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I'm hoping that one of you fine people can help me out with this one.

I have a Bizarre effect that I want to perform, It's from a Larry Baukin book called 'The Book of Aleister Crowley'.
the first part of the routine is a dressed up version of the Ashes-in-the-hand effect that David Blaine made famous.

For the second part of the effect Ashes are poured onto a piece of paper and words appear, this is the part I need the help with. Apparently their used to be a marketed effect called 'Astral Ashes' which was sold by Al's magic shop in Washington DC unfortunately the shop is long since gone and I can not find the effect anywhere else. Can anybody point me in the direction of an alternative that would acheive the same results? If anybody can help with this it would be greatly appreciated, as I'm hoping to use this as part of my Bizarre routine.

Hi Magick. Are you familiar with the old effect where ash is rubbed onto the arm or back of the hand, to reveal a word or playing card ? The same method could be used on a piece of paper or card. jim

Hi Jim, thanks for your reply.

I am familiar with that effect, I was hoping for a more impressive reveal of the words, handsfree in an ideal world. Perhaps I'm asking too much?

You're certainly not asking too much, its good to aim high. I have always found that there is always a way, all it takes is some thought (sometimes a heck of a lot of thought mind you ). Have you got a picture in your head of exactly how it should look ? Could you describe what you see ? jim

Ok, you want words to appear on slips of paper via the rubbed in ash? Do I have that right?

Craig Browning wrote:Ok, you want words to appear on slips of paper via the rubbed in ash? Do I have that right?

That is pretty much the effect.
heres a synopsis (in a nutshell)...

Part 1

1. The performer bring out a tiny jar of Ashes (insert spiel here)
2. The performer draws a magick circle on a piece of paper
3. The spectator holds his/her hands over the magick circle
4. Performer strikes a match, slowly lowering to the centre of the magick circle, the match is then crushed into the circle as it is the spectator feels something in his/her hand.
5. The spectator opens his/her fist to reveal a smear of ashes in their palm.

Part 2 (The part I need help with)

1. The spectator rubs his/her palm against the magick circle
2. As the spectator lifts her palm he/she sees several letters forming in the centre of the circle.
3. The performer carefully opens the vial of ashes and sprinkles a little onto the circle.
4. As the ash touches the paper, words become visible from the forming letters. They are 'I am perplexed'

Hi, you mention that the ashes are poured and the words appear, am i right in thinking that you dont want to rub the ashes into the paper at this point ?

After i mentioned the above method (writing appearing on hand) i remembered there are a couple of diffirent methods for this. Just to clarify, i was talking about the original s**p method as found in the old texts, not the method the masked magician showed (blaine style).

Using the original s**p method the paper can be freely shown to be blank, and when the ash is rubbed in the words would appear, lightly at first and getting darker as you/they rubbed. If you really dont want to rub at this point you will have to use something that the ash will stick to when poured onto the paper. Maybe soft magicians w** or something. If you used the s**p method and did that part of your routine the other way round (pour the ashes on first to reveal some faint writing, then rubbed to make it appear). But it all depends on when exactly you want to rub/not to rub. jim

Wow, just in reading your thoughts I had several ideas spring to mind that might "advance" things a bit, lending to you some options or even a set of alternative paths you can go with other people gathered around the table.

(I can't believe I'm going to say this...) since you are using a circle for your reveal you can work with some sympathetic magick as your theme by starting your participant with their own magick circle a.k.a. a CT set-up. All you need to do is use a specially modified swami or PW device to prepare the reveal circle. To my mind this allows you to carry through with the sympathy shown through the standards ashes in the hand routine, expanding it to a more impossible course of phenomena.

There are some other directions you could go as well... for an example, having a special round talisman that is used form scoring the circles as part of the spell. There are ways of laying that "coin" on a second slip of paper (the sort that bursts readily into brilliant flames) and what one finds beneath the coin is a round charred remnant revealing the information you've gained from that second helper.

With fire, writing, etc. all be a part, I'd close this routine with a kind of esoteric code set within the spell itself. I forget the name of the marketed effect, but there is a special pen that you can write messages with in conjunction with some other special steps. Once you light a bit of flash paper atop the paper with the writing, most all of the ink vanishes with the exception of the letters needed for spelling out a particular message. Again, to my mind this would make an awesome and most chilling final phase to the sequence.

Offering a demonstration of sympathetic magick with all these trimmings might just have people thinking you're the son of the devil himself, but damn if it's not a load of fun getting them there

The Pen is a Frixton pen and if used with a normal pen can produce the effects you just mentioned

Thank you gents for all your feedback and help with this one.

My mind is racing with ideas now. I think that I will probably end up stripping this routine down to the bare bones and building from the ground up again (Thats your fault Rev. Browning, awesome ideas)
I've found a method for the word reveal that I like in Roger Curzon's book Sublimations called the salamander papers I'm thinking will work nicely involving f***h paper.

I'll let you guys know how I get on and thanks once again for your help and inspiration.