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Orville_Smith
New user
38 Posts
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Posted: Sep 16, 2008 10:16pm
Next to Chandu and Mandrake and Ibis in magical fiction is the character DOCTOR STRANGE. Getting his mystical abilities from a Tibetan master, the Ancient One, Doctor Strange uses incantations such as the Seven Rings of Raggador and the Light of the Vishanti. Along with those incantations is his Eye of Agamotto which is his amulet. Specifically,the amulet is the receptacle which houses the mystic eyeball which can, at will, leave the amulet in order to imbed itself in Steven's forehead to serve as his Third Eye.
As a Third Eye, it serves as a telepathic probe. There was one particular instance where it did something innovative. At first glance,it appears to be X-ray vision but it's different. What happened was that Steven Strange ran across a Photograph taken of a criminal wearing a mask, a hood. The hood covered the whole face so that ONLY the criminal's eyes could be seen. Using his amulet, Steven Strange made the Eye of Agamotto shine on the Photograph and "expose" the face of the hooded man. Note that what makes this entirely DIFFERENT from X-ray vision (e.g.,Superman) is that X-ray vision can see through only a 3-d object, e.g., a LIVE person. That is,X-ray vision would "expose" only if the hooded man was actually present IN-PERSON. But in the case of the PHOTOGRAPH, there is actually NO face underneath the hood in that photograph at all. In other words, what is captured in the Photograph is just the surface.
With that in mind, you could also differentiate that X-ray vision (Superman) is science whereas the "exposure" of the photograph is magic.
In wondering how this could be done as a trick, maybe you could show ahead of time the hidden identity of a criminal. This would be shown individually on maybe cards of playing-card size. Done as an audience-participation trick, the spectator would take the card that has the photo of the Hooded man and lay it down on any one of the, say, Eight cards. Each of the Eight cards has the face of a different suspect. Note that the performer establishes ahead of time and openly WHO and what card is the person behind the hood. Then the Eight cards are shuffled and laid face-down on the table. At this point, the spectator is to put the Hood-card on any of the eight cards. When that face-down card is turned up, it is found to be the identity which was established at that beginning.
I already know that there is already a trick by which this is accomplished but I don't know the method. Maybe somebody can provide the information. Not the secret but the source of the trick.
I'm sure there are other ways that the idea of the Eye of Agamotto can be applied to stage magic, but this is the only idea I dreamt up so far.
My main point is that this is DIFFERENT from X-ray vision (as I already explained). You could even say that X-ray vision is even surpassed by the Eye of Agamotto.
This brings up an interesting point. That is, what DIFFERENCES can be found between the fiction of science-fiction and the fiction of out-and-out magic? The Eye of Agamotto is one good example of this difference.
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Ba Ba Booey
Regular user
Some day I will have more than
136 Posts
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Posted: Oct 5, 2008 9:59pm
Hi Orville,
Jay Sankey has an effect on his Hemispheres DVD called Third Eye. Maybe you could use an effect like that. He uses a doll's eye to 'see' three playing cards in a paper bag. You could adapt that using your own story. I have some glass eyes that I use for this. It really creeps the spectators out, but in a good way.
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Eddie Torres
Special user
New York City
647 Posts
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Posted: Oct 6, 2008 6:16am
Hey Orville,
From a previous post I've seen of yours, you seem to be quite the comic geek as well. We should talk. I had an all comicbook themed routine where I'd demonstrate effects from a lot of characters including Wolverine, Superman, Flash, Ice-Man, Gambit, Swamp-Thing, Phoenix and yes Dr. Strange. I did something similar to what you are talking about with the eye but I also used a few of its other powers. I'm actually going to be putting the routine together again as now I only use them individually in different acts. I'm going to be marketting to a place where a short run of this show would be perfect. Please PM me sir, I'd live to talk comics and magic.
Eddie
Eddie Torres
With this much excitement, who needs enemas?
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The Curator
Inner circle
2136 Posts
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Posted: Oct 7, 2008 2:24am
First stage idea that comes to mind: the Gorilla illusion.
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