talkmagic.co.uk

on http://www.magicshop.co.uk/CARD_MAGIC.21/Royal_Road_to_Card_Magic__Complete_5_Disc_Set_.1567.html their is a video that tells you, you can use the book as well but is this relly nessessery. Has anyone just used the DVD set on its own and done fine without the book

Check out http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic9617.p ... l+road+dvd for more details.

I am quite sure that you don't need these DVD things. I learned card magic from the Royal Road about 45 years ago and it changed my life. It was my bible and fully 50% of my repertoire to this day comes from that book.

The Genii forum put up two videoclips of the two rival DVDs. The idea was to compare both and you would then say that the L & L one was better. Both performers were doing the same trick. Three Cards Across which happens to be a masterpiece signature effect of mine which I learned from the Royal Road.

Both video clips were awful. Rudy Hunter (who used to work for me) was a marginally better performer I thought but he was still awful when he did the trick. Both performers were doing the trick all wrong and they both omitted the most important part of the instruction which was in the book. If you are going to do a book purporting to teach the Royal Road then please teach what the book says.

Rudy should have known better since he has seen me do the trick properly several times years ago.

I wish people would leave well alone. They say that many a good trick has been killed by improvement. I think the same can apply to a good book. In my capacity as a psychic reverend I have been in touch with Hugard and Braue in the spirit world and they are not pleased at all.

I haven't seen the DVDs apart from those videoclips and now I don't want to. Maybe they are good but I highly doubt it on the basis of the videoclips. It is sacrilege to try to improve on this great book.

Leave the poor book alone and stop torturing it.

Just get the book, read them for yourself. Make your own presantation of those effects in the book, don't copy the same moves on dvds.
Also check this podcast for Royal Road to Card Magic, they'll correct some minor mistakes the book has, also give some tips on the tricks and moves. I think it's better than the dvd series.:
http://www.gomagicgo.com/

cheers guys i'll just get the book i gess its cheaper anyways

Could we get a link ot the clips please?

You may as well at least get the ebook. It's ridiculously cheap at about £3 for a download from
http://www.lybrary.com

Some people learn better from videos/dvds, but even so - it's worth having the book to hand as an additional reference.

As requested here is a link to the Genii thread in question:
http://geniimagazine.com/forum/cgi-bin/ ... 721#000000

Somewhere on that thread the two videoclips of the three cards across were mentioned and the links put up.

The main fault of BOTH presenters was that they don't do what the book tells them to do. They get the spectator to deal the cards in a very neat pile instead of from a height so that the cards go all over the place on the table. If you don't do that the odds are that you will get caught twice as fast.

If you present this great trick like those two people did you will get caught 50 percent of the time. Even when you do the trick properly it takes great skill to get the timing and misdirection right. The trick takes audacity and bluff.

I am being unfair judging the whole set on those two clips. However I have seen enough. These daft video and DVD things they have nowadays are against the laws of nature and I do not approve of them. It really is about time the younger generation learned to read instead of trying to do things the easy way.

The trouble is with trying to learn from videos is that it is often a case of the blind leading the blind. The incompetent trying to teach the incompetent.

I know I am overstating the case and that there is a place for videos. I am in a grouchy mood as usual.

And what has put me in a grouchy mood? Seeing those awful videoclips again.

Leave the book alone and stop torturing it (and me) I say.

Alas the Rudy Hunter videoclip of him doing the 3 cards across is no longer there. A mercy in some ways although I do remember Rudy as being a very good performer when I knew him. However he doesn't know how to do the 3 cards across though.

Which leaves us with the Paul Wilson version. And I can assure you he doesn't know how to do it either. He does get them to drop the cards but not from a high enough height and the cards do not go all over the place as it instructs in the book. Furthermore it was a very dull presentation and I nearly fell asleep watching it. He says it is one of his favourite effects on the Genii forum so I would have assumed that he did it regularly and would know how to put a bit of showmanship into it by now.

The book teaches you how to be a showman. Neither Rudy's clip or the Wilson one give the slightest evidence of showmanship.

No. Leave the poor book alone. It has managed all this time without modern technology and I am in great fear and trembling that these awful new innovations will ruin what is already wonderful.

I have the Rudy hunter version of the dvd set, and on 3 cards across, he does clearly point out that the cards should be dropped from a height into a messy pile, and gives the reasoning for it. I'm sure there are mistakes and ommissions in the effects, but that isn't one of them.

There are stated deviations from the text, usually where the presenter thinks something would benefit from the change. I'm sure there are also variations that are less useful. Any video course based on a book is going to be an interpretation of that text.

I posted a brief mini-review of the Rudy Hunter version in a thread a couple of weeks ago. I think it's a useful product for people who need to see things done in order to learn them effectively (like me ) It can also be had cheaply if you shop around (ie. check Ebay)

The other (Wilson) version is reportedly excellent, but is always a more expensive option.

He might point it out but he doesn't do it that way in actual practice. The spectator dealt them like a very neat tax accountant in a tiny little pile. And if I remember rightly Rudy didn't instruct her not to. You have to illustrate what you mean by counting 3 cards and drop them all over the place. Pick up the 3 cards you have just dealt and then hold a break to make them easier to palm off.

And if Rudy instructs the spectator to deal them into "a messy pile" as you state then he is doing it wrong. You don't want a pile at all, messy or not. You want them all over the bloody table. Better for showmanship and better for technical reasons. And better because Mark Lewis says it is better.

On rare occasions you might get a spectator doing it neatly. You have to interrupt them and get them to do it properly. In other words all over the place. You don't need to give them a reason for it. They will know that if they don't do as they are told you will turn them into a frog or alternatively show them another card trick which might be an even worse fate.

I repeat the trick and send another 7 cards over. Very risky and I do not advise this procedure for most people. However I am an exceptional human being.

No offence Mark Lewis I'm sure you are a fantastic performer, and I agree, Paul Wilson is not the most dynamic magician.

However, I have heard of him and seen some of his material (same goes for Brad) I have not, however, heard of you or seen your material.

Perhaps you are being overly critical?

First I apologise for the duplication of my post. I tried to edit it but didn't delte the first one. The second one is the one you are supposed to read. It has a most important little paragraph. I still can't figure out how to delete the first post. I am terribly old you know and do not understand technology. (No probs, now deleted by Mods)

Now let me answer young Pitto. I am a psychic person and can sense that he is young.

He tells us that he has never heard of me. Dearie me. I feel quite faint. This is the end of civilisation as we know it.

I am MARK LEWIS!

You are in the presence of one of the world's greatest magicians. Actually I consider myself to be the greatest but I didn't want to say so in case you consider me egotistical.

I am the greatest svengali pitchman of all time. I am the most entertaining card magician in the world. I am a most brilliant children's entertainer. A most wondrous stage hypnotist. A most wondrous mentalist. An even more wondrous psychic consultant. I am a fantastic close up magician especially when performing impromptu and of course work a most wonderful stand up act too.

Truly I am in great and wondrous idolatry at my own brilliance and admire it on a frequent and awestruck basis. However I am in a state of confusion and despair that young Pitta has never heard of me. I feel quite ill over the matter and will return when I recover.

In the meantime perhaps some of you could enlighten the young man.

I have absoloutely no doubts about your skill and I am in fact sure that you are the best magician ever (move over Vernon etc.).

Whether or not I should have done is a different matter I was merely pointing out that I havent.

[Click the delete button to get rid of your post]

Take Care...

I can't find the bloody delete button even though I have looked everywhere for it. My psychic powers have been failing in my recent years. Age you know.

I should point to young Pitta that just because you haven't heard of someone does not mean that the person is not deserving of praise and glory. It merely means that you have led a sheltered life.

I have now recovered from your impertinence and have put it down to the fact that you are young and British a most unfortunate combination which brings out the rudeness in people. I expect that is why we British rampage the streets of resort areas in Spain and elsewhere getting roaring drunk and spewing up in the streets. I do hope young Pitta is not a football hooligan in his spare time. Perhaps not I suppose. I expect he tortures people doing card tricks instead.

I am glad he likes Vernon. So do I. Perhaps there is hope for the child yet. However he also seems to like Jay Sankey as per his signature. I know Jay personally and in fact he used to work for me. I have always considered that he performs like a demented flea but I am willing to concede that he is very popular. Since he appears to be a hero of yours I am delighted to tell you that I expect he would agree with my humble assessment of my good self.

As for the mysterious "Brad" that you mention in your post I have searched this thread with great thoroughness and can find no trace of any "Brad" therein. I can only assume you mean Brad Christian who popped up in another thread to defend his worthy products.

Brad has already confirmed my genius in that thread but more to the point of this thread I have it in his own handwriting somewhere his opinion that I do 3 Cards Across better than anyone in the entire world. He wrote this about 20 years ago and in a state of great egomania I still have it.

I am therefore entitled to comment on the awful videoclips that were put up on the Genii board. I see that Rudy's clip has now disappeared from the site. Perhaps Rudy saw my opinion on the matter and took great fright since he has always recognised my genius even though on a mentalism audiotape of years ago he was quite impertinent about me saying that I was "an atrocious little man" and "quite criminal". I had to reprimand him concerning this and he replied by saying that he didn't mention my name on the audiotape.

I replied that this is what I was upset about.

Anyway it ill became Rudy to talk about my great criminality since I understand that to make a living he became a psychic reverend too.

But back to the point. I am NOT being "overly" critical. You yourself have admitted that Paul Wilson has the personality of a dial tone. I will not go that far since I have never seen him work apart from that one little performance. I have a friend in Las Vegas who edited my wondrous book on the svengali deck and she considers him quite wonderful.

However that is not the point. The real point of my criticism is that both Rudy and he miss out the most important point of the Royal Road's teaching and that is that you are supposed to have the spectators drop the cards all over the place not in one little "messy pile". You don't want a "pile". You want a mess.

Now Pitta my boy. Do try to improve yourself and study my posts with greater respect. You will become a better magician if you do. And do have a bit of respect for your elders, there's a good chap. I expect I was doing magic when you were breast feeding and know rather a lot about it. You should therefore pay closer attention.

If you don't then I shall in my capacity as a psychic reverend have to forgive you and sigh that youth is truly wasted on the young.

Reverend Mark Lewis
Free Spiritualist Church of Canada
www.marklewisentertainment.com