Subject: Mentalism
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Scarne’s Magic Tricks
SYNOPSIS: Scarne’s Magic Tricks is John Scarne’s large collection of 201 practical magic tricks designed to be performed without advanced sleight of hand or expensive professional equipment. The routines use familiar, easily obtained objects and are intended for informal gatherings, close-up performance, parlor shows, and occasional platform or stage presentation. Scarne streamlined many traditional methods so that beginners…
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Pure Effect
SYNOPSIS: Pure Effect: Direct Mindreading and Magical Artistry combines practical card magic and mentalism with Derren Brown’s early thinking about performance, spectator management, risk, psychological framing, and the theatrical appearance of genuine mind reading. Rather than treating mentalism as a sequence of predictions and revelations, Brown argues that the performer should make the process of reading or influencing…
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Phoenix Series
SYNOPSIS: The Phoenix: Issues 1–300 is the complete run of the influential biweekly magic periodical published from January 1942 through February 1954. Walter B. Gibson helped establish and initially edit the magazine with Bruce Elliott, who became its principal editor during the run. Conceived as a successor in spirit to Theodore Annemann’s The Jinx, each compact four-page…
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Pet Secrets
SYNOPSIS: Al Baker’s Pet Secrets collects a wide-ranging selection of Al Baker’s professional routines, utility techniques, and practical methods for close-up, parlor, and platform magic. The book is organized by branches of magic rather than as a progressive beginner’s course, beginning with Baker’s influential work using hair and thread for secret animation, levitation, rising-card effects, and…
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Paramiracles
SYNOPSIS: Paramiracles presents the professional mentalism of Ted Lesley, organized and written with Stephen Minch. The book contains more than three dozen routines, techniques, utility devices, and performance essays developed from Lesley’s working repertoire. Its material ranges from intimate billet and business-card demonstrations to predictions, psychometry, book tests, card divinations, metal bending, newspaper effects, and larger…
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Openers
SYNOPSIS: Openers is an anthology of more than forty performance-tested routines contributed by professional magicians, each chosen because the contributor uses it to begin a show, close-up set, or walk-around encounter. Rather than concentrating on one magician’s style, the book presents many approaches to establishing attention quickly, introducing the performer’s personality, involving spectators, and creating a…
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More Magic
SYNOPSIS: More Magic is Professor Hoffmann’s sequel to Modern Magic, expanding his course in Victorian conjuring with newer sleights, methods, apparatus, and complete routines. The book begins with additional advice on the magician’s wand, table, costume, servantes, and mechanical accessories before moving into a particularly extensive study of card magic. Its card chapters cover improved passes, forces,…
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Mastering the Art of Magic
SYNOPSIS: Mastering the Art of Magic brings together seven influential booklets Eugene Burger originally published between 1982 and 1994. The collection includes Secrets and Mysteries, Audience Involvement, The Secrets of Restaurant Magic, Eugene Burger on Matt Schulien’s Fabulous Card Discoveries, Intimate Power, The Craft of Magic, and Rediscoveries. For this edition, the material was completely re-typeset and supplemented with new essays in which…
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Mark Wilson’s complete Course in Magic
SYNOPSIS: Mark Wilson’s Complete Course in Magic is a broad, illustrated introduction to the major branches of practical magic. Organized as a progressive course, it teaches fundamental techniques before applying them to a large collection of routines with cards, coins, money, ropes, silks, billiard balls, sponge balls, cups and balls, everyday objects, mental effects, and larger…
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Korem Without Limits
SYNOPSIS: Korem Without Limits is a 1985 collection of 25 original magic effects and techniques by professional magician Danny Korem. It emphasizes practical, performance-ready routines for close-up and stand-up magic, including the influential Omni Deck routine. The 181-page book also discusses stand-up performance and Korem’s exposure of alleged psychic James Hydrick. Book Details: Author/Creator: Danny KoremPublisher:…
