List of Card Magic Books that use no sleight of hand or use of subtle moves.

[Robert1996]

Can you provide me with a list of books, that carry this type of magic. The books I have now are Fulves, John Carey, John Bannon, Stewart James, Nick Trost, and Ryan Matney. I would like to expand my library. I have heard of Marty Kane, Lewis Jones and Steve Beam, but which of there books would best. I am sure there are other books by magicians I don't even know, so any help would be most grateful.

 

[HectorE1]

Roberto Giobbi's card college light, lighter and lightest I think are self working to minimum intensity sleigh effects... Also check out The Encyclopedia of card tricks which is also filled with self working to minimum sleigh effects...

 

[Robert1996]

thanks Hector I am adding to my list...

 

[Maaz Hasan]

Yes, Roberto Giobbi's Card College Light trilogy (the "Professional Card Tricks without Sleight of Hand" Trilogy is great.
You can pick up all 3, but if you want one first (and buy the others later), here is a break down of the differences.
Each of the 3 books is a bit different
Card College Light - has 7 separate routines, each with 3 tricks each (an opener, a middle trick, and a closer), along with a short chapter on performing (or maybe he goes over it as he explains each trick)
Card College Lighter - has 21 different short routines (7 opening, 7 middle, 7 closing), along with a chapter on building your own sort of routine/set (programming as Roberto refers to it). (He may have meant 21 different tricks, but I do not know. It's on my buy list).
Card College Lightest - has 21 different tricks that you can easily mix and match or use to your hearts content. He then has a chapter on "Sleightless sleight of hand". He teaches you stuff like forcing and controlling without major sleights, even a deck switch and false shuffle.

Btw, this info is all directly from the 3 trailers penguin magic put together for each book (w/ Dan Harlan and Roberto Giobbi). You should go watch them, absolutely amazing.

You can also look into buying the Royal Road to Card Magic (if you don't have it already). It is not self working tricks, but they are very simple sleights (except for the palming and the pass sections. Maybe a few others). Not a lot of the tricks are super sleight intensive.

Also, check out the Scam School Books. They aren't all magic tricks (some puzzles, scams, riddles, etc.), and some use some basic sleight of hand, but they are pretty cool (similar to the YouTube Channel if you are familiar with it).

By the way, check out Murphy's Magic's YouTube Channel. They have a lot of books and products they have recently released trailers for that are relatively self working.

 

[Al e Cat Dabra]

I highly recommend Scarne on Card Tricks.

 

[RealityOne]

I think your list is pretty complete. To find other "self working" effects you would have to start listing effects within books.

My favorites that were mentioned are:

Scarne on Card Tricks (best investment in any book ever)
Encyclopedia of Card Tricks (more so for the use of gaffs and gimmicks)
Card College Light, Lighter and Lightest
Steve Beam's Semi-Automatic Card Tricks
Karl Fulves's Self-Working Books (although you have to go through alot of bad effects to find the good ones)
Bannon's Destination Zero (again, a couple of good really good ones and a lot that all seem to be the same effect)

Some of other books with "self-working" effects are:

Steinmeyer's Impuzabilities series. The Magician that Fools Himself is one of my favorite effects. The books contain a lot of other "strangely self working" effects beyond cards.

Tamariz's Verbal Magic - More than cards, but I love his Paradise Recovered routine.

Woddy Aragon's A Book in English - The Find Your Other Half and Poker Deal routines are great.

 

[Robert1996]

I think your list is pretty complete. To find other "self working" effects you would have to start listing effects within books.

My favorites that were mentioned are:

Scarne on Card Tricks (best investment in any book ever)
Encyclopedia of Card Tricks (more so for the use of gaffs and gimmicks)
Card College Light, Lighter and Lightest
Steve Beam's Semi-Automatic Card Tricks
Karl Fulves's Self-Working Books (although you have to go through alot of bad effects to find the good ones)
Bannon's Destination Zero (again, a couple of good really good ones and a lot that all seem to be the same effect)

Some of other books with "self-working" effects are:

Steinmeyer's Impuzabilities series. The Magician that Fools Himself is one of my favorite effects. The books contain a lot of other "strangely self working" effects beyond cards.

Tamariz's Verbal Magic - More than cards, but I love his Paradise Recovered routine.

Woddy Aragon's A Book in English - The Find Your Other Half and Poker Deal routines are great.

Thanks for the additions of names. One thing you list Steve Beam he as 10 volumes of Semi automatic card books is there anyone or two that are better than the others. On another forum several magicians say his books are not good others say they get worse in later volumes. Can you provide me with what you think is his best. Thank you.

 

[RealityOne]

Scarne on Card Tricks is a career's worth of self-working magic. Giobbi's Light, Lighter and Lightest are great. With Steve Beam, start with Volume 1 and see if you like it.

Can I ask why you have such an interest in self-working effects?

 

[Robert1996]

Scarne on Card Tricks is a career's worth of self-working magic. Giobbi's Light, Lighter and Lightest are great. With Steve Beam, start with Volume 1 and see if you like it.

Can I ask why you have such an interest in self-working effects?

Sure. I had some issues years back with corpal tunnel and I don't have the flexibility I once had also arthritis. I am 57 and still enjoy fooling people. A relative got me to look into these type of books. He is 75 and found that it allows him to still perform.

 

[Al e Cat Dabra]

Sure. I had some issues years back with corpal tunnel and I don't have the flexibility I once had also arthritis. I am 57 and still enjoy fooling people. A relative got me to look into these type of books. He is 75 and found that it allows him to still perform.

Robert, sorry to hear about your issue with Carpal Tunnel. Some of the strongest tricks are "self-working." It makes no difference if you astonish people with sleight of hand that gives the illusion of magic, or self-working effects that give that illusion. When self-workers are well-performed, they will give you credit for great skill in a any event. But whether we use sleight of hand or self-working tricks that employ subtleties, IMHO, the most important thing is presentation - that is presenting our magic in an entertaining fashion - whether it's through comedy, intriguing and fascinating stories, or inspiring and uplifting themes...

 

[CaseyRudd]

Can definitely echo the suggestions for Giobbi's Light/Lighter/Lightest series. Really amazing self-working card tricks and will get you started on the right path. I also recommend Scarne on Card Tricks, as well as Karl Fulves' Self Working Card Tricks/My Best Self Working Card Tricks. Nick Trost has some great material on card magic that uses subtle moves and principles. If you are interested in some stack work, which can make for some incredible "self working" effects, Simon Aronson and Juan Tamariz would be great places to start. Simply Simon by Simon Aronson contains effects that can be used with any stack, while his book Try The Impossible is for effects that can only be done with his Aronson stack. Mnemonica stack by Tamariz is perhaps one of the most popular stacks in the community and you can do absolute miracles with it.

While not a book, John Bannon has a few DVDs with Big Blind Media that are EXCELLENT and filled with hard-hitting self-working card tricks. I highly recommend checking those out. Needless to say there is practically an endless amount of resources for self-working card magic, but those are excellent choices to get you started. Lennart Green has material on his older DVDs that is absolutely killer, and Max Maven has an effect called The Mockingbird on his VideoMind Volume 1 DVD that is stellar. I've been getting into a lot of the self-working effects lately and this stuff can take your magic to a whole new level. It's amazing to know that you don't need any fancy sleights to pull off miracles!

 

[RealityOne]

Sure. I had some issues years back with corpal tunnel and I don't have the flexibility I once had also arthritis. I am 57 and still enjoy fooling people. A relative got me to look into these type of books. He is 75 and found that it allows him to still perform.

Without knowing your specific limitations, I suspect that there are some sleight of hand moves that you can do. If you can do a basic spread, riffle shuffle, overhand shuffle and deal cards, there are a multitude of sleights and controls available to you. Rene Lavand performed with only one arm. Mahdi Gilbert performs without having any hands. Watch their performances on YouTube.

@Casey Rudd - I completely forgot about Nick Trost - he has some really good stuff in The Card Magic of Nick Trost. Also, memorized stack work is a great suggestion.

I would also recommend looking into the use of gaffed cards and gaffed decks. Things like stripper decks, invisible decks (which require some dexterity), one-way decks and marked decks as well as the typical gaff cards (double back, double face and short cards provide you with the ability to do amazing things. That takes me back to Encyclopedia of Card Trick as a recommendation.

At this point, it probably makes sense to try and help you fine tune your list. To begin, get Scarne on Card Tricks. That may be all you ever need. After that, we can make recommendations to tailor you list based on what some other factors besides the effects merely being self working.

The first question is who are you intending to perform for and in what setting? There is a difference between performing for the same friends (requiring a lot of new material) and performing for difference audiences (requiring a selection of the best material). There also is a difference whether you are performing standing up or seated at a table. I also think there is a difference between doing one or two tricks or a whole show.

The second question is what is your curiosity level? In other words, do you enjoy reading magic books even if you won't use a lot of what is in them? Or are you looking for books where you will be able to use every effect? Is this a hobby that will occupy a couple of hours a week or a couple of hours a day?

The third question is what is your budget?

 

[Robert1996]

Hey thanks for all the advice. Well magic for me as always been a hobby. But when I was younger I did do some magic shows small groups mainly for kids so I also used silks, rope some fire and of course cards. Never worked with animals. As I got older my day job took over and had no time for my hobby. I was an engineer in plumbing. But with the problem with my hands and later years my eyes got worse due to computer usage. So now I am disabled from my job and figured I get back into doing magic at some level. Books yes I prefer books over dvds and I do have Scarne on Card Tricks very very good book. Yes I am on a budget so I can only spend so much. I know about gaff cards and trick decks but unless you can do a deck switch you can not hand out the deck for inspection. I hope this gives you more of an idea were I am at. Would I perform for people other than my family...yes. In fact I have done so on several occasions at some stores for one or two people.

 

[Maaz Hasan]

Hey thanks for all the advice. Well magic for me as always been a hobby. But when I was younger I did do some magic shows small groups mainly for kids so I also used silks, rope some fire and of course cards. Never worked with animals. As I got older my day job took over and had no time for my hobby. I was an engineer in plumbing. But with the problem with my hands and later years my eyes got worse due to computer usage. So now I am disabled from my job and figured I get back into doing magic at some level. Books yes I prefer books over dvds and I do have Scarne on Card Tricks very very good book. Yes I am on a budget so I can only spend so much. I know about gaff cards and trick decks but unless you can do a deck switch you can not hand out the deck for inspection. I hope this gives you more of an idea were I am at. Would I perform for people other than my family...yes. In fact I have done so on several occasions at some stores for one or two people.

1 thing to mention, there is normally no reason to hand out the gimmicked decks, since people are always assuming it is the card or it's sleight of hand. Furthermore, no one would figure out how to utilize one to figure out the secret.

That being said, after you do the effect, you might want to hand out the card, or whatever, and as they look at it, you can easily do a 2 handed deck switch by just reaching into your back pocket, ditching the hot deck, and pulling out a cold one. You can then go straight into another effect.

Also, Card College Lightest has a minimal sleight deck switch, but I would go with the 2 handed deck switch since it is pretty easy to pull off.