I have such high hopes in using my recently purchased White Star but I've become disappointed.

First let me say that I'm not new to mentalism & have performed many paid performances. I decided to incorporate the White Star idea into my seance.

I did the original version of White Star for my wife and mother & my wife saw right through the method.

So then, the following evening, I tried the White Star Revisited version with two friends. One of the friends saw right through this version also. And I performed it in a 'subtle' way. (Those that have it should know what I mean.)

So I'm surprised at all of the praise it has gotten (which the trick does deserve the praise when it flies by people) but, I wonder if the spectators are amazed or just being polite & not saying anything as to the method.

I really want this effect to work, so I have some ideas that I'm going to try but it means adapting & creating all the photos/cards from scratch.

If anyone has run into similar disappointment with their White Star performance, please PM me & we can discuss it in more detail.

Like I said, I want to make this work.

Thanks

Weird... I honestly get good reactions... but I also have changed the presentation... I use those more as a demonstration of the power of certain Egyptian artifacts that can bridge the worlds of the living and the dead... and it is only one part of the entire act... one thing I did do, as I didn't like the modern text on the back - was white them out and then aged the suckers -I wrote DEAD and the names of the dead - it also lets me use them outside of just a titanic situation...

One thing you could do which I haven't so its pure speculation.... if you did what I do to make the cards more old and not precise looking - stripper deck it... then let people mix all the photos by hand over the table (patter about the wheel of fate, life and death, who by fire etc. if you like as they stir the images) gather them up and in the process do the deed as you make a nice pile to begin the effect.

Just thinking.

Wow , I've used this over and over , its never failed me. I've aged my cards ,which helps.
However even aged cards aside , I think its all in how you frame the effect. I really give the intro socks and have often had one of my "mediums" in tears by the end of the presentation.
I also add a little bit of hypnosis to set the scene with the person (thank you Paul Voodini ).
In short I really , really come across as though this effect :
1) is 100% real and happening.
2) is meant to be (and is) emotional for everyone. in that I get invested in the effect and also get my "seers" invested in it on an emotional level.

In fact I performed it on 11/9/2011 for a group of about 30 and gave a 10 minute spiel about 9/11 being one of the turning points of the 21st century and introducing the sinking of the titanic as the turning point of the 20th century.
Where I live (Cork , Ireland) was the last stop for Titanic and Cobh (or Queenstown as it was then) is having a large remembrance of the event.
I'll be there , separating the lucky from the unlucky , the living from the dead.

The presentation is vitally important and it could be why I've run into problems but I still think my spectators would have figured it out even after the emotional presentation.

When I performed it, I did perform it as a test & then asked for comments.
In both instances, everyone was invested in the routine and LIKED it a lot.

They just seemed to figure it out quickly but they did enjoy the presentation.

As I've stated, I'll be (somehow) including this is my seance which is based on a haunted establishment.
I appreciate your thoughts & comments.

I have performed more than 100 times and always people goes wild. I do it in a "mentalist moves" and whit no guilty at all.
I don't know you, but do not question the White star, maybe you must question yourself.
Try to find a better way to do it. Try an one o one for the start. Practice your words when you do the change.
If you want help send me a mp.
:)

Gee, that's not good. Given this, I will reconsider getting this effect. I thought it was a tight effect.

It is a tight effect.

Being familiar with the method that this is based on, I bought it hoping for a different method.
White Star does deliver a different method - actually 5 different version!

I am very glad that I finally bought it. But when I read the method & put myself in the spectators shoes, I felt like some will be able to decipher the method. And I was right - they did decipher it rather quickly!
Like I stated, maybe the spectators are just being polite in some instances.

I've PM'd Dr. Spektor with my more camoflagued idea because I WILL perform this.

Maybe it is me and my presentation but I've seemed to initially get the same reactions that you all are getting. It's just that when I asked my test spectators what they thought of it, all 4 of them loved the presentation but 2 of them were able to figure the simple method.

Over in the 'Tricks and Effects' area, poster MMREED had similiar questions like I did and so did poster SillySymphony when she performed it for her husband.

Thanks for all of your comments.

Mark
Maybe your family are more magic-savvy perhaps? I know mine are, as they have to suffer me so much!

You use the cards to do Tony Chris's handling in Hamtpon Falls, which is my favourite , along with Nick trosts 8 card brainwave, to show o ly 1 card different from the rest - again on Tony's Hampton falls disc.

Finally I did play with a shi--- to use a truly mixed pack. In fact I wondered about a shiny black backed photo which would give enough reflection, and even a blank iPhone screen. The photo could then be turned to reveal a picture of the ship prior to revealing the separation.

Steve

Doc,

I was hoping you joined in!

Yes, I figured my wife might being 'magic-savvy' but the friends aren't.
I've considered Tony's Hampton falls but I don't think the spectator can handle the photos afterwards, and I want the photos to be examinable.

BTW, we're on the same wave length because I also was thinking of maybe using a shi--- and color coding.

Thanks.

Yeah Mark, you've hit on an important point - the White Star experience is about reading the info afterwards, and one that can really help cement the effect in the mind of the spectators.

Good to see you round here again BTW!

With a little n**l-writing or confabulation technology, you can have the piles the counted, and pull out document that gives a number for a group of survivors, a group of the dead, and a group unaccounted for, like schrodingers cat, neither alive or dead...just missing.

I had the same thought, Marqus. When I saw it, the method seemed painfully transparent to me as well.

But I've performed it probably 40+ times for small groups and never had a breath of suspicion. Just great reactions. When I perform this, it's within the context of a small event. Music is playing. There is candle-light -- and it's not presented at all as a "magic" trick. Remember the focus is on the guests and their "abilities."

Still -- it's an effect dripping atmosphere and wide open to a dynamic presentation.

I use a penny from the year the ship sank...other props as well...a number of visual and aural cues really help to muddy the waters.

David

I luv it and use it in one of my presentations for corporate lectures. The Titanic maritime disaster in central to the lectures theme. I didn't like the 3rd "mixed" pile so change it slightly to 3 distinct piles of, died, survived, & unaccountered for, clearly hand written on the back of each photo. The switch of the 3rd mixed pile always throws any in the know. I went to a printer and had the photo's reprinted so I could hand write on the back. They are postcard size.

Only once, a spectator guessed how I had done. But it was enough for me to decide to change a bit my method. My personal advice would be to use a fxxxse cxx or mix the photographs at the really beginning. Remember that the photographs are not exactly a stack, actually only one is really important. What I usually do is give the pen to one spectator and the coin to another. The first spectator makes his choice and when I see that there is 2 or 3 cards left before the "key photograph", I just say..."Okay, you seem to be a good medium, but please remember that your friend must show his mediumnic talent too !"While I talk, most of the time, he takes the 2 or 3 remaining pictures, so HE stops there and give the other part of the pile to the other spectator, without any intervention from me (just a subtle suggestion).
This routine is great and can be combined with a full mentalism show. I have some projects with it for the 100th birthday of the Titanic wreckage. A fascinating myth of the XXth century.
Good luck !

I have not yet aged the White Star cards, but I may eventually. Mine look new because I (supposedly) bought them at the museum gift shop when I was at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, which has a large Titanic exhibit. I visited the museum when we were in Halifax for the Psychic Entertainers Association convention, so I am familiar with it. The museum has on display one of the famous wooden deck chairs which floated from the Titanic when it sank.

There is also on display an exact copy of the deck chair on which visitors are allowed to recline, which I did.

I do not know the method of White Star, but speaking of Effects where living and dead are divided:
I had similar problems with Lebanon Circles "From Hell"

How I manage to get the cards into one "bloody" pile and one "none bloody" pile (thogh quite obvious) noone found out so far,
BUT I had more then once - when handing the cards out in the end - spectators remember that one or two photos of the victim
pile were sorted by them in the choosing process to the non-victim pile, or the other way round, which of course spoiled, that
I did *the work*, but not them as claimed ...

So I do not perform it anymore ...

Anyone has an Idea on that?
(And NO, not giving the cards out / Not showing the faces again, after showing the sorted backs is not a solution I accept.)

Jerome,

That was ANOTHER problem I encounter with my wife (see my original post at the top).

She was already thinking that I was going to switch some photos because she remembered some of the photos she discarded.

I do have something I came up with but didn't try yet. I trying to gather new photos and also waiting for time to pass before I show her again.

But I totally understand where you're coming from.

I give one spectator a "lucky" silver coin and the other spectator a copper penny that is not a lucky amulet. I show the cards one at a time to one or the other spectator. That spectator either accepts the card into a pile in front of him or rejects the card, so it goes into the reject pile in front of me. At the end, the spectator with the lucky coin has selected the passengers who lived. (Most of these were first class passengers, who were likely to have a lucky silver coin.) The other spectator who held the "not-so-lucky" copper coin selected the people who drowned. (The third class passengers would more likely have a copper penny in their pockets instead of a lucky silver coin.)

I ignore the reject pile in front of me.

PM me if you have questions about this.

I have added a number of convincers and have done this as a stage presentation with powerpoint backdrop images of the pictures...I honestly believe it is all in the presentation, timing, and handling...

The reject pile is CRUCIAL to the whole success of the presentation...I simply do not understand those who ignore it...the powerpoint and reject pile reinforce each other....

Also, the objects should be CHOSEN by the participants not given to them...again, that is the whole point of the presentation....mine are a gold and ruby ring and a coin....when each is held, I reinforce the notion of the power of history 'Imagine the number of fingers that this ring has adorned, imagine the pockets and purses in which this coin has been...feel the passage of time in the weight and warmth of each object...', etc...

I have had so many people come and tell me that they had tingles down their spines...this is very powerful stuff folks...

Dr T

Thanks for the responses.

I believe that OOTW is a card trick and White Star is its own entity that resembles the OOTW ending.
OOTW is (usually) presented as a card trick.
White Star is presented as an EXPERIENCE which is why backstory makes it work more so than the method.

When I get an opportunity, I will post my presentation here. Right now, I'm trying to gather photos of folks from 1990 to present (and I'm having trouble finding such).

Dr. Todd, once I get everything settled with this, I'm heading over to buy your 'The Bequethment'.

Mark