PUBLISHER’S FOREWORD TO THE CARDISTE So you want to create miracles doing card magic? Well, you need to learn three things - only three - and then you can do real card fantasies and call yourself a cardiste. Before we reveal these requirements, we ask you to think of some of the card miracles that have stood the test of time. OUT OF THIS WORLD, PREMONITION, ROYAL MARRIAGES, FULL DECK SPELLER, MENTALO CARDOLOGY and many more come to mind. What is the power behind these memorable card effects? They encompass the three ingredients we mentioned earlier. The ingredients are not super sleight-of-hand, amazing mathematical skills or tiring your audience out with an overload of card tricks. They are: Stacked decks, Faro shuffles and Professional presentations. Many cardistes, like Cy Stebbins for instance, have made an enviable living with a stacked deck. Others, like Paul Curry, Alex Elmsley and Max Malini built their reputations on card magic in which stacked decks played an important part. Just the thought of making a perfect Faro prevents many card men from learning to do it. It seems like the many hours of practicing to weave cards perfectly to achieve amazing results is just not worth the bother. And so we have hundreds of thousands of magicians doing card tricks and only a few performing real card miracles. Some of these miracles are based on a simple stacking of the cards and a novel presentation. They decided at some point in their career to stack decks and do the Faro Shuffle. If you follow the progression of Russell Duck’s awakening to the benefits of stacked decks and the Faro Shuffle as you read his magazine, The Cardiste, you will learn how his obsession for perfection in cardistry affected others in the field. It shows the real love he held for cards and his desire to rise to the top level of a "cardiste". Whatever your personal intentions may be, you will do well to read and study the material in this book, both for historic enlightenment and for the fabulous card magic therein. The Publishers ABRAXAS PUBLICATIONS Click here to return Cardist web page