Magical Originalities
Ernest E. Noakes
Previous | Next | Contents
The Educated DialMY METHOD of working the "Dial" trick will, I think, interest those readers who like to "have" their audience occasionally. My dial is rather a large one, and swings on a trapeze supported in a square frame. This permits the hand to work whilst the dial is swinging. I take the hand from the pivot and ask for a number. The hand is replaced and spun, and of course stops at the desired number. This is repeated once or twice, and then asking for another number, I purposely set the hand for a wrong number. Commenting upon the fact that my dial "never told a lie," I place the hand on the pivot and spin it. When it stops I say it has stopped at the desired number. Of course the audience say it is wrong! When sufficiently worked up, you ask "what the number was," and on being informed again, you tell the dial you are surprised at it, and slowly the hand goes right round the figures once and then stops at the correct number.
The effects of the "Dial" trick being so well known, I shall not dwell upon them, but in my working, Mrs. Noakes is my hidden assistant. We really introduce our Silent Thought Transmission Act, but of course the dial gives the answers.
The spindle upon which the hand turns is connected to a small pulley at the back of the glass, see drawing. The hand I use is the "weighted principle." This permits me to give one or two ordinary effects, and lead up to a little bit of misdirection with the wrong number. When I replace the hand for this occasion, I lock it on to the spindle by means of a bush or small piece of metal which is pressed on to the point of the spindle, causing the hand to be squeezed against the stop, and thereby making it a fixture on the spindle. After I have exhibited the dial to the audience, I quietly engage the thread under the pulley wheel at the back of the spindle on the back of the dial, and the thread method then comes into play.
My method for harnessing up is as follows. Behind the two top corners of the square stand, I have a small screw-eye, and the thread is placed through one eye, looped under pulley, and led up to the other screw-eye, and the two ends of the thread are led behind a screen or other cover. When the trick commences the pulley has the thread round it, and when I lift the dial from the trapeze, I lift it upwards, and the loop of the thread hangs ready for when I replace the dial. I, of course, see that the thread is properly engaged and ready to start, as per drawing. The dial tells details of cards, coins, a throw of dice, and answers the usual questions.
I remember when I performed this trick at St. George's Hall on 26th March 1907, on the occasion of the Annual Grand Seance of the Magic Circle, that the audience of magicians and their friends considered it a very puzzling performance, as thev tºad no idea that the dial was in league with anything connected with "Thought Transmission." No doubt the great success of the trick on that occasion was due to combining the three principles, a weighted hand, the thread method, and the fact that Mrs. Noakes was supplying the dial with its invisible knowledge and power.
Reference to the drawings will at once show the methods described.
Previous | Next | Contents