The Last Game
This poker routine was originally published in The New Talon. It began as an attempt to simplify Karl Fulves’ According to Hoyle, which was published in his The Magic Book, an excellent book now reprinted by Dover as the Big Book of Magic Tricks.

It’s a poker deal with a psychological flavour in which the spectators get the opportunity to switch hands with you during the game yet you always win. Fulves’ effect was great for someone who played poker but the stack was not easily remembered. The following stack is much simpler and you always win with a four-of-a-kind, a hand easily recognised even by non-players. I’ve also added the repeat deal and final blow-off, proving that the spectator just can’t win.

Remove the Ten of Clubs, Ten of Hearts and Ten of Diamonds from the deck and place them in the card case, wallet or anywhere else that you can produce them from later in the routine. The rest of the deck is stacked as follows, from the top:

AS, KS, QS, JS, 10S, AD, KD, QD, JD, X, AH, KH, QH, JH, X, AC, KC, QC, JC, REST OF DECK.

The “X” can be any card.

A quick glace will reveal that you are merely stacking the Royal Flushes minus the missing Ten spots. The flushes can be in any order as long as the Spades are on top and the other values follow the order of the Spades. For now use the above stack until you become familiar with the principle.

Phase One: Bring out the deck and give it your best False Shuffle, retaining the stack. Tell the spectators that you will show them a very unusual game of poker. Nominate four spectators to help as you finish your shuffles and cuts. Announce that you will deal a five handed game, five cards each, but each person at the table will get a chance to swap his cards with yours as the game proceeds.

Deal out the first five cards, from left to right, dealing to yourself last. Point out that you each have one cards and that one of the spectators can now swap with you, “Who will it be?” Let them choose the lucky person and then openly exchange your card with his. No one looks at their cards while this happens.

Deal a second round of cards so that you now have two cards each. Invite another spectator to swap his two cards with both of yours. It can be anyone except the person who swapped cards in the first round.

The cards are exchanged and you deal a third round. Again one of the spectators exchanges his hand of cards with yours. This leaves only one spectator who has not swapped. It also tells you which four of a kind you will end up with at the end of this phase. As you deal the cards are being dealt out Ace, King, Queen, Jack, Ten (or indifferent card). So, let’s say the second spectator from the left is the only one who has not swapped. You now know that you will end up with four Kings at the finish. Two rounds of cards have yet to be dealt but you could, if you wished, mention that you are trying to force the spectators to part with the four Kings.

Deal the fourth round of cards and ask the spectator, the one who has not yet exchanged cards) whether he would like to swap cards now or wait until the last round of cards is dealt. It makes no difference what he decides. Swap cards if he chooses and then deal a fifth round. Alternatively deal and then swap.

At this stage you have the winning hand but you play up the impossibility angle by offering them another choice. Tell them that only one spectator may play against you. Without looking at their cards they choose who it should be. Pick up the discarded hands and place them on top of the deck. Don’t shuffle each hand, just drop them one atop the other and then onto the deck because you are setting up Phase Two.

Finally, the nominated spectator turns over his hand as you turn over yours. You win with four of a kind. Don’t disturb the order of either hand as you pick them up and drop them on top of the deck. It doesn’t matter which hand goes on top of which.

Phase Two: False Shuffle and Cut as you tell the spectators that you had, of course, psychologically forced them to give up their best cards. This time you’ll give them a straight deal, no swaps.

Deal out five hands of poker from the top of the deck, dealing yourself last. Ask the spectators to choose one of their number to play against you. They choose and you now surprise them by saying that maybe, you’ve already forced a choice so you give him a chance to pick any one of the hands, bar yours, on the table.

The situation is, reading left to right, the first hand contains only spot cars, hands two to four contain Royal Flushes minus the Ten spots, your hand contains a Royal Flush in Spades. If the spectator chooses hands two, three or four then just return the discarded hands to the deck. If he chooses hand number one let him take it, then say that you’re feeling lucky tonight and you’ll let another spectator play against you. He chooses one of the remaining hands.

If you now have two spectators playing against you, get number 1to look at his hand (the spot cards) and offer him the opportunity to discard some of his cards and take replacements from the deck as is usual. Make sure he shows his hand to everyone who is watching so that they can feel part of the game. He exchanges cards and then you ask number 2 (holding what is almost a Royal Flush) to do the same. Of course he will discard only one card in the hope of filling his Royal Flush with the missing Ten.

If you’re only playing against one spectator, then it will be the one trying for the Royal Flush. In these circumstances I offer him the opportunity of discarding a card (or cards?) and choosing the replacement from anywhere in the deck which I spread face down across the table. Nothing could be fairer.

The spectators turn over their hands, one at a time, and you reveal yours to show an unbeatable Royal Flush. Finally, look at the spectator who was trying to fill a Royal Flush and ask him, naively, which card he was looking for. He will reply, “Ten of Diamonds,” or whatever, and you say, “I never take chances” and produce the missing Ten Spot from your card case or wallet. Be sure not to let the spectators see the other two cards that are in there. This should get a great response if you’ve been able to get the spectators involved with the win or lose situation.

If you are going to use this, you might like to produce the missing Ten spot from up your sleeve in classical card cheat fashion. This routine is particularly adaptable to a pseudo mental presentation because you know the type of hand you are going to win with and how the spectator will lose in the final phase. Judicious use of some alternative predictions could produce a very strong mental effect. Give some thought to the presentation and you may have something you’ll use for a long time.

One final point. If you are performing this routine for people who know a little more about poker than you do, you may find that in the second phase they will not want to exchange any cards. This will be because they possess a flush (five cards of the same suit) and will not risk swapping one of their cards in order to obtain the Ten spot. In order to prevent this just ensure that all the indifferent cards in the set-up are of the Spades suit. This way they’ll never end up with a flush following the deal in the second phase of the routine.

Zennerism Postscript
Following the previous post on Zennerism and The Zenner Effect, Patrick Converso has contacted me and I'm pleased to say that the original effect and its history will now be detailed in a new edition of The Zenner Effect published by TrickShop.com.

Anyone that has a copy of Ted Lesley's Working Performer's Marked Deck Manual will find a full deck handling for Zennerism on page 39.

I edited the manual for Martin Breese back in 1987 and it wasn't until I dug a copy out the other day that I remembered I'd included a couple of other effects as well as Zennerism. They are applications of the Ted Lesley marking system to a Peek Pack and they're not bad. Worth a look if you're one of those folks who keeps buying one-trick decks from the dealers at $20 a pop!

Zener and the Art of Inspiration

Yesterday I got an email from a friend asking if I’d seen the advert for TrickShop.com’s new trick as advertised on Duncan Trillo’s MagicWeek website. The trick is called The Zenner Effect. And the reason my friend had contacted me is that the advertising says that it is inspired by Zennerism, a trick I’d marketed back in 1980. The suspicion was that the new trick owed more than just inspiration to the original.

I downloaded The Zenner Effect and found it uncomfortably close to my 1980 routine. Virtually identical except for the handling of the finale. And bizarrely, in an age where magicians regularly attach their names to the flimsiest of ‘inventions,’ there was no name to claim credit for this particular inspiration.

Perhaps it is a matter of judgement. Is The Zenner Effect different enough from Zennerism to warrant marketing? Well, you can make that judgement yourself for what follows is a description of Zennerism, the trick from which The Zenner Effect draws its inspiration. I’ll also take the opportunity to correct one grievous mistake. Back in 1980 I spelled the names of the now familiar ESP testing cards incorrectly. They are Zener cards, named after Dr Karl Zener. Not Zenner cards. I notice that the anonymous writer of the TrickShop manuscript has even copied my error. Inspired indeed!

Zennerism
A prediction trick using ESP cards. You have five cards. The spectator has five cards. You place one card face down on the table, he places a card face down on top of yours. This is repeated with all ten cards. At the end of the trick, each pair of cards match. Okay, so it’s not quite as straight forward as that, but we’ll get to the details in a moment. First, some history.

My own interest in this matching effect began around 1973. I was on holiday in Blackpool where I met a magician called Peter Royal. He was demming svengalis for Mark Lewis who had a pitch in Ripley’s Odditorium on the promenade. Mark also had a magic studio and one of the items Peter showed me was a matching card trick. Five cards were laid face down on the table. The spectator laid five cards face up on top of them. And when the pairs were turned over, the cards matched.

If my memory is correct it was sold as something that Al Koran once used. The method consisted of five double back cards and five double facers. I think one side showed an ace to five of a red suit and the other an ace to five of a black suit. The double backers were placed on the table and the double facers were placed on top of them. And then you did the old two card monte move to apparently show that the faces matched.

It was a great effect but I wondered if there was a way of doing it without the fake cards. Back at the rented holiday flat I worked something out and showed it to Peter the next day. It used an ordinary deck and the one ahead method. Some years later Peter Royal marketed it as a manuscript.

Although very pleased with it at the time, I later discovered that the trick was really no different to other one ahead solutions that had already appeared in print. Perhaps the most famous version of the effect is that of Bro. John Hamman called The Million To One Chance. It can be found in LePaul’s The Card Magic of Bro John Hamman. An earlier version is in Dai Vernon’s booklet Select Secrets, as part of his Royal Marriages effect. One routine I haven’t seen is Rolf Andra’s ESP. It was marketed by Harry Stanley in the 1950s and might well have used the same principle.

One problem with all the one ahead solutions is that you often run into a dead end where you need to change the handling to accommodate choices that the spectator makes. Million To One Chance is a nightmare of mental agility. It is a brilliant effect but you really have to be on your toes to do it well. I’d imagine that someone like Lennart Green, with his deliberately chaotic presentation, could really make a grand performance out of it.

The principle behind Zennerism has one thing going for it. The routine never varies. There are no outs. I never felt it was 100% but I did think it worth publishing. Here it is again.

The Cards
You need two sets of Zener cards. They can be different colours on the face but should have the same back designs. And they need to be marked on the back. The Magic Christian ESP-Deck manufactured by Piatnik actually contains two sets of cards that are already marked. See here for a source of all kinds of ESP cards including SBS cards.

The Handling
Show the cards to the spectator, explain that they are symbols used for testing ESP, and then ask him to choose one of the packets. “This experiment involves five decisions. This is the first. Take one of the cards and put it in your pocket. Don’t look at it.”

Shuffle the chosen packet and then spread the cards out face down so he can take one. He puts it in his pocket sight unseen. However, because the cards are marked you know what it is. Let’s assume it is the star. By the way, this ruse is the foundation upon which Zennerism rests. It’s also the key method to The Zenner Effect.

Hand the rest of the packet to him and ask him to shuffle them. You pick up the remaining packet and shuffle those cards.

“Here’s the second decision.” You take the star from your set of cards and place it face down on the table. “Just take any of your cards and place it face down on top of mine. Don’t think about it. Just do it.” He does and you then tell him to mix up the three remaining cards he holds.

Look at the markings on the back of the card he just placed down. Take out the matching card from your set and place it face down on the table to the right of the first pair. “Let’s go again. Take another card. Don’t think about it. Don’t worry about it. Just take a card and put it on top of mine.” He takes another card and puts it on top of yours.

Read the back of the card he just dealt and take out the matching card from your set. Place it down on the table, always to the right of the tabled cards. I should say that you can either openly look at the faces of your cards or you can just read the backs and pretend to be pulling a card out at random. It’s up to you.

He now has two cards left. Tell him to take a card in each hand. “Now, when I say go, lay one of the cards down on top of mine. One, two, three, go!” He places a card down. You read the back as before and place another of your cards down next to it.

He only has one card in his hand and places it on top of yours. You place your last card down, saying, “You had no idea which card I’d be left with but you placed one card in your pocket right at the beginning. Take it out and put it down on mine.” He does.

There are now five pairs of cards on the table. Gather them up from left to right, into the left hand. As you pick up the fourth pair, get a break under the top card. Pick up the last pair saying, “This contains the card you placed in your pocket. Let’s leave that for last.” Briefly you drop the pair onto the left hand packet, but you immediately pick up all three cards above the break, as if two cards, and openly transfer them to the bottom of the packet.

“Let’s see how we did.” Deal off the top two cards, turning them over to reveal a matching pair. Lay the pair on the table. Deal off the next pair and place it face up on the table. The cards match. Same with the following two pairs. And finally, “The card you placed in your pocket.” Turn the last pair over, of course, the two symbols match.

Notes:
In the original manuscript I mentioned several things. First, that you could perform this trick with ordinary cards. The packets are stacked in a memorised order at the beginning of the effect. When the spectator takes the first card its position in the fan gives away its identity.

In this case the spectator deals his cards face up on top of yours, otherwise you have no way of knowing which cards he is placing down. I prefer to use marked cards. They are your cards anyway so they might as well be marked.

The Zenner Effect uses both these strategies. The only point in which the trick differs from Zennerism is the handling of the displacement at the finale. The handling in The Zenner Effect is an interesting idea but I prefer my own routine.

The handling in Zennerism was described for its simplicity but in fact I usually finished the routine with a bottom deal. I turned all the spectator’s cards face down before gathering the packets. The last pair went on top of the packet. I pushed over the top two cards and appeared to turn them over. Actually I executed a simple bottom deal, taking the top and bottom cards as a pair and throwing them face up onto the table. I separated these two cards on the table before taking subsequent pairs of cards and turning them over to reveal that all the symbols matched.

One final thought from the original Zennerism. You can do this trick with an ordinary deck. Give half to the spectator and take half yourself. The spectator puts a card in his pocket. You can force or glimpse this. Either way you know what it is and can now place a card face down on the table. The spectator places a card face up on top.

You continue placing cards face down and he follows each time with a face up card. Unless you have taken care to divide the deck equally there will be times when you can’t match the value of the spectator’s card. So just match the suit instead. Keep dealing until you have about ten or a dozen pairs of cards on the table, just as in the Hamman effect. Present the trick as quickly as you can, slapping cards down on the table and encouraging the spectator to make fast decisions. With so many cards involved I don’t even bother to turn the spectator’s cards face down. Just gather them up and deal off the top and bottom cards together, as a pair, into the right hand. Turn the pair over to show that the cards match. Then deal both cards face up to the table.

No one notices that the left hand packet is now topped by a face down card. You can now legitimately start dealing off pairs from the top and showing that they match. Most cards will match in value, some value and colour and others just suit. But it looks remarkable.

Here’s another tip for this presentation. Let’s say that the first card you placed down was a jack of spades. And you also know that the jack of clubs is in the spectator’s pocket. Well, during all the subsequent dealing it is just possible that the spectator will deal one of the red jacks face up onto one of your tabled cards. If this happens, and there are at least half a dozen pairs on the table, I stop the dealing procedure here.

I gather up the pairs, hand them to the spectator and ask him to cut the packet several times. As he does this I tell him I’m trying to get an impression of the card he placed in his pocket. When I see that he has a face down card on top of the packet, I tell him to stop cutting. Then I ask him to deal the cards off in pairs. They match. Finally, I mentally divine the card he put in his pocket right at the start. You can see that in this instance the pocketed card acts as insurance against ever reaching a dead end in the Hamman effect. Other ways of handling the finale should occur to you.

When downloading the The Zenner Effect from MagicShop I did send a note saying that I hoped the trick would be sufficiently different from Zennerism that I wouldn't be disappointed. I then received an email from the owner Patrick Converso who graciously refunded my money saying that he had intended to mention to Duncan Trillo that he wanted to send me a complimentary copy. Perhaps if he had contacted me before putting his manuscript on the market I wouldn’t have felt so irked by seeing Zennerism reproduced within its pages. Then again, you wouldn’t have been reading it here. Every cloud has a silver lining!

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 or sideslip in order to move the top card to the bottom of the deck.

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 in 1926 in 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 of 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 Color 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.

Chalice from the Palace

Many decades ago, Cyril Tomlinson published a very good presentation idea for a popular mathematical swindle in Abracadabra magazine. I found it interesting because I’d once played with a Ken de Courcy routine sold by Supreme Magic called Luck of Lucretia. Both effects were themed around the idea that the performer can locate a glass filled with poison by the infamous Lucrezia Borgia. The following is an impromptu looking handling of the Tomlinson routine, suitable for performance in a bar or at a dinner table.

You need a pad and a felt-tipped pen, five beer mats and five empty glasses. Take out the pen and openly write something down on the back of each mat. The spectator’s don’t know what you’re writing. In fact, you are writing down five of their names, one on each mat.

“What I’d like to do is play a little game. Well, actually, you’ll be playing the game. It involves these five beer mats and those five glasses. And in a moment I want you to imagine that one of those glasses is filled with poison.”

As you write down the names, you need to mark one of the mats so that you’ll recognise it later on. One way of doing this is to make an ink mark on the second mat down in the stack as you write a name on the back of the top one. It’s just a matter of pushing over the top mat so that you can get access to the second. When you write a name on the reverse side of the marked mat, make sure it is the name of someone near to you because you’re going to use that spectator in the routine. Let’s assume his name is Bill.

When you’ve finished writing on each mat, turn them writing side down and mix them up. “Let me just give the mats a mix so that you don’t know which is which.” It’s practically a genuine shuffle. The only thing you have to do is make sure that the marked mat finishes in the centre of the stack of five. This is not difficult to engineer as you mix the cards between your hands. Deal out the mats in a row on the table. The centre mat will have the name “Bill” on its underside.

Ask one of the spectators to place an empty glass on each of the mats. “Now I mentioned that one of the glasses will be filled with poison. But who will the victim be?” Look at each of the people whose names you have written on the beer mats. Everyone in the audience should feel that he or she is a potential victim.

Take out the pad and write down the name that is on the mat at the centre of the row. Tear off the sheet and fold it up into a billet and then draw a skull and crossbones on the outside so that it represents the poison. Casually hand the folded paper to Bill. “I want you to move your hand along the row of glasses, back and forth. And whenever you feel the urge, drop the poison into one of the glasses.” If he happens to choose the glass standing on the mat bearing his name, well, your luck is in. You might decide to make the most of it and end the trick right here, revealing that he has chosen the glass standing on top of the predicted name. In most cases he won’t have dropped the billet into the centre glass so you would continue as follows:

Turn your back as soon as he has dropped the billet into one of the glasses. Put the pad away and you’re ready to start the trick.

Having seen which glass he chose, you know whether it is at an ODD or EVEN position in the row. This piece of information will decide what happens next. “I want you to change the position of that glass with the one next to it. It can be the one to its right or its left, it doesn’t matter which. Call out 'switch' when you’ve done that.”

This is just a practice session, to get Bill familiar with the moves. It means that if the glass started off at an EVEN position, it is now at an ODD position and vice versa.

Ask Bill to move the glass several more times and each time he moves it he calls out “switch.” If the glass is presently standing at an ODD position ask him to move it an ODD number of times, say 5. If it is at an EVEN position, ask him to move it an EVEN number of times, say 6.

At the end of all those moves, the glass will end up at position 2 or 4. “You’ve shuffled the glasses around and I couldn’t possibly know where the poisoned glass lies. But I’m going to take a chance. Take away the glass on the right. Good. And now would you take away the glass on the left. Good. I think the poison is still on the table.”

The spectators see that you have managed to leave the chosen glass in play.

Speak as if you are about to eliminate another glass. “And would you please take away….” Then change your mind. “No, I tell you what. Make three more switches.” Bill moves the glass three more times. This leaves the glass in the centre position. Again you eliminate the outer two glasses. “That’s better. Would you please take away the right hand glass. And now the glass on the left.”

Only one glass remains, the one with the billet inside. Somehow you have managed to keep it in play. “Strangely, the poisoned glass still remains.” Turn around to face the spectator and then turn over the empty beer mats to reveal the names on the backs. “So Johnny, Sarah, Mike and Leila, all got away. Let’s see who got the poisoned glass.” Ask Bill to lift up the last glass. You turn over the mat to display the name written on the reverse side. “Sorry Bill, looks like you’ve poisoned yourself.” Finish by asking Bill to remove the billet from the glass. He opens it and discovers that you predicted the victim’s name.

You can if you wish weave into your story some details about Lucrezia Borgia but not if you are performing before an audience of historians because Lucrezia is undergoing something of a character reassessment at the moment. Never do tricks for people who are cleverer than you are!

Finally, I’d recommend you look up Cyril Tomlinson’s original presentation in Abracadabra (Vol 28, No. 704) because he has a killer idea in which the “poison” materialises in the chosen glass. Very clever it is too.

Super Memory Remembered

There are some wonderful ideas to be found in the magic magazines of old and each time I delve into those old volumes is like a treasure hunt. It is a rare day that you don’t return laden with gems. The Magic Wand, a British journal published in the first half of the last century, is a site worth returning to again and again. It is now available on a searchable CD Rom courtesy of Martin Breese. Thank you Martin.

Some enterprising magicians have found that they can market memory courses to the general public. It makes sense. It's an alternate form of revenue and magicians are used to using mnemonics in their work. A good demonstration of the Giant Memory feat is all that's needed to convince prospective students that their magical tutor knows what he is talking about. The following routine could also prove to be an excellent classroom exercise.

The original title was Super Memory in Close Up and you can find it in issue 254 of The Magic Wand. It is the creation of Arthur W. Roots and all I’ve done is tweaked it a little and dusted it off in the hope that someone will find it of value. All you need are thirty blank visiting cards, a pencil and the ability to memorise a list of thirty objects using the standard mnemonic system.

I’ll assume that you are lecturing your class on the art of memory. Ask one of the class to call out any five objects eg Cat, Egg, Book, Clock, Desk. As he does so you write the name of each object on a card, turn the card over and write a number, from one to thirty, on the back of it. So the first card is numbered 1, the second 2, the third 3 and so on until you have five cards each bearing the name of a different object on one side and a number on the other.

Choose someone else and get them to name five different objects. Continue the writing and numbering. Go through all the cards until six people have helped you build a list of thirty objects and all thirty cards are numbered on the back with a number from 1 to 30.

This isn't the most stimulating part of the exercise which is why I suggest it would work in a memory class better than it would in your act. However, the action starts here. Ask someone to mix the thirty cards, number side up. Take the pack and spread it number side up across the table.

Three people now draw cards from the spread. You look at the numbers and, because of your mnemonic system, are able instantly to reveal the name objects on the other side. This is an extremely impressive demonstration of memory. You may even want to test your pupils' own recollection before revealing the answers.

You can repeat this or have the pack gathered up, shuffled and spread object side up across the table. Three cards are drawn out. You see the objects on them and so are able to reveal the numbers on the opposite sides. Cue more amazement and people saying they can't wait to sign up for the rest of the memory course.

To finish, ask someone to take the cards and fan them out with the object side facing them. Get them to stand behind you so that you can't see the cards. Now you are going to call out the entire list of thirty objects. Begin by calling out the first object in your memorised list. When the assistant acknowledges it ask him/her to hand the card to you. Place it object side up at the left side of the table. Call out each object, in order, from your list. Your assistant finds the card that matches, you take it and place it next to the previous card on the table, building a line of cards from left to right. Each time you name an object correctly make sure you get the assistant to acknowledge the fact that you are right. Speed up towards the end and add the usual dash of showmanship.

When all thirty cards are on the table the demonstration is finished. Well, almost. Now for the finale as you point out that not only did you remember the thirty objects but you remembered them in their correct order. Turn over the cards on the table to reveal that they are indeed arranged in numerical order. Cue applause.

That's it. It seems to me much more interesting than writing objects on a blackboard. And the fact that the names of the objects are not on view throughout the demonstration makes it seem all the more impressive. Using larger cards might make the demonstration play to a larger audience.

The Invisible Man
Harry Price is one of my favourite characters from the history of magic. He made his living as a professional psychic researcher and ghost hunter, working in the 1920s and 30s, apparently shining a light on the unexplained but in reality casting quite a shadow over almost everything that he touched. His books, and he wrote many, are absolutely fascinating. Harry's investigations were always founded on some kind of strangeness; a talking mongoose, a girl plagued by the devil, a medium who was tried and found guilty under the Witchcraft Act and, of course, the most haunted house in England, Borley Rectory.

He's worth rereading again and again. You never know what you might find in his writings that has some bearing on magic. Take the following as an example. A man who came to Harry Price claiming that he could make himself invisible.

One of the most brazen spellbinders who have ever entered my office was a man who called himself ‘Sandy MacPherson’: he was a Jew from Houndsditch. He came to see me because, he said, he had some wonderful apparatus by means of which he could make himself invisible at will. I call him the ‘Invisible Man’.

He said he wanted a large fee for a test, as it meant a van-load of ‘properties’ and a great deal of trouble to arrange his ‘set-up’. We compromised by agreeing to settle the carter’s bill.

The day – and a small pantechnicon – duly arrived for the test, and as the men carried in his impedimenta, I wondered if ‘Sandy’ had ever kept a draper’s shop, as his sole apparatus consisted of about a dozen tall pier glasses or mirrors such as they are used in the dressmaking stores where ladies foregather in such large numbers.

Sandy shut himself up in my séance-room for half an hour and then called me in and said he was ready for the test. He now commenced ‘hedging’; he said he could not make himself invisible, but could make his reflection invisible. On the principle of ‘half a loaf’, etc., I had to be content with the prospect of witnessing only a semi-miracle.

When I entered the séance-room (from which the daylight had been excluded), I found that all the tall mirrors had been stood vertically on their edges at one end of the apartment in a most curious formation, and at several different angles, roughly in the form of a semi-circle. In front of the looking-glasses was placed a chair. Sandy now asked me to switch off all the lights, count ten, and then switch them on again. This I did, and found that the spellbinder was sitting on the chair in front of the mirrors.

‘Walk slowly up to the chair’, said Sandy, ‘and see if you can find my reflection.’ I did as I was directed and must admit that for a fraction of a second I was genuinely startled. Although the end of the room furthest from the set-up was visible in every detail, the reflection of my Caledonian friend from Houndsditch appeared to be missing. The chair was also invisible, whereas normally, of course, both chair and man should have been reflected.

Although for a moment I was impressed at the result of the arrangement of the mirrors, my knowledge of the law of optics came to my rescue, and I quickly realised that what I saw before me was modelled on a well-known principle in conjuring which is often used in stage illusions. And I lost no time in telling Sandy what I thought of him and his ‘psychic gift’. I went up to him, made him stand up, moved his chair six inches from the spot where he had so carefully placed it, told him to sit down again, stepped back a few paces – and I saw the very unusual spectacle of half a man and half a chair reflected in the mirrors. A move of another six inches and both man and chair were fully reflected.

Well, they loaded up the van with a little less alacrity than when they unloaded it and, an hour later, when I was going to lunch, I saw Sandy and the van driver coming out of the local hostelry where, doubtless, they had been consoling each other with the fact that we live in a hard and incredulous world.

This story has a sequel. A few months after Sandy tried to ‘put over’ his mirror ‘phenomenon’, a toy, in which the same optical principle was employed, was put on the market. I was at once reminded of the illusion I had seen demonstrated in my séance-room. The toy was in the form of a box, closed on all sides, but partly open at the top. At one end of the box were a number of strips of looking-glass and, facing them, was a peep-hole. If a person put his eye to the peep-hole, he could see it plainly reflected in the mirrors opposite. Then, if a small object such as a marble, were placed in the box and the observer again placed his eye to the peep-hole, he could still see the reflection of his own eye – but neither the marble nor the reflection of the marble were visible. So my friend had turned his magic mirrors to account, after all. It is wonderful how these ‘Scotsmen’ persevere.

This account is taken from Harry's 1936 biography Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter. I've no idea what arrangement of mirrors Sandy used nor have I seen the optical toy that Harry Price mentions. If you know of either, do let me know.

You Have a Lucky Face

So there I was, standing outside a store in New Oxford Street, killing some time before a 3 o’clock meeting when I heard the words, “You have a lucky face.”

They came from a small Indian guy, possibly in his late teens. He’d crept up behind me and when I turned to face him, he said the words again. “You have a lucky face.”
“Pardon?” I said.
“You have a lucky face, yes very lucky. Let me see your hand.”
And I did, I let him see my hand. Instinctively I knew he wanted to read my palm so I held it palm uppermost and sure enough he started to point to the lines on my hand with a pen. As well as a pen he was carrying a small leather folder, the kind with a zipper around the edge. Clipped to the folder with his thumb were several small scraps of paper. “This is the lucky line,” he said, tracing one of the creases in my palm. “I show you.”

He started to write something down on one of the pieces of paper, rolled it into a ball and then dropped it onto my palm. I closed my hand to stop the ball of paper rolling away.

“Tell me the name of a flower,” he said.
“Rose” I answered.
“And a number from 1 to 5.”
“3” I said.
“Look at the paper.

I opened my hand, unrolled the paper and saw that he had written down the words rose and the number 3.

He started to write some other things on a second slip of paper and mutter some stuff about this being true, that I was very lucky and that money was coming my way. He looked up at my lucky face. “Do not shave or cut your hair on Tuesday” he advised. “Tuesday very lucky day for business. You will get much money.”

Then he stopped writing, reached into his leather folder and rummaged around inside. I could see other pieces of paper in there and something else, a picture of some kind. But what he brought out was what appeared to be a small red-brown nut or seed. He handed it to me. “This is very lucky stone. You keep it. You will be lucky.”

Obviously my lucky face and not shaving was not going to be enough to draw in the money on Tuesday. I was going to need celestial help and the stone would do the trick. Thank heavens I met this fortune teller today!

I looked at my watch and it was starting to get close to 3 o’clock so decided it was time to leave. But he kept talking away and then reached into his wallet again and pulled out the picture. It was a drawing of a holy man. Either that or James Randi. “This is my teacher,” he said. “Everything I say is true, this is what I believe.” Then came the capper, which I had been expecting from the first moment I heard the words about my lucky face. “Make a donation please.” The leather wallet now lay open on his upturned hands like the collection platter in a church. It was universal body language for “Give generously.”

Yes, here I was being hustled for money in the West End of London by an Indian fortune teller. There was something not quite right about it. I thought for a moment, looked at him and then pretended to search in my pockets, looking first in one and then the other. I found what I was looking for and held it out. “Here,” I said, “take this. It’s very lucky.” And I gave him the small red nut. He didn’t look very happy about this.

As I walked away I turned back and reminded him, “Oh, and don’t shave on Tuesday. Tuesday very lucky day for you.” I felt very pleased to have found such a good finish to our encounter.

I made my meeting on time but it was a messy affair and we didn’t really resolve anything. The trip into London had been a bit of a waste. But the real finale came this morning when I was browsing some news sites and read that main prize in the National Lottery was won by a man who had been given a lucky stone by a psychic.

In London.

At 3.15pm.

It's true!

I will not be shaving on Tuesday!

Okay, I made that bit about the lottery up. I hope you checked the link. Here’s the real 100% unvarnished truth.

I was really pleased when I heard the words “You have a lucky face” because a couple of years ago my friend Carlo told me about some psychic swindlers working in Hong Kong. They were Indian fortune tellers and the scam went like this.

They engaged you in conversation, wrote something down on a piece of paper and then asked you to think of a flower.

It was always a rose, most people will name a rose.

And then they asked you to choose a number from 1 to 5. You won't be surprised to hear that 3 is the most popular number.

But there was a third phase to the routine. They scribbled something on a slip of paper and asked for your date of birth. And when you opened the paper that’s exactly what you found written on it. Amazing. And worth ten dollars of anyone's money, which is what the fortune teller usually asked for.

Now the reason I wanted to see this is that unlike the first two parts of the trick it doesn’t depend on population stereotypes and fast talking. It depends on the fortune teller being able to write your date of birth down after you’ve said it and then switch it for the blank pellet that you’re holding in your hand.

Carlo is a knowledgeable sleight of hand magician so was able to work out the basic method. On my behalf he’d even offered the fortune tellers a couple of hundred dollars if they’d let him film them doing the routine. They all refused. So I was left to work out a suitable handling myself.

It was featured in an expose of fake psychics on the Channel 5 series Psychic Secrets Revealed that I consulted on. We managed to work out quite a smooth routine for Alistair Cook, the magician who was posing as a psychic on that show. We filmed him performing it in China Town to great effect. People are really amazed when they see their birthday written on that slip of paper. Which is why when the fortune teller asks for a donation you readily give one.

I went along with the first two predictions, naming rose and 3, because I wanted to see the switch in action. But he was so close to me that I knew the trick would be difficult to do well. So did he, unfortunately. Or perhaps he just thought I was so gullible he wouldn’t need it.

A switch is definitely part of the fortune teller’s repertoire. The tip-off is that there is no reason for using small pieces of paper in the first place if you are not going to switch them.

So listen out when walking through the West End. You may have a luckier face than mine and get an opportunity to see your birth date on one of those papers. But if you give money, give it for a performance well done. The only faith you'll be supporting is the one that fake psychics have in the gullibility of humankind. Oh, and keep a tight grip on your wallet. He might be small but I bet he can run like the clappers!

Hiding In Full View

I was reading David Hoy’s biography the other day - Super Psychic: The Incredible Dr Hoy. David Hoy aka Dr Faust the mentalist and mindreader is known among magicians as the inventor of the Tossed Out Deck effect. It's a great trick and still very much in use, passed down by Faust himself in an earlier book, this one for magicians, called The Bold and Subtle Miracles of Dr Faust.

But I bet few mentalists realise that the secret of the trick was later featured in Hoy's biography. Here is what author John Godwin has to say on page 27.

The whole mystery lay in the way David put his questions. For the entire deck consisted of eight of clubs. By naming two other cards he conveyed the impression that he was using a full deck. And since each participant had only seen one card, they assumed that the other two must have seen different cards.

Fortunately for Dr Hoy he had no further need for such trickery. By the 1970s he had become a full fledged radio psychic, helping callers find lost scissors and contact lenses as well as jobs in the construction industry. I'm not kidding.

The Street Conjurer

Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor is a three volume account of the lives of the working class in Victorian England. Published in 1851 it contains first-hand descriptions of the day to day activities of tradesmen, rat catchers, flower girls, criminals and everyone else that ever trod a cobbled street. It's the kind of book you can open at any page and find something of interest.

The following is taken from an account of The Street Conjurer in Volume 3. Here’s how a Victorian magician went about earning a living.

It was about this time that I took to busking. I never went into tap-rooms, only into parlours; because one parlour would be as good as a dozen tap-rooms, and two good parlours a-night I was quite satisfied with.

My general method was this: If I saw a good company in the parlour, I could tell in a moment whether they were likely to suit me. If they were conversing on politics it was no good, you might as well attempt to fly. I have many a-time gone into a parlour, and called for my half-quartern of gin and little drop of cold water, and then, when I began my performances, it has been ‘No, no! we don‘t want anything of that kind,’ and there has been my half hour thrown away. The company I like best are jolly-looking men, who are sitting silently smoking, or reading the paper. I always got the privilege of performing by behaving with civility to my patrons.

Some conjurers, when the company ain‘t agreeable, will say, ‘But I will perform;’ and then comes a quarrel, and the room is in future forbid to that man. But I, if they objected, always said, ‘Very well, gentlemen, I‘m much obliged to you all the same: perhaps another time. Bad to-night, better next night.’ Then when I came again some would say, ‘I didn‘t give you anything the other night, did I? Well, here‘s a fourpenny bit,’ and so on.

When I went into a parlour I usually performed with a big dice, three inches square. I used to go and call for a small drop of gin and water, and put this dice on the seat beside me, as a bit of a draw. Directly I put it down everybody was looking at it. Then I‘d get into conversation with the party next to me, and he‘d be sure to say, ‘What the deuce is that?’ I‘d tell him it was a musical box, and he‘d be safe to say, ‘Well, I should like to hear it, very much.’ Then I‘d offer to perform, if agreeable, to the company; often the party would offer to name it to the company, and he‘d call to the other side of the room, (for they all know each other in these parlours) ‘I say, Mr. So-and-so, have you any objection to this gentleman showing us a little amusement?’ and they are all of them safe to say, ‘Not in the least. I‘m perfectly agreeable if others are so;’ and then I‘d begin.

I‘d pull out my cards and card-boxes, and the bonus genius or the wooden doll, and then I‘d spread a nice clean cloth (which I always carried with me) on the table, and then I‘d go to work. I worked the dice by placing it on the top of a hat, and with a penknife pretending to make an incision in the crown to let the solid block pass through. It is done by having a tin covering to the solid dice, and the art consists in getting the solid block into the hat without being seen. That‘s the whole of the trick. I begin by striking the block to show it is solid. Then I place two hats one on the other, brim to brim. Then I slip the solid dice into the under hat, and place the tin covering on the crown of the upper one. Then I ask for a knife, and pretend to cut the hat-crown the size of the tin-can on the top, making a noise by dragging my nail along the hat, which closely resembles cutting with a knife. I‘ve often heard people say, ‘None of that!’ thinking I was cutting their hat. Then I say, ‘Now, gentlemen, if I can pass this dice through the crown into the hat beneath, you‘ll say it‘s a very clever deception,’ because all conjurers acknowledge that they deceive; indeed, I always say when I perform in parlours, ‘If you can detect me in my deceptions I shall be very much obliged to you by naming it, for it will make me more careful; but if you can‘t, the more credit to me.’ Then I place another tin-box over the imitation dice; it fits closely. I say, ‘Presto--quick--begone!’ and clap my hands three times, and then lift up the tin cases, which are both coloured black inside, and tumble the wooden dice out of the under hat. You see, the whole art consists in passing the solid block unseen into the hat.

Mayhew’s complete text is online at Edwin C. Bolles Collection. There you’ll find more of the conjurer’s adventures and further details of the tricks he performed. The magician had no qualms about telling Mayhew how his tricks worked, saying, I have often made a good deal of money in parlours by showing how I did my little tricks, such as cutting the tape and passing the halfcrowns. Then he added, Of course it doesn‘t matter so much showing how these tricks are done, because they depend upon the quickness and dexterity of handling. You may know how an artist paints a picture, but you mayn‘t be able to paint one yourself. How true.

BRAIN DAMAGE

Psychics are wonderful at coming up with offbeat demonstrations of the paranormal. Not just the methods but also the effects. Consider Achille D’Angelo’s Invisible Hand as described in Milbourne Christopher’s ESP, Seers and Psychics (and later reworked by mentalist Steve Shaw), the concept of spirit raps as set out by the Fox Sisters or even Uri Geller’s bending spoon. There is something special about the way these effects connect with the audience. They go far beyond the fare offered up by many mentalists who believe that a demonstration of paranormal phenomena should involve something resembling a Mental Epic slate or the choice of a playing card.

Here is brand new pseudopsychic effect that is totally impromptu and derives its power from the public’s expectations of what is possible.

After some spiel about the current concerns over mobile phones you ask someone to stand up, switch on their mobile and hold it to their ear. Tell them to stretch out their other arm horizontally. Now, without warning, you press on the outstretched arm and, naturally, you push it down easily until it is by their side.

“Now,” you say, “switch the cell phone off. Hold it to your ear again. Stretch out the other arm. Watch what happens why I try to press down this time.” You do as you promise, except this time you are unable to press the arm down. It appears that somehow the activated cell phone was affecting the subject’s strength. Have them switch the cell phone back on and, amazingly, you can now push their arm down with ease. You have apparently just demonstrated the very real dangers of cell phone technology. Scary.

In fact, all you’ve done is exploited the psychological workings of a pseudo science called kinesiology. The first time you press on the subject’s arm, he isn’t expecting anything. The second time, he is ready and resists more fully. Also, you don’t push down quite so hard though do make a play of pressing down even harder than before. Additionally, your patter is leading the subject in a certain direction. Mentally, he is putting the macabre jigsaw together. He is convincing himself that the activated mobile phone somehow caused his arm to fall. Now that the phone is switched off, he believes he will be able to resist your efforts. And so, he does.

The trick isn’t mine, I found it on James Randi’s website, in the Sept 6th Commentary where reader Michael Roes recounts his visit to an Anthony Robbins seminar. It was there that a guy gave this unusual demonstration in order to sell a device (a bizarre pendant) that could protect the wearer from electro magnetic pollutants. Sure!

It is a great piece of business and deserves to be known by a wider audience. I mentioned the effect to mentalist Marc Paul who has tried it out with great success. He also tells me that Bruce Bernstein published an interesting kinesiology routine in Bascom Jones Magick magazine. It sounds very strong and if subjects react to the kinesiology protocol well it is worth dreaming up other uses for this psychological phenomenon.

You can embellish the phone routine in various ways. Have the subject hold the phone or not hold the phone. Have the phone with batteries or without or even hold the phone or a banana.

The only problem is an ethical one. How do you use such a convincing demonstration without exploiting the subject and leading them to believe that cell phones are dangerous or that there is anything in the concept of kinesiology? One way is to simply tell the truth and explain that the demonstration was purely psychological in nature. Reveal the method, the audience should find that just as entertaining as the effect, and enhance your own reputation as a master of psychological persuasion, a role that is enjoying renewed interest with the public.

THE LATEST NOVELTY

Well, it was in 1933 when this advert was printed in The Linking Ring magazine:

Here it is Magicians, just what you have been looking for. A new type of Magic that is very novel. spectacular, entirely new and different from anything you have ever seen or used. "TAXIDERMY MAGIC", anything from club effects to stage illusions with Mounted Birds and Animals, as used by the inventor, "Raymond the Wizard" in his Taxidermy Magic Show. Add a new box office attraction to your show. Here's a wonderful chance for the enterprising magician. Don't hesitate - act at once. Production limited.

Get Free Literature and particulars at once. Raymond H. Harper, Harper Studios, Monterey, Va.

DESERT ISLE READING

Jon Racherbaumer sent out a number of emails to magicians a few months ago asking which magic book they would take to a desert island. It wasn’t something I had ever contemplated. I presume that being marooned is something that weighs more heavily on Jon’s mind than mine. I can see him talking to a basketball called Eddie. Still, entering into the spirit of the request, I sent him my thoughts.

Assuming that someone hasn’t yet written Twenty Tricks with a Raft or The Sorcerer’s Guide to Scavenging, then I suppose I would opt for one of my favourite card books, The Encyclopaedia of Card Tricks by Jean Hugard and John J. Crimmins Jr. This is presuming that I can make myself some playing cards out of palm leaves.

The Encyclopaedia of Card Tricks began its life with one less “a” in its title and far fewer credits. A Dr Wilhelm Von Deusen and Glenn Gravatt compiled the volume in 1936 and created something of a controversy among the card cognoscenti to whom many of the tricks belonged. The book was nothing less than a reprint of every great trick the pair had in their scrapbooks, everything they had read in a magazine, bought from a dealer or purchased as an exclusive manuscript. “Over $1,000 worth of secrets,” boasted the advertising. It was true, but the secrets weren’t Deusen’s or Gravatt’s to dispose of. Annemann described it as “piracy on a grand scale,” suggesting that it should be marked on maps of the South Seas. And he laughed when the book was pirated by another publisher and Gravatt reduced to taking ads out pleading for purchasers to buy the “original” and not the copy.

Despite its dubious antecedents, The Encyclopedia of Card Tricks was not a book to be ignored. It contained hundreds of tricks in its two unwieldy mimeographed volumes. In 1937 Max Holden got permission from the contributors to put out a hardcover edition and handed over the editorial duties to Hugard and Crimmins. Their names gave the pirate tome a legitimacy that it had previously lacked. Still flying under the shadow of the Jolly Roger it was more of a Sir Francis Drake than a Blackbeard. The book became an instant classic, Tom Bowyer describing it in The Linking Ring as, “Truly the most valuable card book ever published.”

The edition I first came across was published in England, hence the extra “a” in “Encyclopaedia,” by Faber & Faber. It was a childhood Christmas present and one of a fabulous range of magic books published by Faber for the general public which included the works of Bill Severn, Bruce Elliott and Hugard and Braue. Taken together they provided a publicly available guide to magic that was unsurpassed until Dover Publications discovered the world of lapsed copyrights, which, ironically, is where the pirate book is presently anchored.

So what’s so marvellous about the Encyclopaedia? And why would I take it to a desert island rather than, say, Maskelyne & Devant’s Our Magic or Dai Vernon’s Book of Magic? The answer lies in the sheer variety of card magic contained within the book’s covers. It’s seminal stuff, from basic key card locations, to mathematical tricks and gaffed cards. On a desert island, the one thing you’ll need is mental stimulation and Gravatt’s book supplies that in abundance. He did a hell of a job in selecting his tricks, each one a different angle on a theme, an innovative spin on a well-worn principle or the very latest in card experimentation circa 1930. There is much here to think about.

A book on sleight of hand, wouldn’t provide half the enjoyment. Besides, sleight of hand is no different from athletics, if you haven’t mastered the move by the time you’re in your twenties, you’re unlikely to master it at a later date. Having made it past forty, I’m content to use the moves I know and keep the brain ticking over with the kind of problems laid out in the Encyclopaedia. Besides which, if your deck is made of palm leaves, you’re going to have trouble doing the second deal.

I can see that you may not be convinced. So let me set out the stall of wonders. First the contributors, an outstanding line up of card magic’s greatest: Vernon, Jordan, Downs, Baker, Annemann, Gray, Farelli, Hull, Daley, Christ, Larsen, Sellers and Grant to name just a few. Each has left their mark on magic and none would doubt the roles they have played in its evolution.

Naturally, one would expect great things of great magicians and that is why the material in the Encyclopaedia is of such fine quality. These creators were working their magic during an extraordinary time, when the great illusion shows were coming to an end and close up card magic was coming into its own. New York in particular was a hive of creative activity and secrets jealously guarded. Vernon’s psychological forces and use of the double back card were known only to the few. Indeed only a half-dozen years earlier he had sold some of his prized secrets in his legendary Twenty Dollar Manuscript. Many of these same tricks made a more public debut in the Encyclopaedia and at half the price. As did Ben Erens’ card spelling routine, a trick that was much discussed among his peers, the mathematics behind the now familiar Clock Trick, methods for getting thought of cards at chosen numbers and finding selections under seemingly impossible conditions. It was cutting edge stuff in its day and all of it found its way into the all-consuming Encyclopaedia, a veritable Hitchhikers Guide to Card Magic.

Its value for me lies in the number of times I have been able to revisit it over the years, each time discovering fresh insights. When I first read the Encyclopaedia as a trick hungry kid, I appreciated the fact that the tricks depended largely on subtlety than sleight of hand. I could actually use routines like Al Baker’s Twin Souls straight from the book. Jordan’s The Unknown Leaper was another favourite and hardly a performance went by without The Magic Breath or the memorably titled Get Thee Behind Me, Satan being demonstrated.

And it was good to have entire chapters devoted to tricks with stripper and svengali decks, both of which were in my repertoire having been purchased at the local novelty shop. I even made up what seemed to me at the time one of the most complex of gaffed decks, Speaking of Pink Elephants, in which thought-of cards changed colour, were spelled to and finally vanished. Making your own tricks is all part of learning magic and the Encyclopaedia provided plenty of material for the amateur craftsman, including Annemann’s Mental Masterpiece, a cunning card release called Magicardo and the little used Mene-Tekel deck which I swear would catch us all off guard if introduced into a card routine. Check out J. F. Orrin’s Pocket Rising Card for a terrific convention trick.

The book doesn’t spend much time tutoring the reader in sleight of hand. The focus is on self-working effects. But when I returned to it years later, with a better understanding of what it meant by “make a double lift” the power of the magic it contained was enhanced. A little well placed sleight of hand made the subtleties even slicker.

As a source of creative inspiration it is unique. You can open the book blindly, put your finger on a page and almost guarantee that the trick you land upon will put the brain into gear and start you thinking. That’s if you are not already amazed at the sophistication of the existing method or presentation and wondering why nobody has thought about using it. Take The Adventures of Diamond Jack, for instance, a story routine with a pre-arranged deck. If you’re tired of the popular Sam the Bellhop routine, you could do worse than give this one a try with its clever word play.

In more recent years I’ve begun to understand more fully who the originators were. Many were referred to only by their surnames: Hull, Baker, Vernon, Jordan, Annemann and the rest. When I first read the book, they meant nothing to me but now I can place faces to most of those captions. I know where they lived, what they did, who their friends were. Viewed in this way the Encyclopaedia becomes a time capsule reflecting the mindset and culture of a remarkable era. It is a nostalgic reminder of the history of card craft.

The Encyclopaedia of Card Tricks is still on sale though not everyone feels the same way I do about the book. A comment from one magician on the Amazon book website bemoaned the lack of illustrations. With few pictures, it can appear to be a rather monotonous meal rather than the feast it truly is. But illustrations were largely unnecessary. The Encyclopaedia is a book of grand ideas, notions that can be endlessly twisted and manipulated for the reader’s own ends. Most readers, those who do more than riffle through the pages looking for drawings that will tell all, think highly of it. As Tom Bowyer predicted, it is a classic work, and the reality that more copies gather dust on a shelf than are actually being read doesn’t detract from that.

The last secret that the Encyclopedia had to offer was only revealed to me recently on browsing through some old copies of Genii magazine. In the February 1969 issue Glenn Gravatt confessed that his co-author was entirely fictitious. "I thought so little of the prestige of my own name that I added, with tongue in cheek, a mythical collaborator, 'Dr Wilhelm Von Deusen,' feeling that a distinguished sounding foreign name would lend glamor to the enterprise." However, he didn’t explain what possessed him to compile the best tricks of his peers together and sell them under his own name. He just complained that subsequent editors had got some of the credits wrong!

The greatest of pirate books surely deserves a trip to a desert island. It will fulfil Annemann’s expectations of it if nothing else. And anyway, with over 600 tricks on its 448 pages, you can be sure of one thing. It would make a damn good fire.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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).

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.

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.