Hello and welcome! Does anyone have any good recommendations for books or videos on bizarre magic?

Ichazod

The Compleat Invocation! Hands Down, this is the Bible of the Bizarre and should be in every aspiring Bizarrist’s Library.



Next I would go with Bizarre the Tony Andruzzi Video. You can get it from Brian Flora.



The Book of Haunted Magic, The Haunted Magic Video, and the Deceptions Video by Rick Maue.



Capricornian Tales by Christian Chelman



Life, Death, and Other Card Tricks by Robert Neale also Tricks of the Imagination.



Anything by Eugene Burger of course. Especially Spirit Theater and Strange Ceremonies.



Shock Magic Book by Andrew Mayne.



Plus read a lot of books and short stories from H.P. Lovecraft and take magic you already do and take a theme from his pages.





Just my two drachma worth,

Doug

Thanx Doug! I'm sorry the bizarre video project didn't work out(I'm one of those who backed out). Well I purchased a video camera just for the project, but did not recieve it in time to film my contribution.So please count me in for the next one, I am looking forward to contributing.

Thanx,

Ichazod

...and of course there is Eugene Poinc's book (to become books) The Practitioner, Journeys Into Grey



Tom

I was thinking about this and not only in magic books can we find the bizarre, but in Novels, T.V., and Movies as well. The Harry Potter books, The H.P. Lovecraft stories, Steven King, Ray Bradbury, and others. T.V. has some great shows on now like Dead Last, Lost Souls, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Not to mention the Movies (there are too many to list).

The whole idea of Bizarre Magic is the ability of the performer to weave a weird tale and use magic as the visual aid to prove the point of the story.

Just look around you. Get your stories in hand and then look to what you already know in sleights and effects and marry them together. Use things like the Tarot instead of playing cards, stones or other small objects instead of coins, little figurines that invoke not only a strong and strange image but also a great story (like a small statute of the Sphinx or Buddah).

Again maybe I’m stating the obvious, but many times we as magicians get so caught up in buying the next book or video on magic that we forget to be creative on our own. The mental stimulation is out there. You just have to step outside the "Magic" box to find it.

Just my 2 Drachma worth,

Doug

I just got back from Magic in the Rockies convention where I saw Eugene Burger, Lennart Green and John Carney (plus others).



Truly an amazing night! I talked with a couple of mags into Mentalism & Bizzare until 5am: Andrew Baerlocher from Salt Lake City and Stuart Hayner from Denver (an extremely knowledgeable and nice guy).



I bought a bunch of stuff from Mark Strivings (Walkaround Mentalism, To Pay the Price) who’s from Denver as well (as you probably know).



I also got Confessions of a Psychic (U. Fuller) and Pendulum Power (R. Webster).



But the conversation with Stuart and Andrew (and others who drifted thru) was great.



It was a great forum to cut thru all the material out there and to try and get a fix on what is the "best" approaches to ideas on center-tears (Owenhouse (?), billet switching, cold readings, tarot readings (McBride’s take on it, etc.), Seances (Brother Shadow), Classic Readings (L. Earle), Metal Bending (Alain Nu), etc..







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It’s All Amazing!

The Amazing Asmayly

Ichazod,



I know they say not to judge a book by its cover, but when I saw your photo in the moderators section, I said to myself "I bet this guy does bizarre magic".



I’d have to recommend Eugene Burger’s "Eugene Goes Bizarre" tape. It has some nice bizarre performances and different segments, and also teaches an easy and VERY convincing Haunted Pack. Nice video tape, you get to see a nice bizarre side of Eugene Burger. Then again...



I don’t do much bizarre magic myself. I’ve been practicing the Blockhead illusion from Shock Magic but haven’t had much success. Maybe I’ll be able to get it all the way in when it comes time to send in my contribution for the MT bizarre tape. Other than Blockhead I do a bizarre performance of John Kennedy’s Kinetic Crystal using tarot cards in place of the supplied Bicycle deck. That will also be on the bizarre tape.











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Corey

Thanx for the response Corey, I look forward to seeing you on the tape. I will be contributing also.

Ichazod

And then there's Peter Marucci's lecture notes, Bizarre Magic.

Hey, wait a minute, that's me!

Well, I'll STILL recommend the notes (e-mail me privately if you are interested).

Gene Poinc's book, The Practitioner, is a classic example of how to take basic, non-magical stories and, with the simplest of props, make a theatrical event out of them.

cheers,

Peter Marucci

showtimecol@aol.com

Hi.



You could try The Black Hart.



I have his Black Book and it has some pretty cool effects and stories

Read a couple Dean Koontz novels & you will discover bizzare real quick, this is one wacked out dude.

One NOT to get... unles you want a really good laugh. The BJ Powers Center Tear. great opening shots with graveyards and what have you... but from there it's all downhill. At one point you can hardly make out what he's saying due to the sound of a refrigerator in the background. And the 35 second "peek" is an absolute hoot! Now that IS bizarre!

When I first started magic I had a few dozen mouth coils, one day out of the blue I caught a garter snake and took it home as a pet.

Well, you can see already what came next, at my next appearence, as I finished doing the mouth coil bit I took the snake, palmed it the best I could and pulled it out of my mouth, It was a shocker to say the least.

I then added the snake to another bit which I dubbed "The Miracle Of Moses" and would take a dowel painted with stripes and handed it to a volunteer and instucted them to make it come to life like Charlton Heston did in the Ten Commandments.

They would throw the dowel onto my table and nothing would happen, I then would pick it up, slip it into my coat and take out the real snake streched straight, and set it down on the table where it would come to life.

The snake and I worked for a whole year to perfect this, and one day he just crawled away never to return to show biz. Now 30 years later people still ask if I can do the "Snake Thing".

Saydean

Hi,

You are looking for books or videos on bizarre magic?

It is difficult to recommend something because I don't know if you work close up or on stage and I don't know if you prefer séances as I do or if you do story telling.

The magazine Séance is interesting.
Magick by Bascom Jones is a classic

I get my inspiration by reading about the great spiritists and psychics of the past.

I have a 100-year-old book that describes the Davenport brother’s séance in detail. Unfortunately it is written in Swedish so it is of limited interest to you.

Yours faithfully

Dan Kirsch

I'm just loking for any references to bizarre magic. I do alot of reading of magic texts. I unfortunately don't have as much time as I used to being that it is so busy here.

My interest is in the intimate story telling bizarre magic.

Thank you all for the input.

This isn't a 'magic' book per se, but for some excellent plots, check out Malleus Maleficarum (The Witch's Hammer) written in 1489 by Fr.Henry Kramer and Fr.James Sprenger, of the Order of Preachers, Inquisitors. Juicy, juicy food for thought!

Marduke, any clues where the Witch's Hammer may be procured?

Hi Rodan,

Once I was fortunate enough to find one of the first English limited-editions ever made. I just love antiquarian bookstores!

Today I found it at a Chapters Bookstore website. 1971 edition. $21.00

Happy reading!

And don't forget the Compendium Maleficarum, which is Italian rather than German, and from later in the witch-hunting craze. Together, the "Maleficara" constitute the medieval witch-hunter's bible, and from them you can glean a pretty good picture of the Church's concept of "the witch", knowledge of which every magician, especially of the bizarre variety, can benefit from.

The Compendium, which is later, has a whole section on different kinds of magic at the beginning, including prestidigitation. Prestidigitators are presented as witches in league with the devil, who occasionally (about one time in ten) throw in something done completely by sleight of hand in order to throw you off track. Their effects are described as "illusion", though--not "real magic"--even when they are accomplished with the help of the devil.

Glancing through the numerous effects the author describes (in order to bolster the claim that witches exist) is very illuminating. Some are obviously legendary, but others are recognizably the work of our fellow medieval craftsmen.

I found both books in my local bookstore--they're often in the New Age or Wicca sections.

That's great I found both of them here in Sydney at the local New Age shop.
Thanks for the tip.