Thought I'd share my script for Hampton Falls with you all.

Ouija

Is it possible to communicate with spirits? It’s an old question, and one that humans have asked since time immemorial. But maybe the dead aren’t interested in communicating with us at all, and what if there are some spirits whose intentions are far more sinister? Perhaps there are some things that are better left alone . . .

In 1966, eight high school students found out the hard way. To protect their identities and out of respect for their families, their names will remain confidential.

[A stack of photos is introduced. The photos are laid out on the table so that each one can be clearly seen.]

These are their yearbook photos, taken just weeks before the tragedy.

It all started when one of the girls bought an old Ouija board she found one Sunday afternoon while scouring an antiques shop with her grandmother.

According to friends, the teenagers had decided that they would take the Ouija up to the old Morton House, which lay on the outskirts of town. The house had been the scene of a terrible murder 17 years earlier.

Hank Morton, a local mechanic, came home one night after work and brutally murdered his wife and two kids, before taking his own life. The place had been rented out a few times afterwards, but none of the tenants stayed for very long, citing terrifying experiences within the home as the chief reason for their departure. It had since been abandoned.

Now, I don’t know if it was due to the Ouija, but those kids definitely came into contact with something that night. And whatever it was, it was no ordinary lost spirit. This was much darker, evil – some might even say demonic, and it toyed with the teens mercilessly, torturing them physically and mentally.

Eight students went to the house, but only four survived. Of the four survivors, two of them went completely insane; the third was rendered a quadriplegic from the injuries sustained that night, unable to communicate verbally or physically. The other survivor was the only one able to recount to the police the next day what had happened. Only spoke of it once, and never again.

Nobody will ever know what really happened that dreadful night. But while researching this story, I discovered something rather fascinating. There’s a phenomenon called “Optomancy”, and it’s this idea that photographs can transmit certain feelings or thoughts from the spirit world. In fact, when photography was first invented, there were many people who refused to have their picture taken because they believed that it would somehow capture a part of their soul. Some people still believe this. Let me show you something eerie.

Would you please touch one of the pictures? Take a moment to look at that person’s face. Look at their smile, their eyes, etc; and when you’re ready, let me know if you would like me to place it on my left or my right. We’ll continue doing this until you’ve divided the photos into two even groups.

[This process continues until all the photos have been divided into two piles.]

Eve, did you get any strange feelings while you were doing this? Whether you believe in spirits or not, something strange has happened. On the backs of these photos I marked those that were living and also, those which were dead. Unbelievably, you have somehow managed to separate the dead from those that survived that night! How could you have known?

[Each pile is picked up one at a time, and the backs of the photos are displayed. The backs of the pictures in one pile, all say “Dead” while the others say “Alive”!]

The real question is whether or not what you have just witnessed is a strange coincidence or a genuine occurrence of Optomancy, because maybe, just maybe – the dead REALLY can talk to us, in one form or another.

Ok I'm loving this. I have some old ouija that would go well with this story ty for sharing!

Niiiiiiice, this would play great with my Outlaw's Spiritus Magnus Ouija board,especially when the Planchette suddenly goes flying at the end ! Yes thank you for sharing

I'm definitely have to pick HF soon.....after I'm finished surrendering my wallet to a few other items at the moment...LoL

I like it very much! I can see planchettes moving ob their own once the revelation is made.

Keep in mind they don't have to group them in fours any distribution will work. And that adds to the "impossibility"

Of course if they end one dead seven alive the ending is not so interesting...

This is very well-timed. I was suprised I hadn't gotten my grubby hands on HF earlier. I should have it any day now.

Thanks for sharing!

Tony Chris's Hampton Falls is awesome I got it last Christmas and I have incorporated a CH routine into it along side Andrew Mayne's PHOTOSYNTHESIS so there is always talk of how early photography was used in seaces.

Great! You've got a fine script there. Thanks for sharing. Let us know what reactions you get when its performed.

Hi Guys. Thanks for the kind words and I'm glad you're enjoying it. I'm currently putting together a formal "midnight creepshow" and am currently exploring different seance routines to see which will best fit. I think that what my script for the Hampton Falls routine will do is enhance the fear factor for that time in the show when we finally get around to actually try and "make contact with the dead".

So far I've only performed Hampton Falls with the Ouija script once, to a good friend of mine. It genuinely creeped him out. He kept asking me "is it always the same result? If you did it for somebody else, would they get the same result too?" It really got me thinking.

I own "Whitestar", and am seriously considering purchasing "From Hell", because I like the different flavors, but I've noticed that as magicians, we often tend to think that "more is better". In a routine where a greater number of cards are separated, I'm really starting to feel that it becomes a case of the "too perfect" theory. It becomes almost too unbelievable. I think the Hampton Falls routine where only 8 cards are used really makes it stronger, because it just feels more plausible. My friend was really stuck in wondering if "that's always the result?" More so than in other times where I'ved performed "Whitestar" or regular "Out of this World".

What do you guys think?

Yes, I agree, the 8 cards is just as impressive as 52.

In fact with White star you can perform the UF Grant OOTW using a totally shuffled bank, again by selecting a proportion of the whole collection of photos.
I've hot a great book called "Best Of All Worlds" which is a collection of OOTW variations - invaluable for bizarrists doing photo based routines even though its a 'card trick book'!
Steve

Going to have to grab "Best Of All Worlds." Very happy to hear you like it, DocSteve. From what you say above, it sounds like a lot of those will work great with Happy Families!