Tonight’s theme was spooky or mental magic. Larry Dimmitt told us a bizarre tale involving shrunken heads from the Amazon. He showed us photos of three shrunken heads – one with eyes sewn shut, one with mouth sewn shut, and one with no ears. His shaman card predicted which of the three heads a club member would choose. For his second effect, Larry brought out some Gypsy Fortune Telling cards and performed Paul Harris’ Deep Astonishment II, which was a very nice revelation of a randomly chosen name. Dan Kennedy related the story of how Houdini could escape from a milk can. Using mini-props, Dan showed us how Houdini performed the impossible feat.
John Cameron performed Psychic Suds, a three-phase mentalism routine which resulted in locating a chosen card with a beer bottle and the thoughts of three club members.
Mark Paulson performed a spooky Tarot card effect by Stephen Minch called the Rite of Daeron, found in Minch’s The Book of Thoth.
Hugh Castell performed a great mentalism effect with cards which he recently found in the October 2009 Genii. The effect is from Stephen Minch’s article, “Who Do You Thrust?”
Ed Loveland brought out a black envelope addressed to him which contained five tarot cards and a black card on which the word redemption was written. He told us a story about how he once got revenge on his annoying neighbor. He meant to just put a small spell on him, but things turned terribly wrong. In the end, Ed was so horror-struck by what he had done that he took out a razor…and it was the neighbor who ended up getting redemption.
Last up was Larry, who brought out a PSI Deck. He was able to divine which of the twenty-five symbols Dan was thinking of.