Dan Baines

A spirit pressed the bedsheets. A duvet peeled back on its own. And a mummified fairy hoax fooled the world. We sit down with artist and prop-maker Dan Baines to explore how subtle methods and rich storytelling turn haunted curios into unforgettable theatre. From forensics in London to Lebanon Circle’s museum-quality creations for BBC, Warner Brothers, and major exhibitions, Dan shares the craft choices that make bizarre magic feel real: distressed textures, believable provenance, and clever tech that hums quietly beneath vintage veneer.

We dig into the roots of Victorian séance magic, spirit cabinets, slates that “write” with sound and vibration, and haunted keys that only move when the story has earned it. Dan shows how theatre informs his work, like the “corpse candle” inspired by fiber optic fireflies on stage, and why the best switches happen early, sometimes under a glass lid that lets spectators “watch” their choices the whole time. His celebrated From Hell take on Out Of This World replaces red and black with blooded blanks and mortuary photos, reframing a classic plot into something that lingers long after the reveal.

There’s a wild journey through viral deception and ethics too: the Derbyshire Mummified Fairy that launched a million clicks, museum “relics” that began life in a studio, and the quiet power of letting myths breathe. We also time-travel to the Doomsday Gathering’s growth into a world-class bizarre magic convention, swapping notes on design constraints, stage noise, and why simple methods are a gift, they free your brain to tell better stories.

If you love haunted aesthetics, old-school methods, and narrative-first magic that truly crawls under the skin, this is your Halloween comfort listen. Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves the macabre, and leave a review telling us which effect gave you chills.

Dan’s Desert Island Tricks: 

1. Spirit Cabinet
2. Spirit Slates 
3. The Corpse Candle 
4. ‘Haunted’ Effects 
5. Out of this World 
6. Switch Boxes 
7. Scurot
8. Lazy Booktest 

Banishment. Singing unannounced 

Book. Dunninger's Complete Encyclopaedia of Magic and

Three Men in Search of Monsters 

Item. Bellarmine Witch Bottle

Find out more about the creators of this Podcast at www.alakazam.co.uk

Chapters

• 0:00 London Hauntings And From Hell
• 2:22 Halloween Setup And Guest Introduction
• 3:04 Lebanon Circle Origins And Craft
• 7:06 Doomsday Gathering: Growth And Community
• 10:19 Breaking Into Film, TV, And Viral Hoaxes
• 15:24 Museum Pieces, Disney Sightings, And Odd Commissions
• 18:39 The Island Format And Pick One: Spirit Cabinet
• 22:55 Victorian Séance Tools: Spirit Slates
• 28:24 Theatre Sparks: Corpse Candle Concept
• 33:28 Haunted Props And The Power Of Subtlety
• 39:59 Out Of This World And Real Blood Tricks
• 46:20 Hoaxes, Ethics, And Hidden Provenance
• 51:03 Switch Boxes And Deceptive Design
• 56:04 Scurrot: The Skull, Tarot, And Three Outs
• 1:02:06 Story First: The Lazy Book Test
• 1:06:41 Banishment, Books, And The Witch Bottle
• 1:11:22 Where To Find Dan And Final Halloween Close

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

When I was living in London, I lived in on the Isle of Dogs, and I'd released probably the second edition of From Hell. I'd just moved in with my, who was my now wife, and we lived in an old it's called Burrell's Wharf and it was an old printing factory. So it was very post-Victorian old industrial type buildings. I was doing the From Hell cards in the kitchen. So I was just laying out victim, uh, the actual mortuary photographs of the Jack the Ripper victims, and I was there squirting blood on them hour after hour after hour. And around that time, spooky things started to happen in the house. For example, my wife would get up and go to work in the morning, and she had to be in work earlier than me, so I would lie in bed and I would feel someone come in and come and sit on the end of the bed, and I would roll over, and there was no one there, but there was an imprint of somebody sitting on the end of the bed in the bedroom in broad daylight as well. Another time something tried to get into bed with me by actually folding the duvet back on its own, and I could actually see the duvet lift as if somebody was trying to get into bed. And then with a slight poltergeist activity as well, there was all sorts of um pots and pans and jugs flying around, uh glasses smashing. I in the end I actually asked it to stop and kind of, you know, leave us alone, and it did. But it was only a few years later when I kind of thought that was it because I was doing these cards in a place where, you know, I was only a stone's throw from where the actual Whitechapel murders happened, you know, in terms of maybe a mile and a half away. Uh, was there a connection where the building I was with maybe one of the Jack the Ripper victims, which I was unaware of historically? But it did seem that when I was doing that, it was creating waves in a sort of paranormal and turning into a paranormal type event.

SPEAKER_02: 2:21

If you were listening to this during its intended release date, then you'll know today is a very special day. It is a very spooky day, that's because this is going out on Halloween in 2025. So I thought maybe we need to get a special guest on. Someone who will be able to put us in that Halloween mood and hopefully give us a little bit of insight into Bizarre Magic. Now, I'm gonna give you a little bio of today's guest because the things that he's done are phenomenal. If you haven't seen his stuff, please, please, please do go and see it because it's phenomenal. But let me tell you about him first. So he is the founder of Lebanon Circle, which, if you haven't heard of it, create incredibly detailed props and effects normally based around the macabre. Uh, Dan started making props to take his mind away from the things he was dealing with when working in forensics in London, and since then he's made incredible props for the likes of the BBC, Warner Brothers, FX, Channel 4, and the History Channel. He runs workshops where he teaches prop making and illusion design as well as 3D modelling and artistic fabrication. He's even had his props featured in some notable exhibitions, including the Gamaro del Toro at Home with the Monster and the Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. I'm sure this is gonna be a phenomenal list. I'm sure this is gonna be uh a bit of a deviation to other lists. Uh I know that we've had some spookier guests on before, but if you've seen Dan's props, they are absolutely incredible. You will not find many props quite to the standard that Dan creates them. So please do go check out Lebanon Circle if you are wanting to explore any of this anymore. But I'm babbering on, so let's get him on now. This is uh Dan Baines. Hello, Dan. Hi there, Jamie. Thank you for having me and thank you for that um excellent introduction. Well, it feels like since I've known about Lebanon Circle, uh, anyone in the Bazaar community in particular who really holds Lebanon Circle to a high standard, and that's for a good reason, because you don't often get props in our industry which are made with the the detail. I mean we we said that these have been in art exhibitions, but these are museum quality props. These are film and TV quality props that you're making and that are put in into the hands of performers around the world. So I just think it's amazing that you've managed to build this up from such a negative thing, you know, working on the forensics to where you are now.

SPEAKER_01: 5:10

It's one of those strange things that you know, when you say museum quality or um art gallery property, uh quite a lot of my effects just go straight into someone's man cave behind uh uh you know, into a display cabinet and they will stay there forever. Um, but I would say maybe 30 to 40 percent of my effects are bought by professional magicians and used in shows, you know, all around the world and you know, quite established shows as well. So it's kind of it's that um it's that balance. I you know, I like having my stuff displayed and maybe not used, I don't care. And uh, but equally I like to see it used in shows as well.

SPEAKER_02: 5:50

So, what was it about the macabre? So, how how did you get to a stage where you were creating darker tricks instead of you know other props? What about that genre took you?

SPEAKER_01: 6:02

Well, I've only ever produced dark stuff, funnily enough. Um, even from a very early age, I've always been interested in the spooky, the paranormal. It's one of those typical 1970s, 1980s upbringings where you just your parents just let you watch anything you want on TV, and there was no censorship really, and you know, you'd get home from school after Grange Hill, or you know, there'd be a ghost story on TV or something creepy, um, which you just don't get anymore. So I've always had that interest. Um, but in terms of uh magic, I never had an interest in magic as a child. Um, it's that is purely something that came um at a later date when I was in my mid-20s, but I've always, always been interested in everything spooky and um strange.

SPEAKER_02: 6:54

Well, that's even grown onto you hold an event now, which is, you know, uh I've never had the chance to go to it, but a lot of people in the UK hold it as one of the highlights of their year. So, how did you take it from just Lebanon Circle to a whole convention?

SPEAKER_01: 7:10

Okay, so Doomsday um started, I think we're in our 15th year now, skipping out COVID. Um and that was started by Ronnie Shacknai, who is a very well known um person in, or was a very known person in Bizarre Magic. And it started at um Sneaton Castle in Whitby, uh, quite apt for something you know, spooky on on the cliffs overlooking the beach where uh Dracula washed ashore. So we started it there. I I went to the very first one, and I think the very first one, there was probably about 25 people there. It was very, very small. Uh, and over the years, it's just generated more and more interest. I mean, Bizarre Magic is a kind of niche area of magic, it's you know, there's not a huge amount of people in there. Um, but people now, uh, as it stands now, come from all over the world uh to the event. So I would say out of everyone there, at least 50% of them are international um you know visitors. Uh, so it's it's got a name for itself now as probably one of the best bizarre magic conventions in the world. There's um ECSS also in America, um, East Coast Spirit Sessions, which we like to see as like the the sort of the sister of um of Doomsday, kind of created sort of in you know, in conjunction with each other, and we kind of flipped between the two as guests and as performers. Um, but now it's held every year in May um in Derby because it's nice and central, everyone can kind of get there relatively easy, and it's got good connections with um America and Europe, obviously with all the airports in the area. Um and I I ran it single-handedly for almost 12 years, and it's just got to the stage now where I just need that help. You know, my my life as an artist has kind of got busier and busier and busier, and I'm not a I'm not an events organizer, I'm not very kind of uh wired that way. Although I, you know, I found it enjoyable, uh, and I've but I found it incredibly stressful. So now we've actually got our own little committee of people and uh it it runs autonomously, it's great. And so the dates for this year are I think it's May the 16th, 17th. I would need to check that, um, but it's around those dates. But um, all the information is on doomsday gathering.com, and the tickets are available now for next year's convention. And uh we've got Richard Wiseman as one of the main guests there. So, you know, it's uh and Reeshear Smith is always uh um likes to likes to come along and uh usually judge the hex factor, which is our our little talent contest, which is lots of fun. So, but yeah, everyone's everyone there is welcome, and I think everyone who comes always wants to come back. So it's almost like you're part of a weird family. It's like the Adams family, but um international.

SPEAKER_02: 10:18

Great. So uh last question before we get into your list is how how did you make the leap from making these props for performers to making them for TV and larger events? What was that journey?

SPEAKER_01: 10:36

It kind of came, it just came really naturally. Um I think the main thing that I did that really catapulted me into the public eye was the um the Derbyshire Mummified fairy hoax that I did in 2007. So up until then, I was writing sort of small PDF documents on how to create your own sort of uh illusions, like Ghost in the Machine, for example, based on Edison's machine to communicate with the dead. And I was just selling those for like a fiver on eBay as like a downloadable document. And as as you say, at the time I was working in uh forensics in London, and I just did this kind of I wasn't really thinking about what I was doing. Uh I just created a small plastic, I made a small plastic skeleton, wrapped it in paper mache made out of a toilet roll I'd nicked from the works bathroom, um, put it in an airing cupboard and opened it up the next day, and I had this like mummified body, which I decided to turn into a fairy, write a whole news article about it, and then pitch it to all of the newspapers for an April Fool's hoax. Um, but none of the UK papers were interested in it, so I took it straight to America and they fell for it straight away and it went viral. And I think it was probably one of the first viral internet sort of hoaxes at the time. Um, and that just made me sort of you know famous overnight. You know, um the Lebanon Circle website at the time was pretty small. Um and yeah, the it was guerrilla marketing really, it just took something from a little hobby I was doing to kind of just fund my beer money while I lived in London and also keep my you know my mind on the straight and narrow into what would eventually become a full-time business, which you know has so many different um facets to it. But because I was building these props that looked so kind of ornate and gothic, it also attracted um the attention of film studios and TV companies. Um, and I also did a few little hoaxes on the side as well around some of these objects I'd created, and people just thought they were real. Um, when of course they weren't. So eventually um I found that a lot of Hollywood directors have their own little collections, their own little man caves, where you know you have a little, you have a party at your house and you say to your friends, Do you want to come and see something really weird? And you go into like a you know, a secret room in the house, and it's just full of all these strange artifacts and um you know just relics uh that they've collected throughout the years, and most of my stuff goes into those types of collections, so it's kind of a backdoor into the film industry, it's just directors and producers and writers who've bought my stuff, um, and then through that I've been introduced to people um in the uh the film and TV industry that way.

SPEAKER_02: 13:44

Yeah, amazing. Wow. Um, I love the idea of the hoaxes. Have you ever tried to get one of your props into a museum but as an authentic item? That would be great.

SPEAKER_01: 13:55

No, but but museums have bought my props to use as authentic items, believe it or not. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02: 14:02

So have have you got an example of one?

SPEAKER_01: 14:06

I have, yeah. So the I I made a an effect years ago called Crookes Residual Ectomatron, which was a a machine that would actually materialize a ghost in a chamber, um, which you could then communicate with, and it would be like this swirling mist in a glass tube. It was all very steampunk. Um, and that's in fact one of the versions that toured in the um at home with monsters with Guillermo del Toro's um exhibition. And uh this guy was like, um uh he said, I'm gonna put this in my museum. And I said, Well, it's not actually an original piece. And he says, Yeah, but the people who come to my museum don't know that. So there's one sat in, I think it's a spiritualist museum in America. Uh I can't say which one uh where it is, but yeah, it's a spiritualist museum which will have loads of stuff from the Fox Sisters and original Ouija boards, and in there is that machine that to communicate with the dead, which is pitched as an original piece.

SPEAKER_02: 15:14

The Warrens Museum has just been handed over to some uh celebrity TikTokers, so maybe it's time we get some Lebanon Circle stuff into the Warrens Museum. The the the original occult museum would be great to see one of your pieces in.

SPEAKER_01: 15:29

It would, it would. It would be nice to just sort of you know deposit something in there. Um, but who knows? You know, there's places in the world I've sold so much stuff over the years that stuff just could be, you know, in a museum. I was going round um, I was at Disney at the weekend and I went through the um uh Phantom Manor, and I swear to God there was one of my Dolly Darko dolls on the on the shelf in there because it's so dimly lit, I just couldn't make it out, but it just looked like it was. Um but that wouldn't surprise me because I've had friends before who have found uh their items that have created in Disney shops and part of you know dressing some of the Disney displays. So it could be. I just have to go back and have a look. Unfortunately, we left after that, but it could be, it could be in there somewhere. Which Disney was it? Uh Disneyland Paris.

SPEAKER_02: 16:23

Right. So here's the thing. If you're listening to this and you live near Disneyland Paris or you're going to Disneyland Paris, you have to find out whether that is a Dolly Darko. So, you know, get a sneaky picture and send it, send it in to us and we can send it on to Dan and we'll find out whether that is. What's the strangest request that you've had to make something?

SPEAKER_01: 16:44

I mean, I get a lot of requests to make uh mummified body parts. Um, I'm quite good at I've sort of honed my skills on making realistic mummies. Um I've done pickled babies in jars before. Uh I also had a uh a mummified head get picked up by Australian customs um to the point where they were gonna do me for importing human remains into Australia. Uh that was actually featured in the Fortian Times magazine. So um so I had to, they rang me up and I said to them, you know, I asked them if any of them had done biology at school, um, to which they said yes. And I said, Well, you need to go back and look at that head and tell me what's wrong with it. So they went back and uh they kind of scratched their heads and came back and they couldn't figure out what was wrong with it. And because it was an early prototype mummified head I'd made, I'd forgot to put the ears on it, so it had no ears. Um, and I said, Well, it's it's not a real human head because it's got no ears on it. But I tend to model things around um so if I'm gonna create a mummified head, I will create it around a human skull. Obviously, not a bone one, but you know, I'll I'll model it around, you know, the original bone structure and everything to keep it as realistic as possible. Um, but yeah, I get I get all sorts of you know, I've asked people have asked me if I could do a from hell deck with real human blood. Um, I've had that before. Um I uh I said I'm not that keen on blood to be honest, um, which is strange having worked in forensics, which is the whole reason why I'm not keen on blood anymore. I've kind of seen too much of it. Uh and when I asked them where I was gonna get the blood from, um, they said if I could supply my own, and I was just like, no, I'm not having my DNA all over a deck of um Jack the Ripper cards. So that's probably one of the strangest things I've had. Wow, that is bizarre.

SPEAKER_02: 18:47

Um, I think uh maybe we should get into the podcast. So if this is your first time listening, the idea is we're about to maroon Dan on his very own magical island. When he's there, he's allowed to take eight tricks, banish one item, take one book, and one non-magic item that he uses for magic. Particulars, who's there, what's there? Are there skeletons there? Are there caves there? Are there pumpkins? Who knows? It's in Dan's own imagination. So let's go to your rather spooky island, Dan, and find out what's in position number one.

SPEAKER_01: 19:16

Number one would be the um traditional spirit cabinet routine. Um, and just seeing that um when I was younger, even though as a child I never had a huge interest in magic, I still used to watch things like Paul Daniels and stuff at the weekends, you know, after Ross Abbott or you know, those types of things, there'd be magic on TV. And I remember seeing a spirit cabinet routine, it was probably for a Halloween special. Um, and I'm pretty sure it's Paul Daniels, it might have been someone else, but it just the fact that you know there's all these things flying around, and there was a woman bound behind the curtain, and then you know, there'd be bells ringing and things flying around, and you rip the curtain back, and she's still exactly where she was. As a child, that really it did spook me a little bit because I thought, well, it must be, there's got to be a real ghost there. So I kind of fell for it, hook, liner, and sinker, in the same way that most of the Victorians did. Um, and I think that was my first introduction to spooky magic, and that kind of that performance really stuck with me. So the sort of the Davenport Brothers traditional routine. I still love a spirit cabinet routine, even though I know exactly how it all works. Um, I've even had a go at creating my own miniature ones, which uh have been quite good fun, but yeah, definitely the spirit cabinet.

SPEAKER_02: 20:39

Yeah, so I remember seeing, I think the one that was on Paul Daniels was the Willard um Falkenstein and Willard one, um which uh yeah, I also remember seeing and thinking it was phenomenal. Um, is this something that so you mentioned that you've made little ones? Have you ever tried building a large full-size one?

SPEAKER_01: 21:00

No, no, that's that's the thing. I do get a lot of requests to make full-size props, but I'm very much a small scale person. I like to work uh in not miniature scale, uh, but within I don't know, something manageable. Uh I'm not into doing full stage props for um sort of you know West End show size or for people to like get into. It's just my my skills aren't really in that area. Um, but I've made ones around sort of a square foot size, like with Dolly Darko, for example, the uh the haunted doll, she had her own little spirit cabinet, which was called the theatre of souls, and she would throw things out, um, you'd close the curtains and she'd roll a ball out from under the curtain and things like that. So that's where the inspiration was. I much prefer things on a smaller scale. So when I'm thinking of where it's going to be performed, it's always in a small, cozy, almost parlour type environment and never visualize anything big on stage. Um, I'm always in like some back corner of a spooky bar or you know, somewhere like that. So everything's like on a much smaller scale.

SPEAKER_02: 22:20

I think that the really interesting thing about the spirit cabinet as well is there's not many tricks in bizarre magic that would equate to a stage magician's prop, like you know, uh a zigzag illusion or something like that. Um whereas obviously the spirit cabinet is that large scale routine. But what I what I love about it having someone who's built a full-size one is you're building a prop that does nothing. It quite literally just sits there and someone sits inside it, it has no real autonomous um use within within the show, it's just sort of there to cover someone up.

SPEAKER_01: 23:05

Yeah, it is just like uh you know, four legs with curtains on, um, which for me would be incredibly boring to make anyway. Um, but I work, you know, in my other studio, which is down in Tunbridge Wells, you know, that was originally a um a prop design studio that did all things for the West End. So they're they're all very capable of building things like that. So if I ever get a client who says, Can you build me a glass coffin that I'm gonna get buried alive in or whatever, you know, they're they're the people I direct them to. Um, but it's definitely something I couldn't touch. I'd need to have something a little bit more fiddly and that sparks the imagination a bit more, I think.

SPEAKER_02: 23:46

Well, I think it's a great entry in at number one. So let's find out where you went with at number two. What's in your second spot?

SPEAKER_01: 23:53

Okay, the second one is um very closely related. You're gonna see a uh a trend here, and it is sort of Victorian seance magic. So um, so spirit slates, uh, which I love spirit slates, but I actually hate making them because I've made thousands and thousands of sets of them. Uh but I do I do like a good spirit slate routine, and uh for me as well, it's the when you see someone who's never seen a spirit slate routine before, it still kind of mystifies them, I think. And that's what I I really like about this sort of the old Victorian style seance magic, because it's kind of it's old, it's forgotten about, people don't want to use threads and wires and magnetic flaps anymore, and and it's kind of what I do is kind of keep that those old methods alive, and because they're old and everyone's always you know, it's the cult of the new, they want to find new ways and electronics and blah blah blah, and then but then you bring back these old methods that were used back at you know in the early 1900s, uh they still work today, and uh yeah, a good a good set of spirit slates. So uh as I say, yeah, I I kind of have to have a break now and again from making them.

SPEAKER_02: 25:20

Yeah, I think uh the interesting thing with spirit slates, I know Terry Tyson has some work on um using flapless spirit slates uh and some very cool displays with spirit slates and stuff like that. And I think in Seance magazine they had some really interesting uh approaches for it. Um but I've seen the quality of yours firsthand and they are amazing. They really do look like something that you know Salem witch trial, someone saved that, that could go into a museum. They look that authentic and real, they're phenomenal.

SPEAKER_01: 25:56

Thank you. Well, it's one of those things I kind of I spend most of my time destroying stuff, um, which reflects my personality as well. I'm kind of quite self-destructive, and uh I and when it comes to being an artist, I like to get rid of my artwork. I always have done. I've never been one for keeping my own art and treasuring it and displaying it. I'd rather someone have it and destroy it. Because if I have it, if I have it for too long, I'll just break it apart and do something else with it. So when someone asks me to make them a set of spirit slates, I you know, I spend hours getting the frame exactly as it should be, and then I spend 10 minutes just beating the hell out of it with, you know, lumps of um, you know, lumps of rock, scratching it, hammering all sorts of, you know, even like little bits of graffiti into it to make them look original. So uh, but that's not the that's not the look some people want either. Some people do like the pristine um type of spirit slate. But if you get the spirit slates from me, they're gonna look like they've been in um like the Bernardo school in London, you know, so at the ragged school. They're gonna look like some kids have been using them for 30 years and it's exchanged hands many times. Um, but that's that's the aesthetic a lot of bizarre magicians like. They need it to look authentic, I suppose.

SPEAKER_02: 27:19

This was quite literally a conversation I was having last week with um Chris Mallon from Strange Stage, which is another bizarre prop making company that makes amazing props. But we said it's almost soul destroying that you buy something which is super expensive and brand new, and you take it home, and you know on the side there's a big pot of sandpaper that you're about to take to that prop, and you just destroy the hell out of it, and it's literally heartbreaking when you do it, but it's so worth it by the end of it if you've got a really good product.

SPEAKER_01: 27:54

Makes each piece unique as well, um, because they're all gonna get a different beating, depending on how I feel that day. So depends depends if you're annoyed or not.

SPEAKER_02: 28:05

Um exactly, yeah. I normally have devil's advocate. Now, most guests we have will pick an item like a deck of cards or a certain kind of wallet, and we like to play Devil's Advocate to get a routine out of them. So if I was to hold you to one way of using spirit slates, how would you use them if you could only do one thing with them?

SPEAKER_01: 28:29

Well, the the slates I make are quite unique in that they actually create the sound of the chalk writing inside, um, which makes them quite different, and they vibrate as well. So if you give them to a spectator, they can feel the chalk writing inside, which is quite eerie, and it gets loads of great reactions. And I I don't think it doesn't matter what message is written in there, but just that feeling or seeing the spectator hold them and them being able to feel the chalk writing as well as hear it, for me just takes the the the illusion just that one little step further, um, into the kind of the uncanny, even more spooky element. So that would be the one thing that if I I would do it, that's the that's the way I would perform it, you know, with the sound and the vibration, and just that just push it that little bit further.

SPEAKER_02: 29:27

Great. Well, that is a great entry in at number two. So let's go to number three. So what's in your third spot?

SPEAKER_01: 29:34

Number three is um it's not actually an it's a stage illusion which I saw, which I actually turned into an illusion. I kind of looked at it and then thought how I could utilize that. And that was well, I went to see Lord of the Rings the musical um many years ago. Um, and as you were waiting to go down to your seats, there were hobbits. Running around the uh uh you know around the stalls with nets, trying to catch fireflies, and there was these little fireflies just dancing in the air all over the stage. And of course, I was trying to work out how they created the illusion of these fireflies, and they were just like long fishing rods with fiber optic cable, sheathed fiber optic cable, um, with just the end exposed, and of course, you just waggle the rod and you get like this little dancing light, and the hobbits would catch them in the nets. And I just thought that would be great if you were kind of doing a blackout seance um type of show, or not even blackout, really, you can do it, and so I created something called the corpse candle, which is just based on that idea, and it just gives you the ability to take a jar on stage, for example, you could say it's got a trapped, a trapped willow the wisp, or a fairy in there, and you could just open the lid. And as long as you've got a um an assistant who's preferably dressed all in black with a black rod, you can make this small point of light manifest on the stage, and it can fly around and you can perform with that. So it's almost like taking the the uh the thumb tip light, uh, the D light thing, but making it completely hands-free. Uh, so you could even combine the two if you wanted. You could have it and then let it go, and it would fly off, uh, and then it would kind of just reappear. And uh, so I actually on my website, actually, you can just go and download the free document for that. I actually just released it as a free uh download not long ago, actually. Uh, because I just was digging through my archive and I found it and uh just gave it away. And so people are using it as well, which is quite nice. But you do have to have that really dark, almost you know, very, very dimly lit environment to use it. But I think that was it goes in at my number three because it was one thing that I saw that wasn't magic, but really made me think, how the hell are they doing that? Um, which is what I suppose magic is meant to do. Um, but it was used as a stage illusion as opposed to actually uh an actual uh a magic trick that's performed.

SPEAKER_02: 32:25

Well, I think that sounds super interesting, and I think uh something you touched on there accidentally, the crossover between theatre and bizarre magic, because uh bizarre magic is in essence, it doesn't have to be scary magic, it's just storytelling magic, it's narrative-driven magic, and it sounds like you're very much like me in the sense that uh any opportunity I can see a weird theatre show or an interesting theatre show or just something a bit out there, uh I love it. And I'm I never got the chance to see uh Lord of the Rings a musical because there was a bit I distinctly recall someone's leg being trapped in a in a revolve or something and them having to close it a bit earlier. Um I don't think it lasted very long, it never came back. No, no, I think uh they had the same thing, they had Spider-Man the musical a few years ago, Turn Off the Dark, I think it was called in uh New York, and lots of people got very injured from that because they had people flying across their the stalls and yeah, interesting. But um yeah, so uh literally uh a few months ago I saw a haunted play, and it there was a very interesting effect in there where they had a real candle, uh they placed it down by a like on a ledge at the back of the stage, and whenever the spirit or it w in this case it was a witch would appear, the candle would mysteriously go out, and it was uh we were only a few rows in, so uh the context of the show went out of the window at that point, and my brain just went to how is that candle constantly going out? It it surely it's not a magic candle, um they they wouldn't I just can't imagine a theatre show would do that, and there was a lovely moment where uh normally when the witch appears there's this big noise and it makes you jump. This one time there was no noise, um, because it was supposed to be like a delayed jump scare, but you did suddenly hear a fan blowing, um, and it was at that point that I realized there must have been a fan in the wall directly next to the ledge that the the candle was on, it was blowing out. But yeah, it's so interesting how theatre props and effects can really influence the way that we build bizarre props um in our sort of world. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 34:47

Yeah, it's one thing you always have to take into consideration when you're designing anything that if this was on stage, um, you know, does it create any noise? You know, are there any parts of the electronics like like um solenoids, for example, that make the clicking sound, you know, you you just don't want that in the middle of a seance. It's like, hello, is anybody there? Just getting rid of problems like that. It's all problem solving. Um, but yeah, when I go to see stage shows, uh, my mind is very rarely following what's happening on stage. I'm too busy looking at the props and how things move, how the stage you know shifts and how they do scene changes, and that's where the interest is for me. Uh, whereas my wife will get totally engrossed in the show. Um, I'll miss the show and tell her about you know how, for example, a candle gets blown out. Well, she's got no interest in that at all.

SPEAKER_02: 35:50

Okay, so um we are gonna put the corpse candle in at number three, and let's move on to number four. So, what's in your fourth position?

SPEAKER_01: 35:59

Well, fourth position, it's it's hard because it's literally anything, any effect that's got the word haunted in it will automatically prick my ears up. Um, and when I first started out in magic, that was just it, really. Um, I was just interested with anything that had a haunted effect or a ghost or something, anything spooky. So the haunted key, for example. Um so basic and so it's one of those things that people just within magic just look at it and it's like any magic. You look at it and say, How the hell would anyone ever fall for something like this? But to the uninitiated, it does look like you know, haunted magic, um, like haunted decks, decks that cut themselves, all of that. Um, so it would be anything that's got the word haunted in it, would have been something in the past that I would have gone out and bought straight away, uh, and then you know, parted with my money and got a sheet of A4 paper through the post and gone, damn, is that it? Which is one of the main things that got me into you know illusion design anyway, because the the illusion of an illusion is always far more than actually knowing the secret. It's I think, but when you know the secret, my brain kind of dissects what the initial what the original person did, the original designer. I just think, is there a new way to do that? Is there a different way round? Can I do this a different way? Um, and that's kind of what fueled you know uh Lebanon Circle, really, is just taking older ideas and doing something new with them. But they all started out from an interest in spooky magic, anything haunted. So yeah, the haunted key, I'll stick that in there because you know I got it and I was like, really? But then I took it to work and I was performing it for all the secretaries where I was working in forensics, and they were like, Oh my god, you know, he's the devil, keep him away. And I was like, Well, people generally think it's haunted, so you know, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna tell them the secret, and uh yeah, and then haunted, you know, decks that cut themselves, yeah, anything like that.

SPEAKER_02: 38:17

So you're you got yourself out of that one because until the point where you said I would take the haunted key, I was gonna make you take a haunted item. Um so we'll go for the haunted key. And I think uh what you just said again is really interesting. The I think there's a kind of a fear with people who don't perform bizarre magic who want to perform it, where a lot of the things are quite subtle. So, for example, the haunted key is subtle, um, but also we have uh pendulums quite subtle, um, or we have planchettes that move, and a lot of the methods for these things rely on unexpected audience participation, we'll put it that way. Um, and I think that magicians are scared that those things are too sett subtle or they won't work, so they don't go to it anymore. They're they're looking for the the bigger movement or the bigger thing. Um actually there was a uh podcast I was listening to a little while ago, and they were talking about ghost stories, and they said one of the scariest ghost stories that they ever heard was um a poltergeist who used to take plates out of the cupboard and place them in the floor of the kitchen. And they said the reason that it's so scary is because it's so mundane, it's such a random, boring thing to happen. Why would anyone fake that that kind of thing? So I think that your haunted key effect, I think that's absolutely spot on. Now, my question for you is if you were to use the haunted key in an effect, um, how would you use it? And do you have any advice for people that are worried about those tricks being too subtle in Bizarre Magic?

SPEAKER_01: 39:59

Subtle effects, or e what I would term as easy effects, if it's too easy, some people are very cautious about using it. Um but with Bazaar Magic, I would say it's most of the performance is your ability to tell a good story. Um and you can tell a fantastically you know spooky story and perform something that is so if you were to perform it not in that environment, it would be completely uninspiring and not very exciting. But if you're telling this story around this haunted key, for example, and you perform it, and that's where the magic lies. It's the build-up and the story around it, as opposed to just going, look at this haunted key, and it rolls, you know, it rolls over. You have like a story that draws people in, and it's it's all about your ability to be a good storyteller, I find. And I think that's one thing you really need to have in order to succeed in Bizarre Magic, is you have to be good at telling stories, you have to have the ability to engage with the audience and not worry so much about your magic skills, it's more about your ability to um get the audience on board with what you're trying to tell them. Uh and you know, the haunted key, for example, it's it's used in so many sort of bizarre routines for opening locks, for example, a padlock that is previously locked, and you tell the story. Could be, I don't know, for example, someone is locked in a room, um, or a ghost of a girl was locked in a room, for example, and a ghost she was left there to die, and this was the key that opened the lock, and then obviously the the key rolls, the lock miraculously unlocks itself and then lets the spirit out, and then everyone's worried that the spirit of the girl's gonna follow them home and you know that type of thing. Um, but there's yeah, there's so many ways to use it. Um, and of course, you don't always want it to roll straight away either. I think you that's you've got to build up the tension, you know. If you're getting a volunteers out on stage and you're doing the actual effect where they're holding the key, um you know, have it not work a few times in the same way that if you're gonna do a seance, you're not always gonna get a ghost come through. You need the right environment and the right people there. So kind of you know, pad it out a bit, stretch it out, and uh when it does happen, it makes it even more miraculous.

SPEAKER_02: 42:33

Well, that's an excellent entry in at number four. So let's go to a number five. What's in your fifth spot?

SPEAKER_01: 42:40

The fifth spot would be the uh the original out of this world routine. Um uh to you so people who don't know uh what the out of this world routine is, it's when you get an a mixed deck of cards, you create two piles, and when you flip them over, they've miraculously all sorted themselves into all reds and all blacks. Um, which when I first came across it, you know, I could have started a cult by doing this uh, you know, around the office at work. Um but the great thing is the one thing I really, really liked about it is is the fact that you, as the magician, don't have to do anything, and it's the person who is actually control or placing the cards, it makes them look like the one who's magic, um, which I always liked. I'm I've never been the kind of egotistical type person, so I've never wanted to be the one who looks like look at me, I'm amazing, you know, I can make things float and all that. I'm more put these effects into the hands of someone else and make them look amazing, or make them question their own psychic abilities, you know. Um, and that's one uh effect that I did convert into the from hell routine, which is the one that uses the Jack the Ripper victims and uses blood instead of you know sorting out reds and blacks, it would be sorting out blank cards into cards that have actually physically got blood on them, uh, which was incredibly popular. Um, and you know, I've spent countless evenings squirting blood on cards, uh, more than I care to remember, to be honest. A kind of a spooky anecdote that goes with the From Hell cards. Uh, so when I was living in London, I lived in on the Isle of Dogs, and I'd released, I think, probably the second edition of From Hell, and it was very popular. And I'd just moved in with my, who is my now wife, and we lived in an old it was called Burrell's Wharf, and it was an old printing factory, so it was very, you know, uh post-Victorian old industrial type buildings. Um at one point, supposedly all the pigeons around there were purple and green because it was a dye works, so all the dye would come out of the chimney and dye all the pigeons different colours. So um, but lots of I started doing well in the kitchen. I didn't have a studio at the time, so I was doing the from hell cards in the kitchen, so I was just laying out victim uh the actual mortuary photographs of the Jack the Ripper victims, and I was there squirting blood on them hour after hour after hour. And around that time, spooky things started to happen in the house. So, um, for example, my wife would get up and go to work in the morning, and she had to be in work earlier than me, so I would lie in bed, and I would feel someone come in and come and sit on the end of the bed, and I would roll over, and there was no one there, but there was an imprint of somebody sitting on the end of the bed in the bedroom in broad daylight as well. Um, another time something tried to get into bed with me by actually folding the duvet back uh on its own. I could actually see the duvet lift as if somebody was trying to get into bed. And then with a slight poltergeist activity as well, there was all sorts of um pots and pans and jugs flying around, uh glasses smashing, and it was all very odd. And I in the end I actually asked it to stop uh and kind of you know leave us alone, and it did, but it was only a few years later when I kind of thought that was it because I was doing these cards in a place where, you know, I was only a stone's throw from where the actual Whitechapel murders happened, you know, in terms of maybe a mile and a half away. Uh, was there a connection where the building I was with maybe one of the Jack the Ripper victims, which I was unaware of historically? But it did seem that when I was doing that, it was making something, it was creating waves in a sort of paranormal type and turning into a paranormal type event. So yeah, from hell, out of this world, and ghosts, uh, yeah, it all kind of links together.

SPEAKER_02: 47:14

Makes me wonder if people have those from hell cards at home. I wonder if they've experienced anything because of any attachment to those cards. I think that'll be interesting. Have you ever had anyone message you and say, I bought one of your props, and since I've had it, this has been happening in my house?

SPEAKER_01: 47:32

I haven't no, but I did see them on Come Dine With Me on Channel Four once. So they were you know when they split up and they go around the house, and this guy was a little bit weird, and they went into his bedroom and he had like the victim cards all on little photo stands, and I was like, they're my from hell cards, so they were on they were on come dine with me. Um, but I've never had anyone contact me and say, since I've bought your products, things have started to happen in my house. Um I think most people who buy my things tend to be quite spooky anyway, would embrace it, but yeah, I've not had any nothing on the scale that I experienced when I was living in London, put it that way. And did your wife experience the same kind of things? Um, she saw some things happen. Um, light switches would switch on and off, and we actually physically were kind of stood outside the bathroom. We actually watched the light switch just flick on and off on its own right next to us. Um so there definitely was something there. But the weird thing is was it was all happening in broad daylight. It wasn't happening in the dead of night, it was all happening around sort of seven, eight o'clock in the morning. Um and the weird thing is with the with the imprint on the bed, the first time it happened, it kind of freaked me out so much that I kind of got dressed, got ready for work, made the bed as I always do. And I'm kind of because I'm ex-military, I always make sure the duvet is perfect. You know, I pull it down so it's tight. I'm very sort of uh OCD when it comes to things like that. And when I came back from work, I was the first one back, and there was something sitting on the end of the bed again when I got in. It's like the you can actually see the uh imprint of someone's backside on the bed, as if someone had been waiting for me to come home from work, which was really kind of a little bit unnerving. Uh so yeah, it was strange.

SPEAKER_02: 49:25

Yeah, well, it sounds it. We we've we've deviated away from from the trick here. So let's get back onto the trick. So, yes, out of this world uh is a great, great one. I remember seeing Darren do his version many years ago when I was younger, where he I think he quite literally just separated the living and the dead, or the the spectator did, and ever since then there has just been so many versions of this kind of routine, but the the blood splatters and the fact that um I I didn't know that they weren't printed, and you've actually made the blood splatters on the cards, which just shows each individual splatter has been put there by me, yeah. Um and here's my my nerdy bizarre follow-up. Do you have a blood mixture of your own?

SPEAKER_01: 50:16

No, but I do have um what I believe is the perfect match for blood, but um, it took me a while to find it. Um and I'll I'll reveal it on the show in case anyone wants to do it. But it's Windsor and Newton Deep Red Ink. Um, and you can just go and buy it from Hobbycraft, and it comes in a little box and it's got a picture of a train on it, and that is the perfect match for blood. Um, and believe me, I've seen plenty of it uh to the point where I've spilt it on myself accidentally quite a few times and then gone to pick the kids up from school, and because it's writing ink, it doesn't come off very well. So I look like I've been butchering somebody. Um, but yeah, Windsor and Windsor and Newton deep red, um, writing ink, the perfect match for blood. And I suppose if you were going to mix it with a little bit of uh glycerine, um it would have the uh the same uh sort of texture as blood as well, the same, you know, uh, but you would don't get it on your hands because it does stain. But if you want something to look realistic as part of a prop, um then it's very good blood.

SPEAKER_02: 51:31

Okay, well, everyone's gonna be uh making their own blood now, um, or maybe not, we'll find out. But also, if anyone has bought one of Dan's products and has had something spooky happen, please get in contact with him or or us because I think that would be super interesting to find out. And I wonder if there are bazaarists in general who because they're dealing with these things all the time, um, they have more experiences than the general public. It would be so interesting to find out.

SPEAKER_01: 52:04

It would be interesting. It's also interesting to sort of, you know, if I created a prop and then someone palmed it off to someone else as a haunted object, not knowing that it'd just been made about three weeks earlier in Kent, that they thought they actually had an original haunted object from say 1860 and then all of a sudden started to experience some sort of weird manifestation. That would that would be interesting to find out. I might even try it. Do it.

SPEAKER_02: 52:34

Do you know what you should do is there should be something about your products that allows people in the know to know that it's not a real one. Um, so that if we go to like a museum and we see it, we go, ah, that's that's uh Dan's prop, that one. Um, and we could we can validate it straight away, and then we can let you know we can just we'll we'll create a uh Lebanon Circle map of the world where there are just little pins where your props are um in weird places.

SPEAKER_01: 53:03

I have created a few as hoaxes. Um one thing I learned from the original mummified fairy hoax is never reveal it as a hoax um because well, one, it can ruin your professional career, and two, people generally don't like being fooled, so you'll be the brunt of somebody's, you know, for example, death threats and you know all sorts of things. So I have created things that have appeared in the news and um globally, probably in the multitude of millions of times, and they're out there that I've created that uh are touted as genuine objects, but I can't say what they are. But if you know me well, you'll probably be able to go out there and figure out which ones they are. But they're yeah, there's a few out there which you know you can find instantly on the internet, which were my creations, um, but people think they are genuine, so I'll leave that for listeners to go and figure out for themselves.

SPEAKER_00: 54:11

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SPEAKER_02: 55:07

Now I was just gonna say, let's all go out and let's find these. Uh let's find out what's real and what's not. Uh, right, so let's move on. Uh so we're on to number six. What's in your six spot?

SPEAKER_01: 55:19

Number six. Um something really basic. Um, but I just love them, and that's switch boxes. All magicians love boxes. Doesn't matter who you I think it's a male thing as well. Men love boxes. If you're not a magician, a man will have lots of boxes, you know, sorting boxes. But for me, switch boxes, I love them. I've always made them. Um, and I think the first one was the uh the drawbox you know, illusion, um, which kind of when I first saw that, it really flummoxed me at first until I realized how it worked. Um, but I loved the drawbox and then just switching methods in general. I I just love a really nice clean switch method that you're able to do so many things with it. There's not many effects I produce um that don't at some point switch something out. So uh, but yeah, uh a good switch box. Yeah, every yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 56:27

So devil's advocate's gonna come out down. Okay. If I gave you one routine to perform with your switch box, what would you do with it?

SPEAKER_01: 56:36

Okay, well, over the years I've tried to learn the tarot, um, but my my brain, I think it's probably to do with age. My my memory is terrible, and uh I've never found a tarot deck that I resonate with, which I think is what you've got to do. Um, and I'm a good storyteller, but I'm just not that comfortable with using tarot cards, or at least giving someone a reading. So for me, um one great thing is to give someone the tarot deck, let them shuffle it, um deal three cards out, and so you're gonna give them a three-card reading, and then you place the three cards in a box, and then boom, you switch it for three others that you know the exact reading of, so you've never had to learn the other 78 cards. You just learn, I don't know, as let's give them a good reading, the tower, the devil, and death, for example. And then, you know, so you can give the reading, and then you can take the cards out at the end and see how close your reading was to the cards they've um uh they've selected. So that would be that would be the one I would use, partly because I'm too lazy to learn a full tarot deck in order to read them, and uh, you know, you only have to learn the three cards. Uh but I I've a few years ago I produced a ta uh a switch box which was kind of new because it had it's actually got a glass lid on it. So so what you would do is, for example, if we were going to do that um uh switch that I've just spoken about, when the spectator puts their three cards in the box, you take you you lock the box and you take the lid off, and there's just a glass panel, and you can say, There you go, you can see your three cards that you've just put in, and you just hold on to that box for now. The switch has already happened, so it's all done and dusted. But for the whole routine, they can see what they think is their cards in front of them at all times, and they can even unlock the box, take those three out, and it will be the three that were switched earlier. So um I just like the idea of performing it so early on in the you know, in the routine that it's done, it's done and dusted, and they're watching that object throughout the whole routine in the box. Um, and it just kind of removes the fact that was the you know, they didn't even see a switch happen because as far as they've concerned, they've just had their eyes on it throughout the whole performance, which makes it even more impossible. They don't look glass top, it's almost like uh it's a box with um it's got like a just a another lid on top with a knob, and you just lift that off, and there's a glass plate underneath. So uh yeah, so but yeah, they're really they've been really popular purely for that that reason is that the switches perform so early on in the routine that people don't even remember a switch happened, you know, as far as they are aware, you're just giving them a glass topped box with their object in. Um so, but yeah, switch boxes all the way. Every man loves a box, and women, of course, I'm sure some women do.

SPEAKER_02: 59:55

Uh well, remind me never to book in a tarot reading with you if I already know I'm I'm gonna get Death, the Tower, and the Devil. I don't want that reading. You can keep that reading. It's uh it's yours entirely. Great. So we are in the tail end of R8 now. So we've got seven and eight to go. So what's in your seventh spot?

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:14

The seventh spot is so my sort of what we would call in the navy is your sea dad, like the guy who took me under my wing when I was a very, you know, sort of green magician or producer, Ronnie Shacknai. Um I met him one afternoon in London and he went through every single routine he'd ever created, which I had a very bad headache at the end of the day because he just bombarded me with all these methods and tricks and props that he'd created over, you know, a multitude of decades. And he performed one trick for me called skurot, which is he said was a cross between skull and tarot. And it was so basic, it was like a Halloween prop. It was one of those kind of it was a skull that its eyes lit up red. It was something straight that you would find in BN or you know, Dollar Tree. But it absolutely fooled me 100%. And out of everything he showed me that day, it was the one thing that stuck with me, and I just could not figure out how it was done. And it involved a tarot deck again. Um and it was basically he had this skull of this um mystic from the jungle, I think you said it was, who could predict the future, and it was going to prove it by basically giving me a deck of tarot cards, I would take out three cards, and the uh the skull would like jiggle and his eyes would light up, and it would predict the exact three cards that I'd taken from the tarot deck, and I could go back into the tarot deck, and those three cards and that the skull had you know uh predicted were no weren't in that deck, and you know, it was an amazing, it was an amazing effect. Um uh and it's just it but again it uses a you know very simple um three outs method, that's all it was, which I'd never heard of and had no clue whatsoever. And that's all it was. It was just it was a a deck switch and three outs. So, you know, uh that was for me, it was just pure magic because I just it was a head scratcher for me. Um and I did I did release a newer version of it uh later on uh which used an Egyptian um an Egyptian mummified head as well. Uh, and that was that was really popular, but that was my fate, one of my most favourite tricks I've ever seen. If you can call it a trick, it was more of a it was a very interesting performance. Ronnie was Israeli, so it was all kind of Dan, I will do this trick for you now, and it was all you know kind of very mystic, and uh yeah, it had lots of atmosphere, huge atmosphere, but terrible props.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:13

So now is this is this still available? Is this one that you still produce?

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:19

Um I I've produced it now and again, I've produced it for a few actual stage shows actually. Um, one in Germany and uh I can't remember where the other one in the States, I think. Um, but it's it's one of those effects that is probably due for a bit of a refresh. I did a version of it not long ago, and uh it was called The Devil Made Me Do It, and it was almost like a a Zoltan um machine, and it was a like a little devil with a mechanical hand that moved backwards and forwards, and it was exactly the same uh method, and you would put your three cards out in front of the devil, and he would point to each card and reveal them in order, and a little ticket would come out of his mouth with the prediction of the three you'd picked. So um I think that that one's due for another. I only made, I think I only made about my original uh I think I was gonna make 66 of them that sold for 666 pounds. You can see where I'm going with this. Um, but I didn't I didn't sell that many. I think I probably only sold about 20 of them. But it's one of those illusions that is almost like a on Lebanon Circle, if you're a fan of Lebanon Circle illusions, it's quite mythical because I never released it to the general public, I just released it to like a few people and made a few of them and they're out there. But it was so aesthetically, it was really nice as well. It had instead of um instead of legs for the box, it had little goat's legs with hooves. Um the devil's eyes lit up, his mouth opened, the ticket came out, and he had like this little hand that pointed. It was just pure 1950s devil spooky, had the whole Twilight Zone vibe to it, but that was all inspired by that original meeting with Ronnie and him showing me the scurrot routine. Um, and yeah, just and it's simple as well. I think most anything that I produce, anything anybody can perform really, because I have to be able to perform it myself, and I'm not a um a trained magic magician, I'm not a stage magician, I'm not even a performer. But if I can perform it, anybody can perform it. Um, but they may not have my storytelling skills. That's probably something that um you know uh if I've had a few beers, I'm quite good at telling stories.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:50

Now, people know obviously this is an Alakazam podcast, but um people may not know that Pete does not get to hear these. So Pete and Ardi, um obviously my boss and the the owner of Alakazam doesn't hear these until they go out. Now, as you're explaining that, I know that I'm guessing Pete, if you're listening to this, which I know you are, that is a trick that he will want because he's a massive fan of the um uh Zoltar machine. So he he's a huge fan. We've actually got a small one in the shop, uh, we've got a trick called Zoltar's Opener. Um he's a massive, massive fan of of that that sort of thing. So I know straight away he's gonna be like, where can I get one of them? Um so you've already got a fan, I would have said from that. Um but that sounds great, and it's the the fact that you know it obviously had a profound impact on you at the time for for you to carry that on, and it must be so lovely to carry his legacy on in those iterations of it going forward.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:55

Exactly, yeah. Because he's almost like he taught me everything I knew really in early days. He kind of he was I was probably sort of one foot in bazaar, one foot in mentalism, and even though I went to quite a few mentalism style um meetings, there was too much number crunching and writing down and stuff for me. It kind of there wasn't that spooky element there, and I found it interesting, and I learned a lot from you know how certain effects work and methods, which was great, but I kind of stopped going to those. Mentalism wasn't really my sort of side of things, but Ronnie taught me everything I know from or inspired me in the bizarre side of things, really, and also introduced me to everybody who I know now as you know some of my closest friends in the industry.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:45

Did you ever release any of his other effects that he showed you?

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:50

Well, the spirits the spirit slates um that actually have the sound of the chalk writing was originally his idea. Um, and when they came out originally, they had his original name. They were called Abacus Spiritalis, and uh he had a set of slates that had the chalk writing, so that was originally his idea. It's just that I kind of just took it a little bit further, changed the design, and of over the years keep you know, redesigning or revising the technology. But I do try them I try and make them so when the technology is new technology is available, you can just take the old technology out and put the new one in. You don't have to buy the whole set of slates again. So I try and can't keep it modular if I can. And you know, if you want to update it, you can. And if your old set works exactly how you want it to, then you know, if it isn't broken, why fix it? Um but there's a few other effects that he did that were very sort of mentalism-based. Um I just they kind of don't really fit the Lebanon Circle brand, so I would probably just have to release them under a different um under a different name or I don't know. But and I don't I don't really kind of there's lots of people out there keeping his um effects alive besides me. And you know, he's done a lot for me over the years, and you know, it gives other people the opportunity to maybe do something with what he's done. Uh I kind of try and, if I can, um use my own ideas now, but it inspired me from the very early days.

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:29

Well, we'll all keep an eye out for the the reimagining of that, I think. Uh now that does lead us to your final choice. So, what did you put in number eight?

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:39

Number eight is um a just a good old book test, but a lazy book test, because again, yeah, I'm just not one of these people that retains really complex methods at all. It's all about simplicity for me. Um, because I want to use uh my memory uh and for my storytelling, uh trying to remember as much as possible in order to convey a good story. I don't want to be remembering lots of uh, you know, maybe slights or mnemonics or methods for book reading. And I think it was uh Bonachek's um book test with the ring, where you know you take a ring and you put it on a page. And I as soon as I saw that, I thought, amazing, you know, can be used with any book, you can have a pile of books. I don't have to remember page numbers or words along pages or any any kind of you know strange methods. There's so many book test methods out there, but the the one where Banachek uses the ring and you just put it is it was it Banachek or Richard Osterland? I can't remember. I think it was Banachek on another on another tangent. Ronnie actually bought Banachek round my house in London, which was the house that had the ghost. So I had Bana I had breakfast with Banachek in my living room, um, which was kind of another bizarre experience. Uh but um, but yeah, that that particular method of forcing a word um for me, it's super clean, super easy, uh, doesn't need very little setup for it. And it just it just works, it's simple. I don't have to gaff any books, I don't have to buy a a particularly, you know, a particularly gimmicked book. I can just pick a book I like for a particular performance, you know, Dracula, for example. Although I know there is a Dracula um uh book test, but not the one. Um so yeah, that would be my my eighth choice.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:47

You're absolutely right, and uh another thing that you touched on there, since we're talking about bizarre magic, is the idea that the method when it comes to bizarre magic isn't necessarily the most important thing, and the easier it is, the more you get to spend your time on focusing on the performance. And I think that that's where bizarre magic is maybe difficult in a different way. So when you think magic, you think the sleight of hand's gonna be really difficult. Whereas this isn't about the the the sleight of hand, it's about how interesting, how engaging, and how onside you're gonna get the audience.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:29

Yeah, definitely. It's performing something that's effective, that does the job. It's like you're dipping into a magician's toolbox to just what you need for the story, basically. It's uh it's kind of the opposite way around to what normal magicians would operate, I suppose. Less talking and more magic, where bizarre is more talking but less magic, but the magic is important, but it also has to be relatively easy as well. There's more and there's more pressure that it has to work as well, I suppose, because if you're only doing maybe one illusion after talking for 10 minutes, then that illusion has to work, really. Whereas if you're a magician who's performing a show that's got 10 illusions, if one of them doesn't quite work out, you can just go to the next one and the people forget. But with Bazaar, you've gotta got that kind of the heat is on the thing you're gonna do. Because if it doesn't work, the whole story kind of fall falls apart.

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:28

So, yeah, and I think uh earlier on when you were talking about the haunted key, I think that's a sign of whether you've you've done a good job, is whether you get the reaction. Because if you've built up that anticipation, if you've hooked them with your story, if they're really in it, when that key moves, they will react. If they don't react, then the likelihood is it's something within your performance that you need to tweak or change.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:56

I mean, I've had I've even had clients um who've bought my illusions that have they've not even had to perform the actual trick element of the story because the prop has freaked out the audience so much. You know, say part of a routine, you have to hand a locket to somebody to hold. Some people won't even hold that locket if they think it's genuinely haunted, and then you struggle to find a volunteer to actually even hold that because they're terrified of what it could do. Um, I also had a friend who performed Dolly Darko, and when the time came for the doll to put its arm in the air, its arm actually fell off, but before the point it was meant to, but it fell off and absolutely terrified the whole audience, uh you know, because it wasn't meant to happen, but it did happen, but it had a very positive effect um on the performance. Luckily, so well, I think that's a great one in your final.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:57

So let's quickly go back over your list. So we started with spirit cabinet onto spirit slates. We had the corpse candle, haunted effects, but the uh haunted key out of this world, switch boxes, scurrut, and a lazy book test. I think uh it's everything that I could have wanted from a Dan Baines list and more. But you do still have three things, Dan. So obviously, we gave you eight tricks, but you're only allowed one each of these. So I want you to imagine that you are going to dig a big sandy hole on your island. We're gonna throw something inside. I want you to tell me what you would banish from our industry.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:32

I am terrified of people singing unannounced. I hate it. And if a magician starts singing throughout their performance, it makes my blood run cold. So singing magicians would for me would be uh yeah, they'd be in that pit quicker than you could um quicker than you could say.

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:55

I think that's interesting as well because um a lot of people that don't like musical theatre is because the actor just b bursts into song. But you've already told us that you're you're you're a fan of musicals because you went to um Lord of the Rings the musical. So what would what what would make it an inappropriate time to sing um during a show for you?

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:19

Well, the thing is if you go to a musical, right? The giveaway is there, it's the it's a musical, you know you're gonna get a bit of singing. Um, but I went to a performance once, I won't say where, but it was a talent show. And um yeah, this woman came out on stage uh and it was everyone else thought it was a really touching performance, but for me, my hands were sweating, I started to like phase out a little bit, and it made me feel so uncomfortable. But um, yeah, she did a uh a card routine while singing at the same time, and it's just I wasn't expecting it, and it just threw me off. And you know, it's one of those things you know, you can be in a restaurant with your wife, for example, and some guy will come up and start singing next to you. I just yeah, I just I hate it, and uh um so singing in magic is just is a definite no-no for me.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:17

Well, Dan, you'll be pleased to know I'm joking, right? Uh that's great. So, singing unannounced is gone. That leads us on to your book, Dan. So if you were to take a book with you to your island, what book are you taking?

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:31

I would say it would be probably only one of the very few magic books I own, and it's an odd one. It's the it's the Dunningja's Magic Magic Encyclopedia, it's the one with all the all the drawings in. And one of my probably one of my best mates in Magic, Sav the Deceptionist, showed it me once. And I was just I just love all of the quirky artwork and ideas that quite clearly 90% of them would never work in real life. But it's one of those inspirational books that I can just kind of you know look through. If I'm having a bit of writer's block one day, I'll just leaf through the book and uh I'll find I'll find potential ideas in there. Um, so that would be my book that I would take away with me.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:21

Okay, well, you mentioned that um half the ideas just wouldn't work. I think we've had this book mentioned before. Um, but I found a lot of the old bizarre manuscripts that you buy nowadays, it's either you can't it wouldn't work, or it's very illegal to do it nowadays, which I find's really interesting. The amount of chemicals that's in bizarre magic that you just know, you just don't don't mix them, don't do it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:45

Like napalm. Yeah. Although I did I I did make one of the tricks in the Dunninger book actually work, which was a seance effect. And like if you go through it, there's a picture like the little drawing of a man holding a um a policeman's whistle over a table, and the whistle blows back in response to questions. Um, but I did make a version of that that works, which you can also download for free on my website. It's called Whistle and I'll Come To You, and it involves a a uh a nautical bosun's call uh and uh a lot of plastic tubing and a uh one of those um lens cleaners for a camera. So but it does work, it does work. So you can get a uh you can get a whistle to respond in seance situations. Um but yeah, that was kind of a challenge. I will make one of these effects work.

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:38

Okay, so you started by saying that. Normally we don't do this, but because it's a sort of a Halloween special and we have you here, you said that it's one of the only magic books that you would take with you. So uh I also know because I have a bookshelf next to me with uh a couple of these sorts of books on there, you do get prop making books and stage craft books and stuff like that. So if this wasn't if you could take a book, just a book in general, what is the book that you would take with you? Would it be a craft book or would it be a story book or what would you take?

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:14

I just like a good I do like just a good book of ghost stories because that's where I'll get my ideas from. Um or a book. Okay, one of my favourite books um is called Three Men in Search of Monsters by Nick Redfern, which is a bit like Scooby-Doo. It's just three guys who go all over England going to different um places of paranormal activity or you know, pursuing cryptids and things like that. And it's just like an adventure book uh and an investigation into the world of the paranormal. And it's a book I've read probably three times, which I can say I've not really read. That is the only book I've read three times, but it's not really related to magic, but it has lots of little interviews with people who've experienced lots of weird things, and it's all these little in uh these little incidents and these stories that really fuel my imagination for potential new releases. Uh so that I would say that is my favorite book. Um I actually bought it from a bookshop at Ground Zero in New York, not long after the bombing, uh not long after the uh the towers came down, to be honest. So uh um, so it's kind of got a memory in that respect. Um, but it's yeah, it's just one of those books that if I'm feeling a bit, as again, you know, a writer's block, I'll pick that up, I'll have a read, and all of a sudden I'll get all these kind of little ideas popping back up in my mind, or it would just reignite old ideas I've forgotten about.

SPEAKER_02: 1:21:55

Amazing. Right, so we're we're gonna do a rare thing and we're gonna let you take two books. I don't think I've done that for anyone on this podcast, so you get to take both of them, okay? Um just don't tell anyone else that we've done that. They're all gonna want to do it. So we've got one last thing, uh, which is your item. Now, the interesting thing with this one is people tend to struggle with this one, but because you craft things and make things, I think there's an untold amount of things that you could take in this position.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:26

There is, yeah. I've got so many items, um, kind of spoiled for choice, really. Um okay, I've got a and it's something that I I am gonna turn into a an effect or a prop eventually, and it's an original bellamine witch bottle, um, which uh for people who don't know uh witch bottles were um like a small bellamine jar, so it's like a it's almost like a light bulb, upside down shape with a picture of a bearded man, and inside you would put things like rusty nails, urine, all sorts of lovely things, and then you would bury them on your property and it would keep witches away. Um, so I've got one of those, an original one of those. Um, and I would take that um because touch wood, um, since I've had it, I've not experienced anything too spooky or scary, so it's obviously doing its job. Uh, and if the house is gonna burn down, then I'm gonna take it with me. Uh uh, so yeah, uh a Bellamine jar. So in terms of prop design as well, I just love it. There's there's an effect in there somewhere. Uh, I've not quite figured it out yet, but I keep looking at it, and one day, you know, one will appear on the Lebanon Circle site that I don't know a spirit materializes from it, or you know, a sound comes from it, or who knows, who knows.

SPEAKER_02: 1:23:59

So, do you know what's in your Bellamine Witch bottle? Do you know what is empty?

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:04

Yeah, this this one's empty. So, um, a lot of them when they're found, because builders usually find them when they're renovating buildings, and of course, the first thing you know, you get a builder, oh, what's inside? And they open it up and just tip out the contents.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:19

So I heard uh there was a uh a podcast recently, and there was a lady who's renovating a house in uh a town where they used to do witch trials, and they found lots of these sorts of jars and bottles in the wall, um, and some of them had human remains, so of course the police had to come in to check that it was authentic and stuff, and uh the council have agreed that those jars and artifacts cannot leave that house because they're so afraid of what will happen if they're taken out. So when you go to this lady's hallway, she's got this lovely renovated house, but just this glass cabinet with these creepy things um on the wall that they just will not take out because you know people are so afraid of taking things away with them.

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:10

Yeah, it's like the mummified cats, you know, you find a lot of those, especially down in Kent. So I I do have an effect with a mummified cat, actually. So uh that that is on the cards. Um, but it's it's quite dangerous, so I've got to figure out how I'm gonna do it properly. So not figured that out yet. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02: 1:25:30

Okay, so let's go back over your list. So we started with the spirit cabinet, then two spirit slates, the corpse candle, we did haunted effects but a haunted key, out of this world, switch boxes, uh scurrut, we did a lazy book test. Your banishment is singing unannounced. Your books, sir, are Dunn's June's Complete Encyclopedia of Magic and Three Men in Search of Monsters, and your item is a Bellamine Witch bottle. I think, in terms of a Halloween special, we're not gonna do much better than that, are we? I don't think so, no. Now, Dan, if people want to find out more about you, about Doomsday, about the East Coast Spirit sessions, about everything Dan Baines, where can they go to?

SPEAKER_01: 1:26:13

Okay, well, if you just go to Google and type in Dan Baines Mummified Fairy, there's probably in the region of over a hundred thousand hits which you're gonna come across. But if you just want to cut out all of that, you can just go to danbaines.com, um, which is my artist website, and that will have information on if I'm running any courses or if I'm appearing anywhere or if I'm doing you know podcasting. Um, or if you just want to have a look at the magic stuff I produce, you just need to go to Lebanoncircle.co.uk. And I'm also on Instagram, just look for Lebanon Circle on Instagram. So I'll post on there quite regularly. Um, usually, you know, if I'm in the studio, I'll take a few snaps of bits I'm working on. Um and so doomsday uh is doomsday gathering.com. Uh so or just type in Doomsday Derby. Uh, you will find information on where to buy tickets. And uh as I say, I'm there next year in the capacity of just like the artistic director. So I designed the trophy for the um the hex factor, which is the talent competition. And next year I will also have a trader stand there as well, which is something I've never done at Doomsday because I've always been too busy running around. But next year I will have a trader stand, so uh I'll have more time to actually just talk to people.

SPEAKER_02: 1:27:36

Well, thank you so much for your time, Dan. I know that you're very busy making mummified things. Uh so it's been great to finally have you on here. Thanks, and happy Halloween. Uh yes, happy Halloween. So wherever you are today, obviously it is Halloween as we are uh sending this out. So wherever you are, I hope you've had a great time. I hope you've done some uh Halloween shows. Uh the past couple of days, we're actually filming this, uh recording this, sorry, at the beginning of October. And the past couple of days I've just been inundated with people saying, I've got a Halloween show, I need to do something, what can I do? So hopefully lots of people are doing lots of Halloween shows, which is great. So wherever you are, I hope you are enjoying this time of the year. Um, do go check out Dan's site, obviously. Do go check out Doomsday, check out everything Dan Baines because his props really are absolutely phenomenal. Um and obviously, if you're there, go up to him and let him know that you heard the podcast and I'm sure he'll appreciate that you've done that. Um, if any of you are having any scary experiences that have one of Dan's products, do let us know because we love uh a ghost story on here. Dan's already creeped us all out, let's be honest, with the bed. And I'm not sure if you guys picked up on this, but at the end he said he keeps his Bellamine witch bottle, right? And he says that he keeps it because nothing too scary has happened. But he tells us the story about the bed and the things flying around in the house, and he says that's not too scary. So, you know, define what you think's scary. I don't want any of it, quite frankly. So there we go. But do get in contact with him if you find out anything, and of course, we're gonna be back next week with another episode. So until then, have a great week. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29:24

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