Patter: Optical Aces Assembly, Corporate Version - Mystery Entertainer Emanuel Chester

Derek Dingle's Optical Aces Assembly is a card magic routine that takes quite a bit of time, and presents several magic effects in a row. I have reconstructed his routine, and that reconstruction is available in my Inner Sanctum library. You can also view a performance of that routine by Tadashi Akimoto on YouTube.

The one thing that bothered me with mr. Akimoto's performance, is that he describes the routine step by step. I can imagine doing that in case someone is blind. But most of us aren't blind, and we don't need to have you tell us what we can see. As a matter of fact, doing so can become quite boring.

Therefore it is important to present a captivating, engaging story.

Here I will present the corporate patter I created for this particular routine. A separate patter for adult parties will appear in my Inner Sanctum library of magical secrets. Seeing how the routine requires a table top, chances are I won't be showing this in the streets.

If you don't know the routine, make sure to watch the performance by Tadashi Akimoto, and if you like, feel free to sign up for access to my library of magical secrets, to get your hands on my reconstruction.

Here goes:

"Do you know the Great Randi? The Great Randi is a magician, much like myself, but he is much more. He also is an active atheist, a critical thinker, and the instigator of the Randi Challenge.

The Randi Challenge offers a million dollars to anyone who can prove paranormal phenomena. One of the causes mr. Randi takes on is the alternative medicine practice known as homeopathy.

Mr. Randi will come unto stage munching on a blister-pack of tablets. He'll open pack after pack, and throughout his lecture he will be eating 2, maybe 3 packs of tablets.

What do those tablets contain? Sleeping agents. Homeopathic sleeping agents. Various brands, from various manufacturors. For our purpose, the jacks will play the part of the medication.

Now, one of the things homeopathists claim, is that their medication increases in potency, when it gets more diluted. That's right: the more water we add, the more potent the medication. That's their claim.

We'll reproduce that claim right here on the table. We'll dilute each sleeping pill brand 4 times. That means we need an additional 12 cards: 3 extra cards for each of the 4 already on the table. Count with me: 1, 2, 3... 10, 11, 12. I'll put the rest down here.

Now the reason for the homeopathists' claim, is that according to them, water has memory. A molecule memory. Thus even though you dilute a concoction 4 times, all of that water is said to remember the beneficial effect of the original medication.

All the water cards have a blue back. That makes it easy to remember which one is water, and which one is medication.

For clarity, let me change the back colour of the medication cards to red. And this one, and this one too.

Homeopathists go much further than we are doing here. We're only going to dilute by 4 times, but homeopathists dilute as many as a million times. That's right: a million times. That means that a single molecule of medication is spread out over a million molecules of water.

Now, let's see what that does for our concoctions. We'll add 3 parts of water to each part medication. And here (1, 2, 3), and here (1, 2, 3), and there.

Of course, we understand, that any time we dilute a medication with too much water, we lose track of where the medication actually went. Now remember, that according to homeopathist, that doesn't happen with their dilutions, because of molecule memory.

But we can clearly see here, that among these 4 cards already, we lost that blue card. Let me turn them over, and show you, that this stack no longer contains a jack.

And here too: only 3 parts of water added, and we no longer can locate the medication. Watch the face values: only low-valued cards.

Now the Great Randi actually had someone accept his challenge and perform the homeopathic dilution practice under agreed laboratory circumstances. And when the final solutions were checked, no trace of the medication was found.

Unfortunately for her, and lucky for us, this alternative so-called healer was no magician, no con-artist. For then they would have been able to use a bit of magic, and assemble all the medication into the final dilution, making that one more potent than any of the others. See? Not only are all these cards jacks again, but each of them also has the red back.

Now throughout that lecture, James Randi kept on munching on his sleeping pills. He performs that same lecture several times a year, and has done so for decades. If those pills were effective in any way, Randi's munching would result in an overdose, and he would have to be rushed to hospital and have his stomach emptied. But that has never happened.

So next time when you think about buying sleeping pills, make sure you get the real thing."

And there I created a segue to introduce whatever product my client wants me to promote as the real thing.

I hope you liked this patter. Please let me know, so I can determine whether I should publish more of the patters that I have generated over the years.

Each magician has their own performance style. What patter would befit yours?