Vocabulary For Magicians

VOCABULARY FOR MAGICIANS Ambitious Card Routine (ACR)

Card Location

Card effect where a chosen card keeps on returning to the top of the pack.

Any method that allows the magician to find or locate a selected card after it has been returned to the pack.

Angles Audience sitting at specific position or angle can spot the secret. Usually extreme left or right or behind. We use the term like “hey since this trick is 'angled' it can only be done with limited audience viewpoints. Biddle Move

Center Tear A special way of tearing up paper so that the centre piece with the message is retained by the magician. Change Changing one card for another.

A move used to bring selected card to the bottom of the deck.

Charlier

Black Art

One handed flourish cut or pass.

Anyone can't see black on black which is useful or secret compartments and secret hiding places.

Classic Force

Bottom Charge

Making a spectator choose a card by fanning them and timing the force card to land under their fingers.

Move used to change cards.

Chop

Break

It’s a code word for a magnet.

A slight opening secretly held in a deck of cards.

Chop Cup

Book Pass Force Technique of shuffling where we take a group of cards then throw them on the other pile, and hold the top card and keep it on top. This leaves the selected card on top. Bridge-Sized Deck A deck of cards slightly smaller than a poker deck, measuring 2-1/4’ wide are frequently used because it give the magician an advantage in certain tricks because of their smaller width. Card Discovery The end of card tricks during which the spectator’s card is revealed or produced in a “magical”manner.

Cup with secret magnet used with a magnetic ball which can be made to vanish or appear at will using the magnet. Classic Palm Holding an object in the center of the palm, gripped by the palm muscles lightly like holding a coin. Cold (deck) Switching in a stacked deck. Conjurer A magician Control Any method that allows the performer to move a particular card or cards to a specific location in the pack.

Crimp

Double Sided Cards

A bend or crease in a playing card in such a way that you are able to locate it in the deck by feel alone. The crimp can be put anywhere on the card, but the corners or long sides are generally used.

Simply a double sided card which you can buy or make for many good effects.

CC / MC Conjurer’s / magician's choice where an object is forced on a spectator by deciding if he takes or discards the objects selected. Daub Conjurer’s (magician’s) wax. Used to stick things together temporarily.

Double Undercut Card Control used to return a card back to the top of the deck. Effect A sleight or magic trick Face The face of a card shows its value and suit. Face Cards, Picture cards, or Court Cards

Deal

All of the jacks, queens, and kings.

To take cards off the top of the deck.

False Cut

Deal Seconds

Any cut that leaves the deck in the same order as it was before the cut.

Take the second card looking like the top. Deal Middles

False Shuffle

Take a middle card looking like the top.

Any shuffle that leaves the deck in the same order as it was before the shuffle.

Deal Bottoms

False Transfer

Take the bottom card looking like the top. DL

An object is put or taken into one hand while being retained in the other.

Double lift. Lifting two cards as one.

Finger Break

Do As I Do

Move used to return to cards easily.

When you have the spectator do the same things as you do.

Flash

Double Cut Force The double cut force is a way of forcing the top card of the deck. Double Lift This is were the two top cards are drawn up to be shown as one card alone. A fingerbreak between the two top cards before the sleight is executed, is very nice. Otherwise it requires really light fingers.

Allowing the spectator to briefly see the face of any card. Flourish A display of skill with cards. Usually not a trick but an important part of a trick like one handed cut, fan, and ribbon spread.

Force Causing a spectator to select a particular card or cards when the spectator thinks the choice was freely made.

then be given to the spectator to reveal no gimmick is involved. Hindu Shuffle

French Drop

An effective way to keep a card or several at the bottom of the deck.

A false transfer with a coin or small object.

Indicator Card

Free Choice

A playing card used to identify the location, value, or suit of a different card, usually selected by the audience.

When a spectator really has a free choice, no force. Gimmick / Gaff A secret device used in an execution of a magic trick. Glide The glide is simply pulling back a bottom card so that the second to the bottom card is revealed a little (this is done face-down though, so no-one can see the faces) It is only revealed for touch. The second to bottom card is the slipped out as if it was the bottom card. (Usually it looks 'the bottom card is shown. then the deck is facedown (no attention drawn to this), then the bottom card is slipped out.

Invisible Deck This deck is a trick deck wherein the backs of the cards used have a thick, non-slick surface. The cards are placed back to back in certain pairs. IT/ITR Invisible thread, Invisible thread reel. Thin nylon thread that you can't see is used to levitate stuff. Impromptu A trick that can be performed at a moments notice, usually with everyday objects and little or no preparation.

Glimpse

Jog

Secretly noting a card while holding or shuffling the pack.

A card sleight in which a card is made to secretly protrude from the deck to a slight extent, thus enabling the magician to secretly locate it or the card next to it at a future moment.

Greek Shift Move used to shift a card, or make a false cut. Greek Shuffle False Shuffle. Watch your angles. Haunted Deck Spectator freely selects a card, and that card is placed back onto the deck. The deck is cut and the spectator is told that the deck will remove the card by itself and then watches, as the deck removes the card! The deck can

Key Card A card, generally gimmicked, which is used to locate a particular card or cards in the deck. Lapping Dropping an object into one's lap to vanish it (done while seated). Load To secretly put an object into a location eg A ball under a cup or a rabbit into a hat.

Legerdemain

Monte

A French term for magic of the hands or sleight of hand.

Famous con game where three cards are thrown down and the mark has to find the queen/ace etc. Due to sleight of hand, he never wins.

M5 Powerful Neomidium magnet used for PK effects, balances, stopping watches, and vanishes.

Muggle / Mark

Magic

One Ahead

The art of entertaining an audience by performing illusions that baffle and amaze, often by giving the impression that something impossible has been achieved, almost as if the performer had magic or supernatural powers. Yet, this illusion of magic is created entirely by natural means. The practitioners of this mystery art may be called magicians, conjurors, illusionists or prestidigitators.

Principle often used in mentalism where the magician writes down the name of an item previously discovered instead of the current item he is trying to guess.

Manipulator A magician with a showy sleight of hand act, often set to music, who produces cards/coins etc or multiplies balls in the air.

Non magician or subject for a con game.

One Way Deck When we arrange the back of the deck pictures all the same way and when the spectator picks his card just switch the deck around. Then it is the only one that is backwards. No more fake shuffles! One Way Back Deck

Marked Deck

A deck where the back design is not the same upside down enabling a card or cards to be located because they are the wrong way up.

A deck a cards with markings on the back to identify the front. You can name any marked card by looking at the back of it.

Out

Mechanic's Grip The mechanics grip is one of the most often used for false dealing. It is sort of a compromise between the Erdnase grip and the full grip. The forefinger curls around the outer right corner of the deck while the other three fingers curl around the side of the deck. Miscalling a Card In card magic, purposely giving an incorrect identification of a card.

An ending to a trick that the magician uses if the trick goes wrong. Overhand Shuffle A shuffle where you hold the cards in your right hand and you pull them off a few at a time into your left hand. Palming a Card Method of concealing a card. Pass A sleight.

Misdirection

Patter

Getting the spectators to concentrate elsewhere when a move takes place.

The talk a magician uses to accompany a trick.

Pinch

Servante

Vanish done by snapping coin from lengthways in the finger tips to edgeways, incorparating a ROV element. Also a vanish used by carring a sponge ball from pinched between fingers to a palm.

Secret shelf or compartment behind magicians table. Shell

PK

A hollowed out coin or ball which fits over the real object allowing vanish and reproductions.

Psychokenesis. e.x. moving things around usually done with threads or strong magnets.

Shuffle

Pull

The process of mixing a deck of cards.

Device on elastic which pulls object up sleeve or under jacket.

Silk

Raven

Sleeving

Magnetic Pull device used to vanish a small coin or magnetic object.

Dropping an object up a sleeve to vanish it.

Readers / Paper

A silk handkerchief.

Slide

Marked cards which can be read from their backs.

A tube to get an object to an impossible location. Eg Marked coin to ball of wool or object inside nested boxes.

Reversed Card

Slip Force

Any card that is face up in a face-down pack (or faced down in a face-up pack).

A Quick Force.

Riffle Shuffle Common shuffle that is used often. ROV Retention of vision vanish. Put vanish for a coin. R/S The use of rough or smooth compounds on cards which makes them stick or slide easily. Sandwiched Card Any card that is placed or located between two other pre-designated cards. Self-Working Tricks Tricks that don't require sleight of hand.

Sponge A sponge ball Spot Cards Any card from ace through ten in any suit. Springing Cards A flourish in which you bend the cards, let go, and catch them with the other hand. Stack A prearranged deck or part of the deck of cards Steal A slight to obtain an object secretly. e.x. stealing a ball from under a cup or stealing a card from the pack.

Stranger Cards A stranger card is a card taken from another deck and added to the deck you're using. This allows us to perform many tricks in a much more mystifying way. Stripper This deck is cut to make the top is wider than the bottom. If a card is place in upside down, the wider end of the card now matches with the decks lower end, making it easy to locate or even slip the card right out of the middle of the deck. Stooge / Shill / Stick Audience member who is actually planted as part of the act and who acts in a cooperative manner. Sucker effect A trick where the spectator is lead to believe he has worked it out, only to be proved very wrong. Svengali Deck The Svengali Deck consists of 26 ordinary cards, all different, and 26 short cards all of the same suit and value. The latter may be narrower as well as shorter, but short duplicates only are generally used. The pack is set up by arranging the two sets alternately, thus every other card from the top is a card of the same suit and value. Swami Gimmick Small writing device hidden under the nail used to "predict" what a spectator says by writing it seceretly after she says it. Switch A sleight or move in which one object is secretly substituted for another. Talking

Not the words spoken, but an inadvertent noise made by the props which can give away the trick. Topit Jacket with secret receptacle to vanish things. T&R Torn and Restored. The magician rips something up into many pieces (eg playing card/paper etc) and then "restores" it. The method lies in switching in a new undamaged item. TT Thumb tip. Plastic thumb cover for vanishing and reproducing small objects. Can be used for small liquid/powder (eg salt) vanishes and appearances. Vanish The act of making an object become nonexistent. Woofle Dust / Magic Dust Excuse for going to a pocket to get rid of a vanished item. Zombie An effect with a floating ball. Zombie type/zombie gimmick - a secret rod to make an object float usually under cover of a cloth.