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Hey Guys,

So tomorrow night, me and a friend are going to host a seance and have a little bit of mischievous fun & pass some magic off as a spiritual seance.

An obvious edition would be an ouiji board using the ideometer effect.

I want to go all-out, so I'm looking for ideas, to /really/ freak out some of our "friends"

any great ideas we could incorperate?.

Currently planning:

Ouiji Board,
mind reading.
Spirit talking through me.
Appearing Cuts/bruises.
Moving items, such as cutlery.

I just want to state for the record, all seances are counterfeit.

Arkesus wrote:I just want to state for the record, all seances are counterfeit.

you mean...........you mean....... Derek Akorah doesn't really talk to ghosts

So tomorrow night you are holding a seance. One days time ?

Ok

I do hope this is done as a bit of fun and not as a serious performance as if so I can tell you its too late.

The peoiple who are top of their game in this field have studied and honed their scripts for years to perform this right, building and breaking tension in all the right places. Guess no branch of magic is immune to the 'want to perform it now' people. (You may not fall in this category, I'm just saying tis all)

Anyways with such a short time to go, your best bet is to utilise what skills you have as a magician to enhance the illusion of spirits being present.

Derren Browns the Seance may give you some ideas of magic 'tricks' themed within this set.

Are you a decent card magi ? Or what do you normally perform ?

Evie x

With such a small time and your age I would suggest doing maybe just a series of bizarre effects rather than a seance. Aim for doing more of a disney haunted house evening; a spook show. As Evie said with a day to go it's really too late to prepare much more than you already know.

With such little preparation, I suggest you buy a big cushion to land one when you fall flat on your @rse. No research done it seems.

Arkesus wrote:I just want to state for the record, all seances are counterfeit.

Mine and Voodini's aren't. (Though they are for 'entertainment puposes only')

I must agree with the Lord! It is something that needs, practice, confidence and a solid script.

Lord Freddie wrote:With such little preparation, I suggest you buy a big cushion to land one when you fall flat on your @rse. No research done it seems.

Couldn't agree more. When I decided to enter into this kind of performance, I did my research and rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed. I still fell flat on my @rse.

My advice would be simply not to do it. Go buy The Paranormal Entertainer by our very own Paul Voodini and study it. Get an idea of how it should be scripted. Once you've done that go out and run a completely ungimmicked seance. Only then will you know how it flows and get an understanding of how you can introduce 'effects' into the proceedings.

When I began doing mine I started with an opening session of mentalism, essentially my routine from my psychic parties. Then there was a clear break and into the spooky stuff.

I get the sense that what he wants here isn't along the lines of Paul's work. I don't reckon he wants ungimmicked I think we're looking at rather large bumps in the night. Paul's work is excellent though, but I don't get the feeling it's the sort of thing being aimed at. Plus you're not going to take in the information in a day to use to much effect.

As you're previous posts mentioned working in pubs and on the street I would suggest a different angle. I know you mentioned spike before along with card tricks. From you're posts I can't see any major knowledge of mentalism or bizarre magic. I may be wrong I'm just going off you're posts. So I would say maybe do something close to what you already know. An easier option to the seance would be to go with an evening of mental magic. Get a set of ESP cards and do the test for real. 25 cards and test how well your friends do. Then maybe do a few mental effects with the ESP cards. They'll still have good fun and will involve you're friends rather than them just watching. If you wanted to do more of a spook show at a later date I'd be happy to list books and effects sources, but with just a day you won't be able to get hold of them now.

I kinda half disagree with the idea of getting Paranormal Entertainer and then adding tricks.

From the sounds of your planned 'set' it seems the OP is doing a more haunted house style rather than a true seance.

Pauls work is solid gold and in my opinion doesn't need gimmicks and tricks (the type the op is using I mean) to strengthen. I purposefully stayed away from the PE style seance as I knew I couldn't carry it without gimmicks (yet) and that felt like sacrilidge lolol x

But of course its an incredibly useful and informative book for anyone to use parts of in their performance and its my most used book of Voodini's I own.

I am interested though in how the OP plans to weave his effects into a logical and coherant set ...


E x

Box of delights from Unleash your dreams is a lovely little seance kit. Or ask Evie (harris) if she has any of her lovely mini seance kits, i adore mine!

To be honest, doing an actual believable seance and doing a selection of magic tricks with a seance theme (which is what I believe you're trying to do) are two different things. If there is too much going it will just become silly.

Paul Voodini's book and the seance kits that have been recommended are great items for someone presenting a proper seance, however this is not what it seems you are trying to acheieve. These things take a lot of presentational skill.

The fact that you have added pendulums (which are a bit part of my seance nights) at the last minute without (it seems) even trying them out before means you are doomed to failure.

Either go away and think about it properly and decide what you wish to achieve or stick to ACR's.

Danny Joseph wrote:Hey Guys,

So tomorrow night, me and a friend are going to host a seance and have a little bit of mischievous fun & pass some magic off as a spiritual seance.

An obvious edition would be an ouiji board using the ideometer effect.

I want to go all-out, so I'm looking for ideas, to /really/ freak out some of our "friends"

any great ideas we could incorperate?.

Currently planning:

Ouiji Board,
mind reading.
Spirit talking through me.
Appearing Cuts/bruises.
Moving items, such as cutlery.

Looking at the advice that's already been given (and it really is very good even though it's probably upset you a bit), how about cancelling the show at the last minute, and using that cancellation as the basis for a disturbing premise for the eventual performance?

Seance cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances?

Someone had to say it!