Hooker Rising Cards

Some facts, some thoughts, a theory

Part I
Carlo Morpurgo

The goal of these notes is to merely attempt to produce a reasonable explanation of some
of the effects in the “Dr. Hooker’s Impossibilities” reenactment by John Gaughan, as
witnessed by me on Nov. 2nd 2007 1 . At first, rather than just presenting my solutions to
single effects, I would like to try to reconstruct some of the basic principles based on
some “extra details” I observed during the performance. Later I will try to show how this
partial reconstruction can be fitted, or “worked around” to explain the majority of the
effects.

Main assumption. There is at least one assistant in the back stage behind the drapes, most
likely two 2 . One of them is operating the bear’s head, the other one is dealing with the
houlette and actual card rise effects, or else one single assistant is handling everything.
The bear is used for communication with the assistant(s).

Observed facts. (As I recall them, and not necessarily in chronological order).

1. During some of the effects the front card (the one visible to the audience, inside the
houlette) was occasionally at different heights.

2. Jim Steinmeyer is standing near the stage, on the right.

3. John Gaughan tilts the houlette slightly while placing it on the table, as in a motion
of insertion into a specific spot.

4. Before the “Queen’s arrival”, John splits the deck in a few packets and asks the
spectators in the front row to shuffle them. On his way back to the stage John turns
his back to the audience completely, and the deck disappears from view. In other
instances John instead keeps the deck in view while going back to the stage,
explicitly mentioning that he does so to make sure nothing is done to the deck.

5. In “Follow Your Leader”, the spectator in front row is told by John to raise and lower
her arm a bit faster.

1
At the time of this writing I had not acquired any new information regarding the performance, with the exception of
Bill Palmer who confirmed fact 12 below, which I had also observed; I asked him if he had noted that as well.

2
This assumption is also made in Chris Wasshuber’s book “Samuel Cox Hooker and his Rising Cards”,
Lybrary.com, 2007.
6. In “Mystery Deepens” Jim (standing near the stage) reminds John to cover the
houlette with a “booklet”, or panel. The effect is not of rising card, as is described in
other articles. A card is chosen by a spectator, and then spotted by counting exactly
how many cards there are in front of it (I guess a version of “Miltiades III”).

7. In “Positive Test”, the deck is thoroughly examined and shuffled by a spectator in the
front row, card is selected, signed, reversed, put back in the deck, adjacent cards
noted. But the card could not be found. John takes the deck back, asks if the card was
actually reversed, on his way back to the stage gives the deck an extra cut or two, in
overhand shuffle. Then the reversed card rises from the deck.

8. In “Seeing is believing”, cards are called to rise. Cards are called by audience
members in loud voice and promptly.

9. In the “Front card rises”, during the early part of the rise there was a small gap
between the lower edge of the card and the deck. Such gap diminished as the card
went up.

10. John asks for three cards, again cards are called loud and clear.

11. John is setting up “And Still the Mystery Grows”, by taking the three little “glasses”,
and placing them on the table. Jim Steinmeyer realizes that something is wrong; he
gets nervous, grimaces. At some point a Jack jumps out of the houlette. John says
“Oh this must be the jumping deck”, and acknowledges that he “went ahead of
himself”, a few times.

12. John starts another effect, namely the “Conquest of the air” (card rising under the
glass dome). The card (another Jack) does not descend back into the deck, but rather
stops before entering, leaving perhaps half an inch of space between it and the deck,
still floating. The dome is removed and the card slightly wiggled by John to free it
from whatever was holding it.

13. The book effect “And Still the Mystery Grows”, is performed, placing the houlette,
with another deck inside, on top of a “book” resting on three small “glasses”. John
does not call for 3 new cards, but uses the previously called cards. The first rises
from the houlette on top of the book. The second and third from the suspended
houlette. I noticed a slight hesitation by John, immediately before pushing the
houlette for a swing.

14. In the “Midnight Frolic”, the last few cards get a bit stuck half way.
Main Principle

Instead of telling right away what I believe the main ideas are, I’d rather tell the process
that lead me to them. Note that I am only focusing here on the card rising effects, not the
ones related to the bear. I tried to focus on the houlette at all times, considering the bear
merely a distraction.

First, we know that at least in one effect, “Positive Test”, the reversed card must be
spotted from within the deck, then raised. Second, in another effect “Mystery Deepens”,
the cards in front of the chosen card are actually counted, while covered by the booklet,
which most likely has a mirror on the back.

These facts strongly suggest (and almost imply) a mechanism designed to control
individual cards, so that the assistant can either spot the reversed card (by looking at it
from behind the drapes), or count cards until the chosen card is seen. The idea of having a
mechanism inside the table that allows to push individual cards out from each of the 52
positions is too far fetched. I do not believe it was technically possible back then to
achieve such results with reasonably small margins of error. In fact, I do not think it’s
possible today. Also, if that was the case, then we certainly would have heard at some
point in the past about an effect of type “X cards are called, and those X cards rise and
stay all raised”. To achieve this it would have been enough to use a stacked deck with
each card in positions known to the assistant. Instead it has always been done with X=1,
or else “X is called, and X cards rise, whatever they are (and stay all raised)”.

Then I started thinking about fact 1. What was the reason why the front card was at
slighly different heights at different times? Could this be related to the “spotting
process”, and if so, how? For a while I thought of spotting the cards by raising them from
below, but then it hit me that another option is available, namely dropping individual
cards from either the front or the back of the deck, taking advantage of gravity. Aside
from the actual mechanics that will achieve such result, the idea is this: have a
mechanism slightly lift the whole deck, or just a good portion of it, and slowly drop
individual cards from the back, or from the front, until the selected card is spotted.

Then there is the question on how to make the spotted card rise, and the “Card March”
idea comes into place: rubber covered rollers. In the “Positive test”, after the reversed
card is seen, small rubber rollers on top of the houlette are squeezing the upper portion of
the deck, back and front, (without touching the dropped portion) and are activated by a
motor operated by the assistant, which causes the reversed card to rise. With this method
the raised card can be picked up, or the whole deck with the raised card can be picked up
(and it actually was) by quickly readjusting the lower levels of the two portions of the
deck (easily done in a motion of lifting the deck from the houlette with a finger from
below).
In the “Mystery deepens”, the booklet has a mirror on the hidden side, so that the
assistant can see the cards. This time the whole deck is lifted as before but higher, and the
cards are dropped from the front, and counted until the selected card is actually seen in
the mirror by the assistant, from behind the drapes. At this point the selected card could
be actually raised further in order to be seen by the audience (but it was not done this
time) simply by activating the front rollers in the reversed direction.

As far as the actual mechanism that would allow lifting the deck and dropping the cards, I
initially thought of a v-shaped flat surface, placed at the center of the lower edge of the
deck, so that the deck would be lifted by this object. By widening the angle of the “v”
the point would retreat making each card drop down. I actually tried this with a deck of
cards, holding it inside its case and sliding it slowly on top of the blade of an exacto-
knife. I also thought that a round “tip” with high radius would be even better, as the
support for the second card down would be higher.

It then occurred to me that one can do away with such mechanism, and do everything,
and more efficiently, with just the rollers on top, and a mechanism that lifts them by a
small fixed height. Imagine two rollers on each side, on top, two rollers in front and two
rollers in back, still on top, along the edges. In the picture below I sketched roughly the
relative positions of four visible rollers on top of the deck; the other two are placed
symmetrically in the back (deck is vertical):

The side rollers apply enough force on the sides, and are lifted, together with the deck
and the back and front rollers, by a small fixed amount (causing the slight raise of the
front card). The deck is constantly and gently squeezed by the front and back rollers. If
the back rollers start rolling the back card down, it will soon be dropped (after the upper
edge goes below the side roller grip first, and the back rollers grip afterwards), and the
back rollers are already in touch with the next card in the deck. For this to work of
course the roller system with deck must be lifted sightly more than the distance between
the back roller and the upper edge (which is exaggerated in the picture).

Continuing in this fashion, the cards can be dropped down one by one with clockwork
precision, until one card is spotted, or until a given amount of dropped cards is counted.
At that moment the back (or front) rollers start rolling the other way and the desired card
rises, giving the impression that it rises from the middle of the deck (especially after
pulling out the deck with the raised card). Note that only ONE card is rolled up or down,
if there is the right amount of pressure from side rollers.
 To try at home, I just grabbed a good deck, took one card off, reversed it and put it in
somewhere in the middle. Then I lifted the deck from the case by about one inch, holding
it firmly by the top sides between the right thumb and the middle finger, and started
dropping the cards one by one with a left finger, until I reached the reversed card, which I
then raised. We could call this a “Minimal Hooker Card Rise”, done with bare hands and
a deck to show the basic principle, which I think is behind the effect.

Note that the lift/drop method might work up to a certain point down the deck, as the
remaining cards will not withstand well the pressure of the side rollers (just think of a
single card for example). This could explain the failure of the first attempt in finding the
reversed card, i.e. fact 7, and the extra cut that John did, in order to reposition the
reversed card (and its surroundings) in the back portion of the deck.

I was not aware of the fact that the Neyhart houlette uses also rollers on top, just on the
sides. Jim Steinmeyer pointed this out to me 3 . The idea of rubber wheels came to me
perhaps from reading about the “Card March” effect, explained briefly in the booklet
about the 10th LA Conference on Magic History, handed out before the performance.

If the idea is correct, I think it all boils down to the craftmanship involved in designing
and actually realizing the system I described above. I do believe that the houlette and the
table are a work of art from the standpoint of precision, reliability and durability. I am not
an engineer or a clockmaker, but within my limits I think it’s reasonable that such system
could have been realized in the early 1900; watchmaking technology was quite advanced
after all, and this sounds easier than building a clock. I speculate that the table has in its
interior 2 or more motors and gears placed in 2 or more specific positions. Such motors
are connected electrically (through the table legs) to a main switchboard behind the
drapes, operated by the assistant. The houlette is connected to the gears inside the table.
Also note that motor technology was blooming at that time, due to Tesla’s work, so
certainly that kind of motor, with that kind of size, was a real possibility.

Upon looking closely at the available photos it might not seem possible that a
mechanism of the type I described could fit inside the houlette. On the other hand, I do
believe that the houlette appearing in the photographs is not the one actually used in the
performances, but rather a non-gimmicked duplicate, with barely enough space for the
deck to fit inside. In a sense it is still part of the “actual apparatus”, since it was designed
to fool the audience after the show.

Attempting to explain single effects

Assuming that the mechanism inside the houlette and the table described above is in
place, essentially everything appears to unfold, mainly as a direct application but
occasionally as an addition to the main apparatus, designed to create a diversion.
Of course I am not claiming to have nailed each and every detail, in fact I have not,
however it looks like most effects can be reasonably explained on the basis of the main
workings of the houlette.
3
A description is in Wasshuber’s book, op. cit., however the rollers are not shown.
The setup described above easily explains “Positive Test” and “Mystery Deepens”. For the
second one, the rollers holding the deck are first lifted a small height, and then the deck is
raised further by the side rollers. The front rollers are activated, and they start dropping
down the front cards one by one, so that the assistant can see the exposed card from the
mirror. Dropped cards are counted until the selected card is seen.

“Queen’s arrival”. On returning back to the stage, John either switches the deck, or more
simply adds the few cards needed for the effect, on the back. Those cards would be raised
simply by operating the back rollers. As for the Queen standing on the table…perhaps the
same mechanism used for “How many” (see below) can be also used to keep the Queen
standing, and then letting it fall (it did not fall out of the table this time though).

“An interesting experiment”: the Joker is cut in half, and one half is placed on the
houlette’s bottom, deck inserted in the houlette and then raised as a whole. Explained by
side rollers raising the deck.

“Seeing is believing”: cards are called and then rise from the deck. I believe that there are
three possibilities here:

1) The called cards are predetermined; they are stacked in the back of the deck. Some
audience members are told at some point to call specific cards. They call them out loud and
promptly, so even if there is an additional card called, John can still choose the
predetermined one. This card is simply raised from the back. Note: there is no way to see if
the card is raised from the back or from the middle of the deck. In this situation the deck is
not raised a little, it’s all the way down, so the top frame of the houlette is covering quite a
bit, and one can’t really see where the card is coming out from.

2) Cards are genuinely called. In this case the deck is stacked, and the assistant knows
exactly the position of each card. All he has to do is to count cards from the back (with
lift/drop method) until the correct spot. If the card raised is removed, (to be handed out for
inspection) then the assistant would need to adjust the numbering for the following called
cards. If the position is too close to the front of the deck (the visible part) then it might not
work, since there has to be enough amount of cards to support the side rollers force (this is
consistent with Matsura’s observation that in ‘93 one called card could not rise).

3) Cards are genuinely called, and the deck is gaffed, so that the assistant can see the face
value from the back also, by lift/drop method. Cards are easier to spot, but cannot be
handed out, they must go back into the deck.

“Front card rises”: the front card is caused to rise simply by activating the front rollers.

“Follow your leader”: card rises up and down following the arm of a spectator. The
assistant is just activating the motor back and forth according to the spectator’s movements.
Note that John told the spectator to go a bit faster, probably since the motor has constant
speed.
“How many?”: John asks for a small number X, the number X is called and X cards rise,
one after another, staying raised within the deck. In this case the roller system does not
seem to be useful, except perhaps to raise the back card. This effect could be
accomplished by a system of few pointy small tips or blades that are raised from under
the deck, within the table. If the deck is held together and the points are tiny, only one
card would go up (I tried with an exacto knife). If no card goes up then one just has to try
a different tip (or try again the same tip). Notice that only the number of cards is
matched, not the single cards, an indication that it would be essentially impossible to lift
cards in specific positions reliably. Such pins could potentially be used to keep Queen
standing in the “Queen’s arrival”.

“Conquest of the Air”: John calls for three cards, cards are called loud and promptly. He
starts setting up the glasses on the table for “And Still the Mystery Grows”, at this point
first Jim and later John realize that something is wrong. Eventually a Jack jumps out of
the deck. So the book effect is postponed.
I am not sure how Jim figured out that something was wrong, could be that the houlette
was in the wrong position. John sets up the dome over the houlette. Jack rises above the
houlette and under the dome, then goes back down, but does not re-enter the deck.
I am not sure exactly how this could be done, but, based on the Magic article, “Fooled
Again”, and assuming that the houlette is in the same position as in the main photo,
then the edge of the houlette is aligned with the table center leg underneath. This could
mean that a flat transparent narrow strip is pushed out of the leg, into the edge of the
houlette, and somehow attached to the back card while squeezed between the back
roller and the card. If the back rollers are activated then the roller aligned with the table
leg will lift the strip with the card attached to it (while the other roller is not in contact
with anything, assuming that the rollers are joined). Strip could be made out of glass, or
other material that becomes difficult to see under the dome. If this is the case then the
card could actually go down into the deck, unless something gets stuck.

“And Still the Mystery Grows”: John places the three little glasses on the table and a
book on the glasses. Then he does not call three new cards but uses the three cards
called previously. The first card called rises. I believe that there is a replica of the
motorized mechanism inside the book, connected electrically to the main switchboard
through the glasses (obviously by a wire inside them). I think that in this case the three
cards are prearranged in the back of the deck, in that order. In the “Houlette suspended
by ribbons” I think that the back rollers are activated manually by John, with a spring-
like mechanism (much like in the spirit of “Card March”). This is consistent with
John’s slight hesitation and jerky 2-hand push I noticed, when at that moment the
houlette only needed a simple and gentle push, perhaps with one single finger. If a
spring was loaded manually, most likely two hands were needed to hold the houlette.

“Midnight Frolic”: card jumping out the deck under the dome. I think here that the front
(or back) rollers are simply activated with a faster motor.
Final comments

I stop here, exactly one week after the performance I attended in LA. It has been a
great experience. I flew over from Missouri just for this event, and I truly enjoyed it.
After I came back to the hotel room I could only type a few sentences to try recording
a few “strange things” I’ve noticed. When I returned back home I ended up thinking
about the whole thing over and over, until I had one idea, that of the cards dropping,
and after that moment things started to make a lot more sense.
I am sure that after tomorrow, Nov. 10, 2007, there will be much discussion and
sharing of facts, among folks who attended the various performances. I am also sure
that I will revise what I wrote here, or perhaps completely reject it as rubbish, in view
of these new observations and discussions (that would be Part II).

For now, let me say that I’ve enjoyed trying to make sense out of what I recall having
seen, with a little background information, of course. I hope that I am in line with
Dr. Hooker’s original intentions.

I sincerely thank John Gaughan, Jim Steinmeyer and all the organizers for reviving
“Hooker’s Impossibilities” one more time. The efforts, the time, and the passion
involved in this enterprise must have been outstanding.

November 9, 2007

Carlo Morpurgo

Department of Mathematics
University of Missouri, Columbia
Columbia, MO 65211 - USA
(573) 882-6873

morpurgo@math.missouri.edu

“A mediocre writer must beware of too quickly replacing a crude, incorrect expression with a
correct one. By doing so he kills his original idea, which was at least still a living seedling.”

- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, p. 79e