, spread the points apart, put them together again, and then, filling it with ink, write and shade as artistically as you please. All the time he was so maltreating the poor pen he was keeping up a running fire of talk:
“Hey there, everybody! Come right this way. There is plenty of time. The show won’t open for half an hour, and meanwhile I want the chance to do you good. I would like to give away lots of money – fives, tens, twenties, fifties – everything up to a hundred dollar bill. I’m a down-town Eastern Yankee millionaire, and I’ve got more money than I know what to do with. If you’ll lend me your attention for a few moments I’ll make every mother’s son of you rich and happy – in your mind at least.
“Here is a little article known as the automatic, Goldentine pen. It reads, writes and talks in sixty-four different languages, and is one of the handiest little articles you ever gazed on.
“It is small, gentlemen, but one of the toughest little staples that was ever brought into the world to bless mankind.
“In the first place, I will ask some gentleman from the audience to select a pen from the box. Any one in the lot will do. They are all exactly alike, so it makes no difference which one you take. Ah, thank you, sir. Now, I will take this pen, place it in this handsome penholder, and then rub the point up and down on this rough, pine board, in this manner, just as you would a stick. That should be good enough test to convince anyone, but we will not stop at that. I’ll take the little pen and stick it into the board, just as though it was a knife-blade. And not only that. I’ll take the little points of the pen and bend them apart till they have the appearance of just getting over a drunk.
“I know it looks hard to abuse a little thing like this – but like a careful curator, we’ll just place the points back in their original position, like this, stick the little pen in the ink like that, just as though nothing had ever happened to it. There is its work on the paper. You saw it done or you wouldn’t have believed it. Is it not beautiful? The lines are fine enough, and grateful enough, to satisfy the dreams of an artist – ‘fair as the sun, clear as the moon gentlemen, and beautiful as an army with banners.’
“If you want to write cross-eyed, or left handed, it works just the same; and when it comes to German, French, Spanish, Danish, Irish, Scotch, Latin or Choctaw, the employment is identical. If you wish to come up and try before you buy, you are at perfect liberty to do so.
“I have here, also a stock of beautiful silver-nickel penholders, that cost you a quarter the world over, and I couldn’t sell them to you at any less. As a special inducement for your patronage, I’ll make this proposition:
“Every man who buys a box of pens, one dozen in a box, gets two of these elegant holders, free, gratis, without cost or consideration. Who is the first man to pass up a quarter?
“Hurry up, gentlemen, I’ve only got about ten more minutes to talk to you before the show begins.” (The wretch was perhaps postponing the beginning of that show until the outer end of eternity, for there was a suspicion in the crowd that he belonged to it, and that nothing would be done in the hall until he had ceased talking outside.) “If you came to me after that and offered me fifty dollars for a single pen I wouldn’t sell to you. Live and let live is my motto, and I never would do anything to interfere with another man’s business. It is probably the first, last and only time in your lives that you will have the chance to buy the Automatic, Indestructible, Goldentine Pen at any such figures, and if you go to your jeweller he will charge you a dollar and a half or two dollars for an article not half so good. Where are – ah, yes. Here they come, here they come. Don’t crowd so, my friends. I’ll get around to you all by and by.”
Weldon suspected that he first buyers were stooges but the rest of the crowd soon joined in and Prof Carter did a “roaring trade.” So he should, the pens that he sold at twenty-five cents a dozen cost him thirty-five cents a gross! Judging by the advertising in stores and television, I’m not sure much has changed in the intervening century.
Monday, July 15, 2002
ERDNASE'S DIAGONAL PALM SHIFT
Contributions to this blog are welcome. The following is from Peter Duffie:
The Expert at the Card Table by Erdnase, while not the largest of magic related books, is crammed with detail. So much so, that every visit yields new fruit, regardless of how often you may have read the book. One item that caught my attention a few years ago was at the end of the Diagonal Palm Shift explanation. In the final paragraph the author says:
Several cards may be palmed together, when inserted at different points, or from one point, or from top, or bottom. If the top card is to be shifted, it is slipped into the same diagonal position and held in place by the right little finger being curled up on top. The action is the same.
In my previous visits to this book, I had failed to notice the top-card Diagonal Palm Shift. The few people whose attention I drew to this had not seen it either. It's easily written off as an addition thrown in for the sake of completeness - but not all that practical. I admit I find the other variant mentioned above, from the bottom, just that - not practical. At least not for me.
However, a top card DPS is not only practical - it's actually marginally easier than doing it from within the deck. Bear in mind this is all Erdnase - but the following brief expansion may prove useful to anyone who wishes to learn the move.
a) The first point - not entirely clear in the above extract - but surely intended is: you don't start by pushing the card inwards from an outjogged position. The card begins square on top of the deck.
b) If you now begin as if you were about to do Vernon's well-known "Topping the Deck" (Select Secrets) and stop as soon as your left thumb has pushed the top card over diagonally, you will find that you can now carry out the actions of the Erdnase Diagonal Palm Shift. Your left thumb bears down on the angle jogged card and moves it inwards - passing the right thumb. Now complete the steal as per normal.
NOTE: It helps if you give the deck an upwards bend first. A sharp frontal riffle will do this. You don't want the card to bend outwards away fro the left palm!
Contributions to this blog are welcome. The following is from Peter Duffie:
The Expert at the Card Table by Erdnase, while not the largest of magic related books, is crammed with detail. So much so, that every visit yields new fruit, regardless of how often you may have read the book. One item that caught my attention a few years ago was at the end of the Diagonal Palm Shift explanation. In the final paragraph the author says:
Several cards may be palmed together, when inserted at different points, or from one point, or from top, or bottom. If the top card is to be shifted, it is slipped into the same diagonal position and held in place by the right little finger being curled up on top. The action is the same.
In my previous visits to this book, I had failed to notice the top-card Diagonal Palm Shift. The few people whose attention I drew to this had not seen it either. It's easily written off as an addition thrown in for the sake of completeness - but not all that practical. I admit I find the other variant mentioned above, from the bottom, just that - not practical. At least not for me.
However, a top card DPS is not only practical - it's actually marginally easier than doing it from within the deck. Bear in mind this is all Erdnase - but the following brief expansion may prove useful to anyone who wishes to learn the move.
a) The first point - not entirely clear in the above extract - but surely intended is: you don't start by pushing the card inwards from an outjogged position. The card begins square on top of the deck.
b) If you now begin as if you were about to do Vernon's well-known "Topping the Deck" (Select Secrets) and stop as soon as your left thumb has pushed the top card over diagonally, you will find that you can now carry out the actions of the Erdnase Diagonal Palm Shift. Your left thumb bears down on the angle jogged card and moves it inwards - passing the right thumb. Now complete the steal as per normal.
NOTE: It helps if you give the deck an upwards bend first. A sharp frontal riffle will do this. You don't want the card to bend outwards away fro the left palm!
ELECTRIFYING PHENOMENA
PENomenon is the ultimate in close up and parlor magic, at least according to the advertisements. It reminded me of a trick in The Boy’s Book of Conjuring, a tome so old that the photos are referred to as plates and the magician in them is dressed in Charles Bertram’s Sunday best. The trick is called The Electrified Pipe:
Balance a clay pipe on the edge of a tumbler in such a manner that it may oscillate freely. The problem now is to make the pipe fall without touching it, blowing upon it, agitating the air, or moving the table.
Take another glass, similar to that which supports the pipe, and rub it rapidly on the sleeve of your coat. The glass will be electrified by the friction and when you have rubbed it well, bring it close to the pipe, but without touching the latter. The pipe will turn after the glass, and follow it till it falls from its support.
The same stunt is described with a stick balanced on a chair back in C. Lang Niel’s The Modern Conjurer (1903). It is called Magnetised Paper because a piece of paper or playing card is rubbed on the coat and then used to make the stick topple from its perch.
The best demonstration I ever saw of this phenomenon was given by Steve Shaw (Banachek). He had a large sheet of Perspex balanced on four glass tumblers, one at each corner. Objects placed on this impromptu table could be made to dance around in the most uncanny manner. I remember a cigar tube rolling and spinning about like it was possessed. It was a recreation of the performance of a Russian psychic called Alla Vinogradova. She worked with a cube-like table built from clear plastic and claimed to have telekinetic powers when matches, foil-wrapped cigars and ping pong balls moved around on top of it. The researchers had figured static electricity was the cause but they claimed that it wasn’t the only answer, since none of them achieved the same spectacular results she had:
“My scientific conclusion on this ability is that the object to be moved lies in an electrostatic field, and the added energy from the telekinetic medium causes electrical activity in the field and triggers movement.”
When Steve demonstrated it for me, he didn’t need to rely on psychic powers. Just a little good weather, since effects depending on static electricity are subject to atmospheric changes. Funnily enough, so were Vinogradova’s demonstrations. Footage of Vinogradova turns up on documentaries about Russian psychics and photographs of her table can be seen in the book The New Soviet Psychic Discoveries (1978).
PENomenon is the ultimate in close up and parlor magic, at least according to the advertisements. It reminded me of a trick in The Boy’s Book of Conjuring, a tome so old that the photos are referred to as plates and the magician in them is dressed in Charles Bertram’s Sunday best. The trick is called The Electrified Pipe:
Balance a clay pipe on the edge of a tumbler in such a manner that it may oscillate freely. The problem now is to make the pipe fall without touching it, blowing upon it, agitating the air, or moving the table.
Take another glass, similar to that which supports the pipe, and rub it rapidly on the sleeve of your coat. The glass will be electrified by the friction and when you have rubbed it well, bring it close to the pipe, but without touching the latter. The pipe will turn after the glass, and follow it till it falls from its support.
The same stunt is described with a stick balanced on a chair back in C. Lang Niel’s The Modern Conjurer (1903). It is called Magnetised Paper because a piece of paper or playing card is rubbed on the coat and then used to make the stick topple from its perch.
The best demonstration I ever saw of this phenomenon was given by Steve Shaw (Banachek). He had a large sheet of Perspex balanced on four glass tumblers, one at each corner. Objects placed on this impromptu table could be made to dance around in the most uncanny manner. I remember a cigar tube rolling and spinning about like it was possessed. It was a recreation of the performance of a Russian psychic called Alla Vinogradova. She worked with a cube-like table built from clear plastic and claimed to have telekinetic powers when matches, foil-wrapped cigars and ping pong balls moved around on top of it. The researchers had figured static electricity was the cause but they claimed that it wasn’t the only answer, since none of them achieved the same spectacular results she had:
“My scientific conclusion on this ability is that the object to be moved lies in an electrostatic field, and the added energy from the telekinetic medium causes electrical activity in the field and triggers movement.”
When Steve demonstrated it for me, he didn’t need to rely on psychic powers. Just a little good weather, since effects depending on static electricity are subject to atmospheric changes. Funnily enough, so were Vinogradova’s demonstrations. Footage of Vinogradova turns up on documentaries about Russian psychics and photographs of her table can be seen in the book The New Soviet Psychic Discoveries (1978).
Saturday, July 13, 2002
ROY WALKER’S CARD MYSTERIES
When I first read Roy Walker’s book Card Mysteries, I was amazed at the content. It was released in London in 1933 under the imprint of George Johnson’s Magic Wand publications, the same publisher of Sam Sharpe’s translation of Hofzinser’s Card Conjuring, Neo Magic and the booklets of the always-ingenious Tom Sellers.
What I found so special about Walker’s Card Mysteries was the idiosyncratic way that the effects stood out from their contemporaries. Many of them read, admittedly with 20/20 hindsight, as premonitions of items that cardicians would take up decades later.
For instance, in the trick Good Companions, Walker describes a pass in which the middle card is reversed. It reminds me of the Gombert Pass that was described in The Gen, though in Walker’s case there is no turnover of the pack.
The Phantom Jester contains an application of the traditional pass, which alters the arrangement of face up cards in the deck. In this case one face up card appears to penetrate through another. It brings to mind Roy Walton’s Happy Wanderers (Devil’s Playthings), which in turn was inspired by an effect of Marlo’s in which cards redistributed themselves in a deck.
Walker’s Slow Motion Reverse predates Marlo’s own experiments when it comes to reversing a card as the deck is spread from hand to hand. The book is chock full of such surprises, including an edge-marked deck, a novel Top Change, a Throw Pass, an impossible torn card effect, and a very clever routine in which one packet of cards assembles itself into the same order as a second shuffled packet. Each item is very distinctive and the book is well worth seeking out at magic auctions. Nobody has heard of it, so you’ll pick it up cheaply.
One routine, A Red And Blue Back Series, contains so many interesting effects that I think it is worth reproducing some of the presentation here as a taster of Walker’s work. He devised it as a platform routine with cards, reasoning that the different coloured backs of the cards would be more easily seen than their faces. You’ll have to wade through some dated prose but I promise that if you are interested in card ideas, the gold is there:
Upon the performer’s table is seen a card easel, against which rest two packs of cards, red and blue backed respectively, and the two cases to which the cards belong. An envelope of thick parchment paper, and a small paper knife occupy the table in front of the easel. The conjurer deals ten cards face downwards from the top of each pack, holding the packs so that the backs of the cards may be plainly seen. The sets are picked up, and fanned to further impress the colours upon the minds of the audience. The red-backed set is now placed deliberately on top of the blue, and the whole pile sealed in the envelope. This is eventually slit open with the paper knife, and the cards removed. No change is visible until they are fanned, when the cards are found to be arranged red and blue alternately throughout the fan. The cards should be fanned as neatly as possible to obtain the maximum effect. The cards are then returned to their respective packs, and the second effect proceeded with.
The performer now advances to the audience, and has about a dozen cards in a bunch selected from each pack. The spectator who chooses them is requested to shuffle the colours into one another, and when he has finished mixing them, he is requested to turn the cards face upwards, and endeavour to detect any difference between the red-backed cards and the blue. This he is unable to do, and after he has again shuffled the cards, they are handed to the performer who retreats to the stage, still holding the cards face upwards. He then deals the cards into two heaps against the card easel, and turns them over. All the red cards are in one heap, and all the blue in the other pile.
The performer now replaces these in their respective packs, and proceeds with the second phase of the effect. Six cards are dealt from the bottom of each pack, face upwards upon the table. The two heaps are squared up, turned over, and riffle shuffled by the performer. He then holds them facing the audience, and continues to shuffle. Finally he fans the twelve cards and holding them out requests a gentleman to name any card he sees. This is removed and place face upwards against the card easel, and five other cards are similarly selected and removed. The other six cards are placed aside, and, despite the fact that the audience had a perfectly free choice, the six cards upon the easel are found to be the blue-backed cards.
Walker’s routine continues by having the same card selected from both decks. The red-backed selection is placed in the blue card case. The blue-backed selection is placed in the red-backed deck. Both selections then transpose. The finish looks like a repeat, with odd cards being inserted into the two decks. But instead of the selections changing places, the decks do. One can’t help but see shadows of Oil & Water, Out of this World and Follow the Leader in the routine. I don’t anything at all about Roy Walker, although he did contribute tricks to The Sphinx magazine, but his book certainly deserves a reading.
When I first read Roy Walker’s book Card Mysteries, I was amazed at the content. It was released in London in 1933 under the imprint of George Johnson’s Magic Wand publications, the same publisher of Sam Sharpe’s translation of Hofzinser’s Card Conjuring, Neo Magic and the booklets of the always-ingenious Tom Sellers.
What I found so special about Walker’s Card Mysteries was the idiosyncratic way that the effects stood out from their contemporaries. Many of them read, admittedly with 20/20 hindsight, as premonitions of items that cardicians would take up decades later.
For instance, in the trick Good Companions, Walker describes a pass in which the middle card is reversed. It reminds me of the Gombert Pass that was described in The Gen, though in Walker’s case there is no turnover of the pack.
The Phantom Jester contains an application of the traditional pass, which alters the arrangement of face up cards in the deck. In this case one face up card appears to penetrate through another. It brings to mind Roy Walton’s Happy Wanderers (Devil’s Playthings), which in turn was inspired by an effect of Marlo’s in which cards redistributed themselves in a deck.
Walker’s Slow Motion Reverse predates Marlo’s own experiments when it comes to reversing a card as the deck is spread from hand to hand. The book is chock full of such surprises, including an edge-marked deck, a novel Top Change, a Throw Pass, an impossible torn card effect, and a very clever routine in which one packet of cards assembles itself into the same order as a second shuffled packet. Each item is very distinctive and the book is well worth seeking out at magic auctions. Nobody has heard of it, so you’ll pick it up cheaply.
One routine, A Red And Blue Back Series, contains so many interesting effects that I think it is worth reproducing some of the presentation here as a taster of Walker’s work. He devised it as a platform routine with cards, reasoning that the different coloured backs of the cards would be more easily seen than their faces. You’ll have to wade through some dated prose but I promise that if you are interested in card ideas, the gold is there:
Upon the performer’s table is seen a card easel, against which rest two packs of cards, red and blue backed respectively, and the two cases to which the cards belong. An envelope of thick parchment paper, and a small paper knife occupy the table in front of the easel. The conjurer deals ten cards face downwards from the top of each pack, holding the packs so that the backs of the cards may be plainly seen. The sets are picked up, and fanned to further impress the colours upon the minds of the audience. The red-backed set is now placed deliberately on top of the blue, and the whole pile sealed in the envelope. This is eventually slit open with the paper knife, and the cards removed. No change is visible until they are fanned, when the cards are found to be arranged red and blue alternately throughout the fan. The cards should be fanned as neatly as possible to obtain the maximum effect. The cards are then returned to their respective packs, and the second effect proceeded with.
The performer now advances to the audience, and has about a dozen cards in a bunch selected from each pack. The spectator who chooses them is requested to shuffle the colours into one another, and when he has finished mixing them, he is requested to turn the cards face upwards, and endeavour to detect any difference between the red-backed cards and the blue. This he is unable to do, and after he has again shuffled the cards, they are handed to the performer who retreats to the stage, still holding the cards face upwards. He then deals the cards into two heaps against the card easel, and turns them over. All the red cards are in one heap, and all the blue in the other pile.
The performer now replaces these in their respective packs, and proceeds with the second phase of the effect. Six cards are dealt from the bottom of each pack, face upwards upon the table. The two heaps are squared up, turned over, and riffle shuffled by the performer. He then holds them facing the audience, and continues to shuffle. Finally he fans the twelve cards and holding them out requests a gentleman to name any card he sees. This is removed and place face upwards against the card easel, and five other cards are similarly selected and removed. The other six cards are placed aside, and, despite the fact that the audience had a perfectly free choice, the six cards upon the easel are found to be the blue-backed cards.
Walker’s routine continues by having the same card selected from both decks. The red-backed selection is placed in the blue card case. The blue-backed selection is placed in the red-backed deck. Both selections then transpose. The finish looks like a repeat, with odd cards being inserted into the two decks. But instead of the selections changing places, the decks do. One can’t help but see shadows of Oil & Water, Out of this World and Follow the Leader in the routine. I don’t anything at all about Roy Walker, although he did contribute tricks to The Sphinx magazine, but his book certainly deserves a reading.
CHARLES JORDAN'S BOOK TEST
In his 1920 booklet, Ten New Miscellaneous Tricks, Charles Jordan said: “Rather than write a long Preface, I will merely leave it to the magician in search of novelty as to whether or not the last trick in this collection is worth the price of the entire manuscript.”
The trick was The Book Mystery, an innovative book test which, like much of Jordan’s work, shows that once again he was well ahead of the pack. He saves the real secret until the last paragraph of his description:
A knife and several books or pamphlets are shown to be unprepared. Any one selects one of the books. Then, taking his watch from his pocket, the wizard asks some one to add the minutes to the hours that happen at that moment to be indicated by the dial of the watch. A spectator now takes the knife and inserts it at will into any part of the selected book. Counting down to the number of words indicated by the sum of the watch’s hours and minutes, he notes the word at that number. That word is found written in a previously sealed envelope, or between two slates, or otherwise, as the performer may desire! The book page is not forced!
Performed as indicated, this feat may be accomplished at any one of but twenty-four different periods of the day, for the sum of the hours and minutes on the watch dial must always be a set number, say 14. The trick must be timed so the watch will be looked at at the proper moment, i.e., at one of these times: 1.13; 2.12; 3.11; 4.10, etc.
If preferred, any other method of forcing the number may be employed. The magician must provide himself with a book, on every page of which the fourteenth word is the same, say; “magician.” Then, of course, it is immaterial at which page the knife is thrust in, that word being written beforehand, and disposed of as desired, the book itself naturally being forced.
“But,” the magician may inquire, “where am I to obtain such a book?”
For reply, have you read this booklet through without discovering its secret? If so, examine it, and your question will be answered. Illustration pictures and trick titles not counting, this is the necessary booklet. The exact presentation is left to your own ingenuity.
A glance through the booklet shows that the 14th word on each page, including the Preface, was “magician.” Jordan enthusiasts will recognise the watch number business as that used in his card effect The Hour Glass Card Trick, which you will find in The Encyclopedia of Card Tricks as well as Karl Fulves’ collection, Charles Jordan’s Best Card Tricks.
In his 1920 booklet, Ten New Miscellaneous Tricks, Charles Jordan said: “Rather than write a long Preface, I will merely leave it to the magician in search of novelty as to whether or not the last trick in this collection is worth the price of the entire manuscript.”
The trick was The Book Mystery, an innovative book test which, like much of Jordan’s work, shows that once again he was well ahead of the pack. He saves the real secret until the last paragraph of his description:
A knife and several books or pamphlets are shown to be unprepared. Any one selects one of the books. Then, taking his watch from his pocket, the wizard asks some one to add the minutes to the hours that happen at that moment to be indicated by the dial of the watch. A spectator now takes the knife and inserts it at will into any part of the selected book. Counting down to the number of words indicated by the sum of the watch’s hours and minutes, he notes the word at that number. That word is found written in a previously sealed envelope, or between two slates, or otherwise, as the performer may desire! The book page is not forced!
Performed as indicated, this feat may be accomplished at any one of but twenty-four different periods of the day, for the sum of the hours and minutes on the watch dial must always be a set number, say 14. The trick must be timed so the watch will be looked at at the proper moment, i.e., at one of these times: 1.13; 2.12; 3.11; 4.10, etc.
If preferred, any other method of forcing the number may be employed. The magician must provide himself with a book, on every page of which the fourteenth word is the same, say; “magician.” Then, of course, it is immaterial at which page the knife is thrust in, that word being written beforehand, and disposed of as desired, the book itself naturally being forced.
“But,” the magician may inquire, “where am I to obtain such a book?”
For reply, have you read this booklet through without discovering its secret? If so, examine it, and your question will be answered. Illustration pictures and trick titles not counting, this is the necessary booklet. The exact presentation is left to your own ingenuity.
A glance through the booklet shows that the 14th word on each page, including the Preface, was “magician.” Jordan enthusiasts will recognise the watch number business as that used in his card effect The Hour Glass Card Trick, which you will find in The Encyclopedia of Card Tricks as well as Karl Fulves’ collection, Charles Jordan’s Best Card Tricks.
Tuesday, July 09, 2002
OPEN PREDICTION
The publication of Stewart James’ long awaited solution to 52 Faces North in The Penumbra magazine has reinvigorated interest in this problem and Paul Curry’s Open Prediction. I’ve had a number of stabs at this, most of them prompted by Karl Fulves’ booklet on the topic. Here’s one from the notebooks circa 1979. Apologies if anyone got there first.
You need a double-faced Joker. Joker on one side, King of Spades on the other. Trim it to make it into a short card. Take the real KS from the deck and replace with the short double-facer, Joker side up.
Begin by spreading through the deck and pushing out the Joker. With a felt-tipped pen openly write King of Spades across the face of the Joker. As this is being done have a spectator shuffle the deck. Show the prediction. Then ask the spectator to put the deck face down behind their back. They may cut it again if they wish.
Hand them the Joker face up (be careful not to expose the reverse side) and ask them to slide it face up into the middle of the face down deck. Then they bring the deck foward, face down.
Tell them to deal cards, one at a time, face up onto the table. Stop them when they come to the face up Joker. Remind them of your prediction, which is scrawled across the face of the Joker. The Joker is dealt face up onto the tabled pile.
"You placed the Joker next to this card, let's leave it face down for the moment." Have the next card dealt face down on top of the Joker. They deal right through the rest of the deck turning each card face up as you say, "Stop when you get to the King of Spades." They don't find it. Remind them of the one card they left face down.
Take the deck, square it, turn it face down and riffle spread it across the table. This is the spread used in conjunction with a Svengali deck. Because the KS is a short card it is revealed face up in the middle of the spread. It also hides the real reversed card.
To clean up, just turn the pack over and remove the Joker and put it in your pocket. Turn the reversed card over without revealing its face. Virtually self-working, shuffled deck and for the most part the spectator does all the handling. I've seen worse!
The publication of Stewart James’ long awaited solution to 52 Faces North in The Penumbra magazine has reinvigorated interest in this problem and Paul Curry’s Open Prediction. I’ve had a number of stabs at this, most of them prompted by Karl Fulves’ booklet on the topic. Here’s one from the notebooks circa 1979. Apologies if anyone got there first.
You need a double-faced Joker. Joker on one side, King of Spades on the other. Trim it to make it into a short card. Take the real KS from the deck and replace with the short double-facer, Joker side up.
Begin by spreading through the deck and pushing out the Joker. With a felt-tipped pen openly write King of Spades across the face of the Joker. As this is being done have a spectator shuffle the deck. Show the prediction. Then ask the spectator to put the deck face down behind their back. They may cut it again if they wish.
Hand them the Joker face up (be careful not to expose the reverse side) and ask them to slide it face up into the middle of the face down deck. Then they bring the deck foward, face down.
Tell them to deal cards, one at a time, face up onto the table. Stop them when they come to the face up Joker. Remind them of your prediction, which is scrawled across the face of the Joker. The Joker is dealt face up onto the tabled pile.
"You placed the Joker next to this card, let's leave it face down for the moment." Have the next card dealt face down on top of the Joker. They deal right through the rest of the deck turning each card face up as you say, "Stop when you get to the King of Spades." They don't find it. Remind them of the one card they left face down.
Take the deck, square it, turn it face down and riffle spread it across the table. This is the spread used in conjunction with a Svengali deck. Because the KS is a short card it is revealed face up in the middle of the spread. It also hides the real reversed card.
To clean up, just turn the pack over and remove the Joker and put it in your pocket. Turn the reversed card over without revealing its face. Virtually self-working, shuffled deck and for the most part the spectator does all the handling. I've seen worse!
THE GREAT POKER TRICK
Nelson Downs described this in The Art of Magic (1909). It’s a fascinating idea. Imagine a totally impromptu poker deal with a brand new unopened borrowed deck. You shuffle the cards and deal out seven hands of poker. Everyone gets a full house, except you, you get a winning straight flush.
There’s a little more to it than that (isn’t there always?) but it’s great idea all the same. Here’s the working as described in The Art of Magic. All you need is a deck that is in new deck order: Each suit separated, Ace to King from the bottom upwards.
The performer removes the pack from the wrapper, calling attention to the fact that the cards are fresh from the manufacturer. He throws away the joker and gives the pack a false shuffle, using whatever method he is most adept at. If versed in fancy blind cuts he may indulge in a series of manipulations of this kind; but for the purpose of the trick it is sufficient to give the cards a false shuffle. Then allow the spectators to cut the cards. They may cut as many times as they wish without destroying the order of the cards, as the halves simply revolve around each other. This is, in fact the strongest feature of the trick; for most persons believe that the conventional cut completely disarranges any prearranged order of the pack.
Now deal the cards out to six persons, giving the top card to No. 1; the second to No. 2; the third card to No. 3; the fourth card to No. 4; the fifth card to No. 5; and the sixth card to No. 6. Begin the round again, dealing the seventh card to No. 1, and so on to No. 6. As soon as the twelfth card is dealt, shift the next card (the thirteenth) to the bottom of the deck, and continue dealing two more rounds. As soon as the twenty-fourth card is dealt, shift the twenty-fifth card to the bottom of the pack, and then deal around once more, handing one card to each player. Now deal five cards from the top of the pack for your own hand. Ask the spectators to turn over their hands, and each one will be astonished to find that he holds a full house. The performer then turns over his own hand, exhibiting a straight flush.
CAUTION – If the order of the pack is Ace, two, three, four etc., up to king, the performer must take note of the bottom card of the deck after the cut; for should the bottom card be a jack, the trick will not come out as described. Another cut will obviate this difficulty.
Downs suggested that the trick is best performed standing if the shifts are to be covered. Not a problem in his day, especially after his retirement from the stage, when a stand up performance at the Elks was a typical gig. He would deal the cards onto the spectators’ hands, which gave him enough cover to make the pass.
Were it not for the shifts, this would be an almost self-working trick. All you have to do is get rid of two cards during the deal. It wouldn’t be too difficult to work in a line about the other players suddenly becoming suspicious and asking you to “burn a card.” So you openly take the top card off the deck, turn it over and place it on the bottom. This happens twice during the routine and obviates the need for the pass. Another observation is that at the end of the trick you practically have four-of-a-kind together, three at the bottom and one at the top of the deck. Must be useful for something.
The trick wasn’t original with Downs. He said it was a favourite of Adrian Plate. Tom Boyer published his version, Klondike Poker, in 1926 in The Linking Ring (Vol IV, No. 1). He dealt seven hands, dealing a bottom card on the 14th and 28th cards. This gave everyone a full house. The performer than draws four cards to win with a straight flush. Ross Bertram resurrected it, publishing it under his own name as Exhibition Poker Deal, in The Linking Ring (July 1930). Leslie Guest spotted that it was a variation of the Downs trick and added some notes of his own, including a story about throwing the unlucky thirteenth card away and the fact that the trick will not work if certain cards are showing on the bottom of the deck. Downs referred only to the Jack, but in fact there are more cards to look out for than that.
In August of 1942 The Linking Ring magazine presented yet another version, Klondyke Poker, this time by W. C. Fownes Jr and E. F. W. Salisbury. They credited Tom Bowyer with the notion of dealing out seven hands and added that if the card on the bottom of the deck is a Nine to King, you won’t get the straight flush. They also incorporated a Colour Monte style patter story about gambling Dan McGrew who bet everything he had against all the players at the table. An open bottom deal was made to accompany the story of McGrew’s cheating. He is spotted and the other players demand he draw a new hand. He does, the straight flush of course, and still manages to win. It’s a great trick, one step away from a self-working miracle.
Nelson Downs described this in The Art of Magic (1909). It’s a fascinating idea. Imagine a totally impromptu poker deal with a brand new unopened borrowed deck. You shuffle the cards and deal out seven hands of poker. Everyone gets a full house, except you, you get a winning straight flush.
There’s a little more to it than that (isn’t there always?) but it’s great idea all the same. Here’s the working as described in The Art of Magic. All you need is a deck that is in new deck order: Each suit separated, Ace to King from the bottom upwards.
The performer removes the pack from the wrapper, calling attention to the fact that the cards are fresh from the manufacturer. He throws away the joker and gives the pack a false shuffle, using whatever method he is most adept at. If versed in fancy blind cuts he may indulge in a series of manipulations of this kind; but for the purpose of the trick it is sufficient to give the cards a false shuffle. Then allow the spectators to cut the cards. They may cut as many times as they wish without destroying the order of the cards, as the halves simply revolve around each other. This is, in fact the strongest feature of the trick; for most persons believe that the conventional cut completely disarranges any prearranged order of the pack.
Now deal the cards out to six persons, giving the top card to No. 1; the second to No. 2; the third card to No. 3; the fourth card to No. 4; the fifth card to No. 5; and the sixth card to No. 6. Begin the round again, dealing the seventh card to No. 1, and so on to No. 6. As soon as the twelfth card is dealt, shift the next card (the thirteenth) to the bottom of the deck, and continue dealing two more rounds. As soon as the twenty-fourth card is dealt, shift the twenty-fifth card to the bottom of the pack, and then deal around once more, handing one card to each player. Now deal five cards from the top of the pack for your own hand. Ask the spectators to turn over their hands, and each one will be astonished to find that he holds a full house. The performer then turns over his own hand, exhibiting a straight flush.
CAUTION – If the order of the pack is Ace, two, three, four etc., up to king, the performer must take note of the bottom card of the deck after the cut; for should the bottom card be a jack, the trick will not come out as described. Another cut will obviate this difficulty.
Downs suggested that the trick is best performed standing if the shifts are to be covered. Not a problem in his day, especially after his retirement from the stage, when a stand up performance at the Elks was a typical gig. He would deal the cards onto the spectators’ hands, which gave him enough cover to make the pass.
Were it not for the shifts, this would be an almost self-working trick. All you have to do is get rid of two cards during the deal. It wouldn’t be too difficult to work in a line about the other players suddenly becoming suspicious and asking you to “burn a card.” So you openly take the top card off the deck, turn it over and place it on the bottom. This happens twice during the routine and obviates the need for the pass. Another observation is that at the end of the trick you practically have four-of-a-kind together, three at the bottom and one at the top of the deck. Must be useful for something.
The trick wasn’t original with Downs. He said it was a favourite of Adrian Plate. Tom Boyer published his version, Klondike Poker, in 1926 in The Linking Ring (Vol IV, No. 1). He dealt seven hands, dealing a bottom card on the 14th and 28th cards. This gave everyone a full house. The performer than draws four cards to win with a straight flush. Ross Bertram resurrected it, publishing it under his own name as Exhibition Poker Deal, in The Linking Ring (July 1930). Leslie Guest spotted that it was a variation of the Downs trick and added some notes of his own, including a story about throwing the unlucky thirteenth card away and the fact that the trick will not work if certain cards are showing on the bottom of the deck. Downs referred only to the Jack, but in fact there are more cards to look out for than that.
In August of 1942 The Linking Ring magazine presented yet another version, Klondyke Poker, this time by W. C. Fownes Jr and E. F. W. Salisbury. They credited Tom Bowyer with the notion of dealing out seven hands and added that if the card on the bottom of the deck is a Nine to King, you won’t get the straight flush. They also incorporated a Colour Monte style patter story about gambling Dan McGrew who bet everything he had against all the players at the table. An open bottom deal was made to accompany the story of McGrew’s cheating. He is spotted and the other players demand he draw a new hand. He does, the straight flush of course, and still manages to win. It’s a great trick, one step away from a self-working miracle.
IMPROVED CARD TO POCKET
In the 1920s Eddie McGuire wrote to T. Nelson Downs asking if he could buy some of his card secrets. Downs agreed to sell, and for an initial fee of $50, a considerable sum at that time, began a correspondence which extended over a decade and included many effects. The following was among them.
Thirty two cards handed to you and you openly deal them into two face down heaps, one card at a time to a heap, and step away. No palming. No extra cards. Two parties advance and pocket the heaps, and at your command two cards pass from one party's pocket and join those in the pocket of the other man. Simple and beautiful in effect.
There is a subtle variation in the dealing, which, when properly executed is indetectable if you patter and do not count as you deal. The first eight cards are dealt singly, one to each heap. Left thumb keeps the packet you are dealing from very slightly fanned. As you appear to deal the ninth card, you will find it very easy to deal two cards as one. The hand is in motion, and the fact is never suspected. Deposit the two on first heap, and without hesitating, right hand returns to pack and this time deals a single card onto second heap. then two together on first heap, and single card onto second. Then deal six singly, three to each heap. Then two to first heap, one to second. Two again to first heap and a single card to second. Continue to deal remainder of cards singly.
If you do not count as you deal, it is never observed that you do not make 32 separate dealing motions, and your patter keeps company from counting. First heap contains 18 cards, and second, 14. They will say each contains 16, when you inquire of them. The trick is done before they realize you've begun, hence it is difficult to detect.
The original description actually omitted one of the double deals. I've added that to clarify matters. It's one of the earliest uses of the double deal I have come across in a magic effect.
In the 1920s Eddie McGuire wrote to T. Nelson Downs asking if he could buy some of his card secrets. Downs agreed to sell, and for an initial fee of $50, a considerable sum at that time, began a correspondence which extended over a decade and included many effects. The following was among them.
Thirty two cards handed to you and you openly deal them into two face down heaps, one card at a time to a heap, and step away. No palming. No extra cards. Two parties advance and pocket the heaps, and at your command two cards pass from one party's pocket and join those in the pocket of the other man. Simple and beautiful in effect.
There is a subtle variation in the dealing, which, when properly executed is indetectable if you patter and do not count as you deal. The first eight cards are dealt singly, one to each heap. Left thumb keeps the packet you are dealing from very slightly fanned. As you appear to deal the ninth card, you will find it very easy to deal two cards as one. The hand is in motion, and the fact is never suspected. Deposit the two on first heap, and without hesitating, right hand returns to pack and this time deals a single card onto second heap. then two together on first heap, and single card onto second. Then deal six singly, three to each heap. Then two to first heap, one to second. Two again to first heap and a single card to second. Continue to deal remainder of cards singly.
If you do not count as you deal, it is never observed that you do not make 32 separate dealing motions, and your patter keeps company from counting. First heap contains 18 cards, and second, 14. They will say each contains 16, when you inquire of them. The trick is done before they realize you've begun, hence it is difficult to detect.
The original description actually omitted one of the double deals. I've added that to clarify matters. It's one of the earliest uses of the double deal I have come across in a magic effect.
Sunday, July 07, 2002
MAGNETIC CARDS
I found this in a carbon copy of a letter of Dudley Whitnall's. It is dated 21st December, 1973, and was addressed to Peter Warlock. In it Whitnal recalled a very interesting effect performed by Edward Victor.
Whitnall was a magician who lived in Heswall in Cheshire. He was a member of the Mahatma Magic Circle in Liverpool and a keen cardman who believed the performer should work hard for his effects. He favoured heavy sleight of hand over gimmicks. I came across the letter in a book that came from Whitnall's collection. I've never seen the effect described and it presents quite a problem.
I believe that you are interested in research into the past. Many years ago, the late Edward Victor was playing one of the Liverpool Halls and paid a visit to a meeting of the local Mahatma Society. Upon being asked to show something, he borrowed a pack of cards from a member and demonstrated his Magnetic Cards Effect, as explained in More Magic of the Hands. He then brought his other hand across against the face of the cards and removed the hand to which they were adhering. They still adhered to this other hand. Nobody present had the slightest idea how he did it, and I wonder whether he ever showed it anywhere.
Best performance of the Magnetic Cards effect that I have seen was given by the French magician Socrate in a lecture for the Mahatma more than twenty years ago. He explained that the cards stuck to the hand because of some kind of static electricity. Which kind of makes sense to the audience although the more cards he stuck to the hand the more impossible it seemed. He finished by having a member of the audience touch his arm. As soon as she did, it was as if the static that held the cards had been discharged and they suddenly fell to the table. Beautiful touch.
NOTES: At last the mystery of Edward Victor's Magnetized Cards is available. You will find the solution in Stan Allen's Magic magazine for February 2010. It's a clever idea and only one of a number of tricks extracted from the newly published The Davenport Story, Volume Two: The Lost Legends. It includes an unpublished book by Edward Victor entitled My Magic Hands. The book is available from Davenports, London.
I found this in a carbon copy of a letter of Dudley Whitnall's. It is dated 21st December, 1973, and was addressed to Peter Warlock. In it Whitnal recalled a very interesting effect performed by Edward Victor.
Whitnall was a magician who lived in Heswall in Cheshire. He was a member of the Mahatma Magic Circle in Liverpool and a keen cardman who believed the performer should work hard for his effects. He favoured heavy sleight of hand over gimmicks. I came across the letter in a book that came from Whitnall's collection. I've never seen the effect described and it presents quite a problem.
I believe that you are interested in research into the past. Many years ago, the late Edward Victor was playing one of the Liverpool Halls and paid a visit to a meeting of the local Mahatma Society. Upon being asked to show something, he borrowed a pack of cards from a member and demonstrated his Magnetic Cards Effect, as explained in More Magic of the Hands. He then brought his other hand across against the face of the cards and removed the hand to which they were adhering. They still adhered to this other hand. Nobody present had the slightest idea how he did it, and I wonder whether he ever showed it anywhere.
Best performance of the Magnetic Cards effect that I have seen was given by the French magician Socrate in a lecture for the Mahatma more than twenty years ago. He explained that the cards stuck to the hand because of some kind of static electricity. Which kind of makes sense to the audience although the more cards he stuck to the hand the more impossible it seemed. He finished by having a member of the audience touch his arm. As soon as she did, it was as if the static that held the cards had been discharged and they suddenly fell to the table. Beautiful touch.
NOTES: At last the mystery of Edward Victor's Magnetized Cards is available. You will find the solution in Stan Allen's Magic magazine for February 2010. It's a clever idea and only one of a number of tricks extracted from the newly published The Davenport Story, Volume Two: The Lost Legends. It includes an unpublished book by Edward Victor entitled My Magic Hands. The book is available from Davenports, London.
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