Traditional Magic Terms - The Expert At The Card Table

"Many of the methods of card manipulation explained in this work originated with us, and we have, in describing the various processes and conditions, used certain terms for the sake of brevity, to designate the particular matters referred to. The reader desiring to follow the action intelligently must clearly understand the meaning of the terms" (Erdnase 25).

I have been performing magic for almost 7 years now. When I first got into the practice, I learned the majority of my tricks from beginner websites and YouTube videos. Due to this, I learned a lot of unofficial and non-traditional terms involved with certain illusions. Since beginning to read the book: The Expert At The Card Table, I have discovered that I have been using incorrect vocabulary to describe my tricks for a very long time. Vocabulary is very important in an art like magic - where there is so much variation and exactness. Also, to understand HOW to do many techniques in the book you need to understand Erdnase's vocabulary. So today, I am going to go over some basic and traditional magic terms that were explored in The Expert At The Card Table.

1. Stock: "The portion of the deck that contains certain cards, placed in some particular order for dealing; or certain desirable cards placed at top or bottom of the deck" (Erdnase 26). A stock will usually refer to the portion of the deck that you have stacked in any trick where it requires you to stack. For example, I can deal myself a hand of Ace, King, Queen, Jack, and Ten by placing those cards spread out a certain number of cards. If a portion is organized in a specific way to do this type of stack, that certain portion would be referred to as "the stock".

2. Jog: "A card protruding a little from any part of the deck" (Erdnase 26). A jog can also be used on multiple cards. Below is a picture example of one involving 3 cards.

From a certain angle, you wouldn't see the protruding cards and therefore could use this advantageously to know the exact position of a card/s in a deck to easily pull out, cut to, and find for the last part of a trick.

3. Break: "A space or division held in the deck" (Erdnase 26). A break is normally held with a finger or 2 and is useful in most of the situations that a jog would be useful in. Below is a picture of a break.

As you can see, a pinky and middle finger break the deck into 2 different portions for easy access to cuts in the place it splits. I could place a selected card on the top of the bottom portion, for example, and when I need to find it I could simply cut the top half of the deck to have your selected card go to the top. A break is something Erdnase goes into great detail over and it was awesome to read about the different uses it had.

4. Culls: "The desired cards" (Erdnase 27). The culls refers to any desired cards in a trick. This could be the spectator's selected card or could refer to a certain card that you are looking for like the Joker or Ace of Spades. 

5. Blind: "Any method of shuffling, riffling, or cutting, designed to appear regular but in reality retaining, or arranging , some preconceived order" (Erdnase 27). This is another name for any false shuffle. False shuffles are used in many tricks to make a deck appear randomized but actually is stacked in a very exact way designed to deceive you. They are extremely hard to pull off and due to their technicality and difficulty I will not be exploring how to do any of them. 

6. Crimp: "To bend one or a number of cards, so that they may be distinguished or located" (Erdnase 28). 

Bending a card simply makes it very easily distinguishable in a stack of cards but if bent in one corner, will make it visually exclusive to yourself and the spectator will not even know the crimp exists. 

Those were 6 card terms as well as a quick explanation of the uses of those techniques. I hoped you learned something. I sure have! I hope to improve my magic knowledge and practices now with knowledge of these terms. 

Until next time, abracadabra!

Erdnase, S. W. Expert at the Card Table: A Treatise on the Science and Art of Manipulating Cards. Chicago: Frederick J. Drake, 1905. Print.