Barrie Richardson

Photo: Janie Richardson

CurtainCall

Illustrated byEarle Oakes

Hermetic Press, Inc.Seattle, Washington

Barrie Richardson

ContentsIntroduction—David Berglas ixPreface xi

Chapter I: A Banquet Program 1

Choices Have Consequences 5

Mesmer’s Pencil 13

My Second Spot 21

The Propensity to Be Influenced 26

Quartet 34

Concluding Thoughts 50

An Unforgettable Night 51

Chapter II: Mind to Mind 55

Zebra2 59

All Gone 67

The Eye of the Target 71

Giuoco Piano 81

Eric Mason 85

Chapter III: Intimate Mind Games 89

Symbologic Revisited 93

A Glimpse of Milton 100

The Devil’s Dictionary 106

Spoo-Key 111

The Bhutan Key 119

Chapter IV: Card at Any Number 123

Impromptu Card at Any Number (Close-up Version) 127

Card at Any Number (for Platform Performance) 135

David Berglas 139

Chapter V: Modest Miracles with Business Cards 143

Zingg’s One-Handed Billet Switch 147

A Color, a Number and a Letter 151

Spooky Writing 153

A Dessert and a First Love 155

The Happy Peek 161

The Triangle Peek 166

Double Deception Billet Routine 170

Anthony Blake 174

Chapter VI: Osmosis 177

The Osmosis Envelope 181

The Happy Story 184

Memories of the Sun and Moon 189

Fourth Dimensional Osmosis 194

Gil Eagles 200

Chapter VII: Hidden Devices 205

Devious Deck Switch 209

The Click Switch 213

Forcing Flip-Pad 217

Slippery Jack’s Side Steal 219

The Stranger’s Trick 224

The Bluff Riffle Force 227

Derren Brown 233

Chapter VIII: Water & Frost 237

Birches 241

Palmero Ranch 247

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The Eye of the Target

A few years back I contributed a routine called “Mental Target Practice” to Walt Lee’s fine magazine, The Magician (February 2005). Since then I have revised the handling.

I took the core idea that makes this demonstration possible from Ted Annemann’s “Dead Name Duplication” (published in 1932 as an install-ment in Thayer’s Trick of the Month Club). Orville Meyer took the idea further in “Tervil,” in the March 1939 issue of The Jinx (No. 54, p. 383). Annemann’s bold and wonderful idea is that a message he has written is secretly switched for another written by one of the participants. This person’s message is given to someone else to read. Thought to be the performer’s message, it apparently matches the first person’s. No one ever realizes that the participant has supplied the “match” for his own message!

Billet switches are involved, and the switch I now use is one major change I’ve made in the method. This switch is so deceptive and so versatile, I think you will like it. Rather than manipulation, an innocent-looking form of billet-switching rod does all the work.

Billet-switching rods go back to the nineteenth century. Edwin Sachs’s may have been the first written description of one, where it is used to switch

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half of a playing card. (See his Sleight of Hand, 1877; “The Salamander Card” or “The Salamandrine Card,” p. 187 in the common fifth edition.) I came up with the idea of adapting the concept to an unsuspicious common article frequently used in mentalism—a pen. I contributed this switch to the September 2005 issue of Walt Lee's magazine, The Magician. Only later did I find out that Karrell Fox had had the same idea. (See Clever Like a Fox, 1976, p. 91.) However, I’ve expanded the possibilities of the billet-switching pen. This tool has many uses and should receive wider interest than it has.

This ten- to twelve-minute routine takes less than thirty seconds to prepare. What I have done is to develop the basic concept into a platform demonstration that involves the audience and makes the participants suc-cessful while leaving them astounded. Best of all, it is easy to do. There are no special props and the secret choreography is not difficult.

I angle my presentation so that one of the participants discerns my thought, and another participant reads his counterpart’s thought. You do not have to do it that way. You might frame it as a straightforward prediction of a chosen word, followed by the divination of a number, both done by yourself. But I enjoy routines in which audience members are given the chance to demonstrate their own latent mental powers and are amazed by the outcome.

Effect and Presentation: The performer explains to his audience that he is going to write something on the back of his business card. This will be the target for an experiment that is far from foolproof. “But if we even get close,” he asserts, “it will still be remarkable. In any case, we will have some fun and you can all try it for yourselves on a rainy day at home!”

He proceeds to think for a few seconds. He then jots down a word on the card, lets several in the group see it, then folds it in quarters with the word inside and fixes it under the clip of his pen.

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Asking a woman seated in the front row, on his left side, to help him—we’ll call her Doris—he gives her the pen and isolated prediction to hold.

He moves to face the central section of the audience. “It is imperative that no one thinks there is any collusion—and there absolutely is not—so I would like you three women to elect one of you to be my helper.”

The women he has addressed choose Pam. The performer walks over and greets her with a smile. He then hands her a second business card and pen. “Pam, I don’t want anyone to see what you write on this card. So please, all you other inquisitive and creative people—do not peek!

“No!”“And the book is in English?”“Yes!”“What is the name of the book you are thinking of ?”Pam gives a title.“Do you know, I thought you would select that book? Congratulations! Did

you first think of ______?” Here he names a current best-seller.“Yes!”“Okay, we are ready for the experiment. Close your eyes. Imagine you are

holding your chosen book. Open it. Pam, you can actually pretend to do this! Imagine the book on your lap. You are opening the cover—Good!”

She may or may not choose to mime the actions.“Now start turning the pages. You can turn several at a time if you like.

Stop whenever you wish—Just there? Do you want to move ahead or backward from that place?”

She is happy with where she has stopped.“In your mind’s eye, imagine yourself looking down at the page number. There

is one number on each page of the open book. Take your time and change your mind as often as you like. When you are ready, use your index finger, and in your imagination circle the page number. Look at that number and repeat it to yourself.

“Pam, now move your index finger in a large circle on your imaginary page. Make the circle smaller and smaller until it encloses just one word. The word is not one that will embarrass us; it is a common noun—you know—the name of something like house, cow, skyscraper, computer or whatever! Can you see that

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word clearly? Now open your eyes and print your thoughts on the little card clipped to the pen. You can spell the word, can’t you?”

While she is doing this, the performer walks well away. He explains that the writing helps to commit her even more firmly, and provides a good way to audit the experiment.

When Pam has finished writing, she refolds the billet, “locking her thoughts inside it,” and slips it back under the clip of her pen. Explaining that this will keep it secure, the performer has her point to someone she judges to be “a man of integrity.” She chooses John. The performer delivers her pen, with her billet mounted in plain view, to John and asks him to join him on the platform, where he stands at the performer’s right.

Striding back to the center of the platform, the performer asks, “Pam, did you get any sense that I was trying to lead you, using verbal suggestion?”

She shakes her head.“I hope I didn’t make you nervous! Let’s see how well we’ve done.”He turns to Doris, who is holding his pen with the billet on which he’s

written the target word. He gives this pen and billet to John. At the same time he relieves John of Pam’s billet and pen.

Removing her billet from the pen clip, he holds it up. “Pam, you strolled in your mind through a large book store, chose any book you liked and any page in that book. I asked you to think of any word on that imaginary page—and of hundreds of thousands of words, you chose...” He opens Pam’s billet and reads her word to himself.

“Pam, now there are two persons who know the target word you selected. I want to make this experiment more memorable, so I will whisper your word to two women in the audience.” He steps from the platform and chooses a woman seated on the left side of the audience, another on the right side, and whispers Pam’s word to each of them.

Returning to the platform, he says, “Now four of us know Pam’s word.“John, will you please open my target card? Study it. In a few seconds I am

going to ask you to broadcast to the entire audience the word on my target card.“My whispering partners, please stand. Pam, will you stand also?“When John announces my target word, if it is Pam’s selection, I want you

to demonstrate this is right by doing one and only one thing. Remain perfectly still until I clap my hands. If it is the correct word, take your seat. Otherwise, remain standing.

“John, are you ready?” The performer nods and John states the word: “Photograph.”

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There is a pause. The performer claps his hands...And the women all sit down! There is stunned silence; then applause.The performer motions for everyone’s attention.“Pam, you are wonderful and I hope your husband appreciates you. Pam,

would you help with one more experiment? I want you to reverse the experi-ment. I want you to select a target and send that to John and me. Everyone in the audience can participate.

“Please stand again, Pam. Do you recall that you thought of a page number in your imaginary book?”

She nods.“Try to see it written in large numerals. How many numerals are there?”“Three.”“Shut your eyes. See your target numbers in your mind.“John, shut your eyes, too. I want you to be successful. In your mind’s

eye—your imagination—see the three-digit page number; and now move these numbers so that they are in the center of the target.

“Have you done that?“Wait a second! I’m trying to do the same thing. Everyone in the audience,

try to visualize three distinct numbers on a target.“Open your eyes. John, what page number do you see?”“One hundred thirty-seven,” he announces.The performer repeats the number, then says, “I saw one hundred thirty-

eight. How many in the audience saw these numbers?“Pam, only you know your target. What is it?”“One hundred thirty-seven,” she says.The audience is speechless. The performer thanks his accomplished

assistants and asks for a resounding vote of appreciation for them. It comes easily.

Method: When the idea for a billet-switching pen first struck me, I made up a gimmicked pen by cutting two pens in half and joining together the non-writing ends. Later, I saw this fakery was unnecessary, and the pen had been rendered useless to write with as well. Now I simply use an unprepared pen with two matching caps. Each cap should have a firm pocket clip and fit snugly on either end of the pen without being difficult to remove. Some of the cheap disposable pens have caps that grip too tightly to allow them to be secretly stolen away. Experiment with different brands. There are many suitable types of ballpoint and rollerball pens.

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Spoo-KeyIn 1945 I purchased an old trick called “The Spooky Key.” For my fifty cents I received two “back-door” skeleton keys and instructions on how to make the weighted key rotate in a spooky manner. Over the years I worked on this trick, building its basic effect into a routine that raised the level of mystery. I eventually published this in the March 1983 issue of Pabular. Later it was included in Theater of the Mind (p. 64).

Shortly after this I discovered a tool that allowed me to increase the mystery substantially. I’ve fooled almost every magician who has seen me do it. This is not due to any great presentational skills, but rather to the method, which makes the key’s movement utterly perplexing. Many magicians have examined the key and asked who made the mechanism, thinking is was a high-priced mechanical prop. It is nothing of the sort.

This is an effect that can be done almost anywhere. I have performed it as an after-dinner table stunt, standing in a living room with people all around, and as a dramatic demonstration on television.

There are few tricks that can be done in almost any environment and that are appreciated by persons regardless of culture or language. This is one of them.

The patter idea I use was inspired by Robert E. Neale’s “The Key in the Door” (in his Tricks of the Imagination, p. 191).

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Effect and Presentation: The performer tells a story about a visit he and his cousin made as boys to an abandoned asylum for the insane in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

“According to legend, one of the rooms was called “The Death Room.” This was an area where extremely sick or difficult residents were placed and left to die. In the door there was a key.

“I took the key,” the performer displays it.“You will notice there is no manufacturing stamp on the key. It is shiny

and looks new, yet its metallic makeup is not easy to analyze.“The key has an unusual property. Somehow it can animate itself. Maybe

all the wails and screams for help that came from that room are embodied in it. Maybe not.”

The performer places the key across his outstretched palm and closes his fingers over it.

With no further movement of the fingers, the key slowly rotates, turn-ing a hundred and eighty degrees in a very spooky fashion.

He opens his hand and shifts the key until the bit end protrudes on the side near the thumb, and the oval grip lies on the palm. The fingers again close into a loose fist.

Slowly the key moves laterally from west to east. It not only moves through the hand laterally, but it also ever so slightly moves inward as it continues its spooky journey. The performer’s hand remains totally immo-bile throughout this.

He asks a woman next to him to grasp the grip of the key, which now extends from his hand. She does, and the performer opens his hand. All is innocent. His hand is empty, and the woman is left holding the key, which she may examine.

The key is retrieved and is placed again on the performer’s open hand. This time, while the hand remains open, the key slowly rotates.

Finally, it is dropped onto the table and left for anyone who wishes to look at it.

Method: There is no ghost in the key.There is instead a hidden motor.The key, as mentioned, is of the old skeleton-key variety and is unpre-

pared. It does, though, have certain properties. The first is that the shaft must be round and smooth. The second is that the grip of the key incon-spicuously outweighs the bit, acting as a counterbalance so that the key

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Impromptu Card at Any Number

(Close-Up Version)

Here are a few of the features that make this method my favorite.The demonstration can be performed with anyone’s cards and no

preparation whatsoever.The trick can be done close up, sitting at a table with an intimate group,

or on a platform or stage in front of a large audience.The effect can be described by a participant in one sentence: “The card

I thought of was found at the position I selected in the deck.”The effect is stunning and memorable.Finally, forgive my immodesty in mentioning that this presentation has

baffled some of the best cardmen around. But more significantly, the effect has, over and over again, delighted my wife, Janie. When a trick passes the “Janie Test,” I know it’s a winner.

Although the secret is simple, the actual performance takes skill, par-ticularly in the areas of audience management and the use of both subtle and bold misdirection.

I was a college professor for forty-two years, so I know how important it is to present concepts slowly and thoroughly if you expect others to

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replicate what you are doing. Anyone who has ever made bread from scratch knows how important it is to do each step correctly if you want to produce a delicious result. I’ve also learned that small changes in a recipe can have large consequences.

My goal here is to help you to be successful. I want you to learn, and then master, a card trick that you can do at anytime and be confident you will astonish your audience.

Effect and Presentation: “Will you please take these cards and mix them up? Thank you.

“Barbara, will you help me out with this experiment? Will you think of any card—other than a joker—that you would find in a deck of cards. Most people think of a Queen of Hearts or an Ace of Spades. You can do this or you can think of a less popular card, like the Four of Clubs.

“Do you have one in your mind? You can change your mind if you wish.“This is very important. I want you to go through this deck and find the card

you have in your mind. Carefully remove it—and hand the deck back to me.”The performer turns his head while she searches for, and then removes

her card.“You are absolutely sure you will remember the card? If you wish, you can

let the person next to you peek at it, but you don’t have to do this.”Holding the deck face down, the performer riffles the corners of the

cards off his thumb.“Let me know when you want to stop.”She says, “Now.”“Are you sure this is fine?”“Go a little further.”The performer does this, and she again says to stop. He has turned his

head away during this. He lifts off the cards above the break, she places her card on top of the lower packet and he buries it with the cards he’s lifted away. He immediately and casually sets the assembled deck on the table and gives it a fair riffle shuffle. But he does not push the shuffled halves together. He leaves them interlaced about an inch.

“Please help me by pushing the cards together.”When she has done this, he continues, “Barbara, I honestly have no

idea what card you have in your mind. You can tell by my eyes, the tone of my voice and my body language that I am telling the truth. Women are so good at catching men when they fib.”

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Now the experiment begins. The performer picks up the shuffled deck in one hand, and then extends the forefinger of his other hand.

“Pretend there is a ribbon hanging in front of us, and there are numbers on it, from one at the top to fifty-two at the bottom.” He lowers his extended forefinger along the imaginary ribbon and sets the deck back on the table.

“Please move your index finger down this invisible ribbon, starting at one, and stop at any number.”

Barbara does this. She selects number eighteen.“Do you want to move up a little—or down a little?”“No.”“Your number is eighteen, correct?”She nods. The performer picks up the deck.“Please help me count. I will do this slowly and deliberately.” Slowly, the

performer counts the cards. He deliberately and openly removes the cards and lets them fall face down into a pile.

When he drops the thirteenth card onto the table, he says, “I think I know what you’re thinking. You wonder if your thought-of card has been dealt already. If it has, we are wasting our time.”

Barbara nods, indicating that such a thought has entered her mind.The performer turns the pile of cards on the table face up, and at the

same time sets down the deck. Both hands are now used to spread the dealt cards, so that they may all be seen.

Barbara looks them over. “Only you know your card. Do you see it on the table?” She does not.

“Let’s slow down. This is getting me a little tense.“We have dealt thirteen cards, correct?”He slowly slides the top card off the deck and turns it face up. “Fourteen.”Similarly, he slowly and openly removes the fifteenth, sixteenth and sev-

enteenth cards. There is obviously no deception in the way he handles them.The eighteenth card is carefully slid off the deck and left face down on

the table. The drama builds.“I have no idea what card you are thinking of. What is it, Barbara?”“The Eight of Clubs,” she answers.“This is the eighteenth card.” He points to it.The tension builds.He invites Barbara to turn the card over. She does.It is the Eight of Clubs!

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E HAVE JUST SPENT a chapter look-ing at billet folds that allow information to be glimpsed. In this chapter I will explain a new message-reading method in which the message card is sealed inside an envelope. I was originally going to publish this idea as a brief description of just a new type of gimmicked envelope. Then, as so often happens in magic, I found there were useful and deceptive aspects to this approach that had wider applica-tions than I originally believed. I wish to explain how the Osmosis Envelope can be used with one person over a cup of coffee, or in platform and stage routines. Most effects using billets that have to be secretly opened and closed can be performed with the Osmosis technique, leaving behind the sleights and misdirection required in a great deal of billet work.

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