It’s time for the Grandiose Glossary of Thaumaturgical Terminology. But first, an explanation of the title. I’m coming out as a Jehovah’s Witness, you see. The title is based upon a line I found in the pamphlet that convinced me to convert for the sake of world peace.
Okay, so now that I’ve outed my true faith as a JW and you all understand the all-important yet contradictorily sacrilegious title reference, we can move on.
What’s the Grandiose Glossary of Thaumaturgical Terminology, you ask? Why, it’s a resource aimed primarily at pissing off the Green Latrine posters who think the newbies shouldn’t get even a taste of what any of their discussions are supposed to mean, but secondarily it’s intended to be a valuable resource for new and old magicians alike. The new ones will need it because they won’t know, and the old ones will need it because they forgot. It’s a perfect business model. We’re working on capturing the intermediate/middle-aged market currently.
In essence, the GGoTT explains what a 3CM is, that a turtle just means any shell, and that DL can mean down-low OR double lift; depending on whether or not you’re hanging with Copperfield or Blaine. Altogether it’s just over fifty entries currently.
Without further ado, enjoy the Glossary (aka tGGoTT, obvy) as it currently stands. This will be hosted on the Et cetera page once this is no longer the most recent post, but for now it’s just here.
Please suggest additions in the comments! We surely haven’t thought of quite everything and we’d love your feedback. Chime in with codes and acronyms and slang!
- 2CM: Two Card Monte (Fechter’s “Be Honest What Is It?”, 2CM name popularized by David Blaine)
- 3CM: Three Card Monte
- 4DT: Fourth-Dimensional Telepathy by Annemann, with variants by Bob Cassidy and others.
- ACAAN: Any Card At Any Number
- ACR: Ambitious Card Routine
- AMA: Academy of Magical Arts
- ATFUS: Any Time Face-Up Switch by Marlo
- BMC: Blackpool Magic Convention
- CAAN: Card At Any Number
- C/S: Copper/Silver gimmick
- CT: Center Tear
- DB: Double Backer or (much rarer) David Blaine
- DF: Double Facer
- DFB: Digital Force Bag
- DL: Double Lift, which is technically a double turnover (the more you know)
- DPS: Diagonal Palm Shift
- EDC: EveryDay Carry
- FISM: International Federation of Magical Societies (but in French, hence FISM instead of IFMS which is really just so typical of English to sound awful in comparison. Can’t pronounce that shit.)
- GLOMM: Global League Of Magicians and Mentalists 1
- HH: Harry Houdini 2
- ID: Invisible Deck
- IBM: International Brotherhood of Magicians
- IT: Invisible Thread
- L&S, L+S: Long and Short
- MC or MCF: Mercury Card Fold
- MMC: Member of the Magic Circle
- MMO: Member of the Magic Oval 3
- MOABT: Mother Of All Book Tests 4
- NDO: New Deck Order
- NW: Nail Writer
- O&W, O+W: Oil and Water
- OOTW: Out Of This World
- OW: One Way (deck, back, etc)
- P&T, P+T: Penn and Teller ❤️
- Part: As in Participant, derived from and due to the general overuse of “spec”/spectator. You ask the Part to pick a card. The spec watches. (Oval slang, but spread it.)
- PATEO: Pick Any Two, Eliminate One or Point At Two, Eliminate One (same thing either way)
- PK: PsychoKinetic
- Professor, The: Dai Vernon 🙇
- R&S, R+S: Rough and Smooth
- S&S, S+S: Scotch and Soda
- SAM: Society of American Magicians
- SUC: Sight Unseen Case
- SW: Swami Writing, Swami Writer, (rarely) secret writing, (rarely) secret writer
- SWE: Suave Whistling, Electric! Not actually, actually it stands for S.W. Erdnase. 5
- T&R, T+R: Torn and Restored
- TC: Top Change
- TL: Triple Lift
- TOD: Tossed Out Deck
- TT: Thumb Tip
- Turtle: Any shell (get it?)
- XCM: eXtreme Card Manipulation (very rare in magic unless you know Brian Tudor, it’s cardistry jargon)
Again, please chime in with additions. If you manage to contribute two worthwhile additions we don’t have (with an email attached) we’ll reach out with a 25 dollar gift card to your favorite online store other than D’Ellusionist.
- Known primarily for disallowing all convicted sex offenders from their ranks and curating a useful list of the banned magicians in question. ↩︎
- If you’re Paul Carpenter (NOT our beloved Jack Carpenter, who is the only one that should be trusted with any sort of control), the magician infamous for an AI Biden robocall during the New Hampshire primary who seems weirdly fond of “political circus” stunts with swastikas and blackface, you’re probably more likely to think of “Heil Hitler” than “Harry Houdini”. But we can’t help that. Goodbye with you. ↩︎
- We’re lying, this one doesn’t exist. We call ourselves Ovalites, and the fanbase an Ovulati- sorry, I meant an Ovalation. Anyway, we were just hoping to briefly distract you from your Massively Multiplayer Online game known as “the Café” and/or “the Facebook group ‘Magicians Only’” so you could practice some magic in real life and make some friends or something. ↩︎
- The iconic methodology for creating book test text originated by the guy who groomed and fucked his underage student from public school beforehand and buried it (until the Jerx came a-knockin’) because this was the ’80s baby. The one and only Ted Karmilovich! ↩︎
- What does the S.W. stand for, you may ask? Probably nothing legitimate at all. Long story and we haven’t the time to dilly nor dally. ↩︎
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