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Samuel Cox Hooker and his Rising Cards
by Chris Wasshuber


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(4 reviews, 9 customer ratings) ★★★★★

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Samuel Cox Hooker and his Rising Cards by Chris Wasshuber

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Dr. Samuel Cox Hooker's Rising Cards have been an unexplainable fascination for nearly a century. Hooker first showed his effect in 1914, and in 1993 and 2007 John Gaughan gave abbreviated performances. Nobody who has seen the Hooker Rising Cards performed has ever been able to explain how such effects can be accomplished. This includes the most notable and most knowledgeable magicians from past and present. How can, from a borrowed and shuffled deck, any card called for rise in the fairest possible manner on a well lit stage only a few feet from the spectators?

This work is not just about how I think Hooker achieved these incredible effects, but about a fascinating man and the fascinating history of rising card apparatus. Samuel Cox Hooker and his Rising Cards will first examine three famous card rising apparatus: the Hofzinser card automaton, the Neyhart houlette, and Joseffy's rising cards. It then examines Hooker the person covering his private, scientific, and magic achievements.

This is followed by two theories of how the Hooker Rising Cards could be done. The first theory was purely based on my conclusions studying the historical record and is most likely not how it is done. The second theory arose from observations brought to me by individuals who have seen one of the 2007 reenactments and it can exactly replicate a core set of effects. I built a Lego prototype to prove that this mechanism works, is practical and indeed replicates the effects precisely. You will be able to see photos of the prototype and read a detailed description of it.

I have studied the historical records, I have extensively communicated with people who have seen Gaughan's reenactments in 1993 and 2007 and I have thought for countless of hours, pieced together clues, and applied my own understanding of magic methods and technology. However, it is not possible for me to say that one of my methods is 'the' method used by Hooker, but I have proven it is at least 'a' method. Potentially it is even a more practical method than the original method.

Samuel Hooker created his rising cards to stimulate magicians to think and come up with their own solutions and explanations and through that process of inquiry, to develop new methods and techniques. As a scientist this is a very natural way of learning. Nature exposes us to all kinds of mysteries, questions, and puzzles and scientists try to explain them. They conduct experiments and think logically about them to advance their understanding of nature. Fundamentally scientists are driven by nature’s secrets and want to understand and explain them. In the same way Hooker is presenting magicians with a mystery and he is asking us to think about ways how it could be done. Hooker himself solicited explanations from his spectators. This work is my answer to Hooker's solicitation.

This publication was written with this very spirit in mind. Perhaps it stimulates others to also think hard about new ways to achieve such effects. I have communicated with other magicians, some of them notable and recognized, who have developed their own theories about how Hooker did it. This lead to exciting and stimulating exchanges of ideas and critiques – exactly the kind of effect Hooker wanted to achieve with his “Impossibilities”.

(For a short biographical sketch published in a Google map click here.)

At the end of the book you will find a chronological record and reproductions of many articles and letters, including unpublished records, related to Samuel Hooker. This makes for fascinating reading regardless of if you agree with my theories or not.

[Please keep in mind that the book and ebook differ in the following way: All photos and illustrations which are color in the ebook are in b/w in the book. The book has been reformatted to a smaller form factor 6'' x 9''. Should I have the time to release a video of my prototype, then such a video will only be part of the ebook, not the book.]

  1. Contents
  2. Acknowledgment
  3. Introduction
  4. Other Famous Any Card Rises
  5. - Hofzinser
  6. - Neyhart
  7. - Joseffy
  8. Hooker the Person
  9. How Could it be Done? (theory #1 - probably not)
  10. - Hooker’s idea
  11. - Boundary conditions
  12. - Fundamental method
  13. - Multiple methods for the same effect
  14. - Afterthoughts
  15. Card March
  16. How Could it be Done? (theory #2 - much better)
  17. People in the Know
  18. Chronological Source Documents
  19. 1913, July
  20. 1914, April
  21. 1915, June
  22. 1915, August
  23. 1916, January
  24. 1916, March
  25. 1917, July 6th
  26. 1917, September 25th
  27. 1918, January
  28. 1918, February
  29. 1918, February 16th
  30. 1918, March 16
  31. 1918, March 23
  32. 1918, April 20th
  33. 1918, May 11th
  34. 1918, September
  35. 1927
  36. 1929, April 10th
  37. 1929, April 20th
  38. 1929, April
  39. 1929, April
  40. 1929, June
  41. 1929, June 10th
  42. 1929, November
  43. Undated
  44. 1934
  45. 1935, January
  46. 1935, October 14th
  47. 1935, November
  48. 1936
  49. 1936, June 19th
  50. 1936, September
  51. 1936, November
  52. 1937, June
  53. 1937, July
  54. 1937, August
  55. 1939, January
  56. 1944
  57. Undated
  58. 1945, July
  59. 1947, June
  60. 1949, April
  61. 1949, April
  62. 1949, June
  63. 1951, August
  64. 1955, February
  65. 1966, July 5th
  66. 1966, June
  67. 1966, October
  68. 1967, April (John Mulholland in Pallbearers Review and Magic Circular)
  69. 1970, July
  70. 1976
  71. 1993
  72. 1993, November, 6th (Gene Matsuura's personal notes)
  73. 1994, January
  74. 1994, January (Bill Miesel in Precursor)
  75. 1994, April
  76. 1994, May 9th
  77. 1995 (John Booth in Fine Art of Hocus Pocus)
  78. 2007
  79. 2007, November 9th
  80. 2007, December
  81. 2008, January
  82. About the Author
  83. About the Publisher
1st edition 2007, 109 pages.
word count: 55341 which is equivalent to 221 standard pages of text


Reviewed by Gregg Webb (confirmed purchase)
★★★★★   Date Added: Wednesday 06 December, 2023

Dr. Wasshuber's book is a fascinating look at the great mystery of how a deck of cards in a houlette which is sometimes out in plain view and other times covered by a glass bell jar and at other times suspended by ribbons, can have called for cards rise from it. At other times the said cards rise above the houlette.

Along with the card rising tricks, there is a teddy-bear's head that nods and shakes the head in response to questions. Then it rises in the air as mysteriously as with the card rises.

Only a handful of people know how the effect was really done. It was not a public show. It was built into a house of Hooker, the scientist and magician, and done to fool magicians. When John Gaughn and Jim Steinmeyer recreated it by permission from the estate, they were sworn to secrecy. We are assured that 2 people were probably backstage assistants - hidden assistants. It is one piece of modern folklore that John Mulholland as a young lad was one of these assistants.

Dr. Wasshuber takes us through the earlier history of the trick. Some versions of rising cards would be actually better for the public showing of this effect, since the show would have to travel from stage to stage and the version built into Hooker's house was not portable. Then Dr. Wasshuber built various working models of the various attempts at recreating parts of the effect. His final conclusions are really that there were new technologies just emerging at the time that helped fool the magicians present in the audience. Another of his hypotheses is that multiple methods were used for the different versions of the basic effect of cards rising based on if a deck was supplied, or borrowed, and cards selected or called for.

One thing that is interesting is the seating arrangement that was strictly controlled so that only certain lines of sight were allowed. All we truly know are from careful notes taken during the earlier versions, and then during the recreation of the show. So, while only a few people really know, I was always interested in this trick, yet didn't even know what went on during the trick, which gave it such a legendary reputation.

Dr. Wasshuber is both a scientist and a magician, and his book is an intriguing look at this mystery, and I'm glad I read it. I'm sure that one of the methods explored is the correct one or close to it, and I learned a lot of earlier methods, and got to watch a puzzle of both a scientific and a magical mystery being dissected.


Reviewed by Anthony Couch (confirmed purchase)
★★★★★   Date Added: Sunday 11 August, 2019

I bought this book a long time ago as soon as it was released. I still love it and come back to it time to time. In fact this is one of those times. Looking for more information and came back to this 1 book to find some answers.

Reviewed by Grandpa Chet
★★★★★   Date Added: Monday 26 May, 2008

It's more than just "Let's find out how this works." If you're looking for an exposure book, this isn't it. What we have is a study into how a person creates, and perhaps we'll improve our own creative abilities along the way. And S. C. Hooker turns out to be a fascinating man! I hope Chris continues to receive and ferret out more data about this fellow, and that future updates of this book reflect that. And there WILL be future updates of this book. It reads, feels, and tastes like an ongoing project -- something that I'll tune in every few months.

Reviewed by Peter Emerald
★★★★★   Date Added: Tuesday 30 October, 2007

What a wonderful ebook about a most fascinating personality and a most inexplicable effect. Mr. Wasshuber has done an outstanding job bringing Samuel Cox Hooker to life, explaining his scientific background and achievements as well as his interest in magic and how and why he created his rising cards. Wasshuber's explanation of how the trick could be done makes a lot of sense and I would be surprised if not at least a number of aspects of his method are indeed the way Hooker achieves his miracles.

I love the fact that a host of unpublished as well as published source material is included in the ebook. This way I can read not just Mr. Wasshuber's well researched and thought out deductively argued theory but I can also check myself the source material and come to my own conclusions.

Highly recommended. I wish Mr. Wasshuber would write a few more ebooks like this one.

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This product is listed in the following categories:

Magic & Conjuring / Biographies & History

Magic & Conjuring / Cards / Rising & Levitating