To taoist,

Yes, I've performed it, but it was years ago. It played well, if not as strong as something like the magazine memory. One of the features of this stunt is that you don't have to know how many cards have been removed from the deck. It could be only one, or it might be as many as 5 - 10, you can call them all correctly. It is also a legitimate memory effect, although based on a very clever procedure.

Another good stunt memory stunt with cards is called Quartet and appears on the relatively new set of DVDs from Barrie Richardson. It's described on the package like this: "Playing cards are fairly shuffled by a spectator and yet, when the cards are distributed to four participants, the performer reveals them with stunning speed and inerrancy. This is an extremely commercial effect that looks and feels like a genuine demonstration of extraordinary memory power."

Bob Cassidy has a similar effect to Quartet in his book. But the Richardson version has a "wrinkle" that allows the spectators to shuffle the cards is a more deceptive way. (It went by me when I saw Barrie do it at the L & L shoot.)

In today's world, people are very impressed with memory stunts, I find. And I recommend that you study some memory effects and try them out. You won't regret it.

Dennis Loomis

Harry is just so good, and I think that I am going to have to purchase all of his books eventually. No better time than the present!

I've posted this before, but I've had good luck using Bob Farmer's Queen of Halloween system with a 52 step journey. My plan now is to double up each step along the journey to cut it down to 26.

I'm able to memorize a shuffled deck in less than 3 mins. Not the fastest, but it works for me -- and impresses the heck out of everyone. What's even more impressive to folks is going backwards along the journey -- or having them call out a number and then starting from that number forward or backward.

What surprised me -- and continues to surprise me -- is how easy it was to actually do it once I settled on a system and started practicing. Nowhere near as hard as I feared it might be.

The hardest part (for me, at least) was coming up with a couple of 52 step journeys.