One of the primary aims of Natural Philosophy (a study to which most Alchemist’s subscribed) was to regain the knowledge lost during Man’s fall from God’s grace at his expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Paracelsus himself employed plants and plant byproducts in his alchemical research. Some of these plants, however, required very special knowledge indeed.
The focus of The Alchemist’s Bane is to encourage your spec to use her intuition to guide her choices. She must react instinctively in laying a pictured plant in one pile or the other. In this way, you explain, she is most likely to be in touch with the Natural Knowledge innate in every human being since before The Fall.
The surprise, of course, is in how well her Natural Knowledge unexpectedly manifests.
ONE EFFECT POSSIBLE: You show a set of nineteen old 3.5 x 5-inch (89 x 127mm) cards containing ancient images of herbs and secret signs that refer to alchemical processes. Using only her Natural Intuition, your spectator begins to separate the herbs into two piles depending upon whether the image makes her feel wary or comfortable. When she has finished, you have her explain what made one image seem comfortable and another not. As she describes her feelings, you turn over each pile to show that she has intuitively separated out the benign herbs used in the Alchemist’s lab from The Alchemist’s Bane, those deadly poisonous herbs that have been marked with the crimson sign of Death.
Unlike similar routines, however, The Alchemist’s Bane cards may be fairly shuffled by the spec before she begins to separate them.
· No forces
· No switches
· No hidden cards
· No gimmicks of any kind
· No memorization
· No skill required, most routines are completely self-working
· You always know which cards are benign and which are poisonous
· The Performance Manual includes over a dozen DIFFERENT effects, handlings (skilled and unskilled) and routines—enough to do a complete ‘table show’ of Alchemical (and Botanical) wonders!
· The Alchemist’s Bane is not merely a packet effect. It is an entire set of cards and routines that will elevate your bizarre performance to alchemical heights. Perfect for walk-around, one-off, or close-up work.
· Complete instructions included for using (and building) additional props to take your Alchemist’s Bane even farther.
· Devised & created by Professor BC, manufactured & aged by Gemini Artifacts!