Hindu Shuffle ! Even the name sounds mystical. I must confess ignorance as to its birth. John Northern Hilliard told me that he didn’t know much about it either. In the fall of 1927 I was in Rudy Schlosser’s old magic store on New York’s West 42nd Street. Clinton Burgess had taken me there and we met, both for the first time, Emir Bux, an adept with the cups and balls, and an obsession (true or false ?) that he was the only Hindu who could do card tricks. What few tricks he did show us were and are quite inconsequential. His rising card bit (with a hair) was sloppily done and the open door draft didn’t waste time in spinning the ascending pasteboard to reveal a piece of wax as big as a dime ! However, Emir Bux did one thing well. The shuffle. He used it for each trick. It undoubtedly was his only way of controlling a card. It fascinated me, and certainly was unknown to Burgess who was a fountain of magical lore and possessor of a very complete library. It had fooled me in itself, but Clint took the right track in assuming that it was a longitudinal variation of (I think) a so-called Hermann shuffle wherein on the first overhand throw off the original top stock is stolen away behind the others which are then shuffled off in packets to the break and the stock once more left at the top of the deck.
I worked on that shuffle for several weeks constantly. It’s not easy to acquire a smooth, regular, and mincing shuffle which does not let the cards go off in gobs and clumsy bunches.
Take a deck and follow these words : Hold the pack face down in left hand. Now shift it to a position about half an inch from the tips of all fingers and thumbs. The thumb is at center of left side, the forefinger is at center of the front end, and the remaining fingers are at the forward two-thirds of the right side. The whole deck is thus held about two inches above the actual left palm underneath.
The near end of the deck is now grasped by the right thumb and second finger at the sides. The left thumb and second finger separate and pull off forward a bunch of cards, they immediately dropping free into the left palm. All left fingers and thumb are free of this bunch but sticking up sort of like petals on a flower. From this point on the cards are shuffled off top of the portion held by right hand. The left hand does this work almost in entirety. The cards pulled off are grasped by the fleshy base of the left thumb (Mount of Jupiter) and the fleshy faces of the second, third and fourth fingers on the opposite side. That’s what takes the practise — running through the pack with only three or four cards being pulled off top of the right hand packet and dropping onto the left hand pile.
There have been mistaken opinions that this shuffle was done from the bottom of the right hand pile — but that wouldn’t shuffle the deck anyway — and probably as resorted to because instructions weren’t clear or it was too hard the other way to learn in five minutes. Here you have the component parts of the true shuffle by one who has used it steadily and practically exclusively for shuffling during the past twelve years. However, this article was to put in print several new and unknown adaptations which are original with the writer. True, they have been seen many times in the places we frequent where magi abound, and such wrinkles have a way of covering ground. After many passings though, a move or sleight gets warped according to each individual, and each one generally lays claim to his portion. Rather than let these items go the way of all flash paper I print them here exactly as conceived, for what they are worth.
THE CONSECUTIVE HINDU SHUFFLE
Its aim is to bring to the top of the deck a number of selected and replaced cards (usually three) without the formal pass and shuffle repeated three times. The deck is fanned for three people who remove one card each. Return to each person with a card and start the shuffle as you approach the first. Hold out left hand for the dropping of his card on top. You apparently continue the shuffle as you leave and approach the next person. But, as the right hand packet covers the left hand pile and the few cards are being stripped off the top, the right thumb and second finger grasp 5 or 6 cards on the top of the left hand packet and pull them away underneath as the top cards of right hand packet are pulled off. Don’t ever try to grab but one card. Take a bunch. It’s easier.
A few more cards are shuffled off top and you are before the next person. At this moment, and on the last move of left hand in shuffling, no cards are taken from the top — but the previously stolen off packet is dropped back on top of left hand pile. The spectator puts his card on top and it thus is with the first returned card. Now start the shuffle again, stealing off a group once more, and approach the last person, when, again, the underneath bunch is left on top for the replacing of the third card. Now finish the shuffle, stealing once more and shuffling off until the break is reached when this last bunch is dropped on top.
You see what’s happened ? To the audience ? The cards have been put back during but one shuffle through the pack, and at the end of that shuffle the three cards are on top without a single extra move. I always comment as I pass to the three, in turn, that “you put your card back somewhere’s else” — and at the finish “now that the chosen cards are all very well lost and hidden throughout the deck where they have been placed”.
THE HINDU FORCE
I remember some old remarks in Sphinx notes where it was mentioned that I had a quite perfect and new force. Eight or ten letters came in after that wanting to buy. It is so simple it hurts, but it depends mostly on a fast and smooth shuffle. Otherwise you’ll botch it up everytime. The force card is on top of the deck. You start the regular Hindu shuffle by pulling off about ten or fifteen cards into left hand. On the second pull off you steal back four or five cards under right hand packet, the top of which is the force card. Shuffle along and ask the spectator to “tell me when to stop – anytime”. The moment it comes, that’s the time when none are pulled from the top of right hand packet, and the bottom bunch dropped back to top of left hand portion. The left hand immediately stretches out to the spectator, your head turns away, and you ask that he look at the card stopped at. It’s absolutely surefire — if you get the shuffle down pat. It HAS fooled some good magicians.
THE SIMPLEX HINDU LOCATION
This angle is so barefaced that it is hard to explain to another person. But for a location it couldn’t be any cleaner. It’s merely a way of getting a key card next to a selected card — the subsequent trick and climax is up to the individual. Take any deck and note the bottom card — that’s the key. Now give the deck a fair Hindu shuffle, asking the spectator to put his finger down at any time.
The spectator removes this freely chosen card and notes it. At the same time you put your right hand packet underneath the left hand packet and square the deck. Immediately start the shuffle through again, asking the spectator to put his card back at any time. The moment he does drop it down on left hand pile, right hand drops all its packet on top, and the left hand gives the deck directly to the spectator. He is asked to look them over and see if his card really is lost in the pack.
But — did you follow ? — your actions dropped the noted key card right on top of the returned card — and again you can confuse Confucious-like conjurers.
You now know a few good basic sleights that can serve you well in hundreds of tricks. Don’t misuse them, please.
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