Help us get to over 8,748 articles in 2024.

If you know of a magician not listed in MagicPedia, start a New Biography for them. Contact us at magicpediahelp@gmail.com

Miracle Gimmick

From Magicpedia, the free online encyclopedia for magicians by magicians.
Revision as of 10:21, 28 November 2011 by Philippe billot (Talk | contribs)

Jump to: navigation, search

Miracle Gimmick is an aid that lets a magician perform various mantalism routines with a deck of playing cards.[1]

It allows the performer to accomplish such effects as the following:

  • FIVE CARD MENTAL SELECTION — A deck of cards is divided amongst five spectators. After shuffling, each person is asked to look his cards over and to just think of any one of them. Any spectator collects all of the cards and freely shuffles the deck. The deck is returned to the performer who explains that he will run through the deck and call off the cards as they occur — in order to "underscore" the mentally selected cards in the minds of the spectators, when they hear the thought of cards amongst the cards as they are read off. The spectators are cautioned not to say anything or to give any clue if they hear the name of their chosen cards. Using the same deck, the performer gets a mental impression of each card. Each chosen card is removed from the deck and held up, with its back towards the audience, before the spectator is asked to name his thought of card. Only after being named is the card turned around to positively show that it is the one mentally selected. This is repeated with all five spectators.
  • ONE CARD MENTAL SELECTION — A spectator is asked to think of any one card that he sees in the deck and then thoroughly shuffle the deck. The performer now runs through the same deck and is able to remove the correct card and hold it up before being named by the spectator.
  • TELEPHONE-TELA-CARD — the performer calls anyone on the telephone and ask him to merely think of any card. The participant is warned not to give the performer any clues. The person hears the deck being shuffled and the performer proceeds to read off cards. After requesting the spectator to write down the name of his chosen card so that he can concentrate to better advantage, the performer names the one chosen, while the person, at the other end of the line, is gazing at what he has written.[2]

This was created by Paul Fox, which he began marketing in 1947.[3]

After Fox's death, Jeff Busby re-marketed it by 1983 and Tannen's was also selling a cheaper version by 1984.[4]

Variations

  • Impromptu Paul Fox by Allan Ackerman in Las Vegas Kardma (1994)
  • "Outfoxed" by Danny Archer in The Linking Ring (April, 2002)

References

  1. Ad, Genii 1947 November
  2. Ad, MUM, June 1984
  3. Ad, Linking Ring, October 1947
  4. Epoptica No. 5, January