Silks & Flags in Magic & Mentalism

Four methods of this classic illusion, suitable for close-up, parlour or stage. Both DIY and sleight of hand to suit your needs and desires. Can be done surrounded. No threads, magnets, or hookups. Simple construction. Add the effect of giving life to an inanimate object to your performances for a real crowd-pleaser. Highly recommended for children.

Cover art: House of Horrors, Coney Island, 1961, Diane Arbus

1st edition 2025, video 1:18.

The traditional 20th Century Silks effect becomes a fish story for the ages when an adventure-seeking flounder breaks away from his friends and gets caught by a fisherman. A happy ending is in store when the wayward rainbow trout disappears right under the fisherman's nose and magically reappears tied between his friends. A heartwarming tale with a life lesson makes for crowd-pleasing entertainment.

Daryl Hurst's Hometown Magic routines are laser-focused on practical entertainment that can be performed in a variety of formal and informal venues without significant restrictions, giving professional...

If you have been thinking about including a rope or handkerchief effect in your routine, this is the one. Here is why: This classic magic trick is popular for several reasons. It's easy for spectators to understand, easy to perform, and captivating. The effect works well in noisy or dimly lit environments. If you're only doing the first two phases, the reset is instant. Involving the spectator in tying the knots adds an interactive element. It's an excellent choice for table-hopping, and the handkerchiefs take up little pocket space.

The new approach focuses on the relationship between...

Dennis Barlotta teaches the famous Slydini Knotted Silks routine. You will learn in minute detail the false knots used, which are of course key to the routine. You will learn the right silks and fabric to use. And you will learn a story that Tony Slydini told Dennis about one time when the routine failed and what he changed to avoid this problem.

1st edition 2023, video 37:18

You will learn a new way of handling a silk vanish. This is accomplished with a thumb tip or dye tube. A real crowd-pleaser. Very angle-proof chock full of misdirection, and deceptive handling. Not the typical silk vanish. I have been performing this version for 25 years because ... it is different. This silk vanish throws everyone off of the scent of the thumb tip.

Edition 2.5 2023; video 14:13

The dye tube reimagined. The silk color change is no longer stale and boring.

The Dye Tube is Devious: "What? The old Dye Tube? Devious? Most magicians will say no the dye tube is not even remotely devious. It is stale, boring, and blaaa."

I say yes, the dye tube is incredibly devious when handled differently than the traditional handling of the last 100 years. Let's make your dye tube a valued part of your EDC Every Day Carry again.

Devious is defined as insidious, deceitful, not straightforward; shifty or crooked. Imagine professional magicians using these terms to describe your...

A useful little handbook full of ways to produce a silk - fifty of them in all. Easy ways to obtain a silk magically. Methods that can be blended into the silk effect you desire to do.

1st edition 1943, 8 pages; PDF 5 pages.

Excerpt from the Introduction:

• Introduction
• The Half and Half Colour Change Record
• Card on Rope
• Fifth Dimension Thimbles
• Bare handed Garland of Spring Flower Production ...

A 'walk-around' style three-phase magic routine using a handkerchief and borrowed finger ring, with progressing mystery and astonishment.

Use most any pocket kerchief, napkin, scarf, etc. and a simple finger ring. No gimmicks, attachments or duplicates. A truly impromptu presentation using found objects that can segue into other magic effects.

The ring penetrates the cloth material in three different ways of increasing impossibility and visual impact. The observers are drawn in to anticipate magic to occur, and you then exceed those expectations and hopes.

Moderate finger dexterity...

From the introduction:

• Introduction
• Silk Effects
  • "Silk Projection"
  • A Silk Diversion
  • A "Sympathy" Problem
  • "The Ghost Silk"
  • The Ever-Change Silk
  • The "Flying Knot" Experiment
  • "Penetrato"

1st edition 1927, 44 pages; PDF 25 pages.

How to entertain and amuse children or adult audiences with a pocket handkerchief.

From the introduction by Clive Maskelyne:

The routine was met with favor all around the world (England, France, Norway, Sweden, and the United States) before all types of audiences and under all conditions. Mr. Clark presented it with great success during his engagements at New York City's famous Rainbow Room and Loew's State Theater on Times Square.

Paul Fleming wrote:

Here's an astounding collection of 50 entertaining methods of producing one or more colorful silk scarves in your magic act. Perhaps the most comprehensive collection ever published. Includes methods requiring no props, some with gimmicks that you can make at home, and a nice section on apparatus that you likely already have (or can buy from a dealer) that explains the basic principles involved.

Audiences love effects using silks and handkerchiefs. Make those tricks appear even more magical by producing the scarf from thin air instead of simply picking it up from a table. A true compendium...

The ultimate visible 20th Century Silk Routine.

At a magical convention the packed audience of magicians gasped audibly with surprise at the wonderful visible climax they had just seen. The magical effects which gain most applause from modern audiences are those in which things happen smartly and visibly. Marconick's Prisoner Silk certainly produces a startling visual effect in record time and is a trick which pulls applause from all types of audiences. Things happen quickly and they are seen to happen right before their eyes!

EFFECT:

From his pocket performer takes two separate silks...

Milbourne Christopher demonstrated this in his final lecture at the Magic Castle, revealing that he had taught it to Harry Blackstone, replacing a less deceptive version Blackstone had been doing for years in his show. A small handkerchief, held by opposite corners, is twirled between the hands and seems to grow to massive proportions.

This is highly recommended as an opener, and can lead into a dove production of other effect with the handkerchief.

1st edition 2020, PDF 4 pages, video 48 seconds.

Phoa Yan Tiong performed this clever effect in his cabaret act and it never fails to produce a gasp of amazement.

Effect: A handkerchief becomes visibly restored after being cut in half and the halves held well apart to prove that no trickery is involved. Indeed there is no trickery in the cutting, for both halves are quite separate. The effect has proved a great hit also, in the act of Will Ayling who used a regular linen handkerchief for its performance.

Phoa used to demonstrate and explain a version of this trick in the lecture he gave to Magical Societies and at Conventions, but the method he...

Silks at your finger tips.

From the introduction:

From the introduction:

1st edition 1936, 10 pages; PDF 8 pages.

The subtitle reads: An up-to-date program of selected tricks with handkerchiefs for magical entertainers playing Lyceum, club or stage engagements with humorous patter for all tricks introduced in the act, accompanied by instructions for gesture, facial expression and intonation to which is added a supplement explaining, and illustrating with diagrams, the construction and preparation of the apparatus, faked handkerchiefs and devices employed and their mechanical operation.

• Introduction
• Nature of the Act
  • COMPOSITION OF THE ACT
  • A SUGGESTED SETTING
  • THE TRIUMPH PORTABLE TABLE
• Preparation...

Now you, too, can present this award-winning silk routine in your show.

Here is a beautiful routine using two sets of three silk scarves that magically knot and unknot themselves "in sympathy" with each other ... even from across the stage. Best of all, you can do this with your own silks, as they contain no hidden pockets, sewn-together pairs, or similar fekes.

Edward Proudlock's Sympathetic Silks are a joy to behold, no less to the magician than to the uninitiated beholder. That it was a feature of Proudlock's act for 15 years is a testament as to its beauty and strength. Anyone who...

• Foreword
• Practice
• Misdirection
• Important Warning
• If Something Goes Wrong
• Essential Apparatus for an Evening's Entertainment with Handkerchief Tricks
• The Opening Trick
• Dyeing a Handkerchief
• The Conjurer as a Dyer
• The Handkerchief Vanisher
• The Mirror Glass
• The Disappearing Handkerchief from a Lamp Chimney
• Herman's Vanishing Knots
• Stretching a Handkerchief
• The Instantly Knotted Handkerchiefs
• The Vanishing Ring from Goblet of Water by Means of a Handkerchief
• The Burnt Handkerchief Restored
• Juggling
• Producing a Handkerchief in Full View from a Glass
• Handkerchief Casette
• Drum...

[This is an edited and abridged version of a manuscript originally released by Harry Blackstone Sr. as The Spirit Handkerchief.

A borrowed white handkerchief takes on a life of its own, it moves and dances around the stage as though it has become a real spirit.

Exactly as performed by the great magician (and his successor son)! All the masterful comedy touches. Learn this electrifying effect as only the Blackstone's can perform it. Every beautiful move. Every innermost thought that has made the Spirit Dancing Handkerchief famous. Learn: The handkerchief in the cabinet. Learn: The handkerchief in the bottle. Learn: The handkerchief in the hat. Detailed directions for every move.

This...

Marconick's was a master of silk magic. Here you will find several of his feature routines. This book was edited by Lewis Ganson and Hugh Miller.

• Introduction
• Silk Flash
• Twentieth Century Rope And Silks
• Bewildering Silks
• Stretching A Silk
• Fountain Of Silks
• Silken Bombshell
• Glass Of Liquid Production
• Three Silks On A Ribbon
• Rainbow Silk And Balls
• Massal
• Silk On
• Dream Silks
• Flying Silks
• Six Silks In A Flash
• Blendo In Reverse
• Silk Chain
• Four Balls From A Silk

A script and performance video that is based on the work of Ron Wilson and makes the Color Changing Silks a practical and mysterious trick, loaded with laughs.

One of the more difficult tasks facing magicians is coming up with scripts – of any sort. And the color changing silks, using the hand dye tube, makes it even more intimidating since there are multiple steals, hand to hand transfers to make, etc. All without getting caught!

But, coming up with a script that makes sense of the handling, preserves the mystery, gets laughs, and is a perfect opener...well, that's really difficult. ...