Skerries

The D’Light gimmick is in the right trouser pocket, and you have a coin in your left hand. Make a false transfer to the right hand, and make the coin disappear. -”...And it reappears in my pocket!” Put both hands into the trouser pockets (Fig. 1). Look towards the left pocket. Put the D’Light on your right thumb. Bring out both hands, displaying the coin in your left hand (Fig. 2).

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     strange that almost nobody has explored the possibility to use the D’Light gimmick in a more covert manner, instead of just using it to catch glowing dots? I mean, as a FX-device it is more portable and more practical to use than a Fism-Flash, not to mention that it is much cheaper. As far as I know, the only one, besides myself, that has tried to tap into the gimmick’s latent capabilities is my good friend Peter Rosengren. One of Peter’s small miracles involves a big clear crystal. After wrapping the crystal in a red silk, Peter moves it back and forth over a deck of cards, in which a selected card is waiting to be found. And sure, at a certain point over the tabled spread, a bright flash from deep within the crystal emits through the red silk. It is repeated a few times, and it becomes clear that the flash only appears over one specific card - which indeed turns out to be selected one. At this point, Peter simply drop the crystal and the silk on the table. And as the spectators examines the crystal, Peter unloads the D’Light gimmick while bringing the card box out of the pocket. Even though Peter’s routine is an unique and devious one, I’m still convinced that there are thousands of other possibilities with this little gimmick - possibilities that are just waiting to be discovered by people like you and me. So why not start at once? In the sequence that follows, we will make it look as if a coin is visibly burning away with a red glow. Since this sequence is designed to be used as a “plug-in” to a longer coin routine, we will also look at a simple method to load and unload the gimmick. So, get your D’Light, blow the dust off it, and follow my lead...

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2 Pretend to take the coin from the left hand with your right hand (Fig.3). But in reality, the following happens: As the right fingertips are placed onto the coin (Fig. 4), the left palm is turned inwards and the coin is kept in the left finger palm (Fig. 5) while the right thumb pretends to take the coin from underneath.

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9 When the right hand has moved away a bit from the left hand, you press your right fingers together, activating the light from the D’Light (Fig. 6). This will make it look as if the coin is glowing like red hot metal. And with a small circular wind-up movement, you pretend to throw the “glowing” coin up in the air (Fig. 7). If you want to produce the coin again, and get rid of the gimmick, you can accomplish both things at the same time. Draw the attention towards your right elbow (Fig. 8). And as you produce the coin from underneath the right elbow, you simply stick your right thumb into your breast pocket, leaving the gimmick there (Fig. 9).

And you are now clean and can continue the coin routine in any way you like. Now it is your turn. Can you think of other covert applications for this little gimmick? Perhaps use it to move the glow from a lighted cigarette to an unlighted one? Perhaps in a Linking Ring routine, to visibly weld the rings together with your fingers? Perhaps in a .... 3

If you want to make the threaded stack yourself, make sure that you make it correctly. Look at Fig. 2A and 2B. Due to how the thread is running through the cards, the stack can only be spread in one direction. Keep this stack in your left pocket until you want to do this little gag. And it is done as follows. As the spectator is shuffling the deck, you secretly bring out the stack from the pocket in a left hand Gambler’s Cop. When the spectator has finished the shuffling, you retrieve the deck (Fig. 3)

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    cute little gag with cards. Get an Electric Deck and cut off the threads above the tenth card from the bottom of the deck with a pair of scissors. Keep these ten cards, and throw the rest of the deck

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Glue another card to the back of the top card, but make sure that you glue it a bit offset as shown in Fig. 1. It will make the handling much easier if the top card of this threaded stack is both wider and longer than a normal card.

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Add the palmed stack to the bottom of the deck as you ask the spectator if he is satisfied with the shuffle (Fig. 4). Make sure to catch a right thumb break between the stack and the deck.

Keep the deck (and the stack) in a right hand Biddle Grip, as you move your hands apart, asking: -”... And there was nothing strange with the deck?” (Fig. 5) Just as the spectator is about to answer “No”, you let go of the stack except the top card of the stack (Fig. 6). 5

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Quickly, take the bottom card of the stack in a left hand Gambler’s Cop position (Fig. 7) and gather up the cards (Fig. 8). Release the right thumb break and palm away the stack as you give the deck back to the spectator, saying: “You better check it again!” (Fig. 9).

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Secretly get a coin into the position shown in Fig. 1. If you curl your fingers, you can keep the coin somewhat hidden (Fig. 2).

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    handicapped at magic conventions, when it turns to late night sessions. Everybody is performing “magicians foolers” for each other, and I have very little to offer in that genre. However, when trying to develop strong and practical magic for laypeople, I sometimes end up with something that is rather good, but extremely unpractical. And I’ve found that a few of those items are very popular at late night sessions. The following is one of those items.

Ask a spectator to examine your left palm, as you use the right hand to pull up the left sleeve (Fig. 3). The right thumb is on the top of the left forearm, and the right fingers are underneath. The coin is hidden as it is held underneath the forearm.

The Effect: The magician extends his left arm, pulls up the sleeve and shows the left hand empty. The hand is closed and immediately opened again, showing that a coin has appeared. Method: This is based on Masao Atsukawas’ “The Bullet”. I practiced this move a long while, but I could never get it to work properly, because I got neither strength, speed nor precision when shooting the coin from a backpalm position, it’s something with the size of my hands, I guess. So I changed the finger positions around a bit - and suddenly I got the strength and speed that I desired. But the bad thing was that the coin no longer was hidden. So I found another way to hide it.

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Turn the left hand palm down and start to close the hand into a fist. At that point, you shoot the coin from the right hand, underneath the left forearm. And the left hand catch the coin just as the hand closes (Fig 4 & 5). Turn the left hand palm upwards again and slowly open the hand and reveal the coin.

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Right after I devised this production back in 1994, I started thinking that there perhaps was a was to accomplish the same thing in a mechanical way. So I built a small spring loaded coin shooter, as shown in Fig. 6 (although, the illustration looks much more nice than what the actual gadget did). The release mechanism was constructed as shown in Fig. 7. The shooter was positioned right below the elbow. A string, anchored to the overarm, was looped over the trigger of the shooter. The idea was to have the sleeves halfway rolled up. As long as the arm was bent, I could show my hands empty. And then I could simply extend my arm straight forward, causing the string to pull the trigger, and the coin would shoot out to my waiting hand. As soon as I had built the thing, I put it on to try it out. On the first try, I broke the corner off the mirror. On the second attempt, I almost killed the cat. I never dared to make a third attempt. 7 8

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   this “A Magical Playlet”, if you wish. I don’t. I call it “Crap”. But it is fun crap, and it might be useful if you are working together with another performer and need something slightly amusing between acts in a show. The parts are tonight played by Peter and Tom. The stage lights come up. The center curtain is opened briefly, and Peter and Tom walks out in front of the curtain, which now closes behind them. Peter: “Ladies and gentlemen, we proudly present ‘Things to do when it rains’, or ‘Fun with a Banana!’” On cue, Tom whips up a plastic banana for display. Peter: “Besides the usual fun, which can’t be mentioned in a family show like this, there are other exciting things you can do... You can juggle with it.” Tom attempts to juggle the banana, but winds up dropping it on the floor, where it lands with a clatter. Peter: “Or, you can use it to perform the ‘Magic Appearing Banana Trick’.” Tom retrieves the fallen banana, then folds it in half and tries to hide it in the hand. And with a “superiour” smile, a raised eyebrow and an awkward flourish, he pretend to pluck it from the air. Peter: “It can be used for a demonstration of bullfighting!” Peter steps back from the microphone stand and quickly removes his coat and holds it in the manner of a toreador waving his red cloth. Tom holds the banana up to his forehead, hunkers down as if he were a bull (or, more accurately, an unicorn), and charges past Peter’s proffered cloth, as Peter shouts the traditional “Olé!” (Fig. 1)

1 Peter: “It can function as a vital prop in reenactments of classic scenes from the movies, like the shower sequence in Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’.” Tom suddenly takes on a wide-eyed look of lunacy, sneaks behind Peter and gives him multiple stabs in the back with the banana. Peter: “It can become a musical instrument.” Peter steps back again and put his coat back on. Tom hold the banana up to the microphone, clear his throat and then, with a voice more suited for slicing frozen fish than singing, hollers something vaugely resembling “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”, all while hitting the banana in a steady rythm with a pen. Peter: “But the best thing is this: If you get hungry after playing, you can eat the banana!” Tom blithely peels the banana - which is now quite obviously real - and takes a big bite. Peter and Tom take their bows. The center curtain opens, and they exit. The end. 9

2 Method: The performers enters through the center curtain. This is nessesary because otherwise the audience would notice a hump on the back of Peter. Hidden underneath Peter’s coat is a special two-pocket servante attached to his back. A real banana is in one of the pockets; the other pocket is empty (Fig. 2). The first part of the routine, when the banana is dropped and folded, is to make it clear that it really is, in fact, a plastic banana. The bullfighting sequence provides access to the servante, as Peter removes the coat. But it is important that Peter continues to face forward in order to keep the servante concealed from the audience’s view. During the stabbing in the back, in the ‘Psycho’ sequence, the plastic banana is switched for the real one by simply dropping the fake fruit in the empty pocket of the servante, and taking the real banana instead. This is a bold switch, therefore it would be useful to find a way to prove that no switch could have taken place. Fortunately, that can be proven quite easily. During the whole routine, Tom has been wearing a plastic thimbtip on his left thumb. In the “musical” sequence there is given clear audial evidence that the banana is plastic, as the fruit is struck with a pen. But what really happens is that Tom is striking the plastic thumbtip (Fig. 3) instead of the banana. To inc-

3 rease the plastic nature of the sound, it helps to pull out the thumb slightly from the thumbtip. While Tom is striking the banana, Peter closes the access to the servante by putting on the coat again. And the conclusion is to simply peel and eat the banana, while praying that the audience hasn’t brought along fruit and vegetables of their own. The thumb tip sound illusion can be used elsewhere also. If you perform the vanishing bottle in paper bag (using a rubber bottle) you can “prove” that the bottle is solid before vanishing it by “accidentally” tapping it against the microphone stand. Just wear a metal thumbtip. Get clean by dropping the thumbtip into the bag together with the bottle...etc... If you wear two metal thumbtips, you can smack two soft items together, and make it sound like they both are solid.

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’   little quickie with a cigarette. If you are a kid and plan to eventually become a smoker, this might provide the motivation to begin at once. It is never too soon to start, and remember, you are not a real man until you start to cough up brown stuff in the mornings. You are sitting down behind a table. On the same table, the table that just was mentioned in the sentence that Preceded this one, are two items; a cigarette lighter and a cigarette. And since you, like me, are a sneaky bastard, you have a duplicate lighter palmed in your left hand. Everything should look as in Figure 1.

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Take the cigarette with your left hand and pretend to place it in your left hand (Fig. 2 & 3). Move your left hand towards your mouth, apparently to place the cigarette there (Fig. 4).

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Just as the palmed lighter is placed in the mouth, you pretend to pick up the visible lighter from the table. But in reality, you just sweep the lighter into the lap (Fig. 5). As the left hand moves away from the mouth, you push up the cigarette in the right hand so that the filter end is visible. Flick your right thumb violently above the filter end, like you desperately are trying to find a spark wheel, while thinking: -”What the...” (Fig. 6).

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   coffee cup and a plastic spoon for this little sight-gag. Usually you will find these props if you get coffee from an automatic coffee machine.

Place the spoon in the cup, and put your index finger on top of it. Now, by pressing the spoon straight down (Fig. 1), it bends into a “J”-shape. Keep it pressed down, then pretend to sneeze and let the index finger slip off the spoon. The spoon will then jump an amazing distance up in the air (Fig. 2). If you want to do the gag in a more organized fashion, you can take a sugar cube, or a small packet of sugar, and claim that it can jump from your left palm and into the cup in the right hand. Stare at the packet of sugar, and shout “Jump”, and let the spoon jump from the cup. Keep on staring at the sugar, like you didn’t notice that the spoon jumped, and.... Well you get the idea. Play with it.

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    plug-in sequence to any finger ring routine, especially the kind of routine that also involves a string. Let’s say that the string is in your breast pocket. In a left hand curl palm (see David Roth’s Expert Coin Magic) is a very cheap and ugly finger ring. Displayed at the right hand’s finger tips is a borrowed ring (Fig. 1).

Place the borrowed ring at the tips of the left second finger and thumb (Fig. 2)

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Pull the string out of the breast pocket with your right hand (Fig. 3).

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5 Pretend to lower one end of the string through the borrowed ring (Fig. 4), but in reality, the end is lowered into the ugly ring (Fig. 5).

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Take the end from below with your right hand and pull until the two ends are equal in length (Fig. 6). Using your right thumb and second finger, you pinch the middle of the string through the center of the borrowed ring. Actually, the center of the string goes in a loop around the right side of the borrowed ring, but this is covered by the right thumb and second finger (Fig. 7). The effect of this is that it looks as if the string really is threaded through the ring.

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Hold the right hand still, as the left hand slides down the string toward the ends (Fig. 8).

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Give the ends of the string to the spectator (Fig. 9). Slide the left hand upwards again, toward the borrowed ring in the right hand. As the hands come together, you pretend to place the ring in your left hand, but the ring is instead pushed onto the right thumb (Fig. 10). Move the left hand away from the right hand (Fig. 11). Let another spectator make a “magic move” over the left hand, then open the hand to show that the borrowed ring has turned into something nasty, even though it was thought to be secure and safe while threaded on the string. Sometimes I use another idea in connection to this and other ring effects. For this you need a ring box that is glued shut.

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Bring out the ring box with your right hand, while hiding the borrowed ring underneath it. Place the box in your left hand, and get the ring into a left finger palm position (Fig. 12). 16

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    effect for those who enjoy bizarre magick, but have too little time to perform it properly, and would find use for a self-working item. In this effect, the performer doesn’t even have to be present. Get (or make) a big book that has the word “Poltergeists” in the title. In the spine of this book, put a mercury switch and a radio transmitter. Put this book in a bookshelf. On top of a shelf opposite the bookshelf is a spring-loaded board that is held down by a catch. This catch is controlled by a radio receiver. Place a cheap object on the spring-loaded board, and you are done. As soon as someone removes the Poltergeist book from the shelf, the book will change orientation and the mercury drop will close the switch. The transmitter will send a signal, and the receiver will respond by releasing the catch on the springboard, and the object will be thrown up in the air. And the unfortunate unique person who accidentally walked into this description, who by now has been transformed into a slow-thinking featureless character named “spectator”, is reacting in a most satisfying manner as the object hit the floor behind him.

Now pretend to open the box, but pivot the whole box using the left thumb and index finger as pivot points. From the front it will look as if you are just opening the lid of the box (Fig. 13). Pretend to take the borrowed ring out of the box with your right thumb and index finger, but you really take it from the left finger palm, then pretend to close the box again. Place the box on the table. Give the ring back to its owner. Ask him to put your ring (the ugly one) back into the box. And while he struggle to open the box, you continue with the next effect. The idea of pretending to open a ring box in the manner described above belongs to Alexander De Cova.

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    else to do, you can always amuse yourself by trying to adapt close-up effects to the stage format, and vice versa. This close-up effect is the result of an experiment like that.

You need a salt shaker on the table. In your pocket you have a duplicate salt shaker that only contains a white silk. In your breast pocket you have a fake pencil (Fig. 1). The pencil is hollow and filled with salt, and it is held upright in the pocket by a loop of thread attached to the top of the pocket.

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You also need a second white silk that is kept in a pocket together with a thumbtip. During any effect preceding this one, you secretly switch the salt shaker on the table for the one containing the silk. No details will be given, as I do it differently each time I perform it. Study Tommy Wonder’s books and Michael Close’s Workers 3 to see some examples of how this can be done. Bring out the white silk, together with the thumb tip. Load the thumbtip into the left hand as you put a corner of the silk into the hand. To make it as clear as possible, you take the pencil from the breast pocket and use the tip of the pencil to push the silk into the hand, i.e. the thumbtip (Fig. 2).

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As you push the last of the silk into the thumbtip, you press the tip of the pencil between the silk and the inside of the thumbtip. As you lift the pencil out of the hand, the thumbtip follows along. But this is hidden behind the right hand’s fingers (Fig. 3). Immediately, use the back end of the pencil and pretend that you push the silk back into the hand, as if you have accidentally pushed it too far down in the hand (Fig. 4). But what this accomplish is to unload the salt from the pencil into the hand.

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Put the pencil into the breast pocket again. Then wait for the proper moment before you let the salt pour out of the left hand in a thin stream. When this happens, quickly move the hand over an ashtray or a cup. Let the salt run out, then open the left hand to show it empty. There will be a few grains of salt stuck to the palm. With a slightly puzzled expression, you taste the salt, using the tip of the right index finger to carry a few grains to the mouth. As soon as you’ve tasted the salt, you slowly turn to look at the salt shaker on the table. Pause until everybody have discovered where you are looking - then open the shaker and take out the silk.

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Originally, this was actually an attempt to create a parlour effect that contained more interaction with the audience than in the usual salt pour effect. I had planned to switch the salt shakers by having a table with a black art well, but since I didn’t have the necessary tools at that time, the table never got built. To load the salt, and get rid of the silk, I made a special holder that was connected to a Jack Miller hold-out. The holder consisted of a container for the silk. This plastic container had originally contained some kind of candy. The candy tasted horrible but the shape of the container was perfect for palming. With a thick piano wire, I had put a wine cork next to the container, on which I could put a thumbtip filled with salt. Look at figure 5A to see the construction. At the proper moment, I could let the holder slide out of the sleeve, into the hand, and the silk was tucked into the container. Then, as the holder went back into the sleeve, I kept the thumbtip by holding it in place with the little finger (Fig. 5B). A tiny movement with the fingers adjusted the orientation of the thumbtip, so its opening was downwards, and I could let the salt pour out. And then I stole the thumbtip as I brushed my hands together. But even though this construction worked well at home, I never actually used it in any performance. Mainly because I prefer to work with my sleeves rolled up.

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   to a spectator and says: -”Have you ever heard of Subliminal Advertising? It’s when they put a single frame of advertising into a movie. With 24 frames per second, that frame flashes past so quickly that you don’t notice the message. But the idea is that you still will react on the advertising at a subconscious level. Now, this might seem a bit silly, but I have prepared a deck of cards in a similar manner.”

A deck of cards are brought out, and is riffled 3-4 times as shown in figure 1. The performer ask: -”Do you feel anything? Any sudden urge or desire?”

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The spectator’s reply is negative. The performer continues: -”Perhaps I riffle too fast. Let’s do it a bit slower....” The deck is riffled once again, but slower. And strangely enough, each card has now turned blank and contains a written message like “Buy Volvo”, or “Tip me!”, or...etc. (Fig. 2). Just get a Nudist Deck (or Mental Photography deck) and write any message on all the blank sides. The inspiration came from reading an article about Subliminal Persuasion in an issue of Skeptical Inquirer, and I’ve had a lot of fun with this presentation at different trade shows.

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    to find the truth? Then this is for you. Open a stapler and take out the staples. Use a sharp knife to cut off a block of five staples (Fig. 1). You can count the staples by dragging the point of the knife over the staples, and count the number of “clicks”. Take the block of five staples and color one of the end-staples black with a Sharpie marker (Fig. 2). Put all the staples back in the stapler again, but make sure that the colored staple will be the fifth from front (Fig. 3). Place the prepared stapler somewhere close to where you are going to perform. On a sheet of paper, draw a pentagram. Or, if you want to get fancy, draw it on a piece of leather as in Figure 4. The points of the star should be numbered in the following manner. Starting with the top point, going clock-wise, 1, 3, 5, 2, 4 (look at the roman numbers in Fig. 4 again). You also need a bunch of small papers to write on. And last, but not least, some kind of amulet. If you want to play it for laughs, the amulet can be some small plastic toy. Or if you rather want to play it in a serious fashion, you can have something more occult looking, like a strange little figure carved from the

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nue with your directions. Repeat this until a total of four lies has been written down. For the fifth paper, you ask the spectator to write something that is true. And due to the preparation of the stapler, the spectator will put a colored staple through the paper containing the truth. Tell the spectator to shuffle the pieces of paper thoroughly. Then turn back to him. Place the pentagram on the table. Ask the spectator to give you the papers, one by one, and place then at the points of the pentagram in an almost random order. By “almost random” means that it doesn’t matter where each paper goes, as long as the paper with the colored staple ends up on point number five.

4 spear of an unicorn (traditionally, you need a virgin to be able to find an unicorn. These days, it’s almost the other way around). Now then, it’s time to get started. The pentagram and the amulet is out of view. Bring out the papers and a pen. Then search the pockets for something that apparently has gone missing, as you mumble: “.. I had a roll of tape somewhere.” Look around and “find” the stapler. Place that too on the table. Ask a spectator to join you. Ask the spectator to take one of the papers and write something that is not true, a lie, on it. Turn your back to him as this is done ( stand between him and the rest of the audience, so that you don’t loose contact with the audience). When the lie has been committed to paper, you tell the spectator to fold the paper in half, and put a staple through it. As soon as you hear the “Ka-chunk!” from the stapler, you immediately conti-

Everything is now set for the actual effect. Bring up the topic of truth-finding rituals. You might want to search out the occult section of the bookstores, and learn some proper NewAge terminology. Or you can do like me and just fake the whole thing. Eventually, you will reach a point where you will say: -”We will eliminate all the lies and find the truth”. This sentence has a certain ambiguity that will be useful, as you soon will discover. Continue: “And to do that, we need this amulet”. Bring out the amulet. If you’ve decided to use a silly toy as an amulet, then it is good if you make the introduction as pretentious as possible, so the contrast of bringing out a ridiculous item will be big. Anyway, give the amulet to the spectator, and ask him to move the amulet around the circumference of the pentagram, until he feels the urge to put it down on one of the papers. Now, two things can happen. A: He puts the amulet on the paper at point number five. Say something along the lines of: “The amulet has eliminated all the other papers, and says that this is the truth. All the others must be lies then.” Let the spectator open all the other papers and let him read their contents to the audience. They are all lies. Let the spectator take the paper from underneath the amulet, and have him read it - it contains the truth. B: He put the amulet at one of the other four points. Say something like: “Good! The amulet has eliminated the first lie!”. Move the paper aside and draw attention towards the number at that point. Let the spectator move the amulet as many points clockwise around the pentagram as the number indi22

cates. Eliminate the paper at the new position, and repeat until only one paper is left. The remaining paper will contain the truth. As an example: The spectator puts the amulet at point number 4. The paper at that point is claimed to be a lie, and is moved aside. Now, the amulet is moved four steps, from point to point, clockwise around the pentagram. The amulet will end up on point number 2. The paper there will also be eliminated, and the amulet is moved two steps clockwise. The new position will be number 1, and the corresponding paper is eliminated. Move one step and remove the paper at number 3. There is just one paper left, and that is the one containing the truth. In both cases, you end by letting the spectator read the lies first. There is a lot of potential for humor here, especially if you work for a crowd where the people know each other, because then everyone will make comments on each of the lies. As far as I know, the pentagram force is credited to George Sands. For a long while I thought that the idea of using a marked staple was mine, but I’ve recently found that Bob Ostin described that idea in an issue of Pabular, in a routine with coffin shaped papers.

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   a method without an effect. During a short period in my life I was obsessed with the idea of extending the Gilbreath principle. With Gilbreath’s principle one can achieve a relationship between cards in two piles, if the top card in one pile turn out to be red, you immediately know that the top card in the other pile is black. Well, I wanted to find a way to create such a relationship between the cards in four piles. When I finally (in August 1993) invented a way to achieve this, the obsession went away and it has not returned yet. That is too bad, because I sincerely believe that there is great possibilities hidden in this method.

You need to make a special deck using the Svengali principle. Remove all diamonds and clubs from an ordinary deck of cards. Cut the Diamonds and Clubs 1-2 mm short. You will now stack the deck in a repeating Club, Spade, Diamond, Heart order where the values of each Club–Spade pair and each Diamond–Hearts pair adds up to 13 (the only exception are the kings which are placed together ). It can look something like this from the top of the stacked, face down, deck: 3 of Clubs, 10 of Spades, 8 of Diamonds, 5 of Heart, 2 of Clubs, Jack of Spades, 4 of Diamonds, 9 of Hearts……and so on… Now you (or a spectator) can cut the deck several times. Glimpse the color of the bottom card. Cut off about half the deck and place it beside the first half, but make sure that the bottom card in the two piles is of opposite colors. Riffle shuffle the piles together. Deal the cards into four piles which we now name A, B, C, D.

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All cards in A and C are short cards, all cards in B and D are long cards, so there is no danger in letting the spectators hold a pile. Since A and C consists of only short cards, we know that they can only be Diamonds and Clubs. If the top card in pile A is a Diamond, we instantly 23

know that the other top cards are B-Heart, C-Club, D-Spade, due to the svengali principle combined with the Gilbreath principle. When we make use of the sum-of-13 idea also, we’ll get quite far. Example: Turn over the top card in pile A. It is the Jack of Diamond. Point at the top card in pile C and say that it is a club. Turn it over. It is the 4 of Clubs. We now know that the top card in pile B is the 2 of Hearts. We also know that the top card in pile D is the 9 of Spades Example: Turn over the top card in pile A. It is the 9 of Clubs. Point at pile C and say that it is a Diamond. Turn it over. It is the 7 of Diamond. We now know that the top card in pile B is the 4 of Spades. We also know that the top card in pile D is the 6 of Hearts.

Anecdote: In the autumn of 1995 I met Max Maven, Michael Close and Michael Weber in Stockholm, where they taped ”Magiskt” a magic show for TV4 hosted by Hans Crispin. We met in the lobby of their hotel and had a nice time together. I told them about my Aleph deck, but the details were difficult for me to explain in English. Max, who was very interested in the idea, asked if I could show it. Before I could explain that I didn’t have the proper deck with me, Michael Weber asked, ”What do you need, a deck with Clubs and Diamonds short? ” I said yes. Without saying a word, he took a deck from the breast pocket of his shirt and threw it on the table. I still doesn’t know why he had such a deck on his person, or what he used it for.

Example: Turn over the top card in pile A. It is the 8 of Diamond. Point at the top card in pile C and say that it is a club. Turn it over. It is the 2 of Clubs. We now know that the top card in pile B is the 5 of Hearts. We also know that the top card in pile D is the Jack of Spades The question is, what can we use a deck like this for? I have been thinking about making a routine where I play poker with 3 spectators and read their minds. Another idea was to construct a design deck in the same manner. Anyway, there is a great effect hidden inside this deck, but I simply can’t see it yet. Now it is up to you…

Credits: The breakthrough came when I read Max Maven’s Mind’s Eye Deck (Shuffled Lecture, Phil Goldstein, 1982 ) and read about the idea of using the Svengali principle to keep pairs together during a riffle shuffle. The Sum-of13 method is of course from the Ultra Mental deck and Gilbreath’s principle belongs to Norman Gilbreath. The title is from Alan Moore’s The Swamp Thing where an Aleph is a certain place in space and time from where a person can view all other places in space and time.

© Copyright 2002 by Tom Stone

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