Deeper Still

Deep Shadows: Volume Two

Dee Christopher
 Copyright © 2016 by Dee Christopher

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic
or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission
of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial
uses permitted by copyright law.

2! Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !3
Contents

The Beast……………………………………………… Page 7

Triptic…………………………………………………. Page 26

Broken………………………………………………… Page 35

Sword……….………………………………………… Page 42

NightSky……..………………..…………………….…Page 46

Cinders………………………………………….…….. Page 49

Assimilate……………………..……………………… Page 55

Death-O-Scope…..…………………………………… Page 60

Heat……………..……………………………….…… Page 64

Subtle Switch Book .………………………………… Page 69

Burnt Oak…………….……………………………… Page 71

Silence…………………..…………………………… Page 75

Tarot Hallucination……………………………..…… Page 77

The Stone Woman………..……………………..…… Page 80

Teeth……………………………………………….… Page 83

Building The Act…………………….…………….… Page 87

Four Methods For The Living & Dead Test……….… Page 88

The Block Peek……….…………………….….….… Page 109

4! Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

 Introduction

Deep Shadows was a monumental stepping stone for me,

a collection of ten years worth of tricks, gimmicks and ideas.
Some of the book’s contents are things I hadn’t used in years
at the point of publication, some of the work still found it’s
self in my performances on a weekly basis. Here in lies the
major difference with Deeper Still, the publication you now
hold in your hands. Everything in this tome is current, things
like Triptic and the Living & Dead Test are staples in my
show, and I’ve no doubt they will be for some time. All of
these effects are fool proof and they will work without fail
every single time. In most cases, there isn’t much preparation;
though all of the methods I teach in here are physical, as
opposed to the more psychological and scripting based pieces.

I know that you’re here to learn tricks, rather than read

my rambling on about almost nothing, so let’s delve right in.
Deep Shadows began with Broken Wings, so I feel that it
makes perfect sense for Deeper Still to begin with the
evolution of that concept: The Beast…

Dee Christopher.
Halloween 2016.

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !5

6! Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
 The Beast
As noted in the introduction, The Beast is the evolution of
the Broken Wings notepad gimmick. This variation on the
concept is something I’ve been toying with for some time.
Since I began working with the original Broken Wings pad, I
always liked the idea of making it into an all over utility
device, not just a two way add-a-number pad, hence all of the
other handlings and uses I came up with in the first book.

Also, the original Broken Wings was discovered by John

Riggs about a decade before and the idea of the pad was
published in his Psychic Agenda book about a decade before.
While my handlings and uses were drastically different to
John’s, it still felt like it wasn’t mine anymore. So I started
work on making it bigger, bolder and better. The Beast was
born.

Construction

If you’ve already made the Broken Wings pad in the past,

you’ll understand the addition easily, but I’ll explain it in full,
just in case the reader hasn’t read the Wings manuscript.

Essentially, the original Broken Wings notepad is a two

way pad, it has a floating back cover and two front covers. The
back cover can swing around to sit in front of either of the
front covers to switch the side of the pad in performance. In
The Beast notepad, this floating back cover in fact splits in
two, revealing another front cover and a billet index facing
one another. The two sides of the floating back cover are held
together with magnets, which can also be used to switch
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !7
shimmed billets outside the pad. That’s the basic text break
down, so now we’ll look at some pictures and a more detailed
instruction on the construction of this wonderful tool.

Required Materials
To construct The Beast, you will need 3 spiral or wire
bound pads, I use A6 size, but any will work. Ideally these
pads should have a coloured front and a plain back, as long as
you can distinguish the front from the back you’re good to go.
I’ve found that sometimes the holes in cheap pads are cut off
centre, when you go to buy your pads, just check that the holes
are in about the same place on each pad you buy. It doesn’t
have to be perfect, but the closer the better.

You will also need four small neodymium magnets. I buy

these ones:

http://www.first4magnets.com/f308---12mm-dia-
x-1mm-thick-n42-neodymium-magnet---055kg-pull-x20-
a14y-7-p.asp

The magnets above are simply 12mm x 1mm disc

magnets. You can get thinner ones from other sources, but I’ve
never had a problem with these and they are very cheap, while
remaining reliable. As well as the pads and the magnets, you
will also need some tape and some glue. I use Scotch’s quick
dry adhesive and their magic tape. It doesn’t really matter
what you use though as long as it’s sticky. Finally, you will
need 3 playing cards. Any will do, the more hard wearing and
plastic the better!

8! Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

 Now that you have everything you need, you can begin.
Start by unscrewing the spiral binding of the pads so you have
3 separate piles of pages.

Remove the covers and set up a pile as follows from the

table up:

• Back cover
• Front cover (design facing up)
• Back cover
• Front cover (design facing down)
• Stack of one pad’s worth of pages
• Front cover (facing up)

You should note that the front cover facing downwards

will have to be rotated so that the binding holes still line up.
You can conclude this buy re-binding the pad by squaring this
stack up and simply running the spiral back through the holes,
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !9
before closing it off. Your pad now just looks like a normal
pad, it has hidden covers within it’s folds though. The second
stage of the construction is the art attack section; gluing and
sticking time!

First, place your pad face down on the table and open up
the first back cover. Tape two of the magnets to the back
cover, one in each outer corner, a couple of centimetres in.
You will then glue the first back cover to the back of the front
cover it’s facing.

These two make the first half of your floating back/index

piece. Don’t worry about the fact that the cover won’t be
completely flat – These pieces will never be seen without the
pad, which will hide the thickness.

! 10 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

 Now, take your other two magnets and see which side
attracts to the ones glued in the back cover. Place these two
free magnets onto some pieces of tape, with the attracting side
stuck to the tape. You should lay these taped magnets onto the
back cover – You’ll note the sticky side is facing up. This is so
you can close the pad and stick the magnets to the facing
cover, so they will be in the correct place to lock the floating
piece. It’s a little bit fiddly, but not difficult to get this right.
Once you’ve got your magnets in place, you may want to stick
some more tape over them to secure them further.
Alternatively, its also possible to glue the magnets in place.

Now the pad has a floating back cover that is actually two
pieces locked together with magnets. All we need to do is
construct the index, inside of this locked piece. I simply use
the three cards as three pockets, in which I can slot several
billets. You could use more cards if you wanted more
outcomes, but I can get about 12 out of this, which is easily
enough for my work. I tape each card along the bottom edge to
the inside of the back cover, once all three are taped, I also
place one strip of tape along the outer edge. This keeps the
cards from flapping and keeps the billets secure when the
index is closed.

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !11

 The Beast is complete. If you have to trim any tape or
anything do so now. We’ll look at some uses for the pad now
as Broken Wings and as The Beast, but first, let’s look at basic
handling.

Original Handling
First, let me take a quick snippet from the original Broken
Wings: As noted, the move is a little knacky, but also easy and
quite invisible. However, I’d advise doing the move under a
little misdirection, it’s always good to cover your back! You
will be, in the motion of handing the pad from one person to
another or taking it off a spectator and placing it on the table,
flicking the back cover around so that the extra front cover is
visible, thus switching the front page. This move is all in the
wrist, so follow the pictures below.

! 12 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

 Because of the extra weight of the new gimmick, this
move will work even easier than the old gimmick. The key
thing to remember is that you are simply turning the pad over,
(it also rotates horizontally 180) as if there wasn’t a back
cover, with the right motion, the back cover flips around
perfectly. You can see the move in action in the Triptic section
later in this book. So, that’s the basic move to switch the sides
of the pad, but what about the index? And switching billets
outside the pad?

New Handlings
We’ll first look at switching billets outside the pad as the
explanation is easy and quick. Lets assume that you want a
spectator to write a name on a piece of card, you want to
switch it out for a dummy so that you can read it at your
leisure to gain the information. All you need to do is to shim
the billet, cutting a piece out of a drink’s can is the easiest
way, or using a razor blade. These are both thin and magnetic.
The easiest way to shim a billet is to get 2 thin pieces of
card and sandwich the metal in between as you glue them
together. You now have a piece of card the spectator can write
on that you can steal with a magnet. If you feel that it is
necessary, you can always justify it by saying you’ve stuck
two cards together so that the card is completely opaque and
there’s no way the pen can bleed through.
You have a magnet perfect for this kind of steal in your
Beast, so practice holding the pad in the middle and tapping a
shimmed billet in your hand with the back cover of the pad to
get the correct feel to easily steal it. If you have a dummy
billet hidden under the pad, (I actually back palm mine so I
can drop it easily, but you could just hold it with one of your
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !13
fingers under the pad) you can steal the billet from their
outstretched palm and drop the dummy in it’s place. As you’re
already touching them, they won’t notice the movement of the
billet. The justification I use for this move is as follows:

“Once you’ve finished writing, please hold the card

writing side down on your outstretched palm so I can turn
around. Great. Can you please take your other hand and
sandwich the card (tap + steal!) for me? Perfect.”

Mission completed.

The Index
The index is the most substantial change with the new
Wings pad, so let’s look at how to use it. We’ll assume that
you are going to predict which of the 5 ESP symbols your
spectator will name. The circle, cross, wavy lines, square and
star. Set up your pad with 4 pre-folded billets predicting each
symbol minus the circle. Each slip should be made from half a
page of the same paper in your pad. You have loads left over
from the construction.
This process is the same regardless of what you are
predicting. You will explain what you are going to do, then
apparently just open the pad and rip out a page. You close the
pad, tear the page in half and use the back of the pad to lean
on as you write, then fold your prediction. They name their
thought, you immediately hand them the piece of paper to
reveal that your prediction was correct.
The key is in the opening and closing of the pad. You will
be opening the front cover of the pad and spinning it all the
way around to the back of the pad. Rip out the page and then
! 14 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
separate the magnetic section at the back of the pad and close
both of these sections – This is why there’s the extra front
cover. You can place the pad down on the table now to tear the
page in half. The index is exposed on the back, so be sure not
to reveal that to the audience. Take your pad up alongside the
piece of page and leaning on the index (apparently just the
back of the pad as far as the audience knows), draw a circle
(or whatever outcome is relevant to what you’re revealing)
and fold the page up.
Now all you have to do is ask what symbol they thought
of and use your thumb to drag the relevant billet out of the
index. Put the pad in your pocket or back down on the table
and re-cap before revealing. The time misdirection is good and
the pad is perfectly justified in the routine. Treat it like it’s
nothing and it will be so in their eyes.

Routines: Abacus

The Effect: This is the basic add-a-number routine that I

created the Broken Wings pad for. You will hand a pad to a
spectator to write a 3- digit number, then to another and on
and one until you have 5 or 6 different 3-digit numbers in a
line. You then hand the pad, along with a calculator to another
audience member and have them add up the total. It matches a
prediction that you wrote earlier.

The Work: This is a very simple routine; it packs light, but

plays big. You can mail a prediction to an event organiser or
special guest weeks before and close your show on this effect!
All you need to do is to have the hidden front page prepared
with a list of six three-digit numbers. Try and write them in

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !15

different handwriting, just so it doesn’t look like it’s all be
written by one person – You could even have your friends or
partners write some of the numbers for the best effect. Add
them up and note the total as your prediction. Close the pad
and you’re ready to go.
You just need to hand the pad to a spectator along with a
pen and have them open the pad (to the blank front page) and
write a random three-digit number. This is nice to do to a front
row as you can have the spectator hand across the pad to the
next and so on until you have six three-digit numbers. Have
the final spectator close the pad after they’ve written their
number as you don’t want to see it.
You simply take the pad and in handing it to another
spectator to add up all the numbers you do the move. This will
hide the numbers the spectators have written and your
numbers will now be on the first page. Have the spectator with
the calculator add up all the numbers and it will, of course,
match your prediction. One of the best things about this
routine is that once you’ve done it once, rip out your numbers
and you’re left with six new numbers, genuinely written in
different hand writing, that you can use in your next show.

Routines: Ghost Writer

The Effect: Automatic writing is always interesting to see
– If you can have the spectator really believe that they are the
one that wrote the words, drew the picture or scrawled the
number, you can build a very strong impact and a very eerie
effect!
The effect is that you tell a story; there was a man who in
the late 50’s died in this very venue. (of course, change the
story and frame to suit!) You explain that you’re going to try
! 16 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
and contact him tonight.You bring a spectator up to the stage
and hand them a pen you’ve shown to work by scribbling on a
page of your pad. You then hand them the pad to put behind
their back and to just run the pen across it, allow the pen to run
free to see if the man will take hold of it to communicate.
They write. They then hand back the pen and close the pad.
You place it on the table and continue your story. You explain
that the man’s name was George. You have the spectator open
the pad and it’s now apparent that they’ve somehow manically
scribbled the word ‘George’ without knowing how! In a
similar vein, You could also use the broken wings pad as an
alternate gimmick for my effect Machine. (Explained in Deep
Shadows.)

The Work: The workings again are quite easy. You just
need to scrawl the name ‘George’ or whatever you wish to
force on the spectator across the hidden front page. You must
make this in quite a loose flowy manner and don’t be afraid to
do any other little scribbles as this will make the impression
that it could be really done by the spectator. You should also
make a mark on the page alongside this. For instance, write
your initials or the date of performance. This works as a
convincer that it is the same page when you show the pen
works at the start of the routine. You just need to make sure
that you mark the first page in the same manner during the
performance.
As you don’t want them to think about what they are
drawing behind their back, you will take their mind off the
task at hand. You could have them count back from a thousand
and continue talking, or perhaps ask them some simple
questions. This will keep their mind occupied and also covers
any dead time in the routine. You should stop them abruptly,

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !17

half way through an answer, as this also aids in erasing the
memory of what they were writing.
Once the writing is complete, you can ask them to close
the pad and toss it onto the table. When you pick the pad up
again later on, you can do your move, or alternatively, you
could take the pad from behind their back and use their body
to cover the move before you toss it onto the table.

Routines: (S)Influence
The Effect: I’m a mentalist at heart, but I love card tricks.
Finding good card tricks that breach the barrier between magic
and mentalism can be a task, but I have one right here that’s
served me well! The effect is simple; you hand a deck of cards
to the spectator, they shuffle as much as they wish. You take
out a pad of paper, rip out a sheet and write a prediction on it.
The sheet is folded and placed in full view on the table. You
have the spectator spread the cards face down and slide out
one card. Just so it remains unseen and no one can get to it, it’s
placed in the pad. The spectator is asked to open the
prediction; it says the 8 of spades. They then re-open the pad,
and reveal that the card they chose is also the 8 of spades!

The Work: The workings for this are choreographed in

such a way that it’s quite simple to do the move right in front
of the audience. All focus is on the prediction paper at the
point when the move is done. All you need to perform this
routine is a small bit of set up – You need to put the card you
wish to force in the hidden front page part as shown below. As
the pad isn’t much larger than the card, it’s easy to hold it
inside as you handle the pad. Just try it and you’ll see!

! 18 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

 You are going to take out the cards and hand them to the
spectator to shuffle, as they are doing this, remove your pad –
This also gives you all the misdirection in the world if you do
have any random issues with the card while the pad’s in your
pocket. I recommend having the pad upside down in your
pocket as then there’s nowhere for the card to go, being
stopped by the spiral!
So, you remove your pad, rip out a front sheet, and place
the pad down. You will write; “You will choose the 8 of
spades” on the sheet and fold it up so the writing isn’t visible.
This can be handed off to another spectator or placed down in
full view in the middle of the table.
From here you will have the spectator with the cards
spread them on the table face down, or if you wish you could
spread the cards for them. They need to slide out one card. It’s
important that this card remains face down so feel free to say;
“we’ll keep the card face down for now.”
Open the front page of the pad and ask the spectator to put
the card in there so no one can get to it and that you’ll come
back to it in a moment. That takes the heat off the card and
pad as you’re telling them that it’s not important right now,
just after saying this, take up the rest of the deck of cards and
ask if the spectator believes in subliminal influence. If it’s
possible for you, the performer, to influence them in their
every action throughout this demonstration, from their shuffle
to their selection.
Whatever their answer, ask them to open up the
prediction. Once the paper is in their hands, pick up the
notepad and do the move. Bring the notepad up to the
spectator and have them open the first page to take out the
card they selected. Of course in reality, you’ve invisibly
switched the cards, so they’ll be taking your force card!

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !19

 Once they’ve taken the card, place the pad back in your
pocket. This time put it in your pocket the right way up. If
they ask to see the pad, take it out by the spiral alone and the
extra card will drop out into your pocket!

Routines: 2way

The Effect: A long time ago a close friend of mine, Jack

Curtis, released a PDF called DVP – A filmed video prediction
that was truly AMAZING. Jack later released this effect in his
book Distorted Thoughts. The reason I mention DVP is that it
held some inspiration in building this routine. The methods
and core effect are different, but in both, you can predict one
of two outcomes. Jack’s effect is designed as a prediction that
you could mail ahead of time, mine should look like you’re
just doing this as an on the fly experiment.
You could predict any kind of outcomes, the flipping of a
coin, which hand something will be placed in, the outcome of
a football match. We’ll go with the latter for this explanation.
You will ask your spectators to imagine that they are at an
imaginary football (or soccer for the Americans!) game.

“We’re sat in the front row and it’s England vs Germany.

Don’t decide just yet, but I’m going to ask you in a second to
tell me who wins the game. You may say England as we’re in
England right now, or you may say Germany to throw me off...
But perhaps I know you’re going to try and do that. I’m going
to write down my prediction now.”

You write your prediction and place the pad down. You
then have the spectator name the country that won their
imaginary football match. You ask if there’s any reason they
! 20 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
made that choice, you then flip open the pad and show that
you predicted correctly!

The Work: I’m sure you already have an idea of how this
effect works. You just need to have one of the countries
written on the hidden front page before you start. Let’s say
you have Germany written there. Take out your pad and talk
about the football game. When you come to write your
prediction, write England. Close the pad and put it down.
If they name England, you have a beautifully clean
revelation, you could have them flip open the cover
themselves while it’s still tabled! If they say Germany, ask
why they named that country and as the begin to answer, pick
up the pad and do the move as you bring it up to open the
cover and show them your correct prediction!

Routines: Shadow

The Effect: I’m a massive fan of effects using fire. If

you’ve seen Cinders, (later in this book) Scathe or Ashes,
you’ll have noticed my obsession! So, here’s another to add to
the list! You have someone select a card, you then take out
your pad and wave a blank page over a lighter’s flame when
the image of their card becomes burnt onto the page.

The Work: You will want to create a stencil; you can cut
this out of card or any other material. For full work on creating
these stencils and a bunch of other effects with fire and
playing cards; You should look at my friend Daniel Madison’s
book Burn. Your stencil will want to be of a number seven and
a diamond, assuming you’re going to force the seven of
diamonds. All you have to do is take some card and cut out the
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !21
number seven and a diamond so that you have holes in the
card of those shapes. You of course need to make sure that
both shapes will fit on a single page of your pad. You are
going to create a burn on what will be your hidden first page
in the shape of the seven and the diamond. Take each of the
stencils, one at a time, and hold it up to the page you wish to
burn. Now, take a lighter and start waving it so the fire licks
the page thru the hole in the stencil. Experiment with the best
ways to do this on pieces of paper not in your pad, so that
you’re an expert when you come to do it to your Beast pad and
don’t waste pages you’ll have to replace! You will end up with
a weird looking burnt shadow of the seven of diamonds on
your page. Set that as your hidden first page and you’re ready
to rock!
To perform the routine, have your pad and a lighter at the
ready. Perhaps do an effect first where you write something on
the pad, or do an effect after this one in your set that warrants
you having it on the table.
You will have someone select a card. Of course, you’re
going to force the seven of diamonds in your favourite
manner. Once this is done you can talk about the mysterious
properties of fire, as you say this take up your pad in your
hand. Follow the scripting below, in your own words…

“Does anyone have a lighter? (take pad in hand and

casually show the blank first page) Fire is a mysterious thing,
a beautiful thing and has been used in a wide variety of rituals
and demonstrations over the years, I’d like to show you
something special right now. Can I borrow your lighter?”
If no one has a lighter, you have yours in your pocket, so
all is not lost. As you take the lighter, allow the pad to drop out
of frame and do the move. Ask if the person remembers the
card they chose, open the first page, as the pad is horizontal
! 22 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
face down and spark the lighter with your other hand. Be
careful not to prematurely flash the burnt image. Just wave the
pad over the flame for a few moments and then slowly turn
over the pad so they see that a burnt image of their card has
appeared on the page!

Techniques: Peeking Information

The Effect: The Broken Wings pad can be used to peek

information, essentially it will look like you’ve had someone
write something in the front of a pad, then you rip out a page
from the back of the pad to write down your impressions. In
reality, you have someone write some information, do the
move to flip the pad and take the second from back page as
you peek the information on what’s now the back page. It’s a
very simple procedure, so lets look at it with a name reveal.

The Work: You will take out your pad and pen. Hand the
pad to a spectator and have them write the name of someone
special on the first page, then have them close the pad and
hand it back to you. You will then ask them to cap the pen, do
the move as you are looking at them when you talk. You will
then bring the pad up to head level, lift up the back two covers
so that you can see the name and rip out the page behind it for
you to write on. You will then place the pad on the table and
begin to get impressions of letters from the spectator – Make it
feel like the pad has nothing to do with the effect. It’s about
you and the spectator.
Once you finish writing the name, fold it up and hand
them the paper. You will then pick the pad off the table and do
the move once more. You can now show on the first page what

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !23

the spectator wrote, have them slowly open your prediction –
It matches!
You can achieve a drawing duplication in the same
manner of peeking above, a good idea is to fill the top half of
the page by writing: “Draw what you like here” or drawing a
TV screen on the bottom half of the page.
If their writing or drawing only fills the bottom half of the
page, it’s much quicker and easier to get your peek. You can
only half open the pack cover to do so!

Techniques: Indexing
The index in the pad can be used for many things. As long
as you can have your spectator think of something with a
capped amount of 40
outcomes, you’re set to go. Try some of these to get you
started:

• Numbers: Name a number between one and ten.

• Zodiac signs: I think I can tell you your zodiac sign, just
from your mannerisms, let me just write down what I think
before you say anything. This is a great way to get into a
reading.
• Colours: Think of a colour that everyone would
immediately recognise here. This stops them from naming
something ridiculous like a pantone number.
• Shapes: You can out every possibility for the circle
triangle force!
• Item location: Imagine you’re in a desert. There’s a
table in front of you with three items on it, a key, a pen and a
coin. I want you to place one in your right pocket, one in

! 24 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

 your left pocket and hold one in your hand. There are only 9
possible outcomes, so you can easily index them all!

Techniques: Magnet Ideas

I mentioned the billet switching earlier, that’s the obvious
choice. But there are many other things that you could do with
the magnets in the pad.

• Draw a picture of a compass with the arrow pointing

downwards, when you move the pad closer to a real
compass, it will match the drawing!
• Write several items in a list with a force item directly
over a magnet. With a magnetic pendulum, you can force
this item.
• Have a bent coin under a matching shimmed coin shell
in your hand. Write bend on a page of the pad. When you
wave or tap the coin with the instruction, it will apparently
bend!
• If you’ve stopped a watch with a PK ring, you can then
place it onto the table (on or close to your pad) where it will
remain stopped until you take it up again and breathe life
into it.

This concludes the section of this book on The Beast; I

hope you get some great use out of it. It’s a tool that can be
used for so many different things, so I’ve no doubt that you’ll
come up with your own applications. This brings me nicely to
the next section, which covers another incarnation of the
Broken Wings notepad; Triptic.

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !25

 Triptic
I realise that I’ve spelt “Triptych” incorrectly. It was a
stylistic choice that will allow stray googlers to find my
product as opposed to loads of triple canvased art pieces.
Triptic is another evolution of my popular “Broken
Wings” notepad; which you can read about in Deep Shadows
or buy as a pre-made item from most dealers. There is one
major difference between the Triptic pads and the original
Wings pads as well as a totally different handling. These
changes, plus a very clever ploy to take the force/pre-show out
of one ahead routines, makes this a powerful routine for close
up shows, or larger events. Triptic as a package is actually
two-fold. The mechanics are one element, the routine is
another element all together and both can be performed
independently or they can be used together.
I’ve included a video to watch to show the mechanics and
teach you how to use the device; I felt that rather than you
having to follow along and try to figure out the correct
movements, it would be most effective for your learning curve
to see the movements in intricate detail. You can watch this
video at:

http://DeeChristopher.Rocks/pages/triptic-instruction

The majority of the technical explanation is covered in the

video, however, for the psychological intricacies, and the
routine it’s self, I’ve chosen to write them so that they can be
digested most effectively. So, I urge you to go watch the video
first, once you have done that, turn to the next page and I’ll
outline my further work on the one ahead principle, using
these notepads.

! 26 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

 Setting Up The Pads: Re-cap
Remember, you can set up the pads with any three
numbers, words or colours, but they should follow this guide.
With the two front covers at the front of the notepad:

• Pad 1 - Hidden front cover = 3

• Pad 2 - Hidden front cover = 1
• Pad 3 - Hidden front cover = 2

Be sure to re-watch the set-up section of the video to

ensure that you understand which cover goes where. I
remember making a few mistakes the first time I put these
gimmicks together!

The Routine
I trust that you have now watched the full length of the 30
minute instructional video, so you will have a grasp on the
mechanics of the Triptic notepads. Now I’d like to introduce
you to the concept I’ll be exploring here, I wanted to create a
one ahead routine which didn’t rely on a force and had a nice
emotional hook, something that would work nicely in a
parlour environment.
Through conversations with my friend Lewis Lé Val, we
stumble across tons of unique and interesting ideas as we
bounce thoughts back and forth. One idea was to use some
kind of blanket statement as the piece of known information in
a one ahead. From here I thought about the option of a short
reading. If I could write a simple sentence down on the first
pad and somehow have the participant agree to a slightly
different wording of this statement when it comes down to the

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !27

third pad, it could do away with any previously necessary
forces or pre-show.
The idea was there, but I didn’t quite know how to
structure the routine, theme the routine or how I was going to
have a reading become as powerful as a direct hit. Through
much thinking and failing, I stumbled across something that
worked really nicely. That is what I’m documenting here and
that forms the second element to the Triptic package.

The Qualification
The key to making this work really nicely in any
environment is in the story I lead with and the theme of the
routine. Looking at the most common life experiences that
everyone has I decided to focus in on childhood hobbies/
activities. Most people had a hobby as a child that they wish
they hadn’t given up when they think about how great they
would be by now. For me, I studied martial arts as a kid, but I
gave it up as magic and music took over. I tried to get back
into it as an adult; but it didn’t stick. If I was still training
these days I’d likely be much healthier and look a lot better
shirtless. For that reason, I regret giving my childhood hobby
up. For some people it’s sports, for some people it’s playing an
instrument, drama, singing, art, it could be any number of
things. Have a think about how it applies to you.
I start the routine as follows, and I use just one person for
this. The pads can either be numbered or Past, Present &
Future can be used.

“When I was young, I studied martial arts. Twice a week

I’d be driven to a sweaty gym and lined up with 20 other
children in what felt like over sized pyjamas crafted in canvas.
! 28 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
Regardless of the terrible fashion I was subjected to, I really
enjoyed it. As I grew older though, going out with friends, and
fronting death metal bands became my priority. I left Tae
Kwon Do behind as it wasn’t important to me anymore.
Looking back on this decision, I wish I had given more time to
the art as by now I’d be ripped and able to kick my way
through brick walls... Unfortunately, though I’ve considered
taking the hobby back up, it’s never stuck.
I want you to think about what your childhood hobby was,
whether it was a sport, a musical instrument, art, just
something you wish you’d never given up as you grew older. I
guess a lot of you have had a similar experience to me? How
about you; would you like to help me with this? Give him a
round of applause as he joins me on stage!”

Throughout this short script, I’ve basically just located

someone who has had a childhood hobby that they’ve given
up and wish they hadn’t. When I look for someone who’s had
a similar experience to me, it’s quite a conversational script, so
you can easily spot the people that have
gone through the same thing. They’ll see some of
themselves in your script and be nodding along with your
lines. Choose one of these people and you’re half way there.
It’s very unlikely that you won’t be able to find someone like
this in your group, even if it’s a close up table of four. Pretty
much everyone has had this experience in some way or
another. Hindsight is a vastly over used thinking process!

The One Ahead

The main body of the routine is just a normal one ahead
around the theme of hobbies. The ‘known’ piece of
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !29
information is a simple reading, rather than a force. This is
preceded by the childhood hobby and what the person has
replaced it with in their modern life.
So the scripting goes a little something like this... I’ll put
handling notes in brackets throughout.

“Welcome NAME, I don’t want you to tell me anything,

but you have a childhood memory in your mind, right? You’re
thinking of the hobby that took up a lot of your free time when
you were young. I have three notepads here, one is labelled
‘past’, the next one is ‘present’ and of course the final one is
the ‘future’ pad. Keep thinking of that hobby, think about how
great it made you feel and how much you miss it. I’m going to
try and pull that thought out of your head.”

At this point I pick up the ‘past’ notepad and write down a

single short reading which I’ll expand on later. I’ll detail what
I write here in the ‘reading’ section of this instruction. I do the
move as detailed in the video and toss the pad to the table.

“OK, I’ve committed myself. I wonder how close I got -

Out loud so that everyone can hear; what’s the hobby you
were thinking about?”

Often during this first phase, they will be reluctant to tell

your their thought, just remind them that you’ve written down
your thought on the ‘past’ notepad and that you won’t be
touching it from this point forward. They will always open up
once they realise it’s required for them to do so. Feel free to be
conversational at this point; let the participant open up and
perhaps even share a simple memory or feeling relating to
their hobby. Let’s say for this explanation’s sake that the
hobby was ‘football.’

! 30 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

 “I’m assuming that you don’t play football anymore,
otherwise you wouldn’t be up here, so just think about what
has replaced football in your life. Don’t tell me your thought,
but do you consider yourself a busy person generally?”

This part serves two purposes, from here of course you’ll

repeat the process and apparently write down their
‘replacement’ activity in the ‘present’ notepad. In reality you
will write ‘playing football.’ What the latter part of this script
does is give you an indication on how the person see’s
themselves. There are few people who would consider
themselves to be ‘not busy’ at any given time, but some people
are just very laid back! This will help you craft your reading in
the next phase.
You’ve now read their mind and written down their
‘present’ thought apparently, so you can do the move and toss
the second pad to the table.

“Again, I’ve committed myself. What is it that’s taken over

from football in your life? That makes a lot of sense! OK, so
I’d like to try something different with the future pad. All will
become clear in a moment.”

At this point, just look into the eyes of the participant for
a moment before scribbling down whatever they said took
over their football time. Let’s say it’s ‘kids’. Try and write a
few words, rather than just ‘kids’ write ‘raising the kids’ so
that it emulates your writing of the reading statement at the
start. Really take your time with this.

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !31

 “OK, I have committed myself a final time. I wrote down
something that I believe is true for your future, relating to this
train of thought...”

From here, I structure a brief reading, expanding on the

statement I wrote on the ‘past’ pad. (which of course became
the ‘future’ pad in the handling.) I finish on a sentence that
allows them to agree with what I’ve said, before building up
the reveal of the information.

The Reading
Structuring the reading is very simple, by this point you’ll
be able to take a pretty good guess and allow your intuition to
lead you. But this doesn’t help you at the start of the routine;
you need to write a blanket statement that will apply to
everyone. I write the following:

“IF you put as much focus on your hobby as you did as a

child, you’ll find that you underestimated your potential.”

I will usually have part of this sentence already written on

the first page of my pad, this allows me just write the last
couple of words. It’s very easy to expand on this statement
towards the end of your reading; no one is going to admit that
if they put as much focus on something as they did when they
were a child, that they would be less successful at it
nowadays!
I’ve detailed a casual reading example below, but you
shouldn’t memorise this, allow your intuition to guide you,
and just twist your words to fit in with the original statement
you wrote.

! 32 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

 “You began playing football when you were very young, I
can see you playing with someone older, but also with your
peers. To you it was the most important thing in your world;
that and ice cream. But we all change as we grow older, and
while it wasn’t having kids that made you stop playing
football, it was all leading towards that. You started growing
up and going out and partying with your friends became more
important. You never really cared too much for your working*
as you grew up; but you couldn’t ignore the stress - So that
contributed.
You’re a busy guy these days, and I understand that it’s
unlikely that you’ll be able to stick to something like this
anymore, but don’t rule it out - You may find yourself in the
position where it makes sense again. I mean, you KNOW that
if you put your mind to and focused on sports again; you’d
have an amazing time and you’ll agree that you’d be MUCH
more successful these days with the skills in strategy that
you’ve acquired over the years. Isn’t that right?”

*This can represent a job or studying.

I always finish on an elaborated version of the statement

that I’ve written on the prediction page and give them the
opportunity to agree with me at the end of the spoken reading.
As always, no one is going to disagree with a compliment!

The Reveal
The final stage of the routine is the reveal; pick up the
notebooks and turn them number side up. Be open with your

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !33

movements as you don’t want them to really remember you
handling the pads at this point.
Step back and ask the participant to take notepad one -
Reiterate the information that’s written in there and have them
read out or show the audience what you wrote. State it out
loud and hold an applause cue.
Repeat for the other two notebooks and leave them with a
short statement that has them feeling good and allows you to
move on:

“Remember, stay open to your past - Even if it’s just for

special occasions - I know that you’ll walk yourself down the
right path for you. I wish you the best, please give him a round
of applause!”

As I mentioned in the video, you can use these two

techniques separately, whatever suits you. I’ve found that they
work together really nicely though, creating a very fair, clear
and direct routine that hooks emotionally as you’re forcing
someone to think about a good part of their past and
reminisce.

! 34 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

 Broken
Broken is a routine that I originally wrote for a television
project as a homage to Uri. The final article was cut from the
show due to time constraints and all the other great stuff we
shot, but I love it so much that I’ve decided to include it here.
I won’t include the scripting for the routine as that’s something
for you to write, depending on the style of your show, but I
will include all the thinking and the necessary techniques to
create this illusion for your own work on film or on stage. This
isn’t something that’s ideally suited to the close up arena, as
the method requires a dual reality that won’t work one on one.
The effect is still amazing for the participant, but no where
near as amazing as it is for the audience at large.

The Effect: A member of the audience is found to have

brought along a broken watch that they would like to see fixed
by the mentalist. They are brought up to the stage and the
watch is taken out from their pocket. It is laid, face down, on
the participant’s hand and after a moment of concentration, the
mentalist gently breathes on the back of the time piece.
Despite the performer never touching the watch, when it is
turned over, the second hand is now ticking once more. The
audience applauds and the participant remains on stage to help
with another effect.

The Work:You will need to obtain a few (the number

doesn’t matter, as long as there is more than one, I used three
when I shot this routine) watches that you can gimmick. The
gimmick is very easy to make and it will take you just a
couple of minutes to construct everything. If possible, you
should get a couple of different styles of black rubber watches.
Like the one pictured below.
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !35
 These watches do not have to be of high quality, or style,
as long as they tick and they have a black rubber strap. The
important thing is that the strap must have a ‘free loop’. This
is the small piece of rubber that the end of the strap tucks in to
once it is buckled. In the watch above, it looks like this.

The wider the free loop, the better. We’re going to be

hiding a small rectangular magnet inside the free loop and
taping it in place with black electrical tape. The texture of the
tape is congruent with the texture of the watch and will hide
the magnet perfectly. Now when the strap is folded in, and the
free loop is slid up the strap a little, towards the watch, the
! 36 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
magnet will touch the back of the watch, through the rubber,
gently stick in place and stop the mechanism of the watch.
When the strap is then opened out like in a butterfly style
motion, the magnet will unstick and the watch will tick.
This is essentially the way that the watch comes to life.
The watch is always in it’s switched off position, i.e. with the
strap with the magnet folded in so the magnet lightly adheres
to the back of the watch. The first time that the watch is
switched on is during the routine on stage, or in front of the
cameras.
The real secret behind this is a very small amount of
preshow, a bit of boldness and a nice slice of dual reality script
that combines the lot to create a very deceptive illusion. You
will have an audience member select one of the watches
before the show and put it in an envelope that goes in their
pocket so that they don’t prematurely switch it on. You will
ask them to join you on stage during the show (in a very
particular way) and apparently heal the watch.

The Preshow
The preshow element of this method is really easy to
grasp, all you need is a quiet corner somewhere you can take a
guest as people are initially arriving to the theatre. Once you
find someone that is friendly and up for getting involved, you
will bring them to said quiet corner and take an envelope out
of your bag; along with a few watches that you have
gimmicked in the manner described, all in the switched off
position. The following script is what you should say to your
participant; this is inspired by a pre-show idea from Kenton
Knepper in his Perfected Prediction book, used for a
completely different purpose.
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !37
 “Thanks so much for helping me with this; I don’t want to
know too much about you just yet, so we can save the
introductions for later! A Facebook post was supposed to go
out asking people coming to the show to bring along any
broken mechanical items, watches for instance. Unfortunately,
this wasn’t published as we’d expected.
Luckily, I have managed to get the crew to bring in some
old broken watches from home that we can use later on in the
show. You can see that the pins are all pushed in, the watch
simply doesn’t tick; perhaps the batteries are dead. So, I’d like
you to choose any of these old watches; from this moment
onwards, it’s yours and you can take it home after the show.
OK?
Perfect, choose one now and we’ll put it into this
envelope, put it in your bag, so when I ask later in the show,
we’ll have at least one person that can bring a broken watch
up to the stage!
Thanks so much for your help; you’re a life saver - I’ll be
sure to make you look great on stage later!”

The scripting above achieves several things. Firstly, for

the audience to believe that you haven't met the person before,
you don’t want to know their name. This may seem a little
rude, but I make this whole script quite playful, so it doesn’t
come across that way. I also make sure that the audience
member feels good and knows that I appreciate their help, as if
they’re really getting me out of a difficult situation. While the
audience at large will assume its something in the show that
may or may not have happened, I want the person helping me
to feel that it’s imperative that it is included in the program.
I let the participant know that these aren’t my watches,
and that they can choose any of the ones that I’ve somehow
managed to acquire throughout the day from members of the
! 38 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
crew, which could mean the theatre crew, my crew, the So
Solid Crew or even the road works crew outside. Being non
specific prevents questions. Finally, it sets the participant up
with what I’m going to ask for during the show. I always do
this in the first half and I’m very specific, as I don’t want the
person to forget or get confused. So, at this point, most of the
work is done, you have someone sat in the audience with what
appears to be a broken watch in their possession. All that’s left
to do is convince the audience that it belongs to the
participant, while keeping everything as above board as
possible.

The Dual Reality

This is where the fun begins! I’m quite a casual performer
in between each of my routines. I swan about the stage with a
glass in my hand and I often make little remarks, comments or
tell small anecdotes. I want this routine to feel like it’s one of
these anecdotes, that has transformed into something more.

“The skills of the mystery artist can be quite useful in the

general day-to-day living of life. In fact, I’m going to try
something interesting this evening of that nature.
I remember watching Uri Geller on the television years
ago; melting spoons and making dead watches tick again
through the television or over the radio, it became quite a
popular challenge piece, to fix a borrowed watch, or melt a
borrowed spoon. I met a few people before the show earlier,
one of which has actually got a broken watch with her - If I’m
talking about you, could you raise your hand? Ah, there you
are; would you mind joining me on stage with this watch?”

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !39

 In this first section of the script, I’ve set up exactly what
I’m going to do, and I’ve also been quite honest about meeting
someone before the show. However, what’s interesting is that
it appears to the audience that I’ve discovered through talking
to someone that they have brought a broken watch with them,
as a challenge. To the person I’ve pre-showed, it seems like
I’m just being open and honest.

“I don’t want to touch it, but can you please confirm that I
didn’t ask you to play along, this really is a watch that doesn’t
work? Perfect. Now, I’m just going to lay this on your hand
and I’d like you to remain still.
A relaxed heartbeat is around 60 beats per minute, the
same rate at which the second hand of a watch ticks… I want
you to become aware of your heartbeat and imagine a flow of
energy traveling from your chest, down your arm and into the
watch.”

The watch is of course face down on the hand and the

straps are opened and the watch is now ticking again,
unknown to the audience or participant. At this point I take a
moment and let a little tension build as I appear to forget about
the audience and focus completely on the task at hand. I build
up a little energy and take a deep breath. I gently breathe on
the back of the watch as if I’m breathing life into the time
piece again; an idea that stems from David Blaine’s
performances of the reanimation of a dead fly. It creates a
really interesting visual; which is something that I try to do at
least once in every routine.

“OK, I think we’re there. I don’t want to touch the watch,

but can you look at the face now - Is it ticking? Perfect!
Thanks so much!”
! 40 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
 At this point I nod to the audience and raise my hand as
an applause cue.

“This is your applause, really - And now you have a

watch that will not only tell you the time, but it will also
remind you of your amazing night at the theatre!
[To audience] Oh, and if anyone else wishes to bring me a
spoon after the performance, I’m happy to indulge in that
challenge also!
[To participant] As you did so well, I think you’d be
perfect for this next demonstration; would you mind remaining
on stage for a minute more?”

I will now perform an incredible piece of mind reading,

something personal that they will want to talk about; like a
name divination. This will take over from them wanting to talk
too much about the watch trick after the show, they will
always want to talk about the thing that has amazed them the
most!
The reason that I mention the spoon comment is to imply
to the audience once more that this wasn’t a set up, and also
because if someone does bring me a spoon during the after
show meet and greet, I can bend it and everyone will be extra
amazed that I’ve gone above and beyond in the show that they
saw.

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !41

 Sword
Sword is a lightly humoured routine which works
perfectly for more casual performance environments. Party or
comedy club performers will find some great uses for this!

The Effect: The performer pulls a six-pack of Budweiser

beer from his/her bag and puts it on the table. In asking who
likes to drink beer, he brings someone up from the audience. (I
usually choose a heavy-built guy for this where possible)
The performer asks the participant to grab one of the
bottles, open it and hand it to someone who looks in need of a
good drink! (If the six-pack line didn’t bring a joke into your
mind for your act, I’ve no doubt you’ll find something in
that!) The participant twists off the cap and hands out the
bottle to someone in the front row. The performer asks for a
beer to drink too, its hot under the stage lights… The guy
grabs another bottle and opens that for the performer.
Naturally, by this point, the participant will want one of
their own. Of course they can have one, as long as they’re
willing to try something interesting. After some hypno-esque
mumbo-jumbo from the performer, the participant can take
any of the bottles left in the pack and no matter how hard they
try, they just cannot open it!
The performer eventually gives in and opens the bottle for
the participant, before sending him back to his seat.

The Work: There are a few items you’ll need for this.
You’ll need to buy a six pack of twist-off cap Budweiser beer
bottles (or similar brand) and you’ll need to buy four
individual bottles of beer that require a bottle opener. Luckily,
you can re-use most of the bottles. Each performance will use
just two twist-off bottles and one regular bottle. You also need
! 42 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
to buy yourself a bottle-opener ring; these are available in
stores all over the world and of course online. To save you the
work, here’s the cheapest one (£0.67!) I could find in
approximately three seconds of Google searching:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stainless-Steel-Ring-Bottle-
Opener/dp/B007EDF2YU

You need to do a little set-up. Take four regular beer

bottles and un-cap each one using your bottle opener ring. The
beer should remain inside these bottles. You should then twist-
off the caps of four of your twist-off bottles. You can drink the
beer from these if you so wish, but be careful not to damage
the cardboard cover that the twist off six-packs come
surrounded in. Take the four twist off caps and press them
carefully on to the the regular beer bottles. If you feel it
necessary, You can take some combination pliers, wrap the
teeth in cloth and gently press the bottle caps on to the bottles
to really secure them.
You should take the cardboard sleeve the six-pack comes
in and stand it with the front graphic facing you. Put the four
gimmicked non-twist bottles in the right hand side of the
sleeve. Then take two regular twist-off bottles and put them in
the left hand side, filling the final two spots. If you’re worried
about remembering this orientation, make a mark with a
sharpie on the side with the non-twist bottles.
In performance, you will offer the beer to your participant
from the twist off side for the first couple of bottles, after
which, you put the box on the table; taking the second beer
yourself is the justification for putting the box down. I’ll
discuss the pseudo-hypno during the scripting portion of this
explanation, but essentially, that’s the entire method. It’s
impossible to open the bottles you’ve prepared. Despite it
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !43
being a twist-off cap, there is no threading on the regular
bottles, so it acts just like a regular bottle cap. You can’t open
them without a bottle opener.
When it comes to the opening of the final bottle, you just
need to practice uncapping bottles with your bottle opener ring
in a twisting motion; it’s very easy, you just twist diagonally
as opposed to horizontally. It looks the same, but allows you to
pivot the cap off with your ring. If you aren’t the kind of
performer who wears rings, you can get a regular keyring
bottle opener and put it on a pull, you can still create the
perfect illusion with that method. I prefer rings though, as I
wear them anyway.
So, now you know the way that the effect plays and the
methodology behind it. I’m going to now copy in the basic
scripting that I use, minus the jokes - Those are for you to
write, depending on your character and the environment you
perform in…

“Good evening! I’d like to begin with a little warm up; an

icebreaker if you will… [Take out six-pack] Anyone for a
beer? Awesome; would you like to join me on stage - I will
reward you with the amber nectar I promised, but first I’d like
to try a little experiment…
Grab one of these; it’s a twist cap, so open it up and pass
it on to someone there in the front row. Who wants a beer?
[Offer the twist-cap side to the participant]
In fact, grab another one and open it up; it gets hot under
these stage lights - I could use a drink… You’ll get yours
eventually, I promise. [Put six-pack down on the table so you
have hands free to take the beer.]
Have you ever been hypnotised, by the way? Well, don’t
worry, I’m not going to put you in a trance, but I am going to
take away a fundamental skill that you will greatly miss… The
! 44 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
ability to open a bottle of beer. Grab another one of those
bottles, it doesn’t matter which. OK, now take a deep breath…
[At this point I put my beer down and tap the participant on
the forehead gently.]
Now, try to open the bottle! …but the harder you try, the
tighter the bottle cap will seem! Tighter and tighter; be careful
not to hurt yourself; it’s just impossible for you to remove it…
Try another? [I take the current bottle from him and as soon
as he reaches for a new one and the attention is there, I twist
and pop the cap of the bottle he just gave me - This is a really
important point of the routine.]
See, it’s easy… But you just can’t - It’s like the cap is
glued to the bottle, tighter and tighter… Here; let me put you
out of your misery. [At this point I take the second bottle from
him and tap him on the forehead once more, apparently to
reverse the effect.]
How do you feel?”

As soon as he starts to talk, I twist and pop the cap on the

second bottle he gave me. You’ll notice I do this twice in the
routine, both under heavy misdirection. Though the illusion is
strong, I prefer to keep it as clean as possible.

“I think you’ve earned this… [hand him the newly opened

bottle] Thanks so much for your help. Please, give him a
round of applause!”

As so the routine comes to a close. Remember, this is just

a basic script - There is plenty of room for humour and banter
throughout; it could potentially be played straight, but I feel
that it lends it’s self much better to light hearted performance.

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !45

NightSky

A few years ago I published a method for forcing a

participant to think of a particular person in their life; for
instance, their mother. This allowed you to make a lot of
educated guesses in your reading before revealing the name.
Fraser Parker independently created a similar idea a couple of
years later also, in his style. You can read both of our work on
the subject in his “Memoria” booklet. My work on this also
resides in my book Deep Shadows.
These days, I don’t always carry a deck of cards with me,
though inside of my wallet, I always have five ESP cards. This
is one of the routines I devised with these cards, to create
something utterly different from most routines with ESP cards.
This draws influence from mine and Fraser’s work mentioned
above, as well as Peter’s work in his Wish You Were Here
routine.
In this routine, you will be forcing the participant into
creating a simple scene in their mind, a scene that you will
duplicate in putting pen to paper, thus creating a duplication of
a drawing that only exists in their mind. The concept is simple,
but it’s almost foolproof and has a built in out. You can twist
the ending to make it just about revealing the ESP symbol as a
lead in to some other routines with the cards.
The routines plays as follows: The performer has a
participant select an ESP card and create a simple scene in
their mind. With a little acting on the performer’s part; the
scene is mysteriously duplicated and the card is named.
We will be using a force of the Star card to create a scene
of the night sky in the participant’s mind.
Let’s first look at how to force the ESP card. If you use a
full deck of ESP cards in your act, you’re welcome to use any
! 46 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
playing card force of your choice. If you’re using just five
cards, as I do, you can position the star in forth position in the
face down packet and deal the cards one by one to the table,
relying on a timing force. You will say words to the effect of;

“I’m going to deal these cards to the table, say stop

whenever you’d like.”

Begin dealing slowly as you finish your line to ensure that

they can’t stop you on the first card you deal. If they stop you
on the second card you deal, you will perform a double lift
(the third and forth card in the stack remaining in your hand)
as you turn your head away so they see the card and you do
not. If they stop you on the third card, you will turn your head
and just hand them the fourth card to look at. If they stop you
after you deal the fourth card to the table, you just turn your
head and ask them to look at the top card on the table (fourth
card) and finally if they stop you as you deal the last card, pick
up the entire stack and double lift as you turn your head away
to show them the star.
Once they’ve noted the card, they can shuffle it back in to
the stack and you will say words to the effect of the following;

“I’m going to have you create a scene in your mind,

based on whatever symbol you are thinking of. For instance, if
you’re thinking of the circle, you might see that as the sun in
the sky, shining over a field. Take a second now, take a deep
breath and allow a scene to form in your mind.”

This simple piece of script leads them towards thinking of

a night sky. Just follow your own instructions as you draw a
few dots on the paper, gradually making them into stars, a
crescent moon and draw a horizon line below these. Make this
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !47
line ‘a bit wobbly’ i.e. not perfectly straight. This could be
seen as land or sea. I also draw a small vertical line to the right
which could be seen as a tree, a lighthouse, the mast of a boat,
or whatever else you can attribute it to in the moment.
Once I’ve completed my primitive drawing, I’ll ask them
to describe their scene. More often than not, you’ll be spot on.
If you can direct their attention to the horizon line, and the tree
line to represent any details, you’re winning. You can leave it
there, or move on to reveal the symbol if you wish. This is a
very simple concept, but a way to really switch up your work
with ESP cards and easily create a pretty solid drawing
duplication without the need for any peeks or impression
devices.

! 48 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

Cinders
The Effect: From inside a borrowed deck a single card is
selected and signed with no forces involved. The card is bent
in half and a lighter's flame burns away the lower section.
Though the spectators can plainly see the flames licking at
their signature, in a wave of the magician’s hand the card is
fully restored and given away as a souvenir.

The Work: In this version of Cinders there is no set up

involved, the routine can be performed one hundred percent
impromptu with a borrowed deck of cards. If you are using
one of your own decks, I recommend a simple piece of set up
allowing you to perform the effect with a little more ease. It's
by no means a difficult trick to perform, but the less you have
to worry about technicalities, the more time you have to work
the presentation. To set up, all you need to do is bend a card
before hand clean in half.
You then must pocket this card or have it anywhere you
find it easily accessible during performance. That's all the set
up you need. If you are using a borrowed deck you must
inconspicuously bend the bottom card, you can either have the
spectator shuffle the deck and bend a card that you’ve copped
away behind your back, or, you could do the first half of a
mercury fold. I won’t go any further into that as I know that
99% of the time, you will be using your own deck for this.
Deposit the bent card in your pocket, you can retrieve it when
it is required.
Now that you have a bent card hidden from view and a
fairly shuffled deck of cards in your hands. From here you
simply have a spectator select a card.
If you're performing with a borrowed deck, always make
sure that the spectator is ok with at least one of their cards
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !49
getting ruined. If they don't want to ruin a card, just bring out
your own deck and begin again.
So, a card has been selected, you now want to get it
signed across the top, so that they can see their whole
signature during the burning process. You can simply direct
them where to sign with a quick gesture, just point as you say

"If you could just sign your name right across here
please."

You can get rid of the rest of the deck once the card has
been selected. From here on it's a one card trick. At least it is
in effect. The signing across the top of the card is just my
preference, some may prefer to have the card signed all the
way down the card, so it appears that the signature is being
burnt away - Either is fine as they aren't going to be able to see
the face of the bottom half of the card, just the back.
The card has been signed in whichever way you prefer.
You now bend the card in the same way as you bent the hidden
card, clean in half vertically. Bend it back and forth to give a
nice, loose bend, which easily bends either way.
To get the card into position to burn, you must palm the
hidden card, still bent in half and insert the selection into it.
Like two V's, one sat inside the other. When doing this I tend
to have the selection in my right hand opened up as in the first
image below. The left hand with the hidden card bent palmed
comes up to meet the right and in the motion of bending the
bottom half of the selection up, you allow it to bend back and
slot inside the hidden card. This is illustrated in the images.
Optimum angles are head on at eye level, there is an
amount of leeway, but you obviously don't want anyone
behind you.

! 50 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

 This is done in a swift motion, during a movement to
reposition the card. It appears to your spectator that you've just
folded the bottom half of the card in an upwards fashion;
you’ll explain that this is the half you are going to set alight.
In reality you have the top, signed half of the selection in view
and the back of the hidden card acts as the bottom half. Make
sure they don't catch a glimpse of the face of the bottom half
as of course it will be indifferent in value. It should be tilting
slightly upwards, but if you want to be really clear of your
angles, you could always use a duplicate.

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !51

 Now comes the pyro. You will take out your lighter and
begin to burn away the bottom of the card. I find that the best
way to begin the burn is to gently start at one corner and
slowly move the flame along, as in the images. You could just
burn straight from the centre, but it makes palming off the
hidden card more difficult due to the shape you will be left
with.

Once you've burnt off about half of the bottom half, blow
out any flames that are still going and brush off any cinders
that are still clutching to the card. The wiping off of the ash is
a good tool - It shows the spectators that the card really did
burn and it's not just some kind of optical illusion.

At this point, you can put your lighter back in your pocket
and step back, as if something big is going to happen. Ask the
spectators to watch closely and show your left hand to be
completely empty. Front and back. This will reinforce the idea
that you only had one card and your hands were empty when
the spectators are thinking back on the events that occurred.
Wave slowly and deliberately in front of the burnt card
with your left hand. Act as if your building up some power,
flex your fingers and wrist and make a big deal out of it.

! 52 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

 When you wave your hand in front of the card the second
time, grasp the burnt card as shown and let your thumb pull
the bottom half of the selection down and into view. My
advice is to play with the restore in front of a mirror or camera
to find the best look. It's not a hard sequence, so really try and
make it look as smooth and beautiful as possible.

Once I have stolen the burnt card away I allow the image
of the restored card to sink in and bring my hands together
again and slip the folded, burnt card behind the selection as
shown.

This allows me to show my hands really fairly empty.

When I go to hand the card out, I'll palm off the burnt card
once more and pocket it, the giving of the card is enough
misdirection to make it easy to execute.

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !53

 If you are interested in the burn and restore plot, I’d
highly recommend checking out my Penguin Live Lecture for
another variation of Cinders:

PenguinMagic.com/p/6131

! 54 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

 Assimilate
The Effect: Assimilate is a take on the Kurotsuke plot,
from Max Maven. In the classic effect, several stones or balls
are placed in a bag, four of which are white and one of which
is black. Five people take a stone, one by one, and it is the
performer’s job to psychically discern who is holding the
black stone in their fist.
I perform Kurotsuke on stage regularly and I have used
many methods, favouring the classic method from Max. I
always liked the idea of using something similar in a more
casual, close up environment. The idea that follows is one of
my solutions to this, using torn playing cards and a readily
available gaff card to facilitate the plot, and hide the method.

The Work: Firstly, you will need to acquire some double

indexed cards. They are available in most magic shops, and
are also used in many packet tricks, like B’wave and Monte
effects; I’ve no doubt you probably have one lying around.

The type of mis-indexed card doesn’t matter, any kind will

work as long as it is a solid card, in which one of the index
corners tells a different value. You will also need a regular
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !55
playing card that matches the mis-index and finally a corner
from another card that matches the missing corner that you
can switch in at the end. In the case of the card printed above,
we would need this gaff, a regular nine of spades and an extra
corner from another ten of spades. I’ll use these cards in the
example below to keep everything easy to understand.
You can work this routine with as little as three people,
but the ideal scenario is to have five people. That way you will
have four people each holding a corner of the nine of spades
and then one person apparently holding one corner of the ten
of spades. You will be using your abilities to find the odd
corner. Start with the two cards on top of your deck, or simply
have them in your wallet. The extra corner belongs in your
pocket, so you can retrieve it easily towards the end of the act.
The routine plays as follows:

“I’d like to try and experiment using just a couple of

playing cards, the nine and the ten of spades. While these
cards are similar in looks, I hope to be able to discern the
different energies that they contain through a simple process.
First, I would like you [turning to a first spectator] to hold this
nine in your hands and think positive thoughts, think of the
last time you laughed out loud and allow the energy to flow
through your fingertips and in to the card. Now, one of these
cards will have a stamp of something that I should be able to
pick up on… I’m going to tear this card into quarters and give
them to you. I’m also going to tear a quarter off this ten of
spades and I’d like you to mix all five, face down.”

I’m sure you’re perfectly aware of what’s gone on here,

but to be clear; I’ve set up the effect by explaining that I can
pick up on fluctuations of energy in objects. I’ve torn the
regular card into quarters, then I’ve torn the mis-printed index
! 56 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
of my gaff card. I’ve asked for these five corners to be mixed
face down. The audience believes that there is the four corners
of the nine of spades and one corner of the ten of spades.
Because of the gaff, the actual situation is that all five pieces
are corners of the nine of spades.

“Now, there are five of you and five pieces. Without

looking, I’d like you each to take one, hold it behind your back
in a loose fist and pass the stack on to the next person. Perfect.
So now, one of you is holding the target piece, the other four
are holding corners of the card with the positive energy locked
into the fibres. I’m going to try to discover the target card by
eliminating all of the others.”

At this point, I will hold my hand towards each

participant, as if I’m trying to sense the energy. After a little
deliberation; I point to someone and ask them to show me
their card, as I believe it is one of the corners of the nine of
spades. They show their card, and you are of course correct.
I continue in this fashion for the first three people; the
order isn’t important, as long as its a little erratic as opposed to
going to each person in a row periodically. I try and leave the
final two people in position two and position five, for instance.
Now, this is where the second piece of sneakiness occurs.
You are going to shift focus, and offer the person who you
asked to put the positive energy into the card at the start the
chance to determine the ending.
Before I enter that piece of scripting, I should mention a
slight discrepancy. It’s possible that you will see three index
corners in the first three reveals. It’s more likely that you will
get two indexes and a non-index corner or vice versa, which is
as it should be, but in the odd occurrence that you get three
indexes, just brush past it. It’s very unlikely that anyone will
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !57
ever notice, as you will be removing each piece as it’s
revealed. The ideal gaff that you could get would have dual or
peek indexes; an index in every corner. It’s unlikely that you
will be able to find these, but it’s possible to make your own if
you’re proficient at splitting cards, or are skilled at photoshop.
I hope to have some proper gaffs made up for this routine
eventually, so be sure to sign up to the mailing list at
DeeChristopher.rocks if this is something you’re interested
in. I have never really had any trouble with the single index
cards though, I just don’t draw attention to it.

“OK, we have two people left. One of which holds the

target card, one of which holds the final piece of the nine. I
believe that everyone has the power to decipher different
energy signals, so I’d like you [directed at the person who put
the energy into the card at the start] to make the final
decision.
Could each of you bring your fist to the front, but don’t
open them just yet. [Directed at the people holding the cards]
I’m going to take each of these pieces from you. [I hold my
hand flat out, palm down above their fist, so when they open
their fist, I can block the view of the pieces, in case they are
both face up. I organise the pieces so they are both face down,
and I hold them fanned at finger tips of one hand.]
Two pieces… I want you to take a deep breath and feel
where the final piece of the nine lies. The card that contains
your positive energy inside it.”

As you’re saying these lines, you should retrieve the extra

piece of a ten that is in your pocket into a finger palm position.
Whichever card they name, you can hand it to them, after you
have handed them the card, they will turn it over to look at it.
You will at this point immediately shuttle pass or false transfer
! 58 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
to switch the remaining piece of the nine, for the piece of the
ten you have in finger palm. Drop your hand to your side, and
you can ditch the final piece of the nine in your pocket
whenever you next need to get out another prop. Everything is
now as it should be, and everything is left examinable.

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !59

Death-O-Scope

The Effect: The performer controls, and eventually stops

his heartbeat while a spectator monitors with a stethoscope.
I must first give thanks to my friend Brad Addams from
Ohio, who named this effect. It made me laugh out loud when
the iMessage came through, so I had no choice in the matter.

The Work: The method came from my work on a

gimmicked heart stop effect; I crafted a very special tool,
which will eventually see the light of day. I wanted an un-
gimmicked method that I could use as a back-up while testing
the gimmicked method, just in case it didn’t work. This is
what I came up with and is a method that I’ve used a LOT
since, more in fact than the gimmicked method that took me
much more time to design and build.
This method holds similarity (and likely subconsciously
drew inspiration from) Wayne Houchin’s Control. Houchin’s
effect is a wrist-felt pulse stop, looking much like the standard
ball under arm. The advantage to Houchin’s method over the
ball is that it’s completely impromptu. My suggestion would
be to check out WH’s effect for completeness, but also because
it’s a very good method for a very nice routine.
My method ideally requires you to wear a jacket, hoody
or an open shirt. It’s not 100% necessary; but it makes it easier
to hide the deception.
I’ll get the secret out in the open; then we can delve into
the intricacies and subtleties. The basic idea is that you’re
tapping on one of your ribs, this vibration travels through your
bones and is picked up by the stethoscope. The sound is
genuinely coming from inside your body, and bears a truly
striking resemblance to what your actual heartbeat sounds like.
! 60 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
 Firstly, you’ll need to get a stethoscope; these are
extremely cheap online. I bought a few of them for just £2.99
each from ebay. Once you receive your stethoscope, you
should take the time to listen to your heartbeat, learn the
general rhythm, the sound of each beat and the average rate at
which the hits come.
I’ll go into more details on the placement and the
technique in the video, as it will be much easier for me to
show you all of these intricacies on film, but the key is to hold
the diaphragm of the stethoscope to your solar plexus (slightly
beneath where your real heartbeat would be audible) and pin it
there with the heel of your hand. This positioning will allow
you to tap out a standard heartbeat sound on your ribs with
your extended middle finger. This is all done under your shirt,
so you must either drop the stethoscope down the collar of
your shirt, or bring it up underneath. Because you’re wearing a
shirt/tee and a jacket, open shirt, hoody or the like over top,
the movement of your middle finger is completely disguised.
If you’re not in a position to wear any of the above, you
can also shield the tapping motion from view by touching the
fingers of your other hand to your temple in your best mind-
reader pose. Your arm will be bent at the elbow to allow for
this pose, so will hide the motion also.
A very important point is to lock the stethoscope to your
skin with the heel of your hand, if you hold it loosely, the
participant will hear the sound of your skin brushing against
the back of the stethoscope. You want to avoid this as it
weakens the deception.
You should take the time to practice this, go between
listening to your real heartbeat and do your best to mimic it
with the finger-tapping method. It’s very easy to do, but to
make it the most convincing, you want it to sound perfect.

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !61

 Of course, you need to make sure that the spectator can
hear the heartbeat effectively. The way I do this is to simply
use this scripting:

“I’m going to just search for my heartbeat, if you could

let me know when you hear it best, that would be great.”

This sentence is great. In just a few words, it ensures that

you have the correct amount of time to position the
stethoscope over your solar plexus, move your hand to the
correct position for the tapping and begin tapping, which is
when they will say they hear the beating.
It’s important to start very softly for a beat or two, but
move your hand a little and then tap at full volume. This
creates the believable scenario that you were almost in
position, then you found the optimum positioning. This is a
very subtle fade into the technique, which should happen
quickly, but it again adds to the believability of the heart beat.
The pulse stop, or heart stop effect is something that isn’t
used enough these days - It’s an incredibly powerful effect.
I’ve seen it used as a lead in to other effects; most famously by
Derren Brown in recent years, but it also stands alone.
I personally match the heart stop with a borrowed watch
stop. I apparently use the ticking hand of the watch as a
concentration tool. I begin by synchronising my heart beat
with the ticking of the watch, then I slow and stop my
heartbeat and can show that the watch has also stopped. This is
simply achieved by using a PK (magnetic) finger ring, which I
touch to the back of the watch face when I want it to stop.
If’s important to remember that only normal ticking
watches can be stopped in this way, if you notice an expensive
watch where the second hand smoothly turns (not ticking) you
will not want to apply a magnet to the back as it could result in
! 62 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
damaging the watch. Because we’re apparently using the
ticking to concentrate and sync up with, it makes perfect sense
that a watch where the hands smoothly turn could not be used.
The focus in my act is on the heart stop, the watch stop is
not even an afterthought; simply a side effect which is
accidental. This then allows me to restart the watch in anyway
that I see it; usually in my participant’s hands.
It’s not my place here to dictate your routine with this
effect, I’m here to give you the weapons, not to dictate your
strategy. I felt that it is important to note that the heart stop is
indeed powerful enough to stand alone though, it can be a very
strong interlude between longer routines and it is genuinely
one of the things that will stick in your audiences mind - as
long as your script or the story you pin to this effect is
memorable and remarkable. To view the video instruction for
this effect, please visit the following link:

http://DeeChristopher.Rocks/pages/weapons-instruction

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !63

 Heat
This routine has been growing for some time. I’m
obsessed with creating and performing mentalism that has
visuals. If you’ve followed my story, you’ll be aware that I
paid my dues on the nightclub circuit. I was the resident
magician at a filthy, student night club back in Nottingham,
England. I performed close up, walking around the bar
between midnight and 1am, which meant that a lot of the
people I encountered were quite intoxicated!
Because of the nature of the cliental, I couldn’t really
perform too much mentalism that was in depth or required too
much thinking. I really wanted to focus on the mind stuff so
psychokinesis became my best friend, alongside the odd very
direct mind reading or prediction. Bang-On by Marc Oberon
was in my set at that point, for instance.
So this routine really began then, I used to put a bunch of
tea spoons in my pockets (dessert spoons were far too big to
carry in that environment) and I gradually developed my
spoon bending routine Quicksilver literally in the field, seeing
what flowed effectively. Of course, I gradually developed
various other effects, but the most interesting question I’d
receive every now and again was:

“Can you bend other things too? Or does it have to be

spoons?”

If it did have to be spoons, or if it did have to be metal, it

wouldn’t make all too much sense. Logic says that the only
way you could melt metal is with extreme heat, or excessive
force, meaning that you should be able to bend most anything.
I chose to focus on heat, rather than strength.

! 64 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

 So, I’ve experimented with many things, credit cards,
plastic jewellery, bottles, poker chips and of course coins. One
of the nicest ideas I came up with was a melting sharpie effect.
I’d just wave a lighter under a sharpie for a while and bend it a
little, it was OK, but I knew it could be stronger and the
method could be better than just switching in a pen and
holding most of it out of view until I apparently melted the
plastic.
I won’t bore you with the rest of the development history,
but honourable mentions must go to my friend Wayne
Goodman for his Look Sharp! effect, in which a sharpie
becomes a selected card. It’s very good and I drew influence
from Wayne’s method in developing the sharpie melt effect to
where it is today.
I’ll first detail the effect, then we’ll move into the secrets
and the order in which you employ them. I’ll create a detailed
video to demonstrate the simple moves so you can follow
along.

The Effect: The performer hands a spectator a sharpie pen

and asks them to write their initials on a spoon he is holding.
They do so, and then examine the spoon. The pen is left
protruding from the performers top pocket.
The performer discusses how it’s possible to exert
extreme heat from one’s finger tips. He demonstrates this by
bending the spoon as it it was putty between his fingertips.
The spectators are asked to touch the part of the spoon the
performer was rubbing. It’s burning hot. Te performer then
touches the spoon once more and it melts over his finger tip.
The spoon is once more handed out for examination. As this is
done, the performer offers another test, using the sharpie pen.
He shows the pen from all angles and proceeds to melt
through the plastic, so that the inside of the pen is visible!
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !65
Again, the pen can be freely examined by the party watching
the effect.

The Work: Let’s talk about the spoon first, then the
sharpie. It’s a very technically easy routine, so I’m just going
to offer the basic secrets here and I’ll focus on the mechanics
in the video.
The truth is, the secret is completely scientific. You don’t
need any secret gimmicks to make the heat, the spoon creates
it’s own heat. I find this solution to be far more elegant than
any of the others I discovered!
Take a spoon that you can bend enough to put a fatigue
bar into it; i.e. bend it back and forth until the little wrinkles
appear that allow you to snap the head off. I use ASDA smart
price tea spoons, they’re extremely cheap and work perfectly.
As you bend it back and forth repeatedly, the point as which
the bend occurs grows hotter and hotter, in fact it sometimes
gets too hot to handle. This is the heat that the spectators will
feel. You will simply begin to rub the spoon at the point you
intend to bend. As you do, allow your fingers to gently bend
the spoon back and forth, as demonstrated in the video. Act
like the spoon is slowly melting in your fingertips and as you
start to feel it heat up, allow the spectators to touch the hot
point. They will feel more heat if they pinch this bit of the
spoon, so I demonstrate this when I ask them to feel how hot it
gets.
I like the spoon to be fairly straight when I have the
spectator feel the heat, but I then execute a two handed bend
as I bring it to eye level and perform an optical ‘droop’ of the
spoon’s handle. Following on from the hot spoon effect, this
really creates the impression that what you’re doing is for real.
The sharpie pen does require a little set up. You’ll need to
buy yourself a powerful cigarette lighter, or ideally a small
! 66 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
torch. I got a butane torch for about £15 here in the UK which
works great for this and also means that I can bend wine
glasses when I get to my venues ala Lesley/Penn.
Turn on the flame and grab a sharpie. You will melt the
logo on one of the sides of the pen. Just touching it for a
moment with the flame is enough to cause a melted hole to
form. You can continue on and melt it some more, but I find
that one melted part is enough. You will switch the pen in your
pocket after the spectator writes with it. This is shown in the
video.
There are two methods to reveal the melt in the pen after
you bring out the gimmick, the first of which is simply to use
a paddle move, like you would with a sharpie card reveal. The
second involves a little more arts and crafts, but is worth the
effort as it looks beautiful.
The second method is what was inspired by Look Sharp!
My thinking was that you could use one of Wayne’s gimmicks
to create a sharpie shell. Due to the nature of the gimmick, it
wasn’t ideal, so I put together my own sharpie shell. The
artwork to which can be downloaded here:

http://DeeChristopher.Rocks/pages/weapons-instruction

The artwork should be printed actual size, so I’ve

supplied it stand alone and also on some popular paper sizes,
so that you can print it easily. The ideal material to print this
onto is photo paper that’s a little glossy. This will replicate the
plastic look. If you do struggle to find photo paper, print it on
regular paper (thick paper or thin card is ideal) and just stick
some plastic on top of it. My first gimmick was thick paper,
with acetate/ projector film over the top, stuck together with
scotch tape! Once you have your gimmick printed, simply
wrap it around a sharpie and stick it. Try and keep the seam
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !67
fairly neat, but it doesn’t have to be perfect, you’re just going
to give them a quick look on the back side, you’ll be asking
them to focus on the logo, then stripping the shell away during
your melting process, as seen in the video.
A nice touch is to have them holding onto the pen cap as
you melt the pen body, then when you finish melting, you can
take your hand away and it leaves them holding this
impossible evidence of your power!

Take the time to study the intricacies in the video now, it’s
a very simple routine, but I’ve structured it in such a way that
it flows nicely. You can use it along side other bending
routines, but it stands perfectly as a solo piece.

! 68 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

 Subtle Switch Book
Recently I have been experimenting with a different
switching notebook. I still prefer the original Broken Wings
notebook, though this idea may appeal to some performers
with less nimble fingers.
You should set some time aside to explore some
stationary stores to find the correct notebook for this, you will
require a notebook that has blank, single colour covers. The
binding is not important, just the lack of logos or writing. If
there is a sticker barcode, that’s perfect as it can be peeled off
easily. If there is a printed bar code, buy two of the same
notebook. All will become clear in a moment.
The key to this is the subtle differences between the front
and back covers of the book. Sometimes, the only difference is
that there is a barcode on the back of the notebook to be
scanned in the store. If you could secretly move the barcode
from the back cover to the front cover in the same position, the
notebook would appear to run the other way.
If you struggle to find the correct kind of notebook, you
could simply buy a hole punch and some black card to make
your own.
If you have a blank covered notebook with a sticker
barcode, you can carefully peel off the sticker and mount it on
a small bit of playing card, trimmed to size. Put a small
amount of reposition-able glue on the back and you will be
able to pull it off with your finger nail and reposition it on the
reverse side of the notebook casually during your handling.
If you have bought a notebook with barcodes printed on,
you should take the notebook apart, as you did with Broken
Wings and replace the front cover with the back cover of the
second notebook. So now you have a single notebook with
two back covers. You’ll notice that the barcode is at the top of
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !69
the cover on the front and on the bottom of the back cover.
This allows us to mount a label on a piece of playing card or
thin plastic (a normal label that you would use to write the title
of the contents of a notebook on) and put some reposition-able
glue on the back. This label should have the words “Notebook
1, 27/09/15” or something similar written upon it. It will be
used to cover the barcode on the front cover, which is
conveniently positioned exactly where one would usually
position a label on a notebook. Again, it’s very easy to pull this
label off with your finger nail and reposition it on the opposite
cover to achieve the switch.
This isn’t quite as instant as the Broken Wings switch,
however, the label can be palmed off and kept in the
performer’s
possession until the opportunity arises to reposition it. For
a really clear and quick alternative, you could stick some
small, thin, neodymium magnets in the inside of the covers
and on the back of the barcode/label so that it quickly snaps
into the correct place without the necessity of sight to
reposition it correctly.

! 70 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

Burnt Oak
The Effect: The performer throws a notebook on the table
and then carefully unwraps an antique cigarette lighter from a
velvet cloth. He talks about his acquisition of this beautiful, if
damaged curio. The lighter was supposedly owned by a
psychic medium who used it to light the candles in the back
room of his shop; where he would advise people on their
troubles using the guidance the spirits would provide him
with. As he progressed through his career, he began to
question whether these messages were just his intuition, or
whether they really is life after death.
Towards the end of his life, the psychic was stricken with
stress and guilt, the neighbourhood in which his shop was
located had gradually declined in popularity over the years as
the crime rate rose. Struggling to pay his rent, he gradually
moved himself into the shop, living and working out of the
single space. The back room had fewer and fewer visitors and
became littered with empty bottles of oaky bourbon, with
rings on the table to match the footprint of his favourite
whiskey glass. One evening as his drifted off to sleep, one of
the candles mysteriously caught a draft, blowing the flame to
gently lick the lace curtain-trim. It caught alight. The psychic
opened his eyes to see the room filled with smoke, just in time
to recognise his fate. He clutched his lighter and uttered a few
words before dropping it onto the floor as he closed his eyes
that final time.
They say that when someone dies in a state of intense
emotion, in this case disappointment and depression, that
energy can be transferred to items or even locations. This is
especially true when the person is as spiritually connected as
the psychic that owned this item...

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !71

 A page is ripped out of the notebook, showing a blank
page underneath. The notebook is closed and left on the table
while the performer scribbles a message on to the ripped out
page, asking:

“Is there life after death?”

The participant is asked to hold the notebook above the

lighter, it’s flint is struck and the flame is allowed to touch the
writing on the ripped out page. The words begin to fade, as if
they are being sucked into the fire. The participant is asked if
they notice the notebook becoming heavier, as if someone is
writing upon it. Regardless of their answer, they open the front
page to see the words “You tell me...” burnt onto the page,
accompanied by a ring shaped stain from a whiskey tumbler.
The book is closed. In both senses.

The Work: This is a presentation that makes use of the

Broken Wings or Subtle Switch Book. You will also need to
grab an old lighter, plus a Frixion pen.
First, let us look at creating the message on the notebook.
The ring of whiskey is easy, just take a glass and rub any
liquid around its base, then put it on top of the page. Leave it
there for a few seconds, then leave the page to dry. The writing
is a little more difficult, so I’ll offer two methods.
The first method is simply to write the message with an
old fountain pen, then take a candle and allow some burn
marks to appear on the page by holding the page above the
flame and letting it burn a tiny bit. These should be surface
burns and candles will work considerably better than lighters
for this, I’m assuming it’s due to the wick and wax actually
burning and rising.

! 72 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

 If you wish to genuinely have the message burned in (it
looks a lot better!) you should take some thick card and a craft
knife. You will need to cut out a stencil, with the letters as
holes. This idea originally came from my friend Daniel
Madison’s book Burn in which he burned the images of
playing cards on to other playing cards. If you can find that
eBook, I’d recommend it highly as it can create some very
eerie effects using the various methods he explains. You can
also find some of the work in his book “Anthology.” You just
need to hold (or gently stick) the stencil to the page and allow
a candle’s flame to lick the holes in the card. This will create a
beautiful burnt image of the message on the page.
The handling is straight forward, you simply switch the
pad after you remove the page during the presentation. I tend
to open the book on the table and tear out the page, fold it in
half and then close the cover of the book, so the image of a
blank page in the book is casually noticed. I then place the
page down, take out my Frixion pen and then I move the
notebook closer to the participant, doing the switch in that
motion. You may find a better interval for your style, but that
sequence works for me.
I write the message with the Frixion pen, so when the
flame touches the page it vanishes eerily. That’s not a
necessary step, but a nice visual. Alternatively, you could
simply burn the page and let the smoke hit the notebook as the
participant holds it.
I mention the notebook feeling heavier in the
presentation, as long as you take your time in writing the
message and lighting the flame, the participant’s arm will
begin to tire, creating the natural feeling of the notebook being
heavier. If you can attribute a natural occurrence to something
supernatural, I’d advise doing it at every possible occasion!

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !73

 This is a technically simple routine that’s reminiscent of
the spirit slates we all know and love. I think the visual of the
writing being burnt on to a page looks much spookier than
chalk on a board though, chalk is meant to go on blackboards,
it’s seemingly impossible to write in smoke or fire, so it must
have appeared supernaturally.

! 74 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

 Silence
Silence is one of the most important tools that a performer
can harness. I see a lot of magicians trying to fill every tiny
gap in their performance with words, this is not necessary and
is actually detrimental to your act. I’ve written about silence in
the past, but I’d like to reiterate my thoughts here, in a brief
few notes, with some more up to date thoughts.
I used to have the issue of saying “ermmm...” in between
almost every sentence, this was generally due to lack of
preparation and scripting as I thought that just casually ad-
libbing my presentations would create a more natural look and
feel. In actuality, this was not the case. When you have a solid
script in place that has room for movement if somebody says a
line you can reply to, or if you can call back to something
earlier in your conversations and performance with this group
of people, you will find that your presentation appears much
more natural as you’re not having to think about what you’re
saying. The way that I learnt to overcome my “ermmm...”
issue was to lock my mouth shut after every line. It felt very
strange at first, but became natural after not too long. It meant
that I would look like I was pacing myself, as opposed to not
knowing what I was going to say next; which resulted in the
audience being much more interested in what I had to say and
paying more attention. They were now able to process my
words in the gaps and I was only giving them the clear and
concise information that they needed.
This exercise in scripting led to me further exploring the
art of silence and through that my entire performance style
evolved and became considerably more powerful.

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !75

 When you’re doing something magical, just close your
mouth and put all focus on the visual. When you’re reading
someone’s
mind, look them in the eyes and become silent, as if you
were staring into their soul and reading the words burnt onto
the back of their retina.
Silence is everything. Explore it and use it to put focus
onto the things you’re doing. You’ll find your reactions
intensify dramatically, your presentation will improve and you
will appear much more confident and well spoken.

! 76 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

Tarot Hallucination
The Effect: The performer brings out a deck of tarot cards.
He explains some interesting things about people who are
handling cards for the first time:

“Who here hasn’t touched a deck of tarot cards before?

Here, take these and mix them up for me. They say that it’s bad
luck to touch someone else’s deck of tarot cards... You don’t
believe in that though, do you?
Don’t worry, I gave you permission, so you’ll be fine... I’d
like to show you something interesting with the tarot. All I
need you to do is deal the cards face down onto the table and
whenever you feel comfortable I want you to deal a single
card onto the box here to separate it from the bunch.
Some people that are new to tarot can see all sorts of
meanings in the cards they deal themselves; sometimes they
can see different images even to those printed on the cards if
there is something that’s really affecting them that needs to be
resolved, we call it a ‘tarot hallucination’.
Ah, so you’ve now dealt a single card onto the box. Are
you happy with that choice? Now, just so you can see the card
and no one else, I’m just going to peel up the end so that you
can read the title. Have you got it? Perfect. I don’t want to
touch anything, so please hold that card under your hands and
think about the imagery it conjures in your mind.
I’m going to write a couple of impressions down.
OK, I have written my feelings. Would you like to turn
over the card and show everyone what you dealt? That’s very
strange - When I was reading you, I was picking up on some
very distinct feelings, you didn’t seem to be thinking about that
card. What was the card that you had in mind? That makes a
lot more sense, and that applies to you in this period of your
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !77
life, the death card is all about transition and moving from one
state to another. What’s the main decision or transition that
you have in mind? As you can see, I wrote down my thoughts
based on the card you believed you saw, (turn over prediction)
which is fascinating - Perhaps tarot hallucination is real, but
regardless, you now know not to let your thoughts and
emotions cloud what’s right in front of your eyes. I’ve no doubt
that your journey is about to transition to an even more
amazing experience.”

The Work: This presentation is something quite unusual in

terms of reactions, it resonates in quite a deep manner with the
person that’s participating and that is echoed with the rest of
the group. It’s quite chilling when you give someone proof of
either supernatural power or that their physical senses are in
some way affected; in this case, they’re seeing something
incorrectly, they believe they saw something that they did not.
The workings are extremely simple, I just have a single
card Legion device set up on the card box. You can read about
Legion in detail in Deep Shadows and my Penguin Live
Lecture, but essentially, you just need to cut off one face of a
card box, glue a playing card you wish to force onto the blank
side and then glue it across three corners, so you can peel one
up to reveal the corner of the force card. Now, whenever you
have a card selected, you can place it on top of the box (to
separate it from the rest) and at any point, you can peel up the
card and the device to apparently let the spectator poker peek
their selection, when in reality, you are just showing them the
force card inside your device.
So, with this device, there’s hardly a method at all! It
doesn’t really matter what card they chose, but if you are
experienced in the art of tarot reading or could place a relevant
meaning on a card based on the imagery, you could explain
! 78 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
how the card they actually drew applies to them and you have
an extra rounded reading during the effect.
I’ve used the ‘death’ card here on my Legion device as it’s
one of the only cards that the public knows in a tarot deck, it’s
often misinterpreted and it also applies to everyone. Who isn’t
going through some kind of transition at any point in their life,
we’re constantly evolving!

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !79

 The Stone Woman
The Effect: “Inside this bag I have a couple of items that
are intrinsically linked to one another. There is a black stone
and a picture, sitting in this wallet to keep it safe. The picture
is of a woman, Take a moment to look into her eyes, what do
you feel from her? Well, her story is fuzzy in my mind as it’s
been a long time since it was told to me, but what I can tell
you is that this woman was a very powerful force in her time.
She was a mystic who set out to abolish some of the evil rulers
of where ever it was she came from... No matter how many
warriors they sent to kill her, she would always emerge the
triumphant party. She seemed invincible, but she held a secret,
one that would be eventually found out by her enemies.
When she was young and learning her craft, she
experimented with natural magick and transferring energy
into inanimate objects. She accidentally managed to transfer
her essence, her soul, into the rock that this fragment came
from. It’s said that her body was almost that of a zombie, but
she could control it through astrally projecting from her onyx
prison. This meant that no matter what happened to her body,
it could never die.
One of her many enemies discovered her home one night.
The body had been put to rest, laying on a pile of straw on the
rocky, uneven ground. The warrior barged into the cottage and
drove his sword through the woman’s heart. This of course did
nothing. The mystic projected into the body and the eyes
opened. The warrior backed off and in turn stumbled against
the rock which contained her soul. From the light of the moon
he saw a reflection of the mystic in the rock; all became clear
and he knew what he had to do. He took a mallet and
shattered the rock into a thousand pieces, the mystic’s soul

! 80 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

was torn among the fragments and the body fell to it’s knees,
finally expired.
They say that every photograph takes a small part of our
soul, so I’d like to try something with these two items.” (The
wallet is closed and a lighter is brought into play.)

The performer picks up the stone and begins to heat it up

with the lighter. After a moment of silent focus, he asks the
audience to look at what’s happened. He gently flips open the
wallet and pulls out the picture. It is now horribly mutilated by
fire, as if it were burnt by an open flame.

“This teaches us that in everything that is linked, when

one fragment is attacked, the others will fall with it. In life, we
should keep each fragment of our life in balance and make
sure that we don’t allow anyone to fall down, as it could be the
start of our own demise...”

The Work: The Stone Woman is an interesting story that I

penned when thinking about the effect. I wanted some kind of
story that related to the connection between two items. I’ve
always liked the thought that a photograph steals a part of your
soul, so I played on that.
The workings involve a two-way wallet (If you do not
have one, you could place the photos in either side of your
Broken Wings notebook) and a piece of stone. You should
print off two copies of a photo of a mystic or gypsy character.
You can easily get a nice quality one from Getty Images or
similar sites, unfortunately I’m not allowed to supply the ones
that I use due to licensing, but they’re very easy to get hold of.
You should age both photos if you can, one of the images you
should then take a flame to, you don’t want to completely

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !81

destroy the photo, but hold a candles flame to the image for 30
seconds and it’ll bubble and burn, looking suitably nasty.
One of these images goes in each side of the wallet (or
notebook) and this goes into a velvet tarot bag along with the
stone and a lighter.
Now you’re all set you can run through the presentation,
being sure to show the normal photo, then the mutilated photo.

Alternate Methods
This trick could also be achieved by using the Sansminds
Photoshop effect, available at all good magic dealers. This
will allow you to place the photo into the participant’s hands
and you could work on using some suggestive phrases to have
them feel it heat up in their hands.
If you are booked for a private party, for added spook
factor, try finding the booker or a guest on Facebook and take
one of their pictures, or alternatively ask them to send a photo
of the guest of honour as you’d like to put together a special
routine for them. This will add a real personal chill to the
effect and leaves them with a freaky souvenir.
Finally, as a last idea for this effect, why not utilise a
smoke device like Pure Smoke of Vapr. You can hold the
photo or wallet in your hands and when the participant burns
the stone, activate the smoke and you’ll have a visual burning
of the image. I worked a similar effect on my TV show ‘Killer
Magic’ and the reactions we got during filming we incredible!

! 82 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

 Teeth
A few months ago I was gifted with a lovely Sea Of Skulls
chop cup from Mike Busby at Dude That’s Cool Magic. This
chop cup is extremely well made and suits Hallowe’en
performances perfectly; so I’d like to write my routine here. If
you’d like to check out the gothic chop cups and wands Mike
has in store, check out his site, or your local magic shop.
I was trying hard to come up with a routine that made
sense to me and still had a weird gothic edge. Usually chop
cup routines simply involve you challenging a spectator to
guess whether the ball is in your pocket or the cup, if you’re
not familiar, a youtube search will bring up lots of great
performances. It’s not my place to teach chop cup
methodology, that’s a book in it’s self and there’s plenty of
material out there, my place is to give you a solid presentation
that’s eerie and will work for your haunted magic shows.

The Effect & The Work: “I recently heard what one might
consider an ‘urban legend’ as it was told to me by a friend
about one of his friends. I found it to be quite unique though,
so I’d like to relay it here for you, visually.
My friend’s daughter recently started losing her baby
teeth to make way for new ones, so of course it was time to
stock up on shiny dollar (they’re in the states) coins and
prepare for the constant worry that she’s going to choke in her
sleep on the micro-molars as they drop from overly slobbery
gums.
The first tooth wobbled and came out, so it was placed
under the little girl’s pillow as she slept and of course the
parental duty of trying not to wake the child as the tooth was
exchanged for money began. Round one: complete. I don’t
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !83
have any teeth, or a pillow to demonstrate this, so I’m going to
have to make do with this cup and a small ball made of
bandages that looks kind of ‘toothy’. [The ball is taken out
from under the cup, placed in the pocket and a dollar coin is
brought into play.]
The parents slept through the night and were awoken in
the morning by an upset child. “Mother, the tooth fairy didn’t
come. There’s still a tooth under my pillow!” she exclaimed.
[The dollar coin is vanished using a french drop as it’s
‘thrown’ towards the cup. The cup is lifted and the ball has
reappeared.]
The parents naturally were awfully confused and said that
just this once, they would exchange the tooth for a dollar and
that the tooth fairy is bound to come next time.
When the little girl went to school, mother asked father
why he switched the coin and the tooth back - What a horrid
thing to do. “I didn’t do it! I was about to ask you the same
thing!” He said in an awfully confused manner. “How
bizarre... Alas, maybe one of us switched it back in our
sleep...”
Neither parent felt convinced, there was something much
more sinister at play.
a few days later, the little girl had another wobbly tooth,
which she wobbled as much as she could to pull it out sooner,
in anticipation for that shiny dollar that would be waiting
under her pillow... History was repeated as the tooth was once
again put under the pillow, removed by the parents and
switched for a dollar coin. [Repeat the process for a second
time]
Sure enough, the next morning the little girl came
running, “Mother he still hasn't come! I still have a tooth
under my pillow!” The coin had vanished [shuttle pass vanish
the coin] again, leaving just an old tooth... The parents once
! 84 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
again delved into their secret stash of dollar coins and
swapped the girl’s tooth.
“What in the world is happening?” Said the mother to the
father, “is this you playing one of your ridiculous jokes? It’s
bad enough when you leave the salt shaken unscrewed for me,
but it’s not fair bringing her into your games - She’s only a
child!”
“It wasn’t me.” He said solemnly, “but I think I have a
solution.”
His suggestion was that she would save up all her old
teeth as they fell in a money box, on the bedside table. Then,
when she’s collected ten teeth, the tooth fairy will come and
replace them all with a ten dollar bill. They concluded that it
must have been one of them sleepwalking and swapping the
coins; so they would just wait until there was ten teeth, swap
them for a ten dollar bill and one of them would stay up all
night to make sure that all is well. It’s a pain, but they just
wanted to make their little girl happy. After all, they young
lass was a red head - They didn’t want her to unleash her little
fiery temper on the kids at school because of something
happening at home!
Sure enough, ten teeth were eventually saved and placed
in the jar on the girl’s bedside table. When she was asleep,
they mother swapped the teeth for a ten dollar bill and then
sat in front of Netflix as the father slept to ensure that neither
of them went walkies and swapped the teeth and the ten-spot
back! (The ball is taken from the cup and placed aside.)
It came to the morning and there wasn’t a peep from the
little girl... The mother went to go and check. To her horror;
she found no little girl, just a jar full of teeth, a lock of red
hair and a note that read:
“That’s for making me wait so long for the next
instalment. Regards, The Tooth Fairy.” [The cup is lifted and
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !85
out fall a lock of red hair, an extra ball and the note. For extra
impact, you could load some fake teeth, you can buy them on
ebay, but I’m not sure how easy it would be to load a handful!]

So there you have it; a camp fire style, child-snatcher

themed chop cup routine with various moments of magic with
cups, balls, coins, hair and teeth!

! 86 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

 Building The Act
The structure of the act is of great importance with a
haunted magic performance, you need to look at your allotted
time slot and figure out how you can bring your audience on a
journey from there. I would always recommend trying to stick
to one style of performance and show different sides of the
same character. It’s OK to be dark and creepy, but there’s also
nothing wrong with lightening the mood with some dark
humour for a few reasons. Primarily, this shows you as a
human. It will make your character much more believable if
its three-dimensional. Secondarily, having a lighter point will
only make the darker stuff seem even darker. As long as the
humour remains in theme and in character, it’s fine.

I personally play an extension of myself, I have things I

can do and things I can not, I set myself limits to appear more
believable and also try to include as much of my own
personality as possible. I’m just a normal guy with an interest
in weird things and I’ve trained myself to be able to
demonstrate some incredible powers. I’m a modern performer,
so I use shiny and nice pendulums and dowsing rods, but if
there’s a routine that’s about power and energy within ancient
props, I make damn sure that the props I bring to the table are
ancient, or at least look that way.
Balance in any performance is key, so start simple,
establish who you are, lead them to the dark side, refresh with
a little humour, then kill them at the end with something
outstanding!

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !87

Four Methods For The Living & Dead Test
The living/dead act is a staple in the bizarre magician’s
arsenal, as well as a feature in many mentalist’s repertoires.
I’ve been a fan of the plot for many years, but over the
last few years I have been learning and developing as many
methods and presentations as I could, searching for the
(un)holy grail of all LD acts.
I’ve collected several of my favourite methods and ideas
here for you to feast upon, however, before we delve into the
low- tech deceptions I’m presenting to you, let’s first discuss
the ins and outs of the LD act, and I’ll offer some advice from
my experiences performing this kind of act in a variety of
circumstances.

Let’s start simple.

A living/dead act, is an act in which the performer

determines which single name out of several is the name of a
person who has passed on. Usually up to five participants are
asked to write a name on a card they are given. One person is
instructed to write the name of a dead person, the other four
are instructed to write the names of living people, one per
card. These cards are all mixed together so that the performer
has no idea which name is that of the dead person.
Due to the nature of this act, caution must be taken so as
not to upset any members of the audience. We have all lost
someone close to us, and sometimes memories don’t produce
smiles and laughter. There are a few ways to do this; which
I’ve outlined below:

! 88 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

 1. Use living and dead celebrities - This is an easy
and sure fire way to guarantee not to upset anyone; this could
only be used with cards that are folded, or sealed in envelopes,
rather than having the names in view.

2. Use other polar opposites - The methods here

can be applied to other things, as long as they’re polar
opposites. For instance, likes/dislikes. It’s very easy to ask
people to write down the name of their favourite drink or a
drink they hate! No offence to anyone and it makes for a fun
and novel presentation.

3. Use my scripting to ensure that, while you’re

still using living and dead people that they know, no one will
be upset.

I’ll be writing the rest of the book assuming that you’ve

chosen the third option, but it’s very easy to translate to either
of the others.
My technique for presenting the LD act without upsetting
people relies on distance and time. They say that time is the
greatest healer, and this is vitally important to understand.
After you’ve lost someone close, the mere thought of them, or
anything that reminds you of them can bring tears and upset...
As time goes on, however, you start to become less negatively
affected by the mention of their name, or the thought of them.
That’s not to say you still don’t miss them, and that you’d
rather they were still around, it’s simply that you’ve had time
to grieve. We tend to hold on to the happier memories as we
move forward and that’s key.
So, my initial thought was to ask the participant to;

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !89

 “think of someone that’s passed on to the other side,
someone who left some time ago that you were fond of, and
that will not bring any negative thoughts to your mind, or
cause any upset.”

While loose, this seemed to work absolutely fine, but I

always prefer to be extra cautious when dealing with such
profound work. My basic mental equation was that the more
time someone has gone, the more time we’ve had to deal with
it, the less pain will be caused in talking about them. (NB:
Another fourth option with a similar ethos is that you could
use friends you see every day, and a childhood friend you
haven’t seen in many years)
So, with this in mind, if you have someone think back to a
point in their life when they didn’t really understand death,
there’s no way they can feel much emotion about them. I
would love to have met my great grand parents, but they
passed on before I was even born. I see pictures, and I long to
have known them, but it doesn’t pain me to see these pictures,
or utter their name. In fact, one of my grandparents passed on
when I was very young. I have a recollection of the man,
sitting in a leather chair, smoking a pipe, but that’s it. While I
wish he was still around, of course; I wasn’t at the stage in my
mental development that I could understand death, so
therefore the emotion I feel now isn’t strongly routed in
emotion that developed during the tragedy of his passing. At
the complete polar opposite, a friend recently died and to see
pictures or read his name creates a feeling of sadness.
So the way I create logic for wanting someone to think
about somebody that they didn’t really know, runs deeper than
just emotional connection. The key to my success in this is
BLOOD.

! 90 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

 While that feels naturally vampiric in nature and runs
alongside my character, it also holds reason for any mystical
performer. We can’t escape the fact that we are genetically tied
to each of our blood relatives, in every cell of our body is a
small part of them. It makes perfect sense to me that this
connection is enough to pick up on, if you’re dealing with the
energy someone outputs during any kind of psychic or
mystical performance.
So, the scripting that I use for my Living/Dead routine is
as follows:

The Effect: “What I’m about to show you, is a

demonstration that holds far more history than anyone sitting
in this room. In fact, this particular demonstration is based on
one of the oldest phenomenon in the mystical arts...
Psychometry.
Everything holds energy, everything vibrates at a different
rate, and therefore everything feels different to someone who’s
trained to understand these vibrations. One of the most
interesting things that I have discovered is that in the same
way that a photograph is rumoured to steal a small part of
your soul, when you allow ink to represent a thought, a
fragment of that thought becomes embedded in the paper. It
just feels different.
For instance, if I was to write my name on this piece of
paper, scrunch it up, as well as scrunching up a blank
duplicate, if You took the time to feel in which hand the piece
of paper with the thought embedded is, you would no doubt
find it. Take a deep breath, and tell me, in which hand to I hold
the important paper? (The participant is correct.)
I’m going to attempt to perform a much more complex
and difficult demonstration; the differences between the

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !91

feeling I’ll get from pieces of paper we’ll be using are much
more subtle.
I require a specific kind of person to be the lead
participant here; please raise your hand if you know the name
of a blood relative that passed on before you were born, or
when you were very young. It’s important that this is someone
that doesn’t conjure any bad feelings for you. Please raise
your hand now if you can help me with this; don’t worry -
You’re in safe hands.”

This script (and micro-effect) does a number of things.

First, it establishes that this is an old and mysterious
demonstration, that its possible for a normal person to have
success with a basic version of the demonstration and that
what you are going to try is a much more difficult variation.
This also primes the audience and gets them thinking of the
kind of people we want them to be thinking about.
The paper or card that you use is unimportant, but I
generally choose to make use of thin business card size stock.
I have it printed in a specific way, as is detailed later on in this
book. The reason I prefer to use thin stock is that it’s possible
to scrunch up each leaf into a ball, which I feel looks more
natural during my introduction than folding it neatly.
The method of guaranteeing that the first participant (who
I usually leave in the audience and have point to which hand
they believe the ‘name’ billet is in, while standing in their
place if applicable.) is correct is extremely simple.
I have all of the cards in the stack with the side to be
written on facing upwards, except for the second card down
from the top of the stack, which is turned face down. This
reversed second card already has my name written on it in the
same way I’m planning to sign the uppermost card of the stack
at the appropriate point of the script.
! 92 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
 This means that I can show the uppermost surface of the
stack blank, sign my name on this top card, casually flashing
the back of it as blank when I lift it off the stack, revealing the
blank surface of the reversed card. I scrunch up the newly
signed card, then proceed to scrunch up the supposedly blank
(but actually set-up) card below it, being sure not to flash any
ink.
If you wish to really show that the second card is blank,
you may hold it up briefly as you address it, but be certain to
do this in front of (and fairly close to) your body, as opposed
to higher up. To hold the card higher, risks venue lights
shining through the card, revealing to everyone that it’s
already written on, thus destroying the deception that is in
play.
With both scrunched cards in one of my hands, I place the
stack into my pocket and then clearly mix around the paper
balls, before taking the standard ‘which hand’ pose of holding
a ball in each fist and extending my arms in front of my at
shoulder width. It’s at this point the participant you point out
will choose a hand, searching for the written on billet, rather
than the blank billet. Both of which contain writing, so they
will be right, whichever they choose.
Once the decision is made, I clearly toss the other ball
over my shoulder, to the back of the stage and openly un-
scrunch the ball that they selected, revealing the name. This is
all done very casually as I’m speaking, but it adds a nice little
micro- effect to the proceedings. My friend Doug Segal once
told me that he writes a joke, or a reveal into every minute of
his show, which for a comedy mentalist is a very concise
structure. His shows are constant sell outs at the famous
Edinburgh Fringe, it doesn’t take a mentalist to understand
that he must be doing something right!

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !93

 While I don’t have as solid a rule when writing my shows;
that line sticks in the back of my mind at all times. Dead time
is only good when the silence is used for effect, I try to include
as many moments of compelling theatre, incredible magic and
casual humour alongside character building elements as
possible. To give an example, I always enter the stage with a
glass of whiskey on the rocks in my hand - I want to begin
building my character from the moment the audience first lays
eyes on my and I continue to build throughout my show. My
goal is for the audience to have a much better understanding of
the character I portray when they leave the venue than when
they first sat down. This focus on personality ensures that I’m
remembered, not forgotten instantly when my tricks run out.
The priming of the audience, or more specifically the
person that we’e going to end up using as our ‘dead’
contributor, is extremely simple but feels directional and
weighs heavy on the importance scale. You’re giving the
audience a solid direction, but not giving them reason just yet.
This is important; I find that the key to finding the correct
participant for this demonstration is to begin building the
foundation, but giving this final direction in the introduction a
level of importance, without explaining any more about the
effect. Remember, up until this point we haven’t discussed that
anything todo with the living and the dead is going to happen,
we simply mentioned the concept of psychometry and
demonstrated that its possible to discover a particular item out
of a couple that look the same on the outside.
If you were to phrase this final line slightly differently, for
instance, you could say;

“I’m going to attempt to discover a dead person’s name

amongst several ‘living’ names. Is there anyone in the

! 94 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

audience that knows the name of a blood relative who passed
away some time ago?”

It appears that in saying this line, you will get exactly the
same results, but there’s a good possibility that you will not.
The key is really in the details; the phrase “...Some time ago”
isn’t specific enough, people could interpret that as just a year
ago, which in the terms we’re discussing isn’t too long ago at
all - it is a long time to go without drinking coffee however, so
it’s very much down to the audience’s understanding and
perception of your words.
Also, to introduce what you are doing before you choose
a participant could lead to someone coming out of the wood
work that is desperate to ‘talk’ to a family member or friend
who’s passed away recently, while you’ll not be demonstrating
mediumship, you’d be surprised at how many people will see
what you’re doing as the same vein of skills. It’s much easier
to deal with that kind of explanation after the show if someone
comes to you than in the middle of your show - That can
disrupt the flow completely and has to be dealt in a very
specific way so as not to upset or alienate anyone in the
audience. Of course, everything I’m explaining here is from
my experience; I’m sure you’ll find your own way of writing
words to the same effect as mine so that it sounds natural in
your style of presenting - The main points of importance need
to be kept, the way they’re wrapped up in your speech is not
as important.
We’ll assume that at this point you have found the person
that you will use for the ‘dead’ name. The living names aren’t
as important; you can literally pluck 4 more people from the
audience and have them think about someone close to them
that they see every day. The likelihood is that they will choose
their partner, or perhaps their child. So, from the moment you
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !95
decide on the person that you’ll use as the ‘dead’ contributor,
you can continue the script as follows:
“How about you, would you like to take this piece of card
and just write down the name of the person that you’re
thinking about. You can then fold it up, with the name inside -
I don’t want anyone to see what you've written.
Now, while she’s doing that; I’d like you four in the front
row to write on these cards the name of someone who’s close
to you, someone living, perhaps that you see every day - Or at
least often. You may fold your cards into quarters too, with the
name facing inwards.
The goal here is to have five folded cards that all look the
same; it will be my job to pick up on the subtle fluctuations in
the energy in each of these slips and determine which card
contains the name of the person who is no longer with us.

“As we have five people writing five different names, none

of which will give away anything other than whether the
person you’re thinking of is male or female... Then again, I’ve
seen boys named Tracy and girls called Alex, so then again,
even if I was to look at these cards with my eyes, I’d probably
get a total of nothing from them.
Once you have finished folding, please pass all of the
cards to one person to mix them. While you’re mixing, I’d like
you to check the cards for marks - I don’t want you to think
that there’s any foul play here.”

At this point, you have all the necessary contributions to

perform your demonstration. Its at this point that I take a
candle from my case (a black one, naturally) and sit it on my
table, centre stage. I take my lighter, light it and place a wine
glass either side. This isn’t necessary; but just how I lay out
my set for the following part. This only takes a few seconds
! 96 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
and is done as the participant is mixing the billets. I usually
put a pause before I ask them to check for marks, this is said
as I’m laying out my props.
The cards are now sufficiently mixed and the stage is set;
I will now begin my demonstration.
“As the feel of each of the energies contained within the
cards here are very subtly different; I’m going to use a candle
to amplify the vibrations. Heat transforms to kinetic energy,
giving me a wider waveform to work with.”
This just justifies the candle, which is important in one of
the methods I’ll show you shortly. It’s also a nice image to see
the performer pulling the billets through the flame one by one
before dropping it into one of the two glasses. I like this to
look quite ritualistic, as I’d mentioned previously that it’s
quite an ancient demonstration.
At this point we bring up an amount of mystical
soundtrack, nothing too elaborate, but slow moving and dark. I
take my time running each billet through the flame and
dropping them into one of the glasses, when I’ve identified the
‘dead’ billet, it gets dropped into the opposite glass; clearly
marking it as different to the others.
I have the ‘dead’ contributor stand and I grab the relevant
glass by the neck; bringing the slightly singed billet towards
her.

“For the first time; can you reveal to us all, what is the
name of the person you committed to this slip of paper?
[Contributor says: “Michael.”]
“I had a feeling it was a longer name, it was obviously
male energy here though. Can you please open up the slip that
I separated from all the rest - I’ve yet to look at it, so can you
read out loud to everyone the name inside?”

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !97

 This may take some of readers by surprise; the thought of
not revealing the name. Outside of taking a leaf out of
Voodini’s ‘Pure Q&A’, there is a reason that I don’t reveal the
name during my current L/D routine, this is simply because I
use it close to the start of the show, when I’m still establishing
my abilities. I want the show to build as it progresses, if I was
to know everything from the off-set, I’ve no doubt it would
become a little repetitive. Sure, it would be entertaining, but
there would be no peaks and each effect would have to get
more and more elaborate to become more impressive. I rarely
miss on a reveal (unless I decide to randomly guess at
something as part of a larger piece) like some people say they
like to, I generally always get things right. I do get more
detailed as the act progresses though, it would make sense that
if you were deciphering some esoteric code floating through
the air from the minds of an audience of people you hadn’t
met before, you would become more in tune with them as you
get to know them and understand the way they project what
they’re thinking. I will teach you some ways to peek the name
on the ‘dead’ billet in the next section of this book, as I’m sure
some people would like to use that reveal as a climax.
This is essentially the structure of my L/D routine - It’s
possible to build more elements into an L/D act, there’s a lot
of space for it, however, I keep my demonstrations fairly
straight forward and direct.
In the next section, I’m going to detail a number of
methods I’ve developed to fit into the L/D routine. While all
of these methods have been developed independently, there
maybe some cross-over with work I’ve not seen. I’ll contain
crediting where applicable; but if I’ve missed anything, I’d be
more than happy to include any crediting suggestions in the
next edition of this manuscript.

! 98 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

 L/D Methods
FrictionStack: This is the main method that I use in my
shows - You will see that I have covered pretty much
everything to make this as workable and fool proof as
possible. Don’t leave anything out of the gimmicked stack, it’s
important that everything is there to ensure that you won’t
make any mistakes. Even the best of us sometimes get
forgetful or have accidental mishaps; I’ve done everything I
can to ensure that I don’t make any mistakes when on the
road, and thus you won’t either.
Frixion pens have been used by many magicians for a
number of different uses, usually to animate a prediction. The
most common Frixion routine I’ve seen is to have several of
the letters in a longer prediction disappear to reveal a shorter
prediction when all the remaining letters are read.
If you’ve not read up on Frixion pens; they are a specific
kind of rollerball ink pen with a rubber eraser on one end.
They are designed so that you can ‘rub out’ any mistakes you
make, as you would with a pencil. The ink actually reacts to
the heat caused by the friction of the rubber on the paper and
turns transparent.
Magicians quickly caught on to the properties of this ink
and have since used it in magic routines; using a lighter to heat
up and erase the ink. While the pens are readily available in
stationary stores, most of the public still see the effect as
magic and it creates some amazing reactions when used in the
correct instances. I always try to keep a stock of Frixion pens
in my office as some times ideas call for the vanishing of ink.
This first method of determining which of several apparently
unmarked billets is different from the others. For this, you’ll
need the templates I’ve produced for you (in US or UK

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !99

business card size; both are supplied), a Frixion pen and a
ruler or straight edge of some kind.

You can download the templates at:

http://DeeChristopher.Rocks/pages/LD-Files

You’ll notice that in both of the front templates, there is a

border around the card. Upon closer inspection, you’ll notice
that one of these templates has a part of the border missing on
each of the four corners. These borders have been designed so
that you can just fill in the little square with your Frixion pen,
they’re also in black to match the ink and to keep your
printing costs down.
You will need to print a stock of the regular cards and a
stock of the cards with the missing lines. Print the image on
both sides where possible. You’ll use four regular cards and
one gimmicked card with each performance. Business card
printing is extremely cheap and convenient these days; even
your local Staples store can produce a few hundred business
cards while you wait, so I use these for most things. To ensure
that the paper can be easily folded, or balled up, you should
print on approximately 250GSM paper, with no lamination.
This will ensure that the cards have the properties required.
They’re not see through, but are thin enough to easily fold.
This next task should be done while you’re sat in front of
the television or something similar as it gets a little tedious if
you’re doing a large stack of cards, thankfully once you’ve
done this once you’re set for hundreds of performances! You
should take your ruler/straight edge and your Frixion pen and
fill in all the gaps where the lines are missing. These
gimmicked cards will be the card you give to your ‘dead’
contributor. Once you’ve finished with them, they’ll look
! 100 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
identical to the ungimmicked stack of cards. If you mix them
up by mistake, just look out for the tiny imperfections on the
cards you’ve prepared, or at worst, take a naked flame to the
corner of the uppermost card of a stack to figure out which is
which.
Take one of the cards and draw a large ‘X’ across both
sides. This will act as your middle marker as you are going to
grab around 40 ungimmicked cards and 10 gimmicked cards to
make one 50 card stack. Put the ‘X’ card in between the two
kinds of cards. It will be the 11th card down on the gimmicked
side, so it separates the two kinds of cards clearly. This stack is
large enough for 10 performances.
Now, grab a thick elastic/rubber band and wrap the stack
reasonably tightly. Note which is the gimmicked side and mark
a dot or an ‘X’ on the part of the rubber band that’s on this
side.
Now you have an innocent looking stack of cards that
contains a devilish secret.
You will be able to throw this stack in your pocket and
will know that you are ready to perform. If you have a zippo
lighter on you, it works perfectly for close up as there’s very
little pocket space required. You could even borrow a couple
of glasses from the bar and sit the zippo between them to
create the full set piece in a casual environment.
The way this special stack is implemented is as follows;
remember, if you want to do the intro piece, you just need to
write your name on the reverse of the second card down in the
ungimmicked side of the stack. As this is covered in the last
section, I’ll just go over the discovery of the ‘dead’ billet,
though I’m sure you can guess this information by now!
When you remove the stack from your pocket, or
wherever else it’s situated, spot the marking on the rubber
band. As long as the band is fairly tight, this marking will stay
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !101
in line with the correct side. If you are worried about the band
moving or seeing the marking in lower lighting situations, you
can add an extra card to the ungimmicked side, cut it in half
and line up one half to create an ‘Out To Lunch’ style stack.
Glue this half card to the underside of the band as it’s wrapped
around the stack. Locating the extra half card is easy, even
without looking, but you could mark that card a little more
elaborately if necessary, just ensure that your marking can’t be
seen from the stalls. So you now have a stack that’s marked
for orientation on both sides in different ways. Just remember
that the ‘dead’ side of the stack is marked on the band, I don’t
have mnemonic for that... I just remember it. If you need one,
get creative and think of the most ridiculous image possible;
perhaps a zombie grabbing the mark on the band from inside
the stack. There you go, there’s your mnemonic! This is
simply an idea; I’ve never found reason to use it myself as I
find the mark of the band to be enough, but some may find it
useful. It also doubles your stack as OTL though, so maybe if
you do an OTL routine already, you can use this single stack
for both routines, saving your pocket space.
Your ‘dead’ contributor is selected, so spot your band
marking and pull a card out from that side of the stack, hand it
to the contributor alongside a pen and have them write and
fold as discussed during the script. Casually turn the stack
over in your hand as you give this card to the contributor so
that it’s ready for the next phase. Pull out four cards from the
unmarked side (as you turned over the stack, it’ll look like
these cards all came from the same side) and hand these to the
four ‘living’ contributors alongside a pen, or if you’re really
generous, a pen each, (it might be worth having a pen pot on
your stage table with an abundance of pens... Just a thought)
and you’re now set.

! 102 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

 Have the billets examined and mixed by an impartial fifth
participant and then handed to you. As you draw the billets
through the flame, you will notice that four of them don’t
change. If the billet doesn’t change, drop it into the left-hand
wine glass. If you notice some of the ink fading as a billet
goes through the flame, it goes in the right hand glass; THAT
is your ‘dead’ billet!
Even though it’s taken me a few pages to explain the
nuances of this method, it’s really very quick and very simple.
Everything is easy to set up, easy to do and the stack is fool
proof. I did previously have my stack set up with one ‘dead’
card, followed by four ‘living’ , followed by one ‘dead’, four
‘living’, etcetera. I always found myself looking for the
imperfections on the ‘dead’ billets though, just to make sure I
had things the right way around. It’s really worth setting the
stack up as I’ve explained above, with the different libraries of
cards separated. It saves a lot of head ache while on stage!

ScentMark: As you will have no doubt concluded from

the title, this marking has to do with your sense of smell. I’ve
read work from various authors on using scent in mentalism
for suggestion, confusion and marking including the work of
Luke Jermay, Alan Rorrison and Daniel Young. In this
instance, we’ll be marking an envelope with lighter fluid.
I know that doesn’t sound particularly appealing, but this
will allow for a peek of the name as well as an easy
separation. You’ll use pay envelopes that will fit business
cards inside. You don’t need to use special cards for this, any
cards will do. The thicker the better; I’ve found 450GSM
matte laminated cards to be best for resisting the fire.
Take five pay envelopes (black, self seal is ideal if you
can get those - these are available from Paperchase and online
distributors) and soak the front wall (the side without the flap)
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !103
of one of them in lighter fluid, or some other kind of
flammable liquid with a scent, I know some perfumes are very
flammable, so perhaps you’d prefer to experiment with what
you have lying around at home.
Do this before your show and leave the envelope to dry.
You want it to be dry to the touch, but don’t leave it for many
days as the fluid will eventually all evaporate. This prepared
envelope is the one that the ‘dead’ billet will go into. You will
hand out the cards and pens as per usual, but don’t ask the
contributors to fold their cards, just ask them to hold the cards
face down. When it comes to collecting the billets, take out
your prepared envelope (I separate the envelopes in my pocket
by having them either side of a deck of cards I use later in the
show) and hold it flap up, opening towards the ‘dead’
contributor and ask them to slide their card in face down. You
can ask them to seal the envelope, or just seal it yourself. keep
this clearly in view in your hand and distribute the other four
envelopes with the other participants and have them seal their
cards in the envelopes. All the envelopes should then be
passed to a impartial, fifth contributor who will mix them.
Rather than draw each envelope through the flame, in this
instance, I will be drawing my fingers through the flame as I
hold each envelope to my head in a theatrical fashion. This
will allow me to get the scent of each envelope until I find the
‘dead’ one. (The one that smells of lighter fluid or cheap
perfume) I separate the envelopes into the glasses as before
with the billets.
A difference comes now in that I will be directing the next
part of my script to the four ‘living’ participants.

“Please take one of these envelopes each. I’m going to

ask you one by one to call out the name you wrote on your slip

! 104 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

of paper, then we’ll see what’s inside. [The participants call
out Jim, James, Jason and Jerome.]
Great, I have a good feeling about this - Please, open up
the envelope you have and read out loud the name inside. [The
participants call out the same names in a modified order!]
A perfect match! We have but one name left to discover,
[directed to ‘dead’ contributor] don’t say anything... I’m going
to burn your envelope and hopefully I can discover the name
by thumbing through the ashes.”

At this point I take the envelope out of the glass and turn
my head. This is a subtle suggestion that I’m not going to use
my eyes. I bring the envelope towards the candle, from the
front, with the soaked front of the envelope (the side the
participant’s writing is touching) facing the flame. As I bring
the envelope towards my chest, I turn my head again to look
and make sure it’s going to touch the fire - As if I’m just lining
everything up.
As the envelope touches the flame, the portion that is
soaked will burn quickly, whereas the card inside the envelope
will remain intact. It won’t go up in an instant, like flash
paper, but it will burn quickly. For this reason, it’s wise to use
tweezers or similar to hold the envelope, I don’t use tweezers
myself, but I’ve dealt with fire a lot over the years.
Regardless, as soon as the envelope burns, take a quick
look at the name and then move the card back into the flame to
ensure that it continues to burn. Drop the card and envelope
back into the glass and wave your fingers over the smoke, or
delve them into the ash to ‘get a feeling.’
You can then reveal the name slowly, as if you’re picking
up impressions, feelings, energy or whatever allows you to
believe in your deception. If you’re experienced in cold
reading, this point would be perfect to throw a few lines
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !105
around. If you’re not experiences in cold reading, this is the
perfect routine to test out how it feels and get your head into
that game; whether you hit on anything, you still have a strong
reveal of the name to follow.

XrayOil: If you don’t want to burn the envelope, (some

venues don’t like fire) here’s an alternate way to see the name
through the envelope. The only condition is that you need to
make sure that the envelope isn’t dyed, it must be just a
natural coloured envelope; you might have to try a couple of
types to see which works best in your area.
Alongside the ‘natural’ envelopes, you’ll also need some
kind of clear oily substance. This could be a lip balm in a tube,
or similar. Olive oil on a sponge in an empty tactic box is my
poison.
With a small amount of oil on your thumb you can create
a transparent window on the front of the envelope. This will
allow you to see the writing on the card inside.
You may have discovered that oil can create
transparencies in the past; I’ll take a few lines to explain the
science behind this so that you know exactly how and why it
works and can implement it correctly in your act. (if you so
wish.)
Paper fibres are transparent. Imagine them like little hairs
woven together to create the envelope. The reason that they
are opaque is that light bounces off all of the individual
surfaces of the fibres, therefore it cannot travel through to the
card inside. When you stroke clear oil across the surface of
natural paper (dyed paper will not work as the fibres are no
longer transparent) the substance will fill the small crevices
between the fibres and prevents the bouncing on the light. The
light travels straight through the newly formed flat surface, as

! 106 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

if it is a window and allows you to see whatever is written
inside.
Don’t discount this golden nugget, this is a very powerful
and very deceptive method. I’m still developing the perfect
substance for this, but most oily substances will have effect,
you might have to try a few to see which works best in your
country. This may seem like a lot of effort, but when you find
the perfect envelope and the perfect oil, it’s a method that
could change your mentalism forever.
It has unlimited potential, just think about what you could
do if you could see through opaque envelopes. It could run
your whole show.

PsychometricWatch: This is less of a method for

determining which billet is the ‘dead’ one and more of a
presentational angle. I find this to be ideal for dinner parties or
shows in which you have a camera and projection, due to the
nature of the visuals.
You will need to acquire a thin neodymium magnet. A
square/ rectangle magnet is perfect, but if you have one of the
thin circles that you get with some magic tricks, that will
work. I’d also recommend using some thicker envelopes for
this, that avoids the silhouette of the magnet being seen
through the envelope.
You will continue as usual, one person will write a ‘dead’
name and four people will write ‘living’ names. The ‘dead’
billet will be placed inside an envelope that you have secretly
dropped the magnet inside previously. For this reason, you
will handle the envelope and offer the participant the opening
to slide their face down card inside. You seal the envelope and
toss it into a glass, or onto the table. You repeat the same with
the other participants, a final participant will then mix the
envelopes.
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !107
 You’re in a familiar position now. You can easily identify
the correct envelope by touch, but this is not what you’re
going to do. You will borrow a watch, or take your own off
your wrist and the watch is what’s going to discover the ‘dead’
billet.
You will explain to the audience that watches run on
vibrations, inside each watch is quartz crystal; which vibrates
at a constant rate, keeping the hands moving in time. The
energy contained within the ‘dead’ envelope could disrupt
these vibrations. You will give the participants the gift of
seeing this bizarre phenomenon.
You lay the five envelopes out on the table; and one by
one you slowly lower the watch onto each envelope, asking
the participants to watch for any unusual activity. Of course,
the hands of the watch will stop on the correct envelope,
through which you can transition into any of the reveals/closes
I’ve discussed in the rest of this manuscript.
Again, this is a very simple method, but this is the kind of
demonstration that could be used to demonstrate that energy
exists. Sometimes people need to see for themselves before
they can put belief in a concept. This is the perfect lead in to
any psychokinetic routines.

! 108 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

 The Block Peek
As mentalists, we constantly hunt for new ways to gather
the secret thoughts of our audiences. We force the people we
meet to think in particular ways, or find deceptive techniques
to find out thoughts when we give them free reign on what to
create in their minds. This manuscript deals with a solution for
the latter concept.
Let me introduce you to one of my recently favoured
techniques for gaining information; I use several different
techniques in close up performances. This gimmick in
particular can be brought into play with your block of blank
cards, straight from your pocket, or left behind if you wish to
use another technique before or after you use this one.
The block peek combines a simple gimmick and a direct
technique to discover hidden information, written on a
business card, or a blank card. All you need to put this
together is a stack of blank (or business) cards, a couple of
rubber bands and either some double-sided tape, or some glue.
This gimmick will take you approximately one minute to
construct and will last you many performances; not that
replacing it is a difficult or expensive thing to do. The peeks
are very easy to do, but this method does offer the option of
peeking several pieces of information once you become a little
more dexterous with it.
I carry a stack of blank cards around in my inside jacket
pocket, secured with a rubber band as my business cards are
double sided. I chose aesthetics over application when
working on my business cards, but if you have a space on your
business cards in which a participant can write a thought,
youʼll just have to make a gimmick from your business card,
not unlike the gimmick I present in the explanation. The only
thing you need to remember is that the visible band needs to
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !109
be on the side your participant usually writes on. While that
sentence is complete gibberish to you right now, it will all
make sense once youʼve obtained the full method. If you have
laminated or thicker stock business cards, you gimmick will
rarely need to be replaced, but Iʼd recommend keeping some
extra rubber bands and tape in your gig bag, just to be safe.

The Gimmick
The gimmick is extremely simple to construct; the devil,
as always, is in this simplicity. Itʼs logical, justified and
nothing is out of place.
The gimmick Itʼs self is based off a card magic concept
that I discovered several years ago, but never had a use for. A
close friend of mine released an ebook using this method to
create an illusion in which a selected card visually penetrates a
strip of duct tape thatʼs been wrapped around the box from the
start. While the ebook describing this close up effect is no
longer available and remains underground once more, some
other beautiful pieces by the author are available here:
http://danielmadison.co.uk/Anthology.html
Basic card magic knowledge will be required for the
handling of this gimmick, but all will be explained. If you are
more talented in card technique, youʼll probably be able to
design some of your own handlings for this, I will detail some
alternate ideas involving more complicated moves later on.

The Block Peek gimmick comprises of one rubber band

and two blank cards. There is also some double-sided tape
involved. The rubber band is wrapped length ways around one
of the cards, this will cause the card to bevel. As we need it to
remain flat, another card (or two cards if necessary) is taped or
! 110 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
glued to one side of the card, sandwiching the rubber band in
between. This is your gimmick.
If you hold your gimmick in a standard ʻdealerʼs gripʼ
position, (photos are on the next page) with the rubber band
side up, you will notice that it looks like the band is wrapped
around the cards. By holding your gimmick with the reverse
side up, it looks like there is no band at all. The only
discrepancy is when you look at the short side of the card head
on, you can see a small bit of the band going in between the
two cards. This is remedied by holding your first finger on top
of that discrepancy. It wonʼt be noticeable when the gimmick
is added to a stack of blank cards, but working in situations
where angles are constantly changing (i.e. nightclubs or mix
and mingle corporate events) has taught me to cover every
possible angle and discrepancy, where possible.
Have a look at the following images to solidify the
information youʼve just read.

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher 1! 11

! 112 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !113
 The Handling
The basic handling is very easy to do; I will first explain
the mechanics, then I will discuss the logic and justifications,
as well as the benefits of using this gimmick over just a
regular stack of cards.
I wonʼt discuss my routines with this gimmick in this
manuscript, as this is what I use for casual performances,
meaning that I donʼt have specific routines written and scripts
in place. This gimmick is extremely versatile and doesnʼt need
justifying in the audiences mind, so itʼs what I use for jazzing
routines. If Iʼm in a rock bar; I might have someone think of
their favourite band, if Iʼm in a corporate environment; Iʼll
perhaps have the participant think of how much they got paid
per hour in their first job as a kid. When it comes to casual and
seemingly impromptu mentalism demonstrations, you should
use your environment to inspire you, not the framework of
something that youʼve read in a book.
You will begin by placing your gimmick on the bottom of
your stack of black cards. The rubber band side will be facing
up, so that the band contacts the card above it; this means that
whichever way the gimmick is orientated, a blank side is
visible. Wrap a normal rubber band around the whole stack,
including the gimmick, lengthways. This ensures that when
you take the stack out of your pocket, the audience is forced to
understand that this is the normal state for a stack of cards to
be in when in your position. Some people will choose to wrap
a rubber band twice around the width of a stack of cards, ala
ʻOut To Lunchʼ whereas you prefer to wrap your cards
lengthways. I initially made the gimmick by wrapping the
band twice across the width, but it wasnʼt long before the
pressure caused the band to rip through the card itʼs mounted
on, thus destroying the deception.
! 114 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
 You will hold the deck in ʻdealerʼs gripʼ and remove the
rubber band, placing it on the table, or back in your pocket.
You remove the top card (Iʼll explain why as I discuss the
subtleties and logic later) and hand it to the participant. Now
remove your pen and hand that to them as you explain what
you would like them to write – If theyʼre thinking of an image,
have them draw it, if theyʼre thinking of a name, they will
write it on the card to commit to their thought so that there is
evidence to come back to later.
As they are writing their thought, you should perform a
ʻhalf passʼ on the gimmick. If you are not familiar with this
technique, itʼs described in several magic books, but I favour
Aaron Fisherʼs ʻGravity Half Passʼ from his book ʻThe Paper
Engine.ʼ
Follow the pictures to get used to that motion. Itʼs very
easy to do and everyoneʼs attention is on the card being
written on at this point, so you need not worry about anyone
catching the move. The reason this move is employed is
simply to expose the rubber band portion of the gimmick. You
should still use your finger to cover, the gimmickʼs rubber
band is sat against your palm with the packet still in dealerʼs
grip at this point.
Following this move, simply wait for the participant to
finish their writing or drawing and take back the pen. You
donʼt want to see the thought, so ask them to hold it face
down. You will then lift all the other cards off the gimmick
and ask them to place their card there, right back in the middle
of the stack. We are aware that this is, of course, not the
middle of the stack; your participant will not question this as
itʼs standard practice and perfectly logical as a motion.
The card with the thought written upon it is now sat at the
bottom of the stack of normal cards, directly above the
gimmick.
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !115
 You will now take the normal rubber band from where
ever you stashed it previously and you will apparently wrap it
around the whole stack. In reality, you will wrap the band
around the entire block of normal cards, including the card
with the thought upon it, but excluding the gimmick. To
ensure this action is as smooth as possible, just riffle the back
of the stack of cards to allow the gimmick to ʻpopʼ off the
stack, and place your little finger in the gap causing a break.
You just need to slide the rubber band into this gap, rather than
around the whole stack. Be sure to wrap the band just once
and lengthways, so that it matches the visual your gimmick
presents perfectly.
Now, thanks to the gimmick, as long as your finger and
thumb cover either short side of the stack where the break
between the two rubber bands is, you can show the stack from
all angles and it looks perfectly normal.

! 116 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !117
 The Fall Peek
The standard peek of one card is the peek that I use the
most with this gimmick and is the peek that you are most
likely to use the most too in casual situations.
Iʼve named this ʻThe Fall Peekʼ because of the action, the
gimmick falls away from the stack as you rotate the whole
block to show either side. This peek is done directly after the
band is wrapped around the stack – Itʼs almost part of the
same motion.
It is in fact not so dissimilar to ʻthe drop conceptʼ which
has also been explored by Madison.
Wrap the band around the stack of normal cards, above
the gimmick, as discussed before. Ensure that the band is in
the correct position so that it matches the gimmick in its
position on the stack.
Now, you must grip the whole packet from above in a
ʻbiddle gripʼ, which is simply the same grip I mention on the
picture page discussing the half pass. Grip the packet with the
fingertips of the right hand (reverse if you are more
comfortable dealing cards left handed) and lift the packet up,
rotating your wrist to show the audience the band of your
gimmick. You should of course ensure that the fingers cover
the gap in the band. The action will look as if youʼre just
showing the packet from either side to demonstrate its opacity
as completely solid and not transparent in any way. This is a
very casual move, I simply say;

“Now the stack is secured and you cannot see through it

from any angle.”

Once youʼve shown the audience the band of the

gimmick, you will reverse the action, but continue rotating to
! 118 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
show the rubber band thatʼs wrapped around the stack from
the top. As you rotate, you will allow the gimmick to fall into
your waiting left palm, which holds it in a gamblerʼs cop style
grip. The peek is made at this point, and then you simply place
the stack back on top of the gimmick and you can begin your
reading. The pictures on the next couple of pages will
demonstrate the action from the front, and in an ʻover the
shoulderʼ style view.

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !119

! 120 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !121
 The Clip Peek
This is a peek that I never really use, but it is useful to
know in case you need your left hand for something at the
time you wish to peek. Itʼs more angle-sensitive than ʻthe fall
peekʼ so should only be performed one-on-one. Iʼm including
it here for completeness.
The motion for this is essentially an application of the
ʻCardini changeʼ in card magic, but from the other axis. You
will grip the stack in the ʻbiddle gripʼ once more and the
action will appear the same, but without the left hand. As you
rotate the packet from parallel with the floor to perpendicular,
at the same point you would do the peek normally, you will
increase pressure with your pinky on the top right corner of
the rubber band side of the gimmick. As you rotate the packet
perpendicular to the floor, you will allow the pinky to slide/
peel the gimmick from the stack, clipping it in place. This is a
slightly knacky motion to get the hang of, but Iʼm sure the
slight of hand lovers will enjoy practicing it.

! 122 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !123
 Multiple Peeks
I mentioned earlier the idea of peeking multiple pieces of
information from the stack. Again, referencing card magic as
there can be a lot of cross over between working with decks of
cards and stacks of blank/business cards, I started with playing
around with using the gimmick as a cover card for ʻClipshiftʼ
variations. By all means, test out that theory, the texture of
untreated blank cards makes this difficult to do, but itʼs
definitely possible as long as you have shade and you set up
the stack in the way I discuss in the following paragraphs. If
you would like to look into the ʻClipshiftʼ, you can find out
more information at

http://www.DanAndDave.com

Setting up the cards for multiple peeks is much the same

as for ʻthe fall peekʼ in that you will wrap the band around the
stack, excluding the gimmick. The difference here is that you
will also exclude the cards with thoughts written on them.
You will hand one card to each of two participants. They
will write whatever thought you have asked them to and you
will break the stack and have them replaced, one after another
in the middle of the block. You should start with the rightmost
participant during this replacement process. (Iʼll explain why
in a moment.) Of course, these cards will go directly above the
gimmick as before.
Now, before picking up the rubber band to wrap the stack;
you will riffle the back of the cards, but rather than just letting
the gimmick ʻpopʼ off the stack to get your break, you will
ʻpopʼ the gimmick plus the two cards with thoughts written on
them so that you can wrap only the normal, blank cards. The
cards with thoughts on them are loose, just like the gimmick
! 124 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
is, however, this will be invisible to the audience as long as
your finger and thumb cover the break in the band as
discussed before.
To peek the multiple pieces of information, you should do
the standard ʻfall peekʼ but you will view the first piece of
information and direct your scripted sentence to the person
that is stood rightmost out of the two (or more) people that
wrote thoughts. You will ask them to verify that they cannot
see through the card, before turning to the left and asking the
next person that wrote a thought if they can see through the
card, or verify that itʼs solid. As you turn, you will repeat ʻthe
fall peekʼ motion, dropping the first card with the information
on it on to the gimmick to reveal the second card. This can be
repeated as many times as necessary, but I wouldnʼt
recommend doing the whole room in one go as it will become
a little suspicious; two or three is fine.
The beauty here is that you can do this to each person that
wrote a thought, and each time you are peeking the personʼs
thought that you are directing your question to. This allows
you to easily anchor the image or word to that person, so that
you donʼt get muddled up during the reading. Rather than
having to reveal all the thoughts at once, you can show your
skill of understanding which thought is coming from who, or
read their minds one by one. This is a vast advantage that
allows you to look much more credible.

Removing The Band

There is one important thing that I havenʼt touched upon
yet; how to show the original card the spectator wrote upon
and how to reset. This is very easy and only uses motions that
youʼve already learnt.
Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !125
 You will pinch the normal rubber band with your right
fingertips from the top of the stack and drag it to the right,
thus pulling it off the block. Place the band back on the table
and if youʼve written a reveal, draw attention to that, if youʼve
already said your reveal in your wording, you can make eye
contact with someone, drawing the attention away from the
stack so that you can perform another ʻhalf passʼ so that the
gimmickʼs band is now touching the ink on the thought-card.
You can then say something along the lines of; “You wrote a
thought down on one of these cards as a commitment at the
start of this process.” As you say “one of these cards” you
should push off a few cards with your left thumb into your
right hand demonstrating your words. Replace these cards on
the bottom, instead of the top of the block, directly below the
gimmick.
Now you will turn the whole stack over in your hands and
thumb through the cards until you reach the one with ink upon
it. It is directly below your gimmick, but your gimmick just
appears to be another normal card. Remove the thought-card
and cut your gimmick to the bottom. Youʼre now ready to go
again.

The Psychology & Credits

There are several benefits to favouring this method over
just controlling a card to the bottom of the stack, or using a
double lift to peek the thought. A lot of mentalists will quote
the classic phrase; “Donʼt run when youʼre not being chased”
at any possible opportunity. I agree with this idea, to a degree,
but I think that what is truly important to remember is that if
we can create something more deceptive and better hidden

! 126 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher

within the realms of logical and visually correct situations, we
are simply being lazy when we donʼt employ them.
A stack of cards would rarely be left loose in anyoneʼs
pocket, or office. It would either be in a holder, or wrapped by
a rubber band to keep the stack safe, tidy and together. For
peeks using holders, I can recommend some fabulous products
by friends of mine: ʻThe UPDʼ by Pablo Amira and ʻThe
Businessʼ by Romanos. Both of these can be bought from your
favourite magic dealer and are wonderful solutions with
similar methods, but different aesthetics.
This is the closest to perfect solution that Iʼve found for
doing this with a rubber band wrapped stack. Other notable
methods that Iʼve come across include ʻThe PAC Stackʼ by
Paul Carnazzo, which is an amazing solution for drawing
duplications, but it takes a lot more arts and crafts and
something a little extra that makes writing a little difficult to
read, especially if itʼs messy handwriting thatʼs difficult to
read as it is! You can find Paulʼs work here:

http://www.MentalVoyage.com

When you wrap a stack of cards in a rubber band, they

feel like a unit and itʼs casually suggested that there is no way
to access the thought without unwrapping the stack. Itʼs a very
powerful suggestion that isnʼt in place when the cards are
loose; especially if the audience knows that you are dexterous
with playing cards. This is the reason I always just hand the
first card on the pile to a participant, I never mix the blank
card, refer to them as a deck or a pack and I use untreated
cards, so they donʼt flow and spread beautifully like playing
cards do.

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !127

 Now, itʼs time for you to put together your own ʻBlock
Peekʼ gimmick and start practicing the motions. Itʼs a lovely
thing to use and Iʼm sure youʼll have much success with it!

Ungimmicked Variations
I am aware that a lot of mentalists prefer not to use
gimmicks, or like to be flexible and have the opportunity to
use the same stack of business cards for many methods. While
this is possible with the Block Peek gimmick (as you can just
cop it to your pocket whenever you don’t need it), here are a
couple of ideas to use the same methods without the gimmick.

Firstly, I’ve discovered that, in performance, you don’t

actually have to return the gimmick to your stack once you’ve
copped it away to get the peek. You can cop it off the bottom,
then put it in your pocket as you go to get your pen, or other
tool. When it comes to the clean up, you can just pretend that
you’re looking through the stack (as if you think the
spectator’s card is turned face up, rather than down) and cut
half the cards you spread to the bottom. Then turn over the
stack, and spread again, eventually locating their card.
Secondly, if you don’t wish to use the gimmick, you can
just cut the cards very deep (for the spectator to replace their
written on card, apparently in the middle, so there’s just a
small amount of cards below theirs) and hold a pinky break.
You can then change your grip to the biddle grip, as before,
and just cop away this small amount of cards. A stack of
business cards doesn’t have a specific thickness, so there is no
discrepancy for anyone to notice, as long as the packet doesn’t
get way smaller! You can clean up as before with the spread
and search method.
! 128 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher
 Finally, an extra clean up idea for using no gimmicks. If
you place a small envelope (that will fit your stack of cards in)
in your back pocket, you can cop away a small amount of
cards as before and deposit them in the envelope. You will, in
the same motion, bring out this envelope in to view and
deposit the visible stack of cards in your hand on top of the
stack you already deposited while you get your peek, you can
then hand the spectator the envelope full of cards to hold on
to.
This is a really great method, and one that I favour at the
time of writing. It’s so much fun to do and it means that
everything is clean and as it should be!

As we have reached the end of this book, I’d like to thank

you for taking the time to read through my ideas, and for
spending your hard-earned cash on them in the first place. I
don’t get as much time as I would like to document my
thoughts any more due to my busy position at PenguinMagic
and my shows; so I really do appreciate every single person
who makes writing them worthwhile. I hope that you have
found some interesting ideas that will inspire your own work
and I wish you all the best for the future!

Until next time,

Dee Christopher.

Deeper Still by Dee Christopher !129

 Did you enjoy this offering?

Be sure to check out the other Dee

Christopher publications at

http://DeeChristopher.rocks

Happy Halloween!

! 130 Deeper Still by Dee Christopher