Mis­di­rec­tion References

In the past years I obser­ved that quite a lot of magi­ci­ans were sear­ching for refe­rence mate­rial on mis­di­rec­tion. Here I offer a coll­ec­tion of book sources. The books lis­ted below have hel­ped me most and shaped my thin­king about mis­di­rec­tion. These books should get you a good start.

Sam C. Sharpe – Psy­cho­lo­gi­cal Secrets for the Conjuror

For me, this is the most detailed lis­ting of mis­di­rec­tion tech­ni­ques ever. Sharpe details and cate­go­ri­ses the ske­le­ton of mis­di­rec­tion and explains it. Despite the fact that it is some­ti­mes quite dif­fi­cult to read and under­stand, it is pri­ce­l­ess. This book has been my num­ber-one book on the topic for many years (and will remain so). This is abso­lut­ely essential.

A good way would be to start your stu­dies with this book, under­stand all the prin­ci­ples explai­ned and then dive into the other books. This will make the points in the other books much clea­rer to you. Sharpe’s book gives a solid foun­da­tion and a frame­work to work in. You can and will then attach more know­ledge (flesh) to the bones Sharpe gave us.

The order of the lis­ting has not­hing to do with the signi­fi­cance of the books.

Al Leech – Don’t Look Now

A little book­let where Al Leech explains some of the basic and most important tech­ni­ques. The con­tent is aimed at the card man, working in close-up sur­roun­dings. Nice and well written.

Al Schnei­der – The Decep­tion of Magic

This is a mam­moth tome, and Al goes into the depth, using a sci­en­ti­fic approach. You will learn a lot from the chap­ter on mis­di­rec­tion. One thing to point out is his dis­cus­sion on the spectator’s per­cep­tion, where he intro­du­ced the ‹ARL› (Auto­ma­tic Response Library). This is based on the latest sci­en­ti­fic rese­ar­ches and results and is very inte­res­t­ing to read (and important to know).

Joe Bruno – Ana­tomy of Misdirection

This is an inte­res­t­ing little book with some strange tricks (rou­tine) in there. For my taste, the con­cepts are valuable, but explai­ned in a way that is quite hard to fol­low (at least for me).

Lewis Gan­son – The Anno­ta­ted Magic of Slydini

I pre­fer this book over the ori­gi­nal one because this edi­tion con­ta­ins the anno­ta­ti­ons of Dr. Gene Mat­su­ura, which clear up things and expand the volume. The essence of Slydini’s mis­di­rec­tion is found in this book and very well explai­ned. You will learn to under­stand the under­ly­ing prin­ci­ples and how to apply them to the rou­ti­nes. Excel­lent book.

Patrick Page – The Life and Times of Albert Goshman

No dis­cus­sion about mis­di­rec­tion is com­plete wit­hout men­tio­ning Albert Gosh­man. He was a mas­ter of this. In the book, you will find a detailed expl­ana­tion of the com­plete ‘Salt and Pep­per Shakers’ act. The only way to get some bene­fit from it (con­cer­ning mis­di­rec­tion) is to actually go through the act with props and a simu­la­ted per­forming situa­tion. then you will get the rou­tine con­s­truc­tion and under­stand where, why and how Albert con­s­truc­ted and applied misdirection.

Patrick Page – On Misdirection

This was a little book­let Pat sold at his lec­tures. As typi­cally for Pat, the descrip­ti­ons are brief, crisp and to the point. He gives some prac­ti­cal advice and examp­les which illus­trate the points. This is not a ground-brea­king exhaus­tive essay, but a good pri­mer. And you get two ter­ri­fic tricks/​principles out of it.

Ste­ven Minch – The Books of Wonder

Ever­y­body knows Tommy Won­der was a genius and a real deep thin­ker. In his famous books are scat­te­red a few theo­re­ti­cal artic­les, some of them deal­ing with mis­di­rec­tion. these are worth the price of the two books alone. Highly intellec­tual and deep.

Arturo de Asca­nio – The Magic of Ascanio

Asca­nio was (is) one of the most influ­en­tial figu­res of Spa­nish magic. He was an ana­lyst, thin­ker, theo­re­ti­cian and phi­lo­so­pher. His thoughts are deep and pro­found. Whilst there are four books published by the Spa­nish com­pany Pagi­nas, for me the volume one is the most important. In this book you find some inter­views Juan Tama­riz did with Asca­nio and it is here where he goes deeply into the sub­ject of mis­di­rec­tion. I con­sider this inter­view (it is a long one!) to be basic rea­ding for any serious magician.

Gary Kurtz – Lea­ding with your Head

Gary is a very intel­li­gent and com­pe­tent per­for­mer, aut­hor and thin­ker. His essay is hea­vily based on the Sly­dini con­cepts and you can see Gary has done his home­work. What I love with this book­let is that he illus­tra­tes the con­cepts with a rou­tine, show­ing exactly what he means and how the points are put into prac­tice. A very good and hel­pful book.

Pass it on!