theory11 — Magic Tricks & the World's Finest Playing Cards

Center Tear

Frankie The Card

Frankie The Card

Sep 16, 2016
16
6
North Shore Massachusetts
I've read in a few magazines and websites about a center tear when talking about mentalist routines. From my understanding, it's a slick move to take a peek at whatever was written on the paper. I've tried to look up a few methods, but I can't find any at all. Any pointers on how to perform this?
 
I'm not sure about the center tear method, but Wayne Houchin's DVD Stigmata has a good method to take a peek at from a folded piece of paper. It's worth checking out and the trick itself is one of my favourites, - especially because it is impromptu and has audience participation.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Frankie The Card and CWhite
There's tons of resources on center tears. 13 Steps to Mentalism pops to mind first, but there's others.

Where have you looked? A Google search yields several results of varying quality.

I don't really have any tips for it as I have a personal dislike for the method myself.
 
Well. That's your issue. Generally you are going to find two things on YouTube: Pirated material and crap teaching from people who don't know what they are talking about.

The vast majority of videos with quality teaching are pirated, so watching those is basically being complicit in intellectual property theft.

The ones that are not pirated are generally people who don't really perform much, or who are pretty bad at it. They reveal methods on YouTube because they have no other way to get the attention they crave. If they were any good, they'd get the attention from the audiences.

The other option, which is fairly rare, is generally people who are decent performers and can actually teach something clearly - they are almost always teaching someone else's material, which is also slimy.

Ever wonder why inexpensive magic often sucks and good magic is really expensive? That's why. A lot of the cheap stuff is either half-formed products that someone put out because they think selling tricks makes them famous, or it's throw-away tricks from good performers who just want to keep the royalty checks rolling in. The expensive stuff is expensive because if you pay a lot for something you are far less likely to reveal it causally. It's basically creating a price wall to keep stuff secret.
 
  • Like
Reactions: hsiehhsieh_1 and RealityOne
I've definitely seen a lot of what you are talking about with YT. However, I've also seen a lot of good teachers on YT teaching magic that I get good reactions from, Brian Brushwood and Jerick 1:20 being two examples for a beginner like me. I've also seen it go the other way as well. I was outraged to see that someone was charging $5 each for basic card handling moves. ($5 to learn how to fan the cards, another $5 to learn the LePaul spread, etc). Then, I saw another website charging $25 to learn a card trick that I read about in a book from my local library but with an insignificant twist. Even worse, he claimed that he had come up with the whole idea on his own! It seems like slimy people are going to be slimy no matter the cost.
 
There are lots of people who do zero research before releasing their creations. It costs nothing to publish a PDF and put it on Lybrary or Lulu or whatever. One can even arrange Vimeo or YouTube videos to teach things without much investment.

That's why it's best to buy from trusted sources. And that's also why the really good stuff is difficult to acquire and often quite expensive. Some guys won't even sell to random people, they will maintain a list of people who are shown their releases.

Personally I have two releases. One is easy to find and inexpensive, a short eBook on character development. The other is only available directly from me, fairly expensive, and extremely limited. I took a cue from the guys I admire and will likely continue doing things like this - where I put out stuff I don't mind getting shared around easily (like performance theory and philosophy) and keeping my solid material close to my chest and only releasing it to folks I know and trust.

But buying things encourages the good creators to continue releasing quality material, whereas pirating and youtube reveals encourage them never to release the good stuff.
 
From my understanding, its more important to get the little psychological subtleties right than just know the method for the center tear which is pretty simple. A handful of people might give you the basic method, where as in the 13 Steps to Mentalism Corinda gives you all kinds of dodges and helpful tips about working and pacing for the center tear. I haven't seen or read those anywhere else. Small things, but essential and I would've paid good money just for those tips.
 
bigradbrad said:
From my understanding, its more important to get the little psychological subtleties right than just know the method for the center tear which is pretty simple. A handful of people might give you the basic method, where as in the 13 Steps to Mentalism Corinda gives you all kinds of dodges and helpful tips about working and pacing for the center tear. I haven't seen or read those anywhere else. Small things, but essential and I would've paid good money just for those tips.
Click to expand...

Tony Corinda says on is book 13 STM, and i quote, "I would say that this is one of the greatest things of Mentalism-if not the greatest". Although I agree to some extent that the method is inded devilish genius and as a bunch applications in mentalism and other fields of magic, the most challenging aspect of it, is creating a well structured plot/performance that can can accomodate the method. Although this is true for most of magic, if not all, it is a key point to center tear, because, and lets see it this way, whats the point of having a spectator write a "thought" on a piece of paper to then destroy it? If the point is "reading minds" why the write in the first place? Why even reducing the thought to the writing, if the paper is immediately destroyed? And I can go on...
All of this to say that the OP after finding a good source for center tear method, should work on a strucuted plot to justify the actions of the center tear and their inconsistencies, and avoid doing what is seen a lot, this method being performed as an effect by itself, which in my honest opinion doesnt make any sense.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Frankie The Card
Bigradbrad, DL360, and DominusDolorum,

Thank you for your advice. I appreciate the fact that you didn't completely write me off as soon as you saw that I was learning a few beginner tricks from YouTube. I will definitely be looking into what you have suggested.

All the best,
Frankie
 
  • Like
Reactions: DL360
faizpardesi said:
I'm not sure about the center tear method, but Wayne Houchin's DVD Stigmata has a good method to take a peek at from a folded piece of paper. It's worth checking out and the trick itself is one of my favourites, - especially because it is impromptu and has audience participation.
Click to expand...

Hey, totally didn't see this post. Thanks for the heads up. I'll definitely check that out!

Frankie
 
  • Like
Reactions: faizpardesi
I first learned the center tear from Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic. If you don't have it, get it.

Other resources for the Center Tear are:
Tarbell (Vols. 5, 6 and 7) Anneman's Jinx
Secret Ways of Al Baker
Mind, Myth and Magic
Osterland's Perfected Center Tear
​
I agree with Christopher and DL360 that the Center Tear needs to be used with a justification. Typically, burning the billet is used for the reason for tearing it. I think there are better methods to accomplish the same effect such as a simple billet switch and peak which can be used to get one ahead in a routine with multiple "thoughts" are written down and revealed.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.