Elevate Your Magic Skills with the Pom Pom Stick Trick

The pom pom stick magic trick is a classic magic trick that is easy to perform and always leaves the audience amazed. With just a few simple steps, you can make it appear as though a small pom pom has magically vanished from a stick, only to reappear moments later. To perform the pom pom stick magic trick, you will need a stick or rod, preferably one that is long and thin, and a small pom pom. Begin by holding the stick in one hand, with the palm facing up. Place the pom pom on top of the stick, making sure that it is centered. To start the trick, simply raise the stick slightly by applying pressure with your fingers.

To start the trick, simply raise the stick slightly by applying pressure with your fingers. As you do this, make sure to keep the pom pom hidden from the audience's view. This slight movement will cause the pom pom to slide down the stick and into your hand, which is positioned underneath.

London magic works rising trick

Does anyone know if the workings for
Hooker's Rising Cards have ever been printed
in a book?

Thanks in advance,
dabru

Johnny Gaughan presently owns the original Dr. Hooker Rising Cards. The secrets, for there are many involved, are not written down in any published source. Only John and his crew know exactly how it works.

I spoke to John about this at the last Magic Collectors' Weekend, and he says that it may not ever be performed again. The original setup was actually built into Dr. Hooker's house. It takes Johnny and his crew almost a whole day to set the thing up. Everything must be perfectly aligned or various parts of it will not work at all.

So, there's the sad story.

The Dr. Hooker rising cards will remain a mystery for at least a while longer.

BTW, the late Jay Marshall was one of the few who knew the whole thing.

Founder of CODBAMMC

My Chickasaw name is "Throws Money at Cups."

I just read in the August 07 Genii,
in Richard K's column, that a private
performance of Hooker's effect will be given
soon in Los Angles. Tickets are to be $100 each
for the eighteen minute performance, and the whole
affair is a pre-cursor to a convention.

John was considering that at the Collectors' Weekend. This will be for the LA Conference on Magic History. I'm still trying to get into that one. There is a waiting list for attendees.

I'd pay $100 to see it.

Founder of CODBAMMC

My Chickasaw name is "Throws Money at Cups."

Lybrary.com will release this October an ebook about Dr. Samuel Cox Hooker and his rising cards, written and researched by Chris Wasshuber (that's me). This ebook has been 3 years in the making and includes the following sections:

- a detailed explanation with photos of three other famous card rise apparatus: Hofzinser, Neyhart and Joseffy.
- a personal profile of Hooker which goes beyond what has been published so far in the various magic magazines
- my theory of how it is done. I have spent three years researching this effect, discussing it with other notable and not so notable magicians, finding hidden artifacts at collectors who have parts of Hooker's extensive magic collection.
- personal notes of Gene Matsuura after he saw the 1993 performance by Gaughan. Gene's notes are the most detailed and most objective description of what happened, revealing several unpublished clues and hints of how it is done.
- a letter by the grandson of Hooker explaining how the apparatus ended up with Gaughan
- fairly exhaustive reproduction of articles and letters relating to Hooker from The Sphinx, Billboard, Pallbearers Review, The Fine Art of Hocus Pocus etc.

This will be the most detailed work on Samuel Hooker and his rising cards ever published. The ebook is about 100 letter sized pages with photos and illustrations and will be exclusively available at Lybrary.com. For more details please check the website and the free newsletter at http://www.lybrary.com/

I'm sure Gaughan like many others considers your release of a book claiming to tip the effect, timed to precede the upcoming LA performances as severely lacking in taste.

The Hooker story minus the portions of the book claiming to tip the effect would be fine, but you're tipping (if you're even close to being right) an effect that isn't yours to tip.

What's next Chris, guessing how David Copperfield does some of his effects and publishing an eBook tipping them?

Silverking, if you would know a bit more about Hooker and why he created his rising cards you would understand the spirit of the ebook a lot better. Allow me to explain.

But first a comment. The ebook has been in the works for 3 years. That Gaughan has decided to do another performance is a coincidence. Of course, it is a fortunate coincidence for the release of the ebook but it wasn't planned that way. I had the Hooker ebook scheduled for a release this year without knowing that any performances are planned.

Now to the 'tipping' or 'method' which you find in such bad taste. I am citing from the upcoming ebook:

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Samuel Hooker created his rising cards to stimulate magicians to think and come up with their own solutions and explanations and through that process of inquiry to develop new methods and techniques. As a scientist this is a very natural way of learning. Nature exposes us to all kinds of mysteries, questions and puzzles and scientists try to explain them. They conduct experiments and think logically about them to advance their understanding of nature. Fundamentally scientists are driven by nature’s secrets and want to understand and explain them. In the same way Hooker is presenting magicians with a mystery and he is asking us to think about ways how it could be done.
This ebook was written with this very spirit in mind. It is my attempt to make sense of what I have read about Hooker’s rising cards. Perhaps it stimulates others to also think hard about new ways to achieve such effects. I have communicated with other magicians, some of them notable and recognized, who have developed their own theories about how Hooker did it. This lead to exciting and stimulating exchanges of ideas and critiques – exactly the kind of effect Hooker wanted to achieve with his “Impossibilities”.
----------------------------------------

This means my ebook is certainly not in bad taste. If I would have not had researched Hooker for years and already written big parts of it then you might have a point, but this is not at all the case.

Chris, ALL your posts related to this topic over on the Genii forum have been deleted by the moderators as being blatantly in bad taste, hunting as you were for the methods behind the Hooker Card Rise.

I stand by my original statement, your explanation as to why it's OK for you to tip the effect is gobbledygook, and makes no sense.

You've done research which you hope will lead you to the method behind the Hooker Card Rise, which you plan on tipping in your upcoming book.

Gaughan OWNS the the original effect, have you asked him for permission to tip it?

I am not tipping the method because I do not know how it is performed. I am describing how I think it could be performed, exactly what Hooker wanted us to do. Actually, I don't really care too much how it really is done. What is exciting to me is to come up with ways to do it in the boundaries of the effect. And that very exploration has led me to ideas how to do a much better close-up card rise method. Very much in the spirit of Dr. Hooker.

Since I am certainly free to write about my theory how it is done there is no need for me to ask anybody. And all the other contributions in the ebook are with explicit permission from people and organizations like the Magic Circle London, John Booth, the Hooker family, Gene Matsuura, Ken Klosterman, Bill McIlhany, Volker Huber, Richard Hatch, and on and on.

Richard Kaufman to this day was not man enough to tell me why he removed my posts at his forum. But he has written me emails with four letter words. These were the only things in bad taste here. And that just for asking background questions on Hooker and other card rise apparatus? You gotta be kidding me. I am not the one who needs a reality check.

Aha, so you think only Gaughan or Steinmeyer are allowed to write a book on Samuel Hooker. That's very interesting. You will be quite alone with this opinion but you are certainly free to have it.

From the rapid deletion of your Hooker Card Rise posts over on the Genii forum I'm far from alone in my thoughts on what you're doing. but that's a very nice bait and switch attempt nonetheless.

Chris, by your own words you're NOT writing a book JUST about Samuel Hooker, you're writing a book about Samuel Hooker AND tipping the Hooker Card Rise to the best of your ability.

If you're accurate in your tipping of the effect then it will be a well deserved "shame on you", if however you're miles off base I'd hope Gaughan would publicly state that fact. either way your ability to enjoy the fish from John's pond is compromised, as it should be.

BTW, there are lots of folks who read your Genii posts before they were deleted and know you were looking for more than just background information.

Wasn't this issue covered in the Prestige story about getting ones hands dirty to accomplish what one sets out to do?

Anyone who wants to know about that trick can ask the family, and reading between the lines in a Genii article. it appears that the guy, his family and the magic community at the time were not so amused about the thing.

But still, gaffing a room to do a card trick. is cute.

points for the decor at the time and real sorry to see this weird impractical and fussy thing is not published after all that time.

Is anyone offering anything to the family beyond a razz for not cashing in on that thing instead of leaving the entire room (walls/floor) in the barn?

The deletion of my Genii posts only means that one other person agrees with you, namely Kaufman. His manners are deplorable so he doesn't count for me. I can show you a whole folder full of emails from magicians who support what I do. That includes some of the biggest names in magic today.

I am not a native speaker but 'tipping' implies that you know how it is done. I don't know how it is done and most likely will never know how it is done. However, I can try to recreate the same effect with methods I know or come up with. It is then up to every reader to agree or not agree with my method.

I would assume that most have done this themselves. You get a magic catalog and read about a wonderful effect. Not knowing the method you try to think about ways to achieve the same effect. This happens all the time, is quite natural to do, and is completely above board. As Samuel Hooker wrote, it is what we should do constantly to advance magic. Otherwise we will stand still and not advance our methods.

What I posted on the Genii forum is called research. There are hundreds of such posts on the Genii forum. None of them has been deleted. Many have contacted me with very helpful information and have shared their insights and thoughts. After all this ebook is a collaborative effort of a fairly large group of people.

Silverking wrote: ". if however you're miles off base I'd hope Gaughan would publicly state that fact. "

If you would think a bit about what you write then it should occur to you that whatever Gaughan says in respect to the method cannot be taken for granted. Gaughan has been sworn to secrecy and therefore cannot say anything about the method, not even if it is incorrect, because he would then eliminate possible methods narrowing down on the actual method. Why would he not just say it is wrong even though it might be right? There is no way for me to prove the accuracy of my method except recreating the performance, which I have no intention nor means of doing.

Wasshuber knows very well why he was banned from the Genii Forum--he's playing dumb.

Now let me ask all of you a question, would you buy a book on a subject written by someone who has also just written this: "I don't know how it is done and most likely will never know how it is done."

What the hell is that about? That's like saying that I'm writing a book about card technique, but I don't know anything about card technique and I can't do any card tricks!

I'd strongly suggest that all of you save your money and wait for the real book on Hooker that will inevitably come out at some point in the future, written by people who know what's going on rather than someone who's fantasizing about something he's never even seen.

Kaufman takes a line I wrote out of context. What it means is that I will never know for sure if my method is the correct one. My method is my best guess at how it works. It might or might not be the method Hooker devised.

But the ebook on Hooker will have a lot more than my theory of how it is done. For starters it will have the most complete treatment of the Hofzinser, Neyhart and Joseffy card rise apparatus published so far. This section alone will be worth the price of the ebook. It has contributions by some of the most notable collectors alive today.

Then you get a profile of Samuel Hooker much more detailed than anything published before in a magic magazine or book. This includes information directly from Hooker's relatives as well as his scientific achievements.

Then you will get a fairly complete set of reproductions of articles from a variety of sources. Sure, if you spend many hours you could find some of these yourself, but there is also unpublished information which you would have a hard time locating.

And do you really think that a Hooker book by Gaughan or Steinmeyer would tip the method? No of course not because they have sworn secrecy, otherwise Gaughan would not have received the apparatus from the Hooker family. This is all detailed in a letter that you can read in my ebook. Even Steinmeyer himself in an email to me admitted that he cannot write about the method. So make your choice. Either a book about Hooker alone without any hint at how it is being done. Or an ebook about Hooker, other famous card rises, and my best guess at how it is done.

Silverking and Kaufmann are not alone in feeling that you shouldn't tip what you think is the method in e-print.

I feel the same way.

However, you are free to speculate. And nobody can stop you.

Founder of CODBAMMC

My Chickasaw name is "Throws Money at Cups."

Wasn't this issue covered in the Prestige story about getting ones hands dirty to accomplish what one sets out to do?

As the pom pom is hidden in your hand, you can use your other hand to create misdirection. Wave it over the stick, perhaps muttering a magic word or phrase, to draw attention away from your hand that is secretly holding the pom pom. This misdirection will help to sell the illusion and make the trick more convincing. Once you have created enough misdirection, you can reveal the pom pom's disappearance. Slowly lower the stick back down, showing that the pom pom has seemingly vanished. This moment of surprise is crucial, as it adds to the mystery and amazement of the trick. To make the pom pom reappear, you simply need to reverse the steps. Raise the stick again, this time with the hidden pom pom in your hand, and lower it back down. As you do this, release the pom pom from your hand and let it fall onto the stick. This action will create the illusion that the pom pom has magically materialized out of thin air. When performing the pom pom stick magic trick, it is important to practice and perfect your sleight of hand. The smoother and more natural your movements are, the more convincing the trick will be. Remember to always maintain confidence and showmanship while performing, as this will help to draw in your audience and make the trick more entertaining. In conclusion, the pom pom stick magic trick is a simple yet mesmerizing illusion that can be easily performed by anyone. With a bit of practice and showmanship, you can captivate your audience and leave them wondering how you made that pom pom vanish and reappear..

Reviews for "Leveling Up Your Magic Repertoire: Pom Pom Stick Trick"

1. Jane - 2 stars - I was really disappointed with the Pom pom stick magic trick. The concept seemed fun at first, but the execution was lacking. The pom poms kept getting stuck to the stick, making it difficult to perform any impressive tricks. Additionally, I found the instructions to be unclear and it took me a while to figure out how to use the product properly. Overall, I wouldn't recommend it as there are better magic tricks available on the market.

2. Mike - 1 star - The Pom pom stick magic trick was a complete waste of money. The sticks were poorly made and broke easily after just a few uses. The pom poms also seemed cheap and lost their fluffiness after a short period of time. I also found the tricks to be underwhelming and not as impressive as depicted in the product description. Save your money and look for a better magic trick elsewhere.

3. Sarah - 2 stars - I had high hopes for the Pom pom stick magic trick, but it fell short of my expectations. The pom poms were difficult to attach securely to the stick, which made it challenging to perform any tricks without them constantly falling off. The trick itself was also fairly basic and didn't wow anyone I performed it for. I was hoping for a more captivating and professional-looking magic trick, but unfortunately, this product didn't deliver.

4. Mark - 1 star - The Pom pom stick magic trick was a total letdown. The stick itself was flimsy and poorly constructed, making it difficult to handle and perform any impressive tricks. The pom poms were also lackluster and didn't add any wow factor to the trick. I would advise against purchasing this product if you're looking for a quality magic trick that will dazzle your audience.

Marvelous Manipulations: The Pom Pom Stick Magic Trick Explained