Magic & Conjuring: page 327

Award-winning columnist Michael Breggar is back with his signature quirky, yet amazing and professional almost-self-working effects. This time, it's all cards. As always, it's not just the tricks you learn, but the subtleties, tips and nuances to make your magic easy, astonishing and engaging.

"Michael provides recognizable forms for the simplicity and cleverness of the methods to secretly nourish the engaging and amusing themes he has chosen to anecdotally share - not as tricks per se but as congenial curiosities...which is a difference that truly makes a difference!" - Jon Racherbaumer

"Michael Breggar's...

A self-working and examinable ACAAN effect with two decks.

EFFECT: The magician thoroughly shuffles a deck of cards. Then, the spectator cuts the deck to split it into two piles. Only now is he asked to create a random number in his mind. After a very quick and simple procedure, he writes his number down on a Post-it note - let's say, "13". He sticks it onto the card he cut to - let's say, the King of Diamonds. From a second deck - on the table from the start - he deals the cards one by one. Amazingly, the 13th card is the King of Diamonds!

Self-working. No gimmick. No extra card. Both...

ReDD is a remote drawing duplication effect which can be performed over a voice phone call, video call, virtual show and also, of course, in face to face performing situations. ReDD also qualifies as a propless effect as there are no props used and both the performer and the participant are only 'interacting' with each other, either over a call or face to face. A piece of paper which may be used to jot down a choice is just incidental and is not necessary.

The mind reader poses several fun questions to a participant and also describes several activities. The participant mentally and silently...

The magician shows two cards: a regular picture card and a blank face one. The magician stacks the cards on top of each other and the card with the picture visually turns white. After the effect, both cards can be examined by the spectator. Includes a bonus idea by Zaw Shinn. Gimmick requires arts and crafts and some supplies you may not have at home.

1st edition 2020, video 15 min.

• Microphones
• Market to Market
• Pandemic Plus
• Blink of the Eye
• VCR Tapes
• Recycle Old Magic
• Magic goes Vaudeville
• Clean you Cannot See

1st edition 2020, 10 pages.

A collection of new and novel gaffed decks, which you can easily all make at home, and strong effects that go along with them. Requires little to no sleight-of-hand.

From the introduction:

Connoisseurs' Coins Through ... a definitive routine, one of the finest ever for the coins through table. The work of Vernon, Slydini and a host of others combined to give the easiest handling with the maximum effect. In this routine several coins pass repeatedly through the table. You begin with six coins. Three of the coins pass through the table top two times. Then you eliminate two coins and repeat the penetration through the table with four coins. Again, you eliminate two coins and repeat the trick with two coins. At the end you eliminate another coin and repeat the penetration a last...

Here are more inside secrets of the fake mediums, in this tell-all ebook for psychic entertainers, ghost hunters and anyone who's curious to learn the scams of the fraudulent spirit worker. Picking up where Proskauer's Spook Crooks! leaves off, here are 200-plus more pages ripped from the case files of Harry Houdini and the author, from their tireless search for the truth about séance mediums.

You'll learn about the investigation of so-called haunted houses, the secret of an ingenious perpetual motion machine, the spirit post office scam, and how to trap and expose spirit mediums. The mail-order psychic business...

Vol. 16, No. 4, September 2020; 60 pages
Cover: Nathan Kranzo

4. The Team
4. Editor's comments
4. What's Inside This Issue
6. It's The Kranzilla! - Nathan Kranzo - cover article/interview by Graham Hey
14. Zoom Lectures Take Off - Mark Leveridge
18. A Little Bit of Business - Part Three - Ian Brennan, AIMC
22. Steve Spade - interview/article by David Peace
26. In The News - Katherine Mills Gets an (Un)Linked Wedding Ring!
26. In The News - Mr Popular Derren Brown Became a Magician to 'Show Off and Impress People'
28. Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow - How to end a close up performance effectively - Mark Leveridge
30. Reader's...

In this special digital edition this early book on conjuring is formatted such that each double page shows on the left hand page a scan of the original, and on the right hand page a transcription to regular text. This makes this ebook not only fully searchable, but also much easier to read, because the font of the original requires some getting used to. It is therefore best viewed with two pages side by side. (In AdobeReader you select it with View Page Display Two Page View.)

A good number of the effects described are taken from Reginald Scot's famous The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584). Exceptions to this rule are the use of gaffed...

"I do enjoy reading good writing and I enjoy reading your books. You sure are one heck of a funny guy! Started chuckling almost immediately and really laughed out loud at '...confused with a hat-rack'! Well done!" - Harry Lorayne

"Not all magic books are fun to read, but this is one that's fun to read and is as much fun to play with the pieces and create some antic fun for the audience." - Jon Racherbaumer

This is similar to Framing the Queen except you do it with a one dollar bill.

A dollar bill is shown from both sides. Performer tears out two small rectangles from the inside of the bill. One of these rectangular tear-outs has its center removed to create a little frame, which is freely shown. Magician folds this little frame over the center beam of the larger bill frame and eventually the little frame clearly hangs from the center beam of the larger frame. How did it get on there?

Note that it is not easy to prepare the gimmick. It is much easier to do this with a playing card. With a bill it will require...

A corner from a card is seen in a transparent plastic bag. Blow on it ... and the corner will disappear. The disappearance of the corner is very fast and visual. The trick works automatically, all you have to do is to blow on the bag and the corner will disappear. After the trick, the bag can be given to the spectator.

[Note that the video only explains the vanish of the corner from the transparent bag. If you want to show a card tear off a corner put it in the bag and then vanish it, you will have to figure out how to secretly introduce the gimmicked bag with a prepared corner already inside.]

• No black art
• No thread
• No Magnets

1st edition 2020, length 5 min 13 s....

A practical and commercial routine without difficult sleights.

From the Introduction:

Six poker chips, bearing the numbers 0 to ten are examined and mixed by a spectator. The spectator lays them on a table with no interference from the mentalist. While the performer's back is turned, the spectator turns over some chips. Three more are turned over and covered with a playing card, business card, or beer coaster. The performer turns around and, with no false moves or skulduggery, announces the total of the chips beneath the cards. It's that clean. And, surprisingly, it can be instantly repeated, with a different result.

Just the thing for parties, get-togethers, and bars, while...

A three phased routine that allows you to share the experience of what it feels to be a mentalist.

PHASE I – UNCONSCIOUS COGNITION
5 Cards with ESP symbols are laid face down in a row towards the participant. The performer introduces another set of 5, lays them face up in a row towards himself. With a little thought the performer points to a card from his row and the participant to point a card from their row and it matches.

PHASE II – THOUGHT IDENTIFICATION
The performer draws one of the symbols on a card and the spectator correctly guesses which one has been drawn.

PHASE III...

This is not so much an effect in itself, but a concept and a simple, logical piece of script that enables you to perform seemingly fair-looking and direct prediction routines, with variables that are apparently freely provided by audience members. This was originally conceived for live performances; however it is discussed in this write-up as adapted for Nique Tan's virtual show, "Nique Tan: Online".

The Effect:

At the end of the show, the performer calls attention to 12 attendees. He tells everyone that before the show, he gave each of them a special assignment via private messages,...

You and the participant are on both ends of a voice call. Using an imaginary deck of playing cards, the participant 'churns her thoughts' multiple times and finally sends across a few cards from her mind to your mind. You 'receive' those cards perfectly and reveal them to her in a stunning manner. This, in essence, is the effect.

You can perform this over a video call or virtual show apart from face to face performances. And this works in any language. Two versions of the routine are explained.

PSYCHIC VERSION which is totally propless (except for a piece of paper used by the participant...

This is a routine that can be presented as an impossible gambling skill or as a true telepathy demonstration with playing cards.

The routine is semi-automatic and borders on self-working. It seems exceptionally fair to the spectator. If you can riffle shuffle a deck of cards you can perform this piece of astonishment.

A brief description of the effect is that the spectator takes a deck of playing cards that he has mixed and deals them one by one as the performer has his back turned. The spectator stops dealing every time he sees a picture card and is asked to send the playing cards identity...

Exhale is a utility technique / force that enables the performer to force a card on a spectator as the spectator shuffles and cuts the deck. It is a combination of ideas and techniques from the literature that have been streamlined and added to. Included are several routines I have used the technique with. The exhale technique is essentially self-working and seems impossible to the spectator as the spectator does all the work.

1st edition 2020, PDF 21 pages.

Show an empty TicTac box and a coin. Visually toss the coin in to the box and the coin will melt through it. Upon learning the secret, you will immediately want to rush out and perform it.

1st edition 2020, length 6 min 50 s.

Magic with credit cards.

Credit cards are easier to handle than playing cards because they're smaller and they're also a lot more valuable. In short, a borrowed credit card is an ideal thing with which to conjure. This ebook will give you a few ideas to include in your program.

• Foreword
• Gimmicks
• Crossed Credits
• Credit Card In Wallet
• Credit By Chance
• Card To Cash
• Credit Shower
• Through Credit
• Unlocked Credit

This superb script allows a mentalist or psychic entertainer to apparently reveal any spectator's life, from the cradle to the grave. Is it mind reading? ESP? Vulcan Mind Meld? No, it's Larsen and McCarron's Life Span Reading, the psychic worker's "secret sauce" that, judiciously used, will convince most anyone that you have real psychic ability.

Not a trick, but a psychological profile that fits nearly anyone who walks in the door. Life readings such as this have been jealously guarded by office mediums, who use the spiel to convince the client of the psychic's innate ability. Yet, no special...

From Ian Baxter, here is a remarkable 21st Century version of Bill Simon's famed Business Card Prophecy - virtually sleight-free and within reach of any card handler.

"A modern-day approach based on casual handling and natural misdirection, achieving the same outcome while eliminating the move entirely. Very clever thinking." - David Jones

1st edition 2020, PDF 4 pages.