If you read my post you will note that what you are quoting now is the Fu Manchu method or the way he looked at his magic and routine... Fu Manchu's method is in Greater Magic and I suggested reading because he was also successful...

And I feel that there is always room for another interpretation from a professional magician of days gone by and a legend in magic...

Besides being a deep thinker he invented the flip over vanish box - the temple of benaries - the speedy rabbit production - the box tray and screen - and worked out a stack of fish bowl productions that could be done on a night club floor.

He was very successful in night clubs and -

He toured the US with a full evening show that was 80% his own magic ideas including a suspension floating lady that Walter Blany took his own slant on. Plus a vanish of his entire cast in an Arabian tent...

Jack Gwynne was more than successful in magic. He isn't with us any longer but there is a great book about him written by David Charvet...

The late Jack Gwynne did make a lot of money performing magic. From what you have written I feel that you don't know who Jack Gwynne was or Fu Manchu... I find reading about the success of magicians and past masters of the art very interesting. And I like reading about their points of view and why they did things their way...


I do! Jack Gwynne and Fu Manchu were both legends in magic and I find their life and work and what they gave to magic very interesting!!!

From The Trick Brain - by Dariel Fitzkee

The Nineteen Basic Effects:

Production (Appearance, creation, multiplication)
Vanish (Disappearance, obliteration)
Transposition (Change in location)
Transformation (Change in appearance. character or identity)
Penetration (One solid through another)
Restoration (Making the destroyed whole)
Animation (Movement imparted to the inanimate)
Anti-Gravity (Levitation and change in weight)
Attraction (Mysterious adhesion)
Sympathetic Reaction (Sympathetic response)
Invulnerability (Injury proof)
Physical Anomaly (Contradictions, abnormalities, freaks)
Spectator Failure (Magicians' challenge)
Control (Mind over the inanimate)
Identification (Specific discovery)
Thought Reading (Mental perception, mind reading)
Thought Transmission (Thought projection and transference)
Prediction (Foretelling the future)
Extra-Sensory Perception (Unusual perception, other than mind)

Jason

Metamorphis. (spelling may not be correct)

Thanks Jason.
This is the list I remember.

In our vocabulary of magic, those are the verbs. What is missing is the subject and the object. IE the context and the focus of the magic. These additional 'noun clauses' in our grammer are necesary as well.

I can appreciate the abstraction offered in the list as provided, and if that appeals to you, you might also like the ideas in Eno's Oblique Strategy cards. These can help you when you have some peices in working order and wish to add to your collection in an ecological way.

However, the missing ingredient remains your character and setting. Only then can the nouns and subjects find magical verbs to create the spells you seek.

A while back I thought to myself that it makes sense that I should learn at least one effect in each of Fitzkee's catagories. There are some catagories that I don't have effects for, and others I have several, I guess because I like the effect, or it's more my style. Do you think there is any merit in learning effects based on the list even if you feel it's not your style? Should I try some to see if I'm missing some killer effects because of my self imposed standards?

Jason