Verbal Magic

Putting the impossible in their hands

Plot

Tamariz, Juan & Gema Navarro: Verbal Magic
©2008 Hermetic Press First American Edition
Hardcover, 155 pages
ISBN-13: 9780945296607
ISBN-10: 0945296606

Comments: A great collection of tricks that were originally performed over the radio or television - great lessons where the spectator's do the magic themselves, and still don't know how they did it.

Contents:

xi Genesis: television and radio magic and the development of effects where spectator's perform the magic
xv A Few Words from Gema: the adventure of transcribing Juan's tapes into an actual book
3 Defining Our Subject: the 21 principles for each trick

7 Chapter I: Magic with a Few Cards or Pieces of Paper

9 Part I: Ten Tricks to Get Started
9 The Impossible in Your Hands: based on Bob Hummer's CATO principle, spectators end up with five cards and separate reds and blacks
12 Joy and Pleasure: a slightly risque prediction of whether a couple will have pleasure or not
15 The Human Condition: Gilbreath principle used to bring out the positive in Human Condition
17 Lucky at Cards: spectator wins at a chosen card game
20 The Torn and Restored Couple: the couple cards end up together
22 Good People: From 9 cards, spectator ends up with the Ace, indicating a good personality
24 Wisdom: sepearating true from false, or red from black
27 Happiness: of thirteen cards, the A-10 remain in order, indicating happiness
30 Magic as Harmonic Chaos: mixed reds and blacks of 6 cards are mixed but come back to order, with two variations
32 Your Lucky Number: from 10 cards, a lucky number is found, and two other cards add to that lucky number

35 Part II: Three Exceptional Tricks
35 The Horoscope: selected cards point to a classified ad in the newspaper, with a positive horoscope
38 Paradise Recovered: cards from a packet of 7 are thrown out until only the marked card remains
42 Blind Date: All spectators end up with the invitation card; uses the Automatic Placement

45 Chapter II: Tricks with a Deck of Cards

47 Your Better Half: Using the Casting Out Nines principle, spectator ends up with Court Card
50 In Search of the Desired Harem: Four of a kind appears at the top of four piles
53 Four Aces: Spectator finds the Four Aces
55 The Best Year to be Born: spectator ends up with four cards representing the year he or she was born
57 The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: spectator ends up holding her personal card
58 The Case of the Nine Magic Hats of La Corona: nine hats go to 10 magicians in this card trick
61 The Power of Love: face up and face down cards right themselves
63 The Miraculous Hand Ritual: Two cards rise to the top of the deck

67 Chapter III: Tricks with Pencil and Paper

69 Part I: Words and Numbers
69 Live with the Devil: letters in two piles of papers end up matching
73 Barbecue Party: words are arranged in a clock layout and the spectator taps to the selection
77 Temptation: Magician leads each spectator to select the same temptation
79 Your Evening With...: Q Card Trick adapted

83 Part II: Mathemagical Tricks
83 The Fortune of the Week: numbers force the selection of the word 'magic'
86 The Cry of Truth: mathematical trick spells a message
89 The Origins of Evil: math trick ends up with a person's name

93 Chapter IV: Magic with Small Objects
95 Heads Up: magician always winds heads or tails coin game
97 Through the Mirror: mathematical trip ends at infinity

101 Chapter V: Tricks, Bets and Jokes
103 Heads or Tails: several ways to win at heads or tails
105 Money Attracts Money: an illusion with coins
107 How to Win Impossible Bets
107 The I: betcha
107 Smoking Without Consuming a Cigarette: two cigarette betchas
108 Tying a Knot in a Rope Without Releasing the Ends: betcha
108 Eating Without Touching the Hat: gag/betcha
109 Tearing a Deck of Cards: how to do it
109 The Flat Match: heads or tails with matches
110 The Needles That Occupy No Space: adding steel needles to a full glass of water
110 Steel Bridges: can you put keys on a paper between two glasses and they don't fall?
111 To Catch a Thief: the missing dollar
113 The Multiplication of Bread: a physical illusion
114 Flying Food: the sausage between your fingertips illusion
115 Trip to the Moon: folding paper gets you to the moon

119 Chapter VI: Four Ideas for Four Tricks
121 A Book Test: turning The Horoscope trick into a book test for a live audience
122 The Magic Seven: seven cards end up in pairs of seven
123 The Interfering Joker: A through Eight are spelled, with the Joker intruding now and then
124 Card to Pocket: an extra card appears in spectator's pocket

127 Chapter VII: ...and a Finale
129 The Piano Trick: the evens and odds card trick

131 Appendix: Ideas for Creating Other Tricks
133 Wish Granted
134 Forcing a Number from One to Nine
136 Forcing the Number Thirteen
137 Faro Shuffles Done by Participants or Listeners
138 Further Ideas with a Packet of Twelve Cards - “The Hotel Mystery”
139 A Sixteen^card Version of “The Hotel Mystery”
139 A False Shuffle Done Through Dealing: four versions
141 A Shuffle That Retains a Color Alternation
142 Letters Instead of Numbers
142 The Principle of Prime Numbers
143 Automatic Placement

145 Bibliography
147 Ciuro, Padre Wenceslao
148 Curry, Paul
148 Finnell, Gene
149 Fisher, John
149 Florensa, Alfredo
150 Fulves, Karl
150 Gardner, Martin
151 Hall, Trevor H.
151 Hugard, Jean and Frederick Braue
152 James, Stewart
152 Lopez Adriano, Carlos
152 Leech, Al
153 Maven, Max
153 Moline, Alfonso
153 Rioboo, Ramon
153 Roterberg, August
154 Rusduck (J. Russell Duck)
154 Sands, George
154 Steinmeyer, Jim
154 Tamariz, Juan
155 Wade, John

Verbal Magic-Juan Tamariz & Gema Navaaro-Hermetic Press-2008-HC/dj

Verbal Magic, by Juan Tamariz & Gema Navaaro, an Hermetic Press publication, 2008, hard cover with original dust jacket.

When it happens in their hands -

It's an old adage of conjuring: The strongest magic happens in the hands of the audience.

A lesser-known corollary to this is: The more that happens there, the stronger the magic.

So what if it all happened in their hands?
What if the magician wasn't even in the room?
What if only his voice were guiding them...
From the radio - or the television - or from far away?
- and the magic happened while they did everything!

That is what Spain's greatest magician, Juan Tamariz, asked himself. And from this question sprang a body of magic that has astonished vast audiences in Spain and Latin America when performed on radio and television, on stage and close up. It is magic that has fooled both the public and master magicians.

Using only a few playing cards, pieces of paper and other common objects as props, audiences are led through a variety of entertaining processes that lead to their utter amazement. Through clever principles, old and new, combined with cunning psychology and ground-breaking strategies, Juan Tamariz makes magic happen in everyone's hands. He fools people into amazing themselves! Further, as you follow the radio transcripts in these pages, he will fool you, too.

So open this book and join the amazed. Then share the amazement and fun with your audiences, whether they are listening to the radio, watching television or in the room with you.

Follow along as Juan Tamariz tells you to take a few red and black cards from a deck and mix the colors in ways random, chaotic and independently determined. Yet, when you are finished, the colors magically separate! That's right, you perform Oil and Water for yourself and have no idea how it happened - just as thousands of people have done while listening to Juan Tamariz over the radio, on television and in live audiences.

People freely choose a card, lose it in a packet, mix the cards thoroughly, and then magically discover their own selections-without knowing how they did it. The magic leaves Tamariz's hands and settles in their own!

This book collects over forty such tricks and presentations, all refined and tested through professional performance. Close associate Gema Navarro, under the guidance of Juan Tamariz, has meticulously transcribed presentations from tapes of numerous radio broadcasts. The transcripts are so detailed, they first let the reader fool himself, and then give him the information necessary to entertain and astonish his audiences, and the tools to devise many other effects that happen entirely in their hands and heads.

Scattered in the literature of magic is a scant number of participation effects suitable for performance on radio and television; and those tricks are sought and coveted by professionals. In Verbal Magic Juan Tamariz reveals the largest body of such magic ever offered, while taking it in new directions and teaching new principles with wide-reaching possibilities for further application. He also shows that this type of magic is just as astonishing when performed close up and for theater audiences. As a final bonus, Verbal Magic provides the largest record yet, for non-Spanish speakers, of what it is like to be part of Tamariz's audience. Here is a long, in-depth look at how a master magician simultaneously entertains and mystifies.