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JULY | 2025

TOP PICKS

The Features. Everything can be examined – the deck is found to be normal in every way. Once in the spectator's possession, the performer never touches the deck again. The deck is complete with 52 different cards – no duplicates. Any deck can be used – the effect can even be performed impromptu with a borrowed deck. No stooges, confederates, peeks, electronics or mirrors. No gaffs or gimmicks. No prepared box – the deck and box are REAL. Can be done one-on-one or for an audience of any size.

MY THOUGHTS:

I am an unabashed fan of Steve Shufton and his magical effects. He is a deep magical thinker, and it shows in his magic releases. Steve has amassed a primo stockpile of direct, clever, and unique magic. Some of his routines border on the miraculous, and X-Ray is one of them. It is a delightfully clean and powerful piece of card magic that will not only fool lay audiences, but also fry almost any magician who sees it.

X-RAY BY STEVE SHUFTON Available : https://www.shufton.com/Magic/X-Ray/x-ray.html

Price $25.00 inside US ($35.00 outside)

Reivew by Nick Lewin What you get. X-Ray comes in a beautifully designed 26-page booklet with extra tips and a foreword (and backword!) by Richard Busch.

The plot for X-Ray was posed by Ben Harris. Shufton focused on the effect and turned it into a masterpiece. This is not a self-working trick by any means. It will take a little time to learn to perform and present it, but the result will give you an outstanding addition to your repertoire. This is not a recent release. I discovered it and zeroed in on it, and I want to share this with our readers. There are millions of card tricks; however, darn few that have this kind of impact.

The Effect. The performer removes a deck from the case and gives it a complete shuffle. He thumbs through the deck to demonstrate that all the cards are different and that the deck is complete. Placing the deck on the table, he instructs the spectator that he will leave the room. While the performer is gone, the spectator is to turn a card face up anywhere in the deck, leaving the selection face up. The spectator is then to take the deck, put it in the case, seal the case, leave the cased deck on the table, and signal the magician to return to the room. The performer leaves the room, the spectator does as instructed, and the performer returns. The performer explains that he has begun to develop an uncanny ability to see the hidden, almost a type of X-Ray vision. Without ever touching the case, the performer focuses an intense gaze on the boxed deck. Much to the astonishment of onlookers, he reveals the name of the card that has been inverted!

This is a beautifully written booklet which will prove gold to any serious worker. I am delighted to give it a 5-Star rating and my most enthusiastic recommendation. Congratulations to Steve Shufton!

But now things get even crazier. He again focuses his gaze on the box and finally calls out a number. Again, he never touches the box. He instructs the spectator to remove the cards from the box and deal them one at a time onto the table face up, counting for each card dealt. Tension builds as the spectator nears the number called. When the number is reached, there is the spectator's face-up card! Not only has the performer accurately perceived the chosen card in a deck sealed in a box, but he named the actual position of the card as well!

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Each entry lists the book’s author, title, date, publisher, city, binding, color, pages, size, topics, and other bibliographical information. Whether you’re looking for information on all of Houdini’s written works, investigating a scarce antiquarian pamphlet on sleight-ofhand or a modern book on stage illusion, or conducting in-depth research on card magic or mentalism, you’ll likely find what you’re looking for in these volumes.

Anderson works, 37 by Henry Dean, 35 editions of Hocus Pocus, and more in-depth examinations of magic’s earliest classics, not to mention almost 300 rare pulp books.

Pre-order the deluxe leather edition now, or order the regular edition from us or Amazon. Regular edition volumes:
vol. 1: Aalto to Denise
vol. 2: Dennerlein to Hummerston
vol. 3: Humphrey to Pomeroy
vol. 4: Ponsin to Zver

MY THOUGHTS: I finally found out why Todd Karr wanted a list of my 40 books with the dates published and other relevant information. When these four volumes arrived I almost fell over. At 450 pages each lifting the box almost knocked me over but the amount of work is truly remarkable. I don't believe anything like this has ever existed in magic before, and it must have taken years to gather all the information.

This epic study of conjuring literature will hopefully soon become one of your favorite research tools to improve your techniques, find wonderfully unexpected secrets to read about, and explore the vast, subtle, and longlived art of the magician.

The bibliography traces the lifetime output of every individual author and every magic publisher’s slate of releases, as well as exhaustively recorded variants and later editions to allow you to follow the whole publishing history of many important writings that have never before been fully documented.

This is an incredible resource of books going back as far as 1584 to present day. They are split between four volumes and everything is alphabetical making it easy to find works by any author.

TODD KARR’S BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MAGIC: CONJURING BOOKS FROM 1584 TO TODAY Available : Deluxe edition (four volumes) available direct from www.miraclefactory.net/ and regular copies available from Amazon Price : Deluxe set is $375.00

The immense array of entries examine every genre of magic book imaginable by both well-known and small-time authors, including cloth-bound tomes, modern casebound volumes, aged pamphlets, stapled lecture notes, paperback books, magazine anthologies, as well as instructions, manuscripts, advertising booklets, magic-set manuals, and pulp publications.

Books are still, in my opinion, the best way to learn magic, either as a PDF or a hard copy. There is such a wealth of material in older books and current books build upon ideas from the past. David Copperfield's foreword sums the importance of books and in particular Todd's work in these volumes making it so easy to instantly get information on 23,000 plus books published in magic.

A multi-volume set researched and compiled by Todd Karr. 
Foreword by David Copperfield Multi-volume set
 More than 1750 pages
 Over 23,000 historic and modern magic works fully detailed
 Large-format 8.5 x 11 size
 Hardbound

Sourcing card magic or mentalism? You’ll find listings of thousands of books on cards and mental effects.

Theses are very easy to navigate around as they are alphabetical and you get the publisher, year, size, pages, and brief notes on the subject of the book such as Stage, inventions, Cards, Forcing, etc.

Looking for a specific author? How about over 350 works by U. F. Grant, over 160 by Karl Fulves, 130 by Phil Goldstein, and 115 by Ed Marlo?

Regular edition: Four hardbound (casebound) volumes approximately 450 pp. each. Please order directly from Amazon.
 Deluxe limited edition (For upcoming June delivery): Three leather-bound volumes approximately 600 pp. each: Limited to 120 signed, numbered copies. Includes recent corrections and additions not in the regular edition (see below for a link to our free PDF with all current updates). Pre-order from The Miracle Factory now for delivery this month.
(Note: The regular and deluxe sets have nearly identical contents. Amazon limits books to only 550 pages, so we designed a four-volume version for their system.)

These books are a must have for anybody serious about magic. You now have at your fingertips access to the largest collection of magic bibliography in the world at your fingertips. There should be no excuse for anybody not to be able to research creators works or give credit now. I am honored to be included in here and be part of magic history.

Interested in the deeper sides of professional magic? There are several hundred works on business, theory, and showmanship. Into stage or close-up? The entries include thousands of books on stage magic, manipulation, illusions, and close-up work. Are you a magic historian? You’ll find all the magic-related antiquarian listings of the classic Toole-Stott bibliography, over 700 biographies, hundreds of works on magic history and collecting, and entries for countless early magic books.

Every aspect of magic is covered in here, from the small self-published books to books by major publishers. Somebody can give me a name and I now have instant access to the books and topics they pu As magicians we ALL need to thank Todd for his incredible world in producing such a valuable collection to the magic fraternity.

With an eloquent foreword by David Copperfield, Todd Karr’s Bibliography of Magic is the most comprehensive bibliography of magic books ever published.

Seeking secrets from other countries? This bibliography has more than 660 books in French, over 200 Spanish works, and hundreds in other languages.

Compiled by award-winning conjuring historian Todd Karr, this amazing multi-volume 1762-page set features details of over 23,000 conjuring works from around the globe from 1584 to 2025.

If you’re a collector, you’ll be thrilled to find over 375 editions of Professor Hoffmann’s works, almost 150 Robert-Houdin books, over 100 editions of Erdnase, 61 John Henry

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DIVIDE BY RICHARD GRIFFIN

PRICE: $35.00 AVAILABLE: ALL MAGIC DEALERS

EFFECT

A card is chosen and signed. A small frame is placed on the back of the card. You then divide the card into five, restore it, then take the frame off to show the card is now fully restored and can be handed out for examination. Instant reset Ideal for walk around Easy to do Comes with gimmicked card, frames and full instructional video

FRAGRANCE By Calix

Price : €65.00 Available : magicdream.fr

What if you were able to manipulate the invisible?
 Fragrance offers unforgettable sensory experiences based on smell! Calix is a French mentalist magician, a real worker who thinks, tests and brings his tricks and creations to a very high level. Creator of Sigaba and Social Assistant , Calix offers a new idea with Fragrance.

A word will resonate after your passage: IMPOSSIBLE!



MY THOUGHTS: You receive all necessary gimmicks and a 20-minute download tutorial. Everything is ready to go when you open the packet and all you will need is to supply a deck of bicycle cards to match either red or blue depending on the gimmick you purchased.

The effect is you take a signed card and place it on the pack of cards. You take a grid like sticker and put it on the back of the signed card. You then instantly and visually divide the card in to five pieces, a little bit like a zig-zag card. You push the card back to its original state and take the sticker off. If you wanted the card and frame to examined you could. The frame is a hard sticker so you'd want to be careful where you put it because it could lose its stickiness.

And yet, what you will demonstrate to your audience is quite possible with Fragrance and fits only in your pocket!

After greeting your spectators, you take out a small perfume sample type spray and make it smell. Everything is completely harmless and well known to everyone. Let's take the cherry smell for example.

Each one clearly identifies the perfume that comes out this spray by smelling the liquid that you have just deposited in the spectator hand.

You are supplied with an extra frame sticker and I'm sure you could buy more if you need them. If you do what Richard suggests on the tutorial then it should last a while. The frame sticker is a little fragile so care should be taken with it.

At the count of 3, this smell disappears, she can no longer smell it. The disorder sets in. Has she lost her sense of smell? Is she under hypnosis? Is her brain playing tricks on her? As a good manipulator you are, and without the slightest effort, the smell returns to the hand when you want, and the spectator can breathe again the cherry. Incredible. This can even be repeated a second time.



This is the cleanest version of any 'zig-zag- style card routine I've seen and it's as organic as you can get. The fact it uses a signed card that can be handed out makes this a great walk-around effect. You could add the gimmick at any time and would be perfect as a closer for an ambitious card. Another nice part of this routine is the re-set is instant. You could do this over and over with a different signed card.

And that's not all. The next step will definitely finish off the most skeptical. A new snap of the fingers and this time, the cherry smell disappears completely for everyone.

No one can feel this smell yet so strong and that you had visibly deposited on the palm of the spectator a moment earlier.You now choose another member of the audience, ask him to reach out, and, as incredible as it may seem, the perfume has traveled!

While this isn't difficult to perform you will need to spend time on the handling to get it looking perfect. The gimmick does most of the work but you will need a little deck handling skill but it's minimal.

Very highly recommended for its visual effect and ease of use.

You put it literally and easily in the palm of his hand. You read right, you have just realized the impossible, something totally impalpable has moved from one hand to the other of the spectators and according to the timing you decide.

And you know what?

"If you can feel it, you can do it!"

YES! Because Fragrance is extraordinarily simple.

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This is ideal for any situation from walk-around to stage. The great thing here is the Sharpie does all the work and is out of sight. I love routines where the gimmick is hidden in plain sight and the method here allows that.

The performance is full of little tricks that, at each step, reinforce the beliefs of the spectators and make your effect very impactful. These little convincers distilled throughout your act truly train your spectators in a routine of pure magic.



This opens up for a variety of different performances. On stage you can do a hypnotism style routine. The tutorial will show a variety of routines including the full length performance where you make a smell disappear and come back on a person's hand then move to another spectator's hand. I love this entire presentation and with some practice, not much, you can be doing this in no time. What surprised me was the first time I did it the reactions from the people was one of disbelief. If you've seen Double Cross then you'll know how strong a reaction that gets.

Fragrance is much more than a trick. It is a tool that you will definitely integrate into your repertoire and that will not leave you so much the effect is strong on the one hand, but also because it allows you much more than a single experience with smell.



Here are some ideas: Disappearance and/or appearance of perfume (travel) Hypnosis demonstration PK Touch (invisible touch) routine based on smell Change the smell of a fruit or object. Place perfume on a photography, a piece of paper, a playing card. Make the smell of a little cherry drawn in your hand travel. Calix and the Magic Dream team have recorded a 1h30 of video explanation (in French or English), with many application ideas, but also tips and advice to make your performance as memorable and impactful as possible.



When I got this I was supplied with a cherry flavor perfume, and since then they have released a version using a Cherry Stamp Double Cross version. This adds another great element to this already great routine. The possibilities are just open now with the scent of the cherry and the actual cherry picture you just drew on a hand move as well.

MASTERING VENTRILOQUISM - LEARN VENTRILOQUISM AND PUPPET BUILDING BY DON BRYAN Price: Hardcover - $35.00 Softcover - $24.95 Available : www.donbryan.com Review by Nathan Bransford

Ventriloquism is an engaging and insightful exploration into the fascinating world of ventriloquism, its nuances, and its broader cultural implications. From the very first page, I was captivated by the way you draw the reader into a world that blends performance art, psychology, and communication in a way that few have the ability to articulate so clearly and compellingly. Your unique approach to the subject matter offers not just a technical guide, but a deep dive into the emotional and psychological dimensions of the craft, making it a must-read for anyone interested in the art form or the underlying human dynamics of voice, identity, and expression.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

I was blown away by Fragrance from the first performance. The reactions are insane— people genuinely can’t believe what’s happening. The method is clever, the gimmick is hidden in plain sight (a simple Sharpie!), and the routine is flexible enough to fit into any act.

Strengths: Pack small, play big. Fits in your pocket Very original Interactive experiments Choice of smell Many routines includedStage and close-up Perfect for magicians, mentalists, hypnotists You can choose the smell you want to play with (cherry, strawberry, lemon, apple, cotton candy, etc.), and thus change it as you wish. In addition to what you will receive after your purchase, you will need to get an e-cigarettetype liquid that you will find very easily in specialized stores on the web. A refill allows you hundreds of representations.

Whether you’re a street magician, mentalist, or stage performer, this is a tool you’ll want in your arsenal. It’s practical, powerful, and unlike anything else out there. Once you try it, you’ll be reaching for it in every show. Rating: 10/10 – A must-have for any serious performer.

What I found most compelling about Ventriloquism is how you seamlessly blend the practical aspects of learning ventriloquism with a deeper philosophical examination of the art. Many books on the subject focus purely on technique—how to throw your voice, how to create believable puppet characters, etc.—but you bring a refreshing depth by also addressing the psychological aspects behind the craft. You dive into the ways ventriloquism taps into the human subconscious, highlighting how the art can serve as a powerful tool for selfexpression , identity exploration, and even therapy.

(Note: You’ll need to purchase e-liquid separately, but one bottle lasts for hundreds of performances.)

MY THOUGHTS: You receive the gimmick pen, fragrance, tutorial and two different little spray bottles.

This is an effect that offers something really different than anything else out there. The ability to make the sense of smell disappear or move from one place to another isn't new but this method is. There are clever elements built in to this that makes this so believable. Once you try this you will add it to every performance. I am now carrying this with me all the time because the Sharpie fits in my pocket and I can do this anytime and anywhere.

The way you explain how ventriloquism functions as both a performance and a form of psychological dialogue is enlightening. I was particularly intrigued by your analysis of the “dummy” as not just an inanimate object but as an extension of the performer’s own

The pen makes this very easy to do but make sure you watch the entire tutorial as they have great additions and fine points on it.

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Your writing style is both accessible and richly informative. You strike the perfect balance between imparting knowledge and sparking curiosity, making complex ideas approachable for readers who may be unfamiliar with the craft while also offering deeper insights for seasoned ventriloquists or those interested in the psychology of performance. The book is written with such passion and enthusiasm that it’s impossible not to be drawn into the world of ventriloquism, and I found myself both learning new techniques and contemplating larger existential questions about the nature of voice, agency, and identity. learned, whether they are just starting out in the craft or looking to refine their skills. Your step-by-step approach to teaching techniques is clear and easy to follow, making Ventriloquism not only an insightful exploration of the art but also a valuable guide for anyone looking to improve their own performance.

inner world, a projection of different aspects of their personality, thoughts, or desires. It’s clear that your exploration of ventriloquism isn’t just about mastering a skill, but about understanding how the performer and their puppet engage in a unique, dynamic conversation that allows for self-discovery and emotional release. The exploration of the relationships between ventriloquists and their puppets is fascinating and thought-provoking, offering an entirely new lens through which to view this seemingly playful art.

In conclusion, Ventriloquism by Don Bryan is a masterful blend of art, psychology, history, and performance. You’ve managed to turn a seemingly lighthearted subject into a profound exploration of human communication, self-expression, and the complexities of voice. It’s a book that will appeal not only to aspiring ventriloquists but also to anyone interested in the art of performance, psychology, and the fascinating interplay between the performer and their audience. Your passion for the subject shines through in every page, and the way you explore the emotional depth and power behind ventriloquism is both enlightening and inspiring.

Additionally, the historical context and development of ventriloquism, which you incorporate throughout the book, was a revelation. I appreciated how you chart the evolution of ventriloquism from ancient times to its modern-day form, weaving in stories of famous ventriloquists and pivotal moments in the craft’s history. These anecdotes not only provide context but also humanize the subject, allowing the reader to appreciate the richness of the art and its cultural significance.

Thank you for creating such a thoughtful, comprehensive, and engaging book. I highly recommend Ventriloquism to anyone interested in learning more about this incredible art form, as well as to those curious about the deeper psychological and emotional elements of communication and performance.

With admiration and appreciation,

Another standout feature of Ventriloquism is your ability to make the book not just about the technicality of voice work, but about communication itself. As much as ventriloquism is about creating believable characters and delivering entertaining performances, it is also about finding a new way of communicating and relating to others. In that sense, your book transcends the specific craft and touches on the universal desire for self-expression and connection. You speak about the profound power of communication through multiple voices, and how ventriloquism can create a space for exploration and empathy. Whether through humor or deeper philosophical inquiry, you show how ventriloquism is a way to bridge the gap between the performer and the audience, but also within the performer themselves.

The pacing of the book is spot-on. Each chapter builds upon the last, introducing new concepts in a way that allows the reader to absorb the material before moving on to more advanced ideas. I also appreciated the inclusion of practical exercises and tips that allow the reader to apply what they’ve

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