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I have to again agree with RD Chopper... For this thread to be useful we need more details about what your presentation was before and what you did to change. I suspect that nobody else is going to post their stories because either they don't have this problem or wouldn't admit it if they did...

I have to agree with RD Chopper in that most people want the magician to succeed and if they don't there is something in the way you present your magic that turns them the other way. Let me ask you (and others) to answer the following questions honestly: 1) Which best describes your...

Scarne on Card Tricks has a lot of great material (150 effects) and most of them are self-working (requiring little or no slight of hand). Most of the effects are versions of classic effects which were reworked to remove most of the slight of hand. The patter is dated because the book was...

I'd suggest getting Scarne on Card Tricks along with Royal Road. The stuff in Scarne is easy to learn and it will give you something to perform while you are working through Royal Road.

Kris: Let me offer a different take on the reactions of your spectators. As you said, the spectators didn't know that your routine required slight of hand and that your friend's relied on gimmicks. So why the difference in reactions? A couple of ideas: 1. Cups and balls and sponge balls...

Card College is great but there is no reason you can't start with Royal Road / Expert Card Technique and then start the Card College series. Actually, that's what I did.

Intuition with Cards - the magician and spectator both select and sign cards. By doing the same motions at the same time not only does the magician find the spectator's signed card but the spectator find's the magician's signed card (I don't use the pencil dot, but instead use a different...

For cards, I would recommend Royal Road to Card Magic first and then Expert Card Technique and then Erdnase's Expert at the Card Table. For mentalism, a good place to start is Annemann's Practical Mental Magic and/or Fulve's Self Working Mental Magic and/or Bob Cassidy's Fundamentals. After...

That is along the lines that I was thinking (with some different ideas about how to accomplish finding the right card to flip over). I think I misread your initial post (or missed the last 10 words) and was thrown by the "I understand how he controls the card to the top" comment. There is...

It is legitimate in that there are no camera tricks or editing. The method is magic, but it is not the method is not what you are thinking.

For me, using a riffle force is tough with Jumbo cards because the cut before the force looks out of place and it hard to get an effective a pinkie break. A cross cut force works best for Jumbo cards. If you want to do a classic force, it can be done but you need to use a different...

Get a deck of blank faced cards. Write "Do the Chicken Dance" on one card and "Kiss Me" on another. Select two beautiful spectators. Begin the effect by telling the spectator that you have written down different instructions on the card and each spectator has to do what is written on the...

Silver: I think that many of the books that have been suggested are designed to tell you the "secrets" of how to manipulate communication to achieve your goals. Unfortunately, many of those books fail due to a lack of coordination between the messages sent via verbal communication and...

It is not method, but the effect that matters.

Alfie: I think it is great that you developed this effect on your own. It shows you are thinking about how to use the slights you know to do something that amazes your spectators. It also shows that you have also learned one of the most essential lessons of magic -- the slights behind an...

That's just a camera trick too.:D OK, so much for my conspiracy theory. I agree, saying he is a fake without substantial proof isn't the best approach. However, what I pointed out is enough to raise significant doubts. As I said, I can replicate his "pass" without video editing. That...

I don't think he fools every magician there is... see next point. Ahhh, the majority of us really aren't fooled. In the book "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell, there is a great story about the Getty museum's acquisition of a Greek marble statute. The background check and scientific...

A very good idea, but it is also good to have instructions to fall back on for reference. I wasn't saying that a "true" magician shouldn't use a Svengali. I actually believe the opposite -- a true magician should be open to using any means possible. I have and use a Svengali. I was just...

Whether you use and how you use gaff cards is a matter of personal preference. Personally, I love gaffed cards. I have a large collection of the "standard" gaffs such as blank back, blank face, double back, double blank and double face as well as some specialty gaff decks such as the...