Books (printed) in Magic & Conjuring

A mix of cards, mentalism, and quite unusual manipulation with glasses and thimbles.

1st edition 1937, reprinted 1963; 65 pages.

• CARD AND MENTAL MAGIC
  9. The Heal Coincidence Trick
  9. Telephone Telepathy
  11. Telephone Telepathy Again
  11. Alias Divination
  14. Magazine Miracle
  15. Strange Interlude
  18. A Slate Writing Method
  20. Slate Psychics
  22. The Ultimate One Man Sealed Message Heading System
  26. Predetermination
  32. And a Routine
  33. An Improved Four Ace Routine
  35. Selective Card in Pocket
  36. Si Stebbins Up the Sleeve
  37. The Perfect Card Routine
• MOSTLY MANIPULATIVE — With Glasses
  42. Glass of Liquid from Card Fan
  43. Some...

Effect: Mentalist displays a board with many designs and colors. Three persons are invited to secretly choose one design each. Mentalist passes out three pieces of art board and tells the three persons to secretly draw their chosen designs on the boards. They are then instructed to think of their designs and color. Mentalist divines all three designs and colors. That is the effect and that is exactly what happens. Mentalist can walk into any audience and do the test without any previous preparation.

Uncannily, the three persons code their thoughts to the mentalist through insignificant "body...

The purpose of the switch is to secretly exchange two packets of four cards. For example, to show four aces and then turn them face down and deal them onto the table for an assembly effect. The cards dealt onto the table, of course, are not the aces after the switch has been done.

• Introduction
• The Basic Switch
• Four for Five
• Just a Touch More
• Throwing a Pass
• In the Middle
• Changing Five
• Changing Five the Easy Way
• Triple Throw
• Just One More
• In Conclusion

Coloring books are one of the easiest tricks on the market to master. Due to this fact, you can concentrate on the presentation. You can do a six to seven minute routine with this wonderful item. This is a routine that can be chopped down to whatever time frame you need, simply by eliminating portions of it. The routine has mime, participation, animation and imagination, all the elements it takes to perform for children as young as three or as much as ten years old. The more energy you add to the presentation the better it will be received.

Don't do the old lame presentation everybody else...

This is a treatise on the sucker effects of the Three Card Monte. It starts with an intro by Nate Leipzig, includes a definition of gambling terms and goes on to explain moves, routines and schemes to work the Three Card Monte. John Scarne was a master in performing and demonstrating this sucker effect. Learn everything about it in this digital reproduction, either to be aware of the various ways this can be played and thus be protected, or to learn to perform it for entertainment purposes.

From the preface by Nate Leipzig:

A clever way to read billets, invented by Al Mann.

Note that this manuscript comes unbound in a package of loose sheets, the way Al Mann stored them. You can bind them anyway you like, or leave them unbound, perhaps only hole punch them and put them in a binder.

11 pages

The Tools of Omar is a collection of nail-writing effects. It collects the AME manuscripts, The Naked Thought, The Gilded Quill, The OSS Writer, Challenges, The Invisible Book. Plus history and types of writers. Plus The Ghost Writer and other new effects.

Only about 40 copies were sold in total. So this is an extremely rare book, a true collector item as well as a treasure chest of effects and secrets.

[Note that page 97 is blank. At least it is blank in all copies I have seen.]

104 pages

Card feats for the mentalist. This book has 14 effects that Al Mann judged sufficiently amazing enough, and plotted well enugh, as to be suitable for the mentalist to perform. Also incuded is a chapter of Olof Jonsson’s card mentalism stunts, 9 total, with full methedology. Jonsson was the Uri Geller of his day, so these additional 9 effects are also excellent fodder for the Mentalism show. The Contents:

• The Pros and Cons
• Do’s and Dont's
• The Flight of the Psycards. - Signed cards to wallet – Without touching the deck.
• Domination of Thought
• Caster and Pollux
• The Devastators
• The...

• Pyro-Sorcery - Eight methods for causing a borrowed newspaper to burst into flame!
• Arrested Oxidation - Commanding a piece of paper held in a flame not to burn!
• The Shattering Chalice -Smashing glass by thought! Devil's Tears; The Devil's Flask; The Iron Duchess; The Ghost Bullet; The Pulverised Window Pane; The Glass Key (by Ted Lesley)
• The Falling Block
• Cosmic Motion - Several brilliant new effects utilizing the Pendulum Principle, including movement at a distance!
• Bonus Section - The Cobra, 8 pages of how to do the snake charming act - for real! Plus, a very cool levitating doll trick ...

The book deals exclusively with living and dead tests. It gives a detailed history of the effect and how David Abbott was fooled by mediums doing this. Learn inner secrets from the mediums on how to reveal the names of dead relatives. Simply ingenious methods that will startle you with their cleverness. Mann goes into much detail on these tests and ways to learn the names of dead relatives. Some of these methods were later revamped by Mann and released as other effects but using the basic methods. Mann also teaches you a creepy effect, called Empty Graves, where a person writes the name of a...

This is the best and most exhaustive work on billets. It is a treatise on the history, methodology and technique on the use of torn billets in the mentalist’s art of thought reading. It starts with an in depth study of the history and evolution of the Center Tear and goes on to detail more work on billets than you could use in a lifetime. The Thirteen Chapters are:

• Initium
• Blue Ribbon Effects
• Facts
• Prophesy
• Qanda Central
• The Covert Tear
• Tear And Read Methods
• The Young Lions
• Pyramid Power
• Sans Tear Methods
• Pre-Torn Missives
• Sealed Messages
• The Day Of The Sit-Tores ...

As Al Mann himself states in the opening line of the introduction, "This manuscript contains 'the perfect billet test!'". A simple paper fold plus a simple move places into the hands of the mentalist a new weapon, an Ultra Exclusive Secret-giving the art of thought-reading a new polish and technique never before possible! Of course as always Al Mann was not satisfied to just give you the one effect. The Nihon Venture contains equally brilliant varations and re-workings. Included is:

• Tear Retaxo
• The Ying And The Yang
• Memory Giant
• Immolated Moola
• The Telephone Scenario

From the introduction by Andy Nyman:

From the foreword by Basil Horwitz:

This ebook includes 20 amazing mentalism effects many of which are in the daily performing repertoires of many top mentalists.

All too often those in the world of magic who develop great reputations fall somewhere between two stools; gifted thinkers who tend to disappoint in performance, or charismatic performers who are a triumph of form over substance: impressive, but not always original. Rarely do you come across someone who embodies the elements of true creative artistry, combining together the application of sound thinking with an understated style of presentation which can totally convince...

The (e)book was created from the recordings on Basil Horwitz made by Martin Breese. The book received rave reviews from every magical magazine around the world and is now for the first time available as ebook.

The opening chapter by Basil Horwitz details a method of linking a show with charity and using it to make a big income for the charity and a big income for the performer. During Basil's lifetime he was also involved in investment and finance. He used to perform for charity and demonstrated mental miracles that stunned his audience. When each member of the audience left the show Basil ended up with the name, address...

This is probably the finest book test using special books that has ever been released.

This is a remarkable set of three books which allow you to do four different book tests:

• The Master Key by Terri Rogers
• True Test first created by U. F. Grant
• Al Koran's book test
• Val Andrews sentence test

The Master Key book test runs like this: A spectator has a completely free choice of any of the three different books. Then they can also...

The only biography of the master magician and spy instructor John Mulholland including his work for the CIA.

"John Mulholland is surely one of the most fascinating personalities in magic history. For his work to advance conjuring as a recognized art, he deserves tremendous respect, and no serious student of magic will want to skip this book." - Michael Claxton, Magic Magazine, Feb 2009.

"I can even imagine him up in heaven huddling with Christopher, Houdini, Blackstone and Thurston as they discuss your biography. Their applause is loud enough to be heard on planet Earth." - Maurine Brooks Christopher

"I am an avid reader of books, all...

Now available as a PDF ready for immediate download.

"Peter Duffie's The Magic Of Fred Robinson is a wonderful book containing a gold-mine of ideas, subtleties and secrets from one of magic's finest exponents and thinkers. ... The Magic Of Fred Robinson is an excellent book full of wonderful ideas, useful sleights, and powerful effects. More than that, it's a great read and takes me back to the feeling I had when I first read Vernon's Inner Secrets books." - R. Paul Wilson from his 2009 review in Genii.

"I state without fear of exaggerating that Fred was one of the all-time greats; especially with cards." - Dai Vernon

"Card magic and techniques...

Please keep in mind that you only get the instructions, not the Reader's Digest Enrich Your Word List booklet, not the ungimmicked Webster's New World Dictionary and no prompter cards. However, the instructions will allow you to adapt this effect to any dictionary in any language.

This 1976 Al Mann Exclusive is widely regarded as one of his most ingenious book tests. From an "Enrich your vocabulary" list inside the covers of a dictionary, two spectators secretly agree to think of one of 400 word pairs. Each thinks of one of the words, looking it up in the dictionary to be certain of its meaning....

From the Forward by Al Mann: In January of 1979, Bobby Hughes of Columbus Ohio, showed me his amazing presentation which we have called, "The Kolophon." It seems that just a year ago, Bobby was busy buying many props and gimmicks to use in his mental show. Today all of the props and most of the gimmicks have been eliminated and Bobby now works out of his pocket or with borrowed scraps of paper. That is the type of mentalism preferred and what is offered in this book. Therefore AME Salutes Bobby Hughes for his unique effect with envelopes. The Kolophon is a threshold that reveals a hugh landscape...

Al Mann himself says about this manuscript: "The knight's gambit is a method that plays on words and by which miracles are wrought! This is mental magic in its purest form". The mentalist uses words to enchant the audience and to create a non-existing person that assists the mentalist to present his marvels! Effects include:

• The Knight's Gambit (mentalism using chess pieces)
• A Word In Orbit (a brilliant book test)
• The Five Star Gambit (The mentalist uses the spirit of Mr. Faust to assist him in a unique psychic test)
• Gifts Most Rare
• A Special Bonus - Phantini's Fabulous Billet Work! ...

In this book about all of Dr. John Nicholls Booth's (1912 - 2009) books the reader is treated to find information on many topics of interest written between 1929 and 2009 - 80 years! Ben Robinson and Dr. Booth worked on four books together from 1985 to 2009. Robinson indexed the first twenty-five years of Booth's celebrated Memoirs (the index published in 1990). The John Booth Reader gives a wonderful insight into Booth's multifaceted life of Unitarianism, preaching, stage and close-up magic, mountaineering, adventuring, filmmaking and travel to one hundred and forty six countries. The personalities...

Annemann teaches thirteen commercial mentalism pieces with slates, cards, dollar bills, telephone books and cigarettes. The majority of routines involves cards. Annemann's unique direct style is felt in each one of these effects.

Paul Fleming wrote:

Some have argued that George Kaplan's Fine Art of Magic is the best magic book ever published. Juan Tamariz, who wrote a foreword to this second edition, says: "Hardly a performance where I do not include an effect from this book. It's the only book that contains only good and excellent tricks."

This magic treatise has stood the test of time. It has become a standard magic reference work. The First Edition is one of the most sought after magic books and is now available in its Second Edition, which incorporates additions and corrections from Kaplan's own notes, as well as adds more than 25% new and...

A volunteer consults The Delphian Oracle, and secretly writes a question of his or her choice. The psychic, who stands across the room from the person, answers the question.

8 pages

"This is going to fry a lot of people..." - Richard Kaufman

"...the Crossroads Deck; a devious conception and one of the most interesting to hit the magic scene in recent times..." - Peter Duffie (from the foreword)

"The Crossroads technique alone, which we really like, will be seen as food for thought by many. As mentalists, our variation would be to use no deck at all. Just a single, thought-of card in the pocket. The solution will dawn on you after reading the text..." - Richard Busch & Larry Becker

A SPECIFICALLY SELECTED CARD VANISHES FROM A SEALED DECK YOU'VE NEVER TOUCHED! And then... RE-APPEARS WHEREVER YOU...

"This is the best compilation of Color Changes to date. I know this because I've been collecting color changes for the last ten years myself. I applaud his research and thoroughness. It is well organized and coherent." - Jon Racherbaumer

"Crispin Sartwell has produced a well-written treatment of color changes that is the first of its kind. An important contribution to the art of magic and a must-have resource for every card handler." - Jerry Cestkowski (The Flourishman)

"As a professional magician for 36 years, I have been constantly told that my simply done but highly effective color change done at the outset of the one stage card...

The hunt to find the true identity of S. W. Erdnase, the author of The Expert at the Card Table, published in 1902 in Chicago, has been raging for more than a century. The book is as revered by gamblers and magicians as the Bible is by Christians.

One of the first and most active Erdnase hunters was well-known science writer, puzzle expert, and magician Martin Gardner, who erroneously thought he identified cardsharp and murderer Milton Franklin Andrews as being Erdnase. After Andrews, many other candidates were proposed, but none had a case strong enough to withstand scrutiny. None wrote like Erdnase, nor had sufficient opportunity, nor even...

This is the most beautiful magic book ever published! I know, this is a pretty strong claim, but read on and judge for yourself.

"I've just had a chance to spend a couple of hours with this book. Wow, Chris. This is an amazing book. Not only does it look incredible, it is of immense historic value." - Ben Harris

"A terrific work, a must have for anybody who thinks of him- or herself as a magician." - Max M.

Before I tell you why I am convinced this is the most beautiful magic book ever published, allow me to give you a bit of history on how this book came to be.

In 1954 Claude Klingsor...

Eighty-five tricks and routines from the pages of Spell-Binder Magazine. Everything from card and coin magic to the bizarre and the weird.

Effects explained are:

• Sandwich Box by Stephen Tucker -- Signed selected card appears between 2 previously selected cards within closed card case.
• Mark by Stephen Tucker -- Alternate version of previous effect.
• Demonology by Bob Ostin -- Spectator signs card. Flames cause occult symbol to change to slip of paper with name of signed card. Signed card then revealed to have singed corner & occult symbol on back.
• Esti-Mate-Ion by Joe Dignam -- Spectator looks through deck...

Effects with the Himber of flip-over wallet.

• The Wallets
• Technique
• The Secret Thrust
• A History
• Richard Himber's Billfooled
• Page One
• The Coins From The Pocket
• Life From Space
• The Name In The Vault
• One Message
• Unknown Forces
• Homer
• The Noesis Of Nyx
• One Hundred Clams
• Instant Mindreading
• The Mounds Of Ashtoreth
• The Royal Album

26 pages

For years Ron and Nancy have fooled audiences worldwide with their Minds in Harmony act. Here, for the first time, they reveal all of their treasured secrets - secrets that will enable the reader to recreate this act in its entirety. In his foreword to this book Edwin Dawes says:

Peter Duffie is one of the world's most creative cardmen and Subtle Miracles gathers together some of his most inventive work. Many of these effects were marketed as exclusive manuscripts (Solo, Duet, Trio, Quartet, Double Indemnity) and are now brought together for the first time, together with a selection of brand new routines using equally clever methods. David Britland contributed a routine called 'Red Alert' as well as added notes commenting on Peter's routines. An appendix teaches a couple of important sleights.

• Introduction
• Solo
  • Wildlife
  • Hamman Count Variation
• Duet
  • Point Blank Assembly
  • Impulse: Two cards transpose under...

An incredible effect based on a topological principle. Two cards are shown glued back to back. The spectator may examine them as there is nothing to find.

The performer takes the cards, gives them a few deft folds and then hands them back to the spectator ... but now the cards are face to face. It looks impossible because the cards are still glued together. What's more, they are the same cards that the spectator handled earlier. There is no switch of any kind.

You won't believe it yourself the first time you perform it.

[Note: Originally this booklet was supplied with a Jumbo cards already prepared and glued together. This ebook comes without a set of glued cards. However, the ebook has clear explanation of the construction. You can prepare a set from regular cards with a knife and tape in a few minutes.

1st edition 1985, 1st digital edition 2013, 11 pages.

[Below is a demonstration where the two cards are oriented in the same direction and not 90 degree rotated like Terri has originally designed it. The advantage of a 90 degree offset is that the card that is folded can at one time be seen partly from the front and partly from the back which is a very magical moment. This moment is missing from this version.]

...

This is volume 3 of the reprint of Spell-Binder Magazine. It is a half-letter size softcover with a color cover and black and white print throughout. Volume three includes issues 25-36.

Spell-Binder Magazine was a fascinating publication edited by Stephen Tucker which focused on close-up magic featuring an eclectic list of contributors.

Spell-Binder started in 1981. Reprint in 2004 by Martin Breese.

This is volume 1 of the reprint of Spell-Binder Magazine. Each volume is a half-letter size softcover with a color cover and black and white print throughout. Volume one includes issues 1-12. Spell-Binder Magazine was a fascinating publication edited by Stephen Tucker which focused on close-up magic featuring an eclectic list of contributors.

Spell-Binder started in 1981. Reprint in 2004 by Martin Breese.

You will find 143 magnificent and entertaining uses of silks and handkerchiefs. Sleights, tricks, and the famous Stillwell Silk Act are explained in detail with 90 illustrations. Jean Hugard details vanishing methods, production techniques, color changes, knots, and flourishes. He also describes how to care for your silks to keep them in great shape for a long time.

Paul Fleming wrote: