Magic & Conjuring: page 157

A wonderful routine and variation for the Jastrow Illusion, also known as Magic Boomerangs.

Just who is the Top of the Bill? Stan Laurel or Oliver Hardy?

That's the dilemma confronting the performer in this strange and bizarre close-up routine. Seeing is believing!

Two nameplates, one for Stan and one for Ollie, shrink and elongate as each is given pride of place at the Top of the Bill. How? Simple, they are short on one side and long on the other. Or so claims the performer. Is it an optical illusion? It seems so until the finale in which the spectator is left with two nameplates...

Two cards are face-down on the table next to each other. When you turn over the first one it is blank on its face. When you turn over the second one a big hole appears in the center. When you turn them back face-down the big hole vanishes. It can hardly get any stranger.

1st edition 2024, video 2:03.

Three named playing cards are located aided by a wind-up toy. Self-working, foolproof, a real crowd pleaser. From the lecture notes of Jimmy Haviland, London's last street conjuror.

You will have to supply a wind-up toy yourself. It is ungimmicked. Anything that walks, hops, or drives a few inches will work.

1st edition 2024, PDF 4 pages + video.

You start with four blank cards and show them from both sides to be blank. Suddenly backs appear, faces appear, and you finish with yet another change of the back designs.

You will need three jacks or three cards with identical faces but different backs. You will also need three blank cards, two of which have the same back, and one a different back. You will also need a piece of hard wax which Peter uses to prepare one card.

1st edition 2024, video 2:34.

Excerpt from the introduction by David Hemingway:

Straight from the mentalism act of award-winning Linking Ring author Michael Breggar comes The No Tears Tear.

The No Tears Tear is an easy-to-execute center tear that provides a peek in real-time. Do we all need another center tear? Nope. You only need one. And this is the one.

The manuscript is loaded with text and photos depicting each action and step in detail. The rationale for each move is also discussed which makes learning the method a snap.

Features:

• Real-time
• Real deceptive
• Real easy

You will be using this approach in your mentalism routines shortly after reading...

For many years, Ray has worked on the problem of developing an impromptu version of the Paul Fox Miracle Gimmick. After testing and discarding several earlier handlings, he has come up with a stunning version that is a reputation-building demonstration of mass mentalism.

It can be done anytime, anywhere, totally impromptu, with a borrowed deck of cards which is first thoroughly shuffled by a spectator. The cards are handed out to several spectators - between five and twenty if you wish - and they are each asked to just think of a card. The cards are gathered and once again shuffled. You...

Sleights and routines with lit and unlit cigarettes. Illustrated by numerous photographic reproductions from the author's own hands, together with some additional line drawings.

• PUBLISHER'S NOTE
• FOREWORD
• INTRODUCTION
• PART ONE Unlighted Cigarette Section
  • Groundwork of Cigarette Magic
  • ENVANISHMENT
    • “Perfection” Vanish
    • Sliding Cigarette Vanish
    • My “Rising Cigarette” Vanish
    • “Vertical” Cigarette Vanish
    • “Favourite” Vanish
    • “Descention” Vanish
    • “D.D.” “Thumb-Slide” Vanish
    • Supplementary “Thumb-Slide” Vanish
    • My “Slow-Motion” Vanish
    • “Stationary”...

Impromptu mentalism is usually improvised but certain effects may be prepared in advance if they are presented as impromptu ideas. Somewhat like the comic who memorizes thousands of one-liners and seems to create them off the top of his head.

• Bold Shots
• Cold Reading
• Contact Mind Reading
• Pendulums
• Basic Equipment
• Center Tear
• Billet Switch
• Stooges
• Forces
• Equivoce
• Hobson's Choice
• Memory
• Magic Squares
• Higher Math
• 1089
• A B C D
• 3 - 34 Follow-Up
• Words
• Wallet Acts
• Magic
• The Occult
• COP Out
• Finally

1st edition ~1980, 14 pages; PDF 8 pages.

For the first time explains and demonstrates the great secret of her marvelous power.

In this autobiography, Lulu Hurst tells her rise to fame and fortune by performing acts of incredible strength on stage. She does this with personal recollections as well as quoting from various newspaper reports. At the time she performed many attributed her strength to some as of yet unknown or unexplainable force. But she had no unusual strength or the aid of any special force. She cleverly used mechanical principles as well as showmanship to make it appear she had super-human strength. In the second...

A complete man and wife telepathy act.

A nicely worked out two-person act that eliminates long memorization preparation and training. The basic idea can be adapted and extended to fit your needs.

(Originally this booklet was sold with an 'apparatus'. The 'apparatus' was a set of cue cards or cue stickers which could be pasted onto cards. These are not included in this digital reproduction. However, the ebook does include images of all the cue cards and you can therefore make them yourself.)

A truly sensational mental telepathy act with ordinary playing cards and other objects handed...

Conjuring tricks with cards balls, and dice; magic writing, performing animals, etc.

This is a surprisingly interesting book edited by W. H. Cremer. It includes an early precursor of the Chop Cup. (See The Magic Dutch Balls.) It has interesting information on gambling, cheating, and scams. The chapter on 'Magic Writing' is a wonderful history of cryptography and steganography. The chapter on animal training is one of the most detailed I have encountered. It also includes a wealth of magic tricks, science experiments, and effects based on apparatus.

• Part I. Modern Magic By Sleight Of Hand...

Explaining the Burling Hull method of reducing the subject to a system - by classifying questions in four divisions and rendering answers according to a set of prescribed principles for each classification.

This work provides a clear description of a highly practical method of how to answer questions, and how to avoid or answer difficult questions. It also includes information on how to construct the introductory talk. This was part of Annemann's Five Foot Shelf and is therefore required reading for mentalists. It does not explain how to get knowledge of the questions themselves but there are several ways to do that,...

Danson's Diary Trick was first published in the New Pentagram Vol 2. It was an effect many magicians liked and subsequently several variations were published. Ken de Courcy compiles here several variations from Roy Johnson, from MUM magazine, including his own ideas, tips, and suggestions.

1st edition 1983, 20 pages; PDF 23 pages.

Three pre-folded cards are tipped from a card box and displayed as being a QH and two blank cards. The three cards are folded to conceal their faces and arranged in a row on the table ready for the classic Find The Lady. Having mixed the positions of the three cards, the one that should be the QH is opened to reveal it is in fact one of the blanks. That’s surprise no. 1. Surprise no. 2 comes when the other two cards are unfolded to reveal they are both blanks as well! The QH has completely disappeared. Surprise no. 3 is revealed when the QH is found folded inside the card box that has been...

100 tricks for the drawing room.

Containing an extensive and miscellaneous collection of conjuring and legerdemain; sleights with dice, dominoes, cards, ribbons, rings, fruit, coins, balls, handkerchiefs, etc. All of which may be performed in the parlor or drawing room. Without the aid of any apparatus; also embracing a choice variety of curious deceptions which may be performed with the aid of simple apparatus.

• PART I. TRICKS OF LEGERDEMAIN, CONJURING, SLEIGHT OF HAND, AND OTHER FANCIES, COMMONLY CALLED "WHITE MAGIC"
  • Preliminary Observation
  • Palming Coin
  • The Magic Coin
  • To Untie a...

A short change routine.

"Mr. Grismer is one of the nice guys in magic who is also talented and has the gift of working out startling tricks that require little in the way of 'work' ... 'Shorty' is a short change routine and the best of its kind ... once made up you will use it constantly. Brilliant routine and handling ... the best short-change routine to come along in years." - Karl Fulves

Clear Plot: You have $10, then $9, then $10, then $5.

Entertaining: You show skill but lose money.

Natural: No unusual-looking counts.

The other day I asked a bartender if he could break a ten-dollar...

Two sets of five ESP cards are freely displayed, one set with red backs, the other with blue. The red set is given to the spectator who shuffles them, the magician mixing the blue set. One at a time the performer places his cards face down onto the table and each time the spectator then places one of his cards at random next to the performer's. When the pairs of cards are turned face up, all five sets are seen to have been put down in matching pairs!

This is a streamlined version of my card matching routine which has extra subtleties and a cleaner handling than earlier versions.

...

This product is included in Scripted #41: A Taste for Words.

In the event that a mentalism effect fails, this is a script, process, and handing that allows you to fairly easily switch tricks mid-stream, unnoticed by the audience, and still present a strong trick.

This was originally designed if [lp= Scripted #41: A Taste for Words] routine failed, but the technique can work for many mentalism routines.

Three different handlings, 2 scripts, and 1 core concept protects the mentalist from complete failure in many routines.

NOTE: This was also specifically written for parlor and stage, but could easily be done close up with appropriate handling changes. ...

When several of the foremost authors in modern magic collaborate with the owner of one of the most respected magic companies, you just know the result will be a great book. Originally released in a limited edition by the owner of Thayer Magic Studios, the first and only previous edition of this clever collection sold out and has never been reprinted … until now.

Features top-quality effects from Dr. Boris Zola, J. Elder Blackledge, T. Nelson Downs, Edward Bagshawe, M. F. Zens, Harlan Tarbell, Herman L. Weber, T. J. Crawford, and others.

Originally published in a limited edition, priced at more than $33.00 in today's money. Not just jaw-dropping...

This is a straightforward version of the classic Lie Detector routine that can be performed with any deck (even a borrowed one) and with no advance setup.

A deck is shuffled by a spectator to put the cards into a genuinely random order, and the performer then extracts one card which he leaves sight unseen in view on the table. The magician then asks a spectator three questions about the tabled card, and the helper is invited to make up his answers (since he doesn't know at this stage what the tabled card actually is). Whatever answers the participant gives, the performer spells the word...

Two for the price of one here as with Credit Transfer you get a mental effect and a piece of magic together. A borrowed credit card is slipped into a small envelope. Two paperback books are shown and the pages are riffled of one of the books until a spectator calls 'stop'. The credit card in the envelope is dropped into the book to mark the place. The second book is now opened to reveal an envelope is already inside it, and the page it rests on turns out to match the page just selected in the first book. Then the credit card vanishes from the envelope in the first book and arrives inside the...

An occasional journal of magic and strange.

Jazzy, fun, and informative, Ben Harris' new digital journal is full of surprises and tweaks.

• Learn a no-reel version of the amazing Leviosa.
• Tweak a switch cup so it works twice without a reset.
• Explore fantastic effects with gilded playing cards.
• Tweak a classic Paul Curry effect with an additional 'discard pile,' making the impossible even more so.
• Re-purpose your favorite 'Four Ace Production' as a mind-numbing gambling challenge.

Edited by Steve Shufton and illustrated by Ever Elizalde, Tweak looks and reads with ease and excitement.

1st edition 2024,...

• The Pass Surpassed
• Chameleon Card
• Henry Hardin's Handkerchief Production
• B. H. Additional Wrinkle To Show Both Palms At Once
• Additional Wrinkle
• Super-Supreme Force
• Concluding The Effect
• Auto-Operative Shuffle
• Handkerchief Creation
• Climax Color Change
• The Wonder Pass
• The Impromptu Magician
• The Indeceptive Deception
• Burling Hull "Invisible Pass"
• A Unique Thimble "Move"
• Burling Hull Thimble Production

1st edition 1914, 26 pages; PDF 20 pages.