60 Self-Working Mental Magic
Stack the King through Ace of Spades in order on top of the deck. The
King is the top card, the Queen next, the Jack next, and so on. This is the
only preparation. In the next trick we will describe a method that uses
any deck and no preparation, but for the present discussion a stack will
be used as described above.
Explain that your assistant can pick up thought waves. Tell the
audience you will try to transmit certain thought patterns to her while she
is locked in another room. Have the medium go into an adjoining room
and close the door. Invite a spectator up to assist. He must be one who
wears an expansion-band watch (not of the digital kind).
Tell him to remove his watch, reset the hands to any time, remember
the setting and give you the watch behind your back.
After he has done this, tell him to pick up the deck, think of a number
from 1 to 10 and transfer that many cards from top to bottom. He does
this silently so that the medium in the next room cannot hear how many
cards he deals from top to bottom.
While he does this, take his watch, which you are holding behind your
back, and secretly slip it onto your right wrist. The face of the watch
should be at the inside of the wrist.
When the spectator stops dealing, tell him to take the top card and
place it in his pocket.
Take the deck from him and hold it face-up in your hand. Keep your
left hand behind your back as if it still held the watch. The deck is in your
right hand. Have the medium open the door. Hand her the deck claiming
she must touch it. As indicated in Figure 43, she sees the bottom card of
the deck and also the setting of the spectator’s watch. She then returns
the deck to you.
Knowing the bottom card, she knows that the card in the spectator’s
pocket is one less in value and of the same suit. If the bottom card is the
Six of Spades, the card in the spectator’s pocket must be the Five of
Spades.
Psychic Secrets 61
After a minute of concentration, the medium, still in the next room,
slowly reveals the name of the card in the spectator’s pocket, saying, “It
seems to be a black card … a low value … a Five … Yes, I see it, the
Five of Spades.”
In the meantime, while all attention is on her, you place your right
hand behind your back. With the aid of the left hand, the spectator’s
watch is slipped off the right wrist.
The medium never looks at you. Walking from the adjoining room to
join the present company, she acts as if she just remembered that the
spectator also set his watch at a particular time. Slowly she reveals the
setting on the watch. When this has been done, remove the spectator’s
watch from behind your back and have him verify that the medium was
right.
38. A ROOM AWAY
In this trick the medium goes into an adjoining room and closes the
door. While she is out of the room, a card is chosen from a borrowed,
shuffled deck. The card is returned to the deck and the deck placed in a
card case.
Although the medium never asks a single question, when the deck is
given to her she immediately names the chosen card. All props are
borrowed. There are no gimmicks or codes, and the test appears
unfathomable.
METHOD: The routine is based on an idea of Victor Marsh. After the
medium goes into the adjoining room, borrow a deck of cards. When you
remove the deck from the case, have someone shuffle the deck.
Ask him to remove one card and show it to the others. After he
removes the card, return the balance of the deck to the case as in Figure
44.
Figure 44 Figure 45
While all attention is directed to the spectator’s card, turn the card case
over. Pull back the flap and hold it in place with the
