I have - independently but during studies of some of the different existing ways - come up with a new (?) way to do a common card sleight in a different way, which in my opinion makes the variation of the sleight easier to do and very, very deceptive since it exclude some of the common tells of the usual sleight.

The question: How do I know if it really is new or if some one has done it before and perhaps published it? Does there in the community exist a "know it all guru", whom I can ask?

Thanks!

To begin,

What specifically leads you to suspect you have discovered something that is novel in our craft? Our literature goes back hundreds of years and thousands of very clever people have been working at it, some of them publishing. Have you checked the standard sources?

There is nothing wrong with finding what works for you and some people do well with this process on their own. It can be VERY disappointing to find that what took years to develop alone was sitting and waiting in a commonly available book for the reading.

This BBS, The Magic Café, has some very knowledgeable members who can sometimes help you if you have questions about an idea or sleight. If you want to approach them, it helps to keep in mind that the chances of you creating something truly new are very slim and to keep your focus on our VAST literature and finding where your item might fit into our common/shared schema of methods in magic.

A lot of us have large libraries and vast knowledge of effects. There are several who will keep mum about what you want to know. Max Maven is just one example.

Let me clarify that last post.

There are some people who will tell you where your new idea may have been published first, or what it may be a variation of. But they will keep your idea a secret, so you don't have to worry about their using, marketing, publishing or talking about your material without your permission. Max Maven is one example.