Magic & Conjuring: page 378

Volume 1, No. 9: September 2022, 49 pgs.

The ninth issue of The Hermit Magazine features:

• EFFECTS
  • Close up Comfort in Harry's High Herb / Gareth
  • Bigger Deal / Scott Baird
  • Triumph's Return / Chiam Yu Sheng
  • Double Libido / Adam Socha
  • Which Hand is IT in? / Michael Boden
  • One Way, All The Way / Scott Baird
• ARTICLES
  • #hermitmagicchallenge
  • Consider the Vanishing Bandana / Greg Boggs
  • Examining the Vanishing Bandana / Scott Baird
  • Take your foot off the gas / Jay Sankey

X Deck is a cyclical stack. Given any card in the stack, you can almost instantly know the next card. It is based on a couple of simple algorithms. The stack looks quite random both value-wise as well as suit-wise. An equally easy variation X Deck 2 is also included. Easy to learn and simple to use, you should be able to get this down in a few minutes.

1st edition 2022, PDF 9 pages.

The performer shows the face of a 5-of-Diamonds playing card. A quick shake and the pips have changed their color from red to black. Another shake and it changes to the 5-of-Clubs.

Requires some arts and crafts to construct the gimmicked card.

1st edition 2022, video 37:11.

• About Discoveries
• From the President's Desk
• Featured Cover Photo
• Newsletter Name Contest
• Member Spotlight - Eric Gagne
• Welcome New Members
• A Retelling from the Past
• New Arrivals
• The Process of Collecting
• Solve the Mystery!
• Review - "Ionia: Magician Princess, Secrets Unlocked"
• Online Resources for Magic Collecting
• "Puzzling Props"
• 2022 Yankee Gathering Update
• Yankee Gathering Auction Changes
• Registration Raffle for YG 2022
• Upcoming Events
• Highs and Lows - Selected Auction Results
• Volunteer Request - Video Editing
• Classifieds

The editor is Patrick Lusch. The title has...

EFFECT: Any three people take ordinary watches the performer provides to a far corner of the room and set them to any hour and minute. They in turn each wrap their watch in a small opaque paper bag. These are placed anywhere and you can divine the exact hour and minute on each watch. No gimmicked watches or electronics are used. At the end, everything can be fully examined and nothing will be found amiss.

1st edition 2022, PDF 7 pages.

This is a wonderful account of a traveling showman's trials and tribulations in England and Scotland during the middle of the 19th century. Among other things, he was a conjurer. While this is not a book of tricks, one coin trick is explained as part of one story of his life. But much more interesting are the descriptions of various scams and the modus operandi of various ways to defraud the public by traveling hucksters the author encountered. The operation of the thimble rig is explained in detail. It is an account of how traveling showmen struggled essentially their entire life to make...

ABOUT RUB-A-DUB: The rhyme is of a type calling out otherwise respectable people for disrespectable actions, in this case, ogling naked ladies - the maids. The nonsense "Rub-a-dub-dub" develops a phonetic association of social disapprobation, analogous to "tsk-tsk," albeit of a more lascivious variety.

The Rub-a-Dub Move's inauspicious beginning began in 1909 at a time when, relatively speaking, magicians had a limited number of utilitarian sleights and techniques at their disposal. Besides, the Rub-a-Dub Move happened in the blink of an eye and was only an offbeat way to make a card disappear. ...

The number 9 is, for magicians and illusionists, a truly magical number: there are countless effects based on its multiple properties. In this e-book, I have collected some effects, more or less significant, with the aim of analyzing the various principles in general terms, in order to fully understand them and be able to apply them independently in new routines.

THOUSAND AND NO MORE THOUSAND: perhaps one of the best known "numeric" impromptu effects which, however, always obtains great success: we use it precisely to introduce comments on the magical properties of number 9.

THE UNIVERSE...

More than the fourteen major Marlo items Ed contributed to New Tops Magazine between 1984-1985 - not to mention new sleights, finesses, and subtleties - these items have been largely unavailable since their publication, almost 40 years ago. Wesley James has added these final two years of material, completing the full run of Marlo's New Tops articles, fulfilling Ed's expressed wishes, keeping his material available "for the guys."

As with Wesley's previous releases, M.I.N.T. III - M.I.N.T. V, these long-unavailable Marlo articles could have been all Wesley compiled. Such a volume would have been an important...

Thought Shadows is a dramatic and visual piece of mentalism. It uses a novel presentational concept that even our thoughts can have shadows and based on those shadows a skilled mind reader can read the thoughts behind the shadows.

Everything happens in the mind of the participant and on the mobile phone of the participant. Nothing is ever spoken or written down. The participant just needs to have a phone with Google search on it. No special apps are needed on the phone. And the one piece of paper which is required to complete the routine is carried by the performer in his wallet or pocket....

Performer shows the red back of a playing card. One can see a heart and an arrow is drawn on the back. Suddenly the arrow slowly flies towards the heart until it penetrates it. In the final climax the color of the red card changes to blue. Making the gimmicked card requires arts and crafts.

Special thanks to Patricio Teran for helping to release this effect.

1st edition 2022, video 36:59.

This catalog shows in the very back a photo of the Magic Inc. shop on the north side of Chicago. Jay Marshall also sold used magic books and magazines.

1st edition 1973; PDF 71 pages.

This catalog is great because not only does it list various books in different categories, it also features informative articles. The articles you will find are:

• Building a Collection / Leo Behnke
• Are Magic Books Worthwhile? / John Mulholland
• Books about Books / Robert Lund
• The Calculated Risk / Dr. Edwin A. Dawes
• Magical Bookie / S. R. Patrick
• The Magician and Comedy / Robert Orben
• Quest for Magic Books / George Jenness
• Buy Lines / J. B. Findlay

1st edition 1968; PDF 147 pages.

Six Sharpies are placed under 6 numbered, identical paper cups. While the performer turns away, a spectator removes a Sharpie from any cup and writes down the number of the cup they selected. They place the paper in their pocket and replace the Sharpie back under the cup. The magician can instantly reveal which number cup they took the Sharpie from. 100% self-working. Nothing is marked. A simple gimmick you may already have does the trick.

Also included is The Pencil Case Mystery which is a brilliant variation on the above routine. 6 pencil cases each contain a different colored Sharpie....

Turn a cap into a magic prop and have cards appear and change. For example, you can use it for a kind of 'card stabbing' routine where you spring the cards and catch one card in your cap. Or have one card visually change into another. To make the gimmicks requires some arts and crafts, but nothing too complicated and no supplies you wouldn't likely already have.

The separate effects are:

• Flick
• Stabbed
• I-tap
• Spinner

Not all gimmicks can be incorporated into the same cap and thus not all effects shown could be done with just one cap.

Deepak also explains a lovely linking effect...

If you liked Bookworm: The Ultimate Impromptu Book Test Act, then you will love The Bookworm Deck. An entire "Word Test Act" combined into a single deck that you will always carry with you.

Not only can you now perform the "Bookworm Act" without having to borrow three books, you can perform the act in absolutely any venue, including walk-around, table hopping, and even stage situations. The entire act is kept in your pocket. The Bookworm Deck also makes the act much easier to perform.

Here is the act:

The performer borrows three business cards and a pen (obviously, he can use his own if the items cannot be borrowed). The performer...

Own a piece of magic history!

In July 2005, Jay Fortune and radio presenter Layman Steve hit the airwaves live from London with Radio Magic; a lively hour-long radio show dedicated to magic and...

Manosutra in Sanskrit means 'Mind Principle'. This is a stunning piece that you can include in any of your performance sets. Using just a few blank business cards, you can impossibly read the minds of your participants. The reactions will please your heart and boost your ego. Everything happens in the mind of the participant and yet the performer is able to divine the thought of the participant in the most direct manner.

There is a one-time preparation of a few double blank business cards which will take all of 3 minutes and you are then set for many performances - until these cards wear...

I saw the first spelling effects a long time ago, studying Aldo Colombini's DVDs; they were in English and I gave up almost immediately, due to the great difference in seed letters and numbers: from diamonds to diamonds there was an ocean. I saw, I appreciated them ... and then I gave up. Some time later, trying and trying again, a light bulb came on: I thought I had invented my spelling in Italian; beautiful exceptional. Later I discovered that I had not really invented anything, there were dozens and hundreds of similar and ... almost the same. Then, continuing to study the great masters, I began to collect...

A magician holds a card and then changes it to a poker chip, paper money, a coin, or any small flat object. The method is based on a black-art principle and thus best suited for a stage or video performance where lighting and angles can be controlled well. Making the gimmick involves arts and crafts.

1st edition 2022, video 23:04.

Excerpt from the introduction:

• Symbol synchronicity
• The Rhine reaction
• Zenner mate
• ESP topper
• ESP round-up
• Down-under divination ...

Containing Napoleon's Oraculum, and the key to work it. Also tells fortunes by cards, lucky and unlucky days, signs and omens.

• How To Tell Fortunes By Cards
  • Signification Of The Cards
  • Signification Of Different Cards Of The Same Denomination
  • Dealing The Cards By Threes
  • Dealing The Cards By Sevens
  • Dealing The Cards By Fifteens
  • The Italian Method
  • Present, Past, And Future
  • The Star Method Of Consulting The Cards
  • To Know If You Will Get Your Wish
  • The English Method Of Consulting The Cards
  • To Tell Whether You Will Get Your Wish
• Good And Bad Omens
  • Concluding Remarks
• Weather...

"This is on a whole different level than any of his previous work". - Ori Asher

Sui Generis is a breakthrough system for guessing any word entirely propless. It allows for what is essentially a mental billet peek, without the need for anything to be written down by your spectator. Fraser has searched for this work all of his life and is something he considers his best work to date and a crowning achievement in the mystery arts.

There is very little process, everything is justified presentationally, and the method is practically self-working and will become second nature to perform...

Water and oil is an effect that has always fascinated me, but the principle is so simple that I think it is impossible to invent something more effective; moreover, the effect requires a secret manipulation that is impossible to replicate, if everything is expected to be done in the hands of the spectator, "on the other end of the line" (of the telephone).

I, therefore, followed a different path: to try to replicate, in the spectator, the amazement of finding the separated cards, when they were arranged alternately by his hands, in front of his eyes.

Also in this publication I propose,...