The Trick Brain

The Trick Brain
Author	Dariel Fitzkee
Publisher	Saint Raphael House
Publication Date	1944
Language	English
Preceded by	Showmanship for Magicians
Followed by	Magic by Misdirection

The Trick Brain was part of Fitzkee's trilogy which also included Showmanship for Magicians and Magic by Misdirection.

Reviewed in Genii 1945 January

Content

• Introduction
• Clearing up a puzzle
• Art versus science
• The reason for a book of fundamentals
• Where this work came from
• Old things are best
• Bromides
• Time and tide
• Of words and style and other trivialities

== Chapter I: Classification of Effects ==

• Thousands from so few
• Trick and effect
• Classification of card effects, by T Page Wright
• Conjuring feats, as Mr Sharpe sees them
• Fundamental effects, through Mr Freer's eyes
• And nineteen effects for this work
• Their definitions

== Chapter II: Upon These Fundamentals We Stand ==

• A fertile field for argument
• You may lead a horse to water
• What you may use
• What you may do
• Time
• Conditions
• Of repetitions and the like
• Are secrets important?
• But twenty from many

== Chapter III: The Beginning of Appearance ==

• Three ways of looking for tricks
• From a secret place while diverted
• The form
• The detachable portion
• Repeating
• The thread, elastic and spring pulls
• Decanters to spiders' webs
• Spring levers and balloons
• Guided gravity
• Revolving panels

== Chapter IV: Appearances, Continued ==

• Secret compartments
• Double bottoms double sides
• Movable compartments
• Mirrors
• Cast iron elephants
• Two compartments, either of which may become secret
• Concealed by an accessory
• Remote places

== Chapter V: Appearances, Again ==

• Expansibility
• Eggs and chickens
• Covering which blends with the background
• Sliding slats
• Loading while concealed by an accessory
• Chemicals

== Chapter VI: Appearances, Still Going On ==

• Secret ingress
• Secret passageways
• Optical projection
• Hollow shells
• Secret exchange
• Pretense

== Chapter VII: The Vanish ==

• Opposites
• Disposal while distracted
• Disposal and form
• Detachable portions for vanish
• Pulls and the flying cage
• Improvements
• Secret compartments again
• Even two secret compartments
• Shells
• Collapsibility
• Covering to oblivion
• Gone behind an accessory
• Black art
• Chemistry

== Chapter VIII: Vanish, Continuing ==

• Gone like the malefactors
• Secret passageways
• Optics
• Shells
• Reversing the appearance principle
• Substitutions
• Pretense
• Disguise

== Chapter IX: Transpositions ==

• Combination vanish and appearance
• Clocks that pass
• Duplicates While attention is away Change in proximate surroundings
• Secret exchange
• Flaps
• Compound transpositions
• Refinements
• Difliculties of classification
• Disguise with a die
• Shells and buttons
• Concealed conveyance
• Pretense
• The invisible man
• Complex transpositions
• And other applications

== Chapter X: Transformations ==

• Combination vanish and appearance
• Dual identity
• Bricks, billiard balls and canes
• Substitution
• Shells
• Concealment
• Bold tactics
• Pulls Coverings
• Secret compartments and disguise
• The disappearing princess
• Concealment and secret passageways
• Disguise
• Relative surroundings
• Bulk, blinds and reversible panels

== Chapter XI: Penetration ==

• Can matter pass through matter?
• The very few ways
• Secret passageway
• Around
• Duplicates
• New for old
• Needles to rings
• Substitution
• Two obstacles and two Parts
• Magnets
• Collapsibility
• Pretense
• Implication
• Random examples
• Princess, phantoms, blocks, ghosts, glasses, spokes, boxes
• Optics, ties
• Grandmother's contribution
• Passageways in profusion

== Chapter XII: Restoration ==

• Two conditions
• Dupes again
• Pretense
• Disguise
• Six ways
• Cremation, decapitation, dismemberment and other gory details
• Paper
• Valuables
• Mr Kolar's String
• Ropes
• Portions
• Rubber bands, string, cards, plates, ribbons, neckties, handkerchiefs, ropes

== Chapter XIII: Animation ==

• Invisible connection
• Concealed connection
• Clockworks
• Stored up power
• Indirect connections
• Chemicals
• Secret compartments
• Human power
• Gravity
• Centers of gravity
• Balance
• Pendulums, handkerchiefs
• Implication with silk
• Automata

== Chapter XIV: Anti-Gravithy ==

• Suspension
• Concealed support
• Shifted center of gravity
• Rising figures
• Pianos
• Invisible support
• Ashrah
• Magnetic repulsion
• Atmospheric pressure
• Threads
• Concealed support again
• Reels
• Hair
• Magnetic attraction
• Weight

== Chapter XV: Attraction ==

• Invisible support
• Concealed support
• Magnetism
• Ad-hesion
• Secret grips
• Canes, cigarettes, tables, vases

== Chapter XVI: Sympathetic Reactions ==

• No common characteristics
• Silks
• You do as I do
• Interpretations identify
• Effects really in other categories
• Candles
• Productions
• Cards and saucers
• Cards
• Flocks of sympathy tricks
• Suggestions on how to do
• Suggested effects

== Chapter XVII: Invulnerability ==

• Fire eating, cooking steaks and walking on swords
• Rolling in a barrel of glass
• Kids and a bed of spikes
• In a cake of ice
• Traps
• Bullet catching
• Stretching
• Electrocution
• Methods unique to the problem

== Chapter XVIII: Physical Anomaly ==

• Shadows
• Seeing through matter
• Living heads
• Pencils, dollar bills and other contradictions
• Other suggestions of violated physical laws
• Time

== Chapter XIX: Spectator Failure ==

• An impossible game
• Shells and cards
• Rattle bars, foo cans, ropes and barrels
• Conveyance, substitution, disguise, duplicates
• Running up hands, bank nights, bingo, spell
• downs
• Puzzles
• Interpretation of transformation and transposition effects
• Threading contest

== Chapter XX: Control ==

• A fine line between animation and control
• Clocks, hands, bells and skulls John Mulholland's bell
• Coins, hands and Bill Larsen's slipper
• Drumsticks and snakes
• Balls and spelling
• Sand and a trick with liquids
• Ducks and dogs

== Chapter XXI: Identification ==

• Discovery
• How
• Marks Delay
• Psychology
• Tags, crayons, sticks
• Magnetic methods Keys
• Arrangements
• Mathematics
• Latin
• Indirect marks
• Pyramids, discs, ballot boxes, clocks and lead pencils
• Living and dead
• Luminous paint
• Glimpses
• Forces
• Exchange
• Mind reading, cards and telephones
• Indirect keys
• Confederates Codes

== Chapter XXII: Thought Reading ==

• Taken from the subject
• Reading the recorded thought How to manage a glimpse
• One-ahead, extracting the card, and transparencies
• Exchanges Stealing the note Feeling the writing
• Secret impressions Carbon and wax
• Contact mind reading
• Microphones
• Reading messages in the dark
• Confederates
• Forced thought

== Chapter XXIII: Thought Transference ==

• Projected to the receiver
• Codes audible and visible Memorized routines
• Indirect codes
• Position and felt codes
• Specialization Forcing
• Confederacy Secret writing
• Delayed commitment
• Contact mind reading

== Chapter XXIV: Predictions ==

• Foretelling the future
• Forcing
• Delayed commitment
• Confederacy
• Slates to books
• Nail writers Pocket writing
• Indexes and filing devices
• Substitution
• Providing for every contingency
• Locked chests, sealed jars and sealed envelopes

== Chapter XXV: Extra-Sensory Perception ==

• Spectacular delusions
• Seeing with the fingertips
• Detection other than claimed
• Blindfolds
• Secret identifications
• Seeing through welded steel plates
• Detection the FBI couldn't use
• Defective impediment
• Interpretation again

== Chapter XXVI: Pseudo Skill ==

• Imitations of skill
• Not mysteries as to method
• Memory
• Balancing eggs
• Gambling demonstrations
• Lighting matches in mid air
• Pocket picking
• Cube root
• Fans

== Chapter XXVII: The Invention of New Trick Plots ==

• A numbering system
• Drawing lots for a new trick
• Make added lists
• Needles, knitting and otherwise
• Pitchers, pails and decorations
• Sacks, birds and words
• Arbitrary selections force the imagination
• Original trick Plots
• Original routines
• Generalities broaden the field
• Original combinations
• Cards and The Trick Brain
• Cards on a plate
• Practical experience

== Chapter XXVIII: Methods for New Trick Plots ==

• Basic methods
• Generalized for stimulation
• Why this book was written
• The "how" of the needles
• A new trick: Needles to packet
• What flower do you prefer?
• Say it with flowers
• Adaptation
• Method selection
• Animated sympathetic rope
• Weed out those you don't like
• The Trick Brain does many things

== Chapter XXIX: The Trick Brain ==

• Introducing The Trick Brain in person
• What it is
• How it works
• Lists of basic effects
• List of essential factors
• Lists of objects
• Lists of basic methods

== Chapter XXX: Techniques of Invension ==

• How various inventors attack the thirty-card trick
• Leipzig, Buckley Baker, Zens, Scarne Vernon
• Card to the Pocketbook by various methods
• The Diminishing Cards by Bertram Chapender, Stanyon, Baker and Walsh
• The Bill In Cigarette by many including Rae, Thayer, Ervin, Davenport
• The wands
• Sawing a woman
• Six card repeat
• Many effects with blocks
• Whiskey glasses
• Trunk tricks
• How method is shaped by style and circumstances
• The linking rings
• Conditions and capabilities

== Chapter XXXI: Sleight-of-Hand Translation ==

• Mechanical methods apply to sleight-of-hand performers
• The hand is a mechanical device
• Secret hiding places
• Reasoning out methods
• Bouquet to silk
• Step-by-step analysis
• Forms, detachable portions, pulls, secret compartments, shells
• The hands as accessories
• Cards as accessories
• Coverings which blend, secret passageways secret exchange
• Disguise, secret compartments

== Chapter XXXII: New Lamps for Old ==

• Other valuable uses for The Trick Brain
• How tricks may be changed in effect
• Interpretation again
• Shelves full of unused tricks and devices
• Reclaiming them for new purposes and uses
• An example with The Passe Passe Bottles
• Analyzing what they really may be
• An example with the mirror glass
• What to look for and how The Trick Brain will suggest new uses

== Chapter XXXIII: The Ultimate Objective ==

• Marshaling the elements of the mechanics of magic
• Disagreements are expected
• Reduction to final elements is intended
• The foundations of mechanical magic
• Tools are tricks
• Technique of performance
• Overcrowded workshops and unskilled mechanics
• All the tricks you will ever need
• Mechanics not profound
• Fundamentals all here
• A list of the fifty four elements
• Are these the true secrets of magic?
• What of the mind?

== Chapter XXXIV: Glossary Of Definitions Of Fundamental Expedients ==

Courtesy of Doug A's Magic Book TOCs

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