Bob Cassidy

In 1981 Al Mann devised a billet tear he called the "Mag-Eye" move. He enthusiastically demonstrated it for Bob Cassidy and gave him a copy of the manuscript, Phanta Graphs in which he had first described it.

Some time later, after playing around with the move, Bob devised a substantially different approach and a handling that allowed secret access to a much larger area of the billet. Bob also gave Al some of his ideas regarding the proper type of paper that had to be used to insure that the move worked smoothly as well as a presentational gambit that justified the use of a pre-folded billet.

Al was...

". . . I have found most uses of billets that I've seen to be painful exercises in self-deception on the part of the performer, as to what the audience finds convincing or entertaining. But when I saw Bob Cassidy do his billet routine for an audience of more than a thousand, those silly bits of paper were reduced to virtual non-entities. By the time the routine reached its conclusion he was on stage, standing back-to-back with a spectator, engaged in what was apparently a full scale drawing duplication - with no billets or envelopes anywhere in sight or awareness." - Jamie Ian Swiss, Genii, The Conjurors' Magazine, January 2005

Here...

From the introduction:

As far as I'm concerned, sleight of hand (or any other artifice for that matter) has but one purpose - to convincingly establish a false premise, which I believe to be the cornerstone of all effective illusion and deception. The more convincingly that premise is established, the more amazing the resulting effect will appear to be.

The subtleties and psychological approaches of mentalism can, when augmented by sleight of hand, provide a directness and clarity of effect that is too often lacking in mental routines. The fact that sleights are avoided by many performers...

1. Telepathy in the Third Dimension
5. The Bullwhip Approach
10. Under the Table
13. Split
16. Thought Card in Pocket

1st edition 2002; 24 pages.

The Ultimate Key Bending Routine.

In the early 1970’s, at the "dawning of the Age of Aquarius," a young Israeli named Uri Geller attracted worldwide attention with his "psychic" abilities. While he demonstrated several paranormal skills, it was his "psychokinetic" ability to bend silverware, borrowed keys, and nails that set him apart from other "New Age" psychics. In the years that followed many mentalists and magicians added "metal bending" routines to their repertoires, and many sleights and gimmicks have been devised to facilitate the effect.

You may have noticed that most of the...

The title is apt. This ebook contains three completely inexplicable mental effects: "Quarterforce", "Boxed Thought", and "The Impossible Switch".

In Quarterforce a pack of cards is fanned out before a spectator. There are no duplicates or specially printed cards. The spectator simply thinks of one and the mentalist names it. That's it and it's that clean. Mentalism doesn't get any bolder or more powerful than this.

Boxed Thought is a completely routined demonstration of telepathy and clairvoyance and The Impossible Switch is just that - a billet move so clean and simple it is never detected. ...

Near the end of the 19th century - a time believed by many to be the birth of a "New Age"- presentations of mediumship and other so-called psychic phenomena had already become standard theatrical attractions. Samri Baldwin ("The Only Real and Original White Mahatma") had long since developed the one-ahead based question answering act, and the secret writing techniques of Henry Slade and other early mediums had become standard items in the repertoires of many conjurors. Some engaged in actual and pseudo exposures of mediums and psychics, while others, recognizing the power of such presentations,...

Features "The Elementulum", "Bottled", "Dunningered", and "The Cooperative Almanac" - four completely routined original performance pieces.

• The Elementulum is a pendulum routine that is visually stunning.

• Bottled is among the rarest of mental effects - it is performed on a billiard or pool table! A spectator shuffles a pack of cards and scatters them face down all over a pool table. Pool cues are stood upright in each of the six pockets on the table to prevent any balls from being sunk during the effect.

  The performer writes a prediction which is placed in full view. The balls are...

This is a PDF plus five Real Media video clips demonstrating the moves and handling. Bob works with black cards and black tickets, a nail writer, a fiendishly gimmicked dictionary, a voodoo doll, black clipboards and index cards.

He mixes and matches methods where he finds them most appropriately. A move here, a clever use of ordinary props there and a gimmicked item when the effect calls for it.

1st edition 2003; 20 pages.

Bob wrote: "Too many of the secrets of our art have become useless because of widespread exposure in the media. It is only via limited releases that I feel I can contribute to the art while not unwittingly prostituting it."

Since Lybrary purchased the copyrights to this ebook we will honor the limited edition to protect past and future customers.

Effect:

A spectator writes a word, a question, or draws a picture on a card-stock billet. (No impression device is used and the mentalist's back may be turned while the spectator writes her thought.) She drops the billet into an ordinary sugar...