I remember reading an essay on the number of themes availble to the magician for trick creation. I believe the author felt there were 17 or so actual tricks that could be performed... penetration, appearance, levitation, vanish, transposition and so on. Can anyone tell me the author and name of the book or essay and where I might find a copy?
Thanks,
Gene Urban

Are you perhaps referring to "The Nineteen Basic Effects" by Dariel Fitzkee, from his book "The Trick Brain" (of the trilogy)?

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

In the book he also offers the lists of others, including T. Page Wright, S. H. Sharpe, and Winston Freer.

Thank you so much. That is precisely the essay I was looking for. I'll grab that Trick Brain out of the library and be set. Thank god for people who have a better memory than I do.

Gene

Glad I could help.

FWIW... Roberto Giobbi had a terrific three-article card version along the same topic in Genii magazine this past year, in his column "The Genii Session."

What about telekinesis? None of the mind stunts in the list above covered that...or did I miss something?

See number 14 (Control [Mind over the inanimate])...

Thanks! I'm going blind in my old age!

There was an interesting article by Walt Lees many moons ago in Pabular about the creation of magic. Although the essay was quite short, I thought it made a number of good points. Walt believes (in contrast to most people who write about this subject) that it is more important to start out with an interesting idea for a new method than an interesting idea for a new effect. He then says you should try to develop a new effect 'backwards' from the method you have ome up with. It is well worth reading and can be found under the title 'Iconoclasms'...

November 1979 was indeed many moons ago.

While fortune may favor the prepared, to invest sufficient effort into finding a suitable prop and presentation for every phenomenon one notices seems far from productive.

Perhaps we have a zen issue of finding a balance of efforts to realize desired outcomes and to apply novel phenomena as methodology.

Or we could just rip off a three coin transposition, change the coins and call it our own. Oh, wait! That's been done, hasn't it!