Hi,
my question can be considered silly but I wonder if learning a memorized deck is an useful tool or not for any mentalist.
Fabio

Very useful, Plerophoria is one of my favourite effects and it requires a certain amount of memory deck, it kills!!!!!!
I'm sure there are many other routines like this but I'm not interested hehe.

P.s - there are other methods other than memorizing it. If you know the order and write it down say on your arm or something and cover it, it really will look the same.

Provided you're not against using cards in mentalism (and judging by your post, it seems you're not), Simon Aronson has some wonderful routines with a memorised deck that would make for superb mentalism. Also, the skill of using the deck as essentially a card index is extremely useful for a great number of mentalism effects. In other words, covertly locating and controling any named card opens lots of doors for you in terms of effects.

Do it.
If nothing else it's a good mental exercise to help sharpen your mind.

As a performing mentalist, I tend to avoid the use of playing cards, but that doesn't mean that I eschew their use altogether. Anything I do with them, though, has to be contextually appropriate, and very strong. The memorized deck is a very potent tool in this regard.

There are several ways to acquire this skill; I've written an essay on the topic that you may find of use.

I'm a magician, but do a mental effect or two in many shows. One of my favorites is Simon Aronson's Histed Heisted from his book Bound to Please. You have to use a memorized deck, but it doesn't have to be Simon's stack. Any memdeck stack you know will work.

Dennis Loomis

Just get Mindsights. A great stacked deck, a great magic square routine and a routine entitled FourSight that I am adding to my Parlor Show.

http://deceptionary.com

The memorized deck is a great tool for mentalism check osterlind or chan canasta this last make a reputation using stack decks, the book sugeted for equivoke Mindsights has a stack deck that you can learn in like one hour.

Stephen Long I agree with you there are plenty of routines such as book tests etc...that require a deck, but I don't know, see for me when a performer bring on a deck of cards to his repertoire it's less impressive to watch because we all tend to believe that a slight of hand or a giimicked deck is involved, so to avoid suck thinking I wouldn't use it, not even the Invisible Deck (which is becoming more popular than 'Lost' for laymen).

Hold on, Sfarad.
Haven't you gone from saying, "very useful" to shunning the use of plasying cards in the space of a few hours? That seems odd to me. I would never use a deck of cards in a book test. Urgh.

It depends on the context you give it. If you make it about the cards, it will be perceived so.

What have cards got to do with book tests???? Nothing.

Hi fagani,

You check out Barrie Richardson's "Theatre Of The Mind" if you get a chance. I use his Any Card At Any Number Effect regularly.

Jamie D. Grant

Stephen Long Of course it is very useful for a mentalist, I'm talking though about a SHOW! In a show I would never use them because I think there are plenty of ideas and effects that don't require playing cards. It is very useful for demonstrations outside of one's show.
Thanks for the correction though.

Harry Lucas
Check out Anneman's book and then look at his book test and see if you get my point, it's a very strong routine but I use an other book test.

Annemann - Practical Mental Magic *

it is called Between The Lines.

Thanks a lot to all the magic friends. You are very kind and this is a Great Forum. My question arised exactly after the lecture of the "any card at any number effect" in Barrie Richardson Book (thank you Jamie)
I understand that it is time to take again from my shelf the wonderful "a stack to remember" and try to learn again the Aronson stack ( I usually practice the OsterlindBreakthrough)
Thanks again/Fabio