I've been into mentalism as a hobby for many years now. This year I've pushed myself to perform for more people. I own several outlaw pieces but not much of what would be considered bizarre (sanctum II I own).

I'm looking to add one truly bizarre new effect. Cuss Cards are currently top of my list. My criteria are it needs to be baffling, but also engaging. I like the idea of ritual based effects. I do palm and tarot readings too and my persona is that of a modern day wizard/sage/fate manipulator.

Recommendations?

I'll let those who know the Bizarre stuff best give you lots of great ideas. I'll just add that since you're already looking at the Cuss Cards (great choice!), why not check out Alchemical Artifactum and Happy Families? All of these are brought to us courtesy of Mr. Gould, and in the case of AA and HF, you get tools for your own routines...these can be applied to most ESP and Playing card routines (respectively), and I think AA in particular would fit your persona very well.

Going by what you describe your persona as, may I suggest hedge tarote. it is based off all the criteria you listed and can also be used to authenticate your persona. it not only does magic it can be used in magick as well giving full in depth readings.

Hi Migwar,

I'm in the same boat as you, I've been doing mentalism as a hobbyist performing for family, friends etc. and I've recently made the jump to a more darker theme.

My first suggestion is don't think of bizarre as a type of trick, it's all about the presentation. Most bizarre effects are regular magic/mentalism tricks wrapped up around a spooky premise.

There's a great free ebook you can download from Craig Browning on bizarre magic. Also get his free seance ebook too. There are no tricks just information and resources on what bizarre magic is and should be presented.
http://www.lulu.com/shop/p-craig-brownin......655.html

Besides all that, everything espkeith and Michael had said is a good starter along with Outlaw's lun@ and wa booktests and anything from Lebanon Circle is great too. Freddie Valentine has a collection of ebooks called Occult Magic ( I don't own them but I've heard good thing)

But please read over those free ebooks first, it will help you a lot on your journey.

Cheers,
Allan

Thanks all. AA and HT are great suggestions. I'm not completely sold on AA as I do use ESP cards with pendulum divination so I'm not sure how much value I would get from them. In the future when finances aren't so tight I might dive into those.

Allan great advice. Its something I already knew but I always need reminding I'm going to go through my existing stuff first and see If I can polish up some bizzare gems. I now have those ebooks, too.

Thanks all

Actually, I think that the AA cards would work even better with a pendulum divination than standard ESP. There are a few reasons for this, mainly:
1) You can go further with your divination by making use of the reading system built into the AA cards.
2) The m**rks are among the best/easiest I've seen amongst all the ESP card sets I own(my 2 cents).
3) The AA cards are major attention-getters just sitting on the table.

Are they cheap? Definitely not. Worth every dollar/pound? Absolutely.

A must if you want ideas on how to rework some of the effects that you might already have is Tales of enchantment by Walt Anthony. I cannot praise it enough!

I was going to suggest the same thing as Allan. It's all about how you frame it. More than in any other kind of magic, I think, bizarre work depends so much on the story. For me, I tend to think first "What do I want to happen?" And then "What can I use to make it happen?" Story first, effect second.