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I'm really interested in starting creating my own tricks. I always start at the end with the effect, and work backwards - rather than devising a trick based on a sleight.
However, Im struggling to think of an unusual effect. I keep devising the common 'pick a card and reveal it some way' tricks - but want something different.
Anyone got any ideas for an impressive effect - not a method - purely an effect. Wether it be something you already do, something you're working on or even just something you've dreamt up, I'd love to hear it.
Thanks very much, Mark

Mark Smith wrote:I'm really interested in starting creating my own tricks. I always start at the end with the effect, and work backwards - rather than devising a trick based on a sleight.
However, Im struggling to think of an unusual effect. I keep devising the common 'pick a card and reveal it some way' tricks - but want something different.
Anyone got any ideas for an impressive effect - not a method - purely an effect. Wether it be something you already do, something you're working on or even just something you've dreamt up, I'd love to hear it.
Thanks very much, Mark

Hello there,

People tend to dismiss maths in magic, but not all maths is about counting or reducing to nines. If you can incorporate it into the effect, rather than have the spec do mental arithmetic, it's great!

For instance, my signature effect "poker faces" is baffling (it contains 5 randomising elements!) and has never been worked out by a spec, but at it's heart is a simple geometric transformation I discovered one afternoon. It's actually self-working, but I do it in a mentalism stylee, to prove no one's poker face can stand up to my scrutiny (Mwuahahaha!). I can do it until people get bored and no one ever rumbles the gag.

I think part of the reason magic is so baffling is that it's partly down to how the mind can't help but fall for some logical fallacies. One in particular, "Post hoc, ergo propter hoc", has a very powerful hold over us. We see event A followed by event B. If done well, it's difficult not to see A as causing B. Post hoc crops up all over the place in magic and in life.

Wikipedia has a lot of really good stuff on logical fallacies.

If your looking at a card trick then I always think the best ones involve signed cards being burnt then coming back somehow or ripped or something. I'm not that great at cards but I am just going to go wild with this one. Basically if you could have a spectator select a card and sign it, then you "eat it" and then have it restor and return to the deck. Then you rip it up and it restores and if again back in the deck, then finally you burn it and again restore it and return it to the deck. If you could do that I would be absolutley amazed! So a bit like card but instead of repeatedly jumping from the middle of the deck to the top, the card is destroyed and returned time after time as if it is some kind of indestructible card! The patter could be like you have this grudge against the partisipants choise, "ah not this damn card again!" you rip it it goes from there.

Now I don't have the faintest idea of how I would do that but good luck!

Jay Sankey has a DVD on penguin that teaches you how to make your own tirck...

not to split hairs or anything but it's post hoc ergo proctor hoc, not propter.

But the idea behind it is very interesting Tomo. I'd love to see your poker faces effect in action, it sounds very interesting.

If you're thinking about making up effects, I'd say the best way is to think, what would impress YOU?

If you can think of an effect that can impress you, then go for it! Think of ways to create that effect, be it simple or hard!

As for me, I have a poor imagination so I'll let you experts do it.

StEvEbO!

stevebo wrote:If you're thinking about making up effects, I'd say the best way is to think, what would impress YOU?

If you can think of an effect that can impress you, then go for it! Think of ways to create that effect, be it simple or hard!

As for me, I have a poor imagination so I'll let you experts do it.

StEvEbO!

Yeh thats the way I try and work but, like you, my imagination just isn't strong enough to come up with something exciting and new. Im sure it will with time!

And some help from forum members....

Demitri wrote:not to split hairs or anything but it's post hoc ergo proctor hoc, not propter.

But the idea behind it is very interesting Tomo. I'd love to see your poker faces effect in action, it sounds very interesting.

It's utterly untold! "Do it again" is something we're supposed to avoid, but the spec focuses not on the effect (he proves to himself that random elements are in the mix, so it can't be less than above board, tee hee) but on the supposed cause of the revelation. Himself! Post hoc at work.

Dunno about the proctor bit, though. We didn't do Latin at school. Isn't proctor something to do with bottom doctors?

If you are really into creating magic then buy The Trick Brain by Dariel Fitzkee., still obtainable at £25:50p.The actual method of selecting an effect is haphazard; by chance, and you might be better off simply thinking of the effect you wish to create However in the 316 pages, the basic principles of magic & numerous methods are very detailed. It is a basic workbook you need.
There is a smaller book called Letts Make Original Magic by S Letts published at £6:80, 50 pages. I did have it but cannot remember much about it except it doesn't have anywhere near, the details of the Fitzkee book.
Allen Tipton

Ok, Im gonna write down a mass of ideas off the top of my head, as I have been told I have a reasonably furtile imagination:

Signed grape eaten and reappeared on stalk,
Signed card vanished and found;
under a wig your wearing
sewn to the back of your shirt
rolled up in your ear
as your bookmark
in your burger
inside a teabag
(or not signed- dupes anyone?)
Coin dropped into cup of water and melts like a paracetemol. Then found in paracetemol box,
With the 'power of your mind' you make an ice-cube in someones drink sink, and then rise to the surface,
Eating your own finger! Yum,
The top of a card is torn of and the top bit vanishes. You then 'dunk' the card into the card case (torn edge down) and when it is taken out it is fully restored!
You borrow a bill and write down the serial number of it. They confirm it is the bills serial number and they hold onto the bill. You fold the serial number paper up and unfold it upon which they see the number has changed! When they open up their hand, the serial number on the bill has changed to match it! ( Now thats one crazy bill switch!)
Ummmmmm....
Tearing a ketchup packet in half and spilling some' ketchup blood' out of it. Then restoring it!
Pulling an elastic band through your neck.
Taking a mineral water bottle and shaking it vigourously upon where it turns a vivid red. Someone is poured a glass and it turns out to be wine- Miracle!
Making coins pass through a sock one by one.
Drawing a glass of cola on the back of a signed card. You then tip the card upside-down over a real glass and cola pours out! The glass on the card is now empty!
A lollipop that changes colour?(Paddle move) Or size? Or multiplies?
A yoyo string that becomes rigid. And then suddenly goes back to normal and the yoyo flies back up. Or some kind of cut and restored yoyo string thing?
Both you and the spectator sign a card. His signed card is placed on the table signature up. Yours is placed on top of the deck. With a wave, your signature vanishes to be found on a different card half way into the pack. It then sinks down to the bottom card, where it vanishes from the deck completely. Their signed card is now flipped over to show your signature has arrived on the back of their signed card.
Coin in watermelon, or yoghurt, or marmite?
A card is placed face down on the table and your tear it into four. The spectator picks up three pieces. The final piece that was not chosen is flipped over and written on the back are the words -PLEASE DONT CHOOSE ME- The pieces of the card all still match up.
You tap the back of a chosen card and the pips and numbers fall off, as confetti. The card is then shown blank.
Three dots are drawn on the back of a card. These are your 'trained fleas'.The dots now jump from one card to another, or onto a spectators chosen card, or whatnot.
An X is drawn on the palm of your hand. You wave your hand over the spectators selection, and show your hand is now unmarked. The X is now found on their selection. (Could also be done on a borrowed coin)
A fork bends with the power of your mind. But it bends around another fork, coiling around it.
A borrowed ring is vanished and found tied onto your shoelace, or threaded onto the small part of your tie!
You cut out an oval from a piece of white paper. The spectator signs it. It then transfroms into a real egg! The egg is broken open to find the signed piece of paper within.
A pen melts at your fingertips.
You snap two rubber bands. The two strands now turn into one big elastic band.( Or the reverse)
A polo vanishes and is found in your mouth. This is then repeated, upon which appears in your ear.


Well my brain is drained of any ideas worth typing down. I hope you can use some of these ideas, or have them inspire you to create a couple of other effects!

Ouch-Kabibble

lol at Ouch-Kabibble .... sweet jesus man, your a magic machine!

Taking a mineral water bottle and shaking it vigourously upon where it turns a vivid red. Someone is poured a glass and it turns out to be wine- Miracle!

Criss Angel did that but he turned it to beer...how does he do that? Wow....

lol at Ouch-Kabibble .... sweet jesus man, your a magic machine!

Sir Rawlins, I just read your post and......thanks! Very funny!

just think of something you have always wanted to do
like levitate, go invisable etc
then insted of doing this on yourself (very expensve)
do it on a piese of silk or card


another way is to think of really random things like :a card setting its self on fire (audiances love fire tricks) or making a match stick snap its self

and then your in buisiness