Devin Knight - The NTE Principle

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THE NTE PRINCIPLE

Copyright © 2016 by Ron Levy & Devin Knight Magic









FORWARD Some magicians bring a springtime of creativity to their life in magic, taking existing tricks, as well as also taking ideas for tricks, and elaborating and improving these tricks to the point where other performers admire these improved effects so much that they want to buy them. Devin Knight always brings always brings his ever present “Springtime of Creativity” Creativity” with him. He is ingenious and inventive. I have brought him several tricks that had the same problem, each trick was like a seed that had sprouted green and was full of promise, yet had stopped growing into the trick that it seemed it could become. Devin Knight is a conjuring performer and effect creator, who always comes wrapped in the creative energy of an eternal springtime. He has been able to coax the partly-grown effects that I brought him to start growing again in the fertile garden of his mind. Devin then has been able to harvest the beautiful fruit from an impressive development from the little green bud of an idea. This time, the trick I brought him was an old card trick that didn’t even have a name. It had been brought to the attention of the mentalism profession by the late Robert A. Nelson in his publication: Manual of Publicity and Exploitation as a card trick that could be done over the phone. Although a good trick, Nelson did not give it a name, n ame, and he wrote that no one seemed to know who created it or first introduced it. Devin, with his vast magic knowledge, was quick to point out that the basic principle had been created by the late Bob Hummer. In the Nelson trick, we both saw the glittering possibilities of much more developed and elaborated effects. Devin achieved it! Wearing the wizard’s wizard’s robes of his creative energy and his eternal springtime, he cultivated the little green bud of an idea into a full-grown creation.

Ron Levy









INTRODUCTION Ron Levy reintroduced me to a principle that I had almost forgotten. Renowned mentalist, the late Robert A. Nelson, had used this principle as a novel publicity idea and Ron suggested I consider releasing it again as part of my magic classic series. This series consists of old forgotten ideas that need to be released again to the younger generation of magicians. Unfortunately, the Nelson trick had a flaw that could make the trick fail under certain circumstances and also had something that to me that didn’t make sense having the spectator do. I set about to eliminate the flaws and chances for failure and this is explained in this PDF. I also remembered when I was younger and performing as a psychic on the radio, that I used this principle and did an effect over the radio where hundreds of listeners were able to find their selected cards by spelling my stage name: JASON MICHAELS, which contains 13 letters, the amount needed for the principle to work. When I went back to being Devin Knight, the trick wouldn’t work because my name did not have 13 letters only 11. Since then, I have developed a new presentation that will work for everyone, regardless of their name. It based on the premise of a smart phone applied to a deck of cards, which is called a SMART DECK. The Smart Deck can can be done one-onone, over a cell phone using the speaker feature, or even on the radio with hundreds of listeners finding their selected cards in a very novel manner! Also Ron Levy, who loves tricks with alphabet decks, developed a version of this principle using Alphabet Cards which has various strong points. This makes it better, in some cases, than playing cards in my opinion. Nelson said in his w ritings that he didn’t know who invented the idea, but to the best of my knowledge, the principle was invented by the late Bob Hummer and









telephone effects involve having spectators add the value of the top and bottom cards and count down to a card at that position in the deck. Unfortunately, due to cell phones and calculators, many young adults have forgotten how to add and subtract in their heads. I have seen people on stage UNABLE to add a column of numbers. I would not want to do any trick today where someone has to add numbers; unless the person has a calculator, as there is a chance the trick will fail. Sad, but true. Magicians and mentalist are always wondering if there are tricks that can be done via e-mail. My Smart Deck can. can. You can send someone the directions via email and the trick will work itself and the recipient will be totally baffled! He will have no math problems to do as in similar effects. This is the perfect effect for email. Also, the Smart Deck makes makes for a great party piece. You can give everyone a deck of cards, (Cheap cards from a dollar store.) and let everyone in the room select a card and using the procedure; the performer finds everyone’s card at the same time. This makes for a very amusing and baffling piece of trickery. In my opinion, my Smart Deck is is one of the most novel ideas yet developed for doing magic effects over the radio. No confusion or math to do! I plan to use it for a long time to promote my shows during radio interviews. Go and do likewise.

Devin Knight









Nelson’s Telephone Effect Background:

The famous mentalist, Robert A. Nelson, in 1966, described a mentalism effect with playing cards that was intended to be done over the phone with a news reporter. This publication was reprinted by Mickey Hades Publications P ublications of Calgary. The work is entitled: Handbook entitled: Handbook of Publicity Publicity and Exploitation Exploitation . The purpose of this was for the mentalist to gain publicity by phoning a newspaper to speak with the entertainment reporter, and doing a mentalism effect over the phone, with this reporter as the participant.

THE EFFECT With Nelson on the phone with the reporter, and assuming that the reporter had a deck of playing cards, the reporter was to remove the Jokers to ensure that this deck only had 52 cards, and to first shuffle them thoroughly, and to then deal four face-down packets containing 13 cards each. The reporter was to choose any two of these 13-card face-down packets, and to put one pile to his right, and one pile to his left. At this point, the effect began. The reporter was directed to lift off almost half the cards of the right pile, and to turn the lifted-off packet to see the face of the card on the bottom, to remember it, and to place the entire lifted-off packet, facedown, on top of the left pile. Next, the reporter was to lift off almost half the face down cards of the left pile, and holding this lifted-off packet, face down, the reporter counted them dealing the top card face down onto the top of the right pile, and continuing until they were all now on top of the right right pile. (Thus reversing the packet packet of cards.)The remaining packet of cards on the left was placed face-down on the right pile, making one face-down packet containing all 26 cards. Now the reveal… The reporter is asked to think of his card, and begins turning over, from the top of the pile, one at a time, each card, and for each card turned over, the reporter











the 17th card, then say, “Stop! You reached your card earlier. It is the Ace of Diamonds.” Diamonds.” How does this work? To explain the workings, we will look at the trick as having four parts that are done in order:

Initial Preparation This is where Nelson tells the reporter to take the Jokers out of the deck, making it a deck of 52 cards and to shuffle it, then deal four face-down hands of 13 cards each. He is then to select two, and to square them up placing one face-down pile of 13 cards to his right, right, and the other pile of 13 cards to his left.

Card Selection Procedure This is where the reporter reaches for the right pile of 13 face-down cards, and picks up a smaller packet of about half the cards, turning it over to see the bottom face-up card, then turning the packet face-down, and placing it on top of the left pile. Remember, the card looked at on the bottom of the cut off smaller packet is the selected card. card.

Card Return Procedure The smaller packet cut off the right pile is now lying face down on top of the left pile. At the very bottom of this previously cut cut smaller packet packet is the chosen card. Below the selected card are now all 13 cards of the left left pile.









When this activity has concluded, the remainder of the cards in the left pile are picked up, face-down, and placed at the very top of the right-hand pile. The right pile now contains all of the 26 cards that have been part of the trick. In counting these cut off cards from the left packet onto the right pile, the order of the packet being counted this way is reversed. When the packet of about half the cards was brought over, cards at the bottom of the pile are cards from the top of the left pile. When the order is reversed; the cards from the top of the left pile go to the top of the right pile, just above the selected card. The next step is to pick up the remaining cards from the left pile on the table, and put them on top of the cards in the right pile.

Card Reveal Procedure With the procedures above, the reporter has placed before his right hand, a single pile of all 26 cards; so that the top 13 cards are all the cards from the previous left pile, while all of the 13 cards from the right pile are under these top 13 cards. The return procedure has brought the selected card to be the 14th card from the top, counting down in the 26-card pile. Counting down from the top of this pile, the reporter will find the selected card down at the position of the 14th card from the top. What Nelson did was to ask the reporter to concentrate intensely on the selected card, and to begin dealing the face-down cards from the top, and to turn each card face up, and to say the name of each card dealt aloud over the phone as he dealt it. Nelson knew that the reporter’s card was in the 14th position, but Nelson did not know what the of the card How the of the card









Nelson’s Telephone E ffect can can be done over the phone. It is a good telepathy effect. The NTE method can be b e done “live” with a participant, while the performer turns his back or wears a blindfold.

AFTERTHOUGHTS The Nelson presentation had several flaws in our opinion. First, unless the reporter had a speakerphone, he would have to lay the phone on the table while he did the dealing. It would be difficult for a reporter to hold the phone with his head and shoulder while dealing the cards. However, this is NOT a problem nowadays, if you call someone who has a cell phone, ask him to put it in speaker mode. The dealing of the cards is then very easy. The other problem was if the reporter cut off less than half of the left pile the trick would fail. You would have to tell him to cut off at least half or more of the pile to ensure the effect worked. This could be deemed suspicious by some reporters. Finally, having the reporter deal the cut off cards in reverse order made NO sense. Why not just cut them off and drop the packet on top of the right pile? I wanted a way to justify this and found a logical and practical solution explained in SMART DECK and Ron’s ALPHA KNOW effect.









SMART DECK Devin Knight This ingenious effect was developed as form of smart phones applied to a deck of cards. In this effect, you apparently turn a deck of cards into a deck that has some of the features of a smart phone. This effect can be done one on one with your back turned, or the way I use it it most, as an effect that can be done over a cell phone or smart phone. You call your friend or an entertainment reporter who has a cell phone. Have the person put the phone on the table and put it in speaker mode. Have the person get a full deck of cards and proceed with the effect. By using the built-in speaker on the cell/smart phone, it will allow allow your participant freedom freedom to use both hands during during the effect. However, the main reason I developed this was to do it over the radio. Radio interviews can be a gold mind to promote your act. It is a lot easier to get on a radio show if you can tell the producer or host that you will perform a trick over the radio where you fin d hundreds or even thousands of people’s selected cards. This sounds intriguing and will almost ensure you a spot on one of their talk shows. I will give you the full script for doing this over the radio, complete with the pauses and what to do during station breaks. In my opinion, this effect for the radio is worth more than the price you paid for this PDF. This effect is worth thousands of dollars in publicity and airtime for those who use it.









The same spiel is done at the start of the show; you will not normally be there at the start of the show, but only have a short spot on the show. The host should tell his audience at the start of the show, that you will be on later and will do an unbelievable card trick over the radio. He should instruct everyone who has a full deck of cards at home to get them and have a table handy to deal some cards on. By doing this, it will ensure those at home will have the cards ready when you come onto the show. If they have to go looking for a deck of cards when you come on, they may miss some of the directions. Assume the host has just introduced you, Thank him for having you on the show and again say in a few minutes you will attempt to find a selected card at home for thousands of people who want to participate. Tell the listeners again if they haven’t gotten a full deck of cards in front of them, to go get a deck somewhere in the house. To give people time, you and the host talk a few minutes about your career or an upcoming performance. After a few minutes of chit-chat, tell the listening audience that a lot people don’t know this, but the new playing cards are smart cards. Just as a smart phone and you will let them prove it at home! Tell them to do this, they have to choose a suit color, either red or black, and remove all the cards of that color and put them in a face-down pile in front of them. Remind them to spread through the remaining cards and make sure any cards of that color haven’t been been missed. By having the at home audience do this, you











If a commercial break is not possible, then continue chatting with the host to give the audience time to remove all the cards of one color. Do not rush the effect; you have to ensure that the audience at home has time to do what you ask. Once you think the audience has had enough time to get a deck and remove all the cards of one color, then proceed with the effect. NOTE: If there are two people in the household, let each person take a different color. One takes the blacks and the other takes the reds. They can both do the trick at the same time and both will be amazed. PROCEDURE

Ask everyone at home to pick up their pile of cards (either red or black) and shuffle them, then to deal the cards into two face-down piles. Tell them to deal one card to their left, then one card to their right, and repeat the procedure until all the cards have been dealt into two piles. While the listeners are doing this, explain that new playing cards are









Have them pick up the entire left pile and hold it face down in dealing position. Explain that they need to program the cards to know and remember the position of all the cards in use for this effect. With smart phones you normally speak into the microphone, but with smart cards you need to spell out the command so the deck understands. Say this tongue-in-cheek. Tell them they are going to spell out the command: LOCATE POSITION and to please deal one card face down on top of the right pile one card at a time as you spell. Tell them the first word we spell is: LOCATE and to deal one card for each letter as you spell: L-O-C-A-T-E (The magician then slowly spells the word.) Tell them the second word we spell is: POSITION and to deal one card for each letter as you spell: P-O-S-I-T-I-O-N (The magician then slowly spells the word.) This overcomes the problem in the original Nelson trick; it ensures the person cate P ositi si tio on. This also takes more than half of the left pile by spelling: L ocate logically reverses the cards. For the Nelson trick to work, the person had to cut off and reverse at least 14 cards. The spelling of the two words will reverse









Tell the people that to have the deck find their card; they need only spell the command: FIND MY CARD NOW. They are to take the top card of the pile in their hand and deal it FACE DOWN on the table in front of them. Tell them the first word to spell is: FIND and to deal one card for each letter as you spell: F-I-N-D (The magician then slowly spells the word.) Tell them the second word to spell is: MY and to deal one card for each letter as you spell: M-Y (The magician then slowly spells the word.) Tell them the third word to spell is: CARD and to deal one card for each letter as you spell: C-A-R-D. (The magician then slowly spells the word.) Tell them the fourth word to spell is: NOW and to deal one card for each letter as you spell: N-O-W. Unknown, to the listeners, their card is now on top of the face-down deck. Have everyone tap the top card of the pile and turn it over. It will be the selected card! Invite the listeners to call the radio station if they found their card. The switchboard will light up and the host should let the listening public know you found everyone’s cards.









ALPHA KNOW Ron Levy

I love tricks with Alphabet Cards. Devin Knight and I recently released my Psychic Word Prediction using an alphabet deck and it is still available from Lybrary.com. th

Since the English alphabet contains 26 letters and the 14 card principle needs 26 cards, it dawned on me that giving a spectator 26 alphabet cards would be a perfect way for a spectator to wind up with 26 cards without the lengthy dealing of four piles of 13 cards from a regular deck of playing cards. To do this effect, remove the 26 letters A-Z from a regular alphabet deck. I like to carry the 26 alphabet cards around in the card case that the deck came in. That way all you have to do is remove the cards from the case and hand them to your participant. TO PERFORM









left pile he is holding onto the top of the right pile on the table. Have him spell the following sentence; I AM MIXING CARDS as follows, dealing one card for each letter: I-A-M-M-I-X-I-N-G-C-A-R-D-S. I recommend as in the smart deck, say one word at a time so there is no confusion. I (have person spell), AM (have person spell), MIXING (have person spell), CARDS (have person spell). I suggest for you to spell the sentence aloud, so there is no mistake in spelling. The participant is told to deal one card for each letter you say. Tell your participant the sentence, then have him deal the cards on top of the right pile as you say each letter. The sentence contains 14 letters and in spelling the sentence it will ensure that at least half of the cards are put on top of the right pile. Spelling the sentence ensures no failure and automatically reverses the cards in a logical manner. Next, have him shuffle the remaining packet of cards in his hands , then drop them on top of the pile on the table. Tell him that he has mixed the cards in two different ways and that no one should know where his letter is in the pile on the table.











Afterthoughts I like this a lot. It gets away from the tedious dealing of an entire deck of playing cards to get four piles of 13, 1 3, as in the original Nelson effect. Ron’s use of 26 alphabet cards is a stroke of genius and is perfect for those performers who want to shy away from playing cards as appearing to just be a clever card trick. Of course, this cannot be done over the phone with a reporter, because only magicians and mentalists have alphabet decks, but that is OK. This was designed as a trick to do one on one for a friend; however, it could be done in a small party show. You can buy alphabet decks from magic dealers. Here is a link to buy one









Psychic Word Revelation Is Still Available From Lybrary.Com









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Nothing written down ever No skill required No gimmicks or secret peeks Requires two alphabet decks

Your spectators have probably never seen the original Annemann effect performed. This will be a new mentalism effect to your spectators. You will need to get some Alphabet Alpha bet cards from a magic dealer, otherwise nothing else to buy, except this secret. 1st edition 2016, 17 pages.

12.00

Here is the link to buy direct from Lybrary.com

Devin Knight - The NTE Principle

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