I have always believed that any close-up card rise, wherein the chosen card is "brought up" from the rear of the pack, loses so much of its effect because it must be ended too quickly, before the spectators see that the card did not really rise out of the middle. The effect of the trick is considerably strengthened by the appearance of the chosen card projecting from somewhere in the middle of the pack at the conclusion of the rise.
Jack McMillen's "PLUNGER" rising card trick was, to the best of my knowledge, the first method in which the chosen card rose from the middle of the pack without the use of apparatus, threads, or special gimmicks. This was a very noteworthy advancement in the close-up card rise.
In 1940, Expert Card Technique appeared on the scene with two methods for performing the PLUNGER rise in which a card could be chosen and returned to the pack in a normal manner, thus eliminating the chief drawback of the original McMillen version. The ingenious idea of using two in-jogged cards to affect the plunger action stimulated a new line of thought on the close-up card rise; however, the manipulation described in Expert Card Technique to get these cards into position is rather difficult. I think readers will agree that the "STRIP-OUT CARD RISE" described in this booklet is a decidedly improved handling over that given in Expert Card Technique.
But the above is only one of the several methods described herein - along with 33 line illustrations to make everything as clear as possible.
Sometime in 1959, after years of experiment with the PLUNGER and SALIVA card rises, I finally combined the diagonal PUSH-THRU move with the PLUNGER action, the result of which appears to be another interesting development of the trick, as well as providing an excellent simple utility card rise. I have titled it "THE WORLD'S EASIEST CARD RISE," because I consider it the easiest possible handling for making a card rise from the middle of the pack, bearing in mind that the card can be selected and returned to the pack in a normal manner.
In addition to the card rise methods described, I have included a simple and useful card control and George Zacharellis' "HUNTER AND THE HUNTED," a very novel and different application of the PLUNGER principle.
