To Do a Miracle

And by a miracle — that is JUST WHAT I mean — as far as your audience is concerned. Imagine this :

You ask a spectator to think of some card in the deck and name it aloud. Warning everyone to watch you closely, as you are to attempt one of the most difficult card feats, you riffle the deck and state that the card has left the pack and passed into your pocket. With obviously empty hands, or the spectator may do it, the card named is removed from the pocket.

There are no duplicates – no set-up of deck – and no sleight-of-hand whatever. Instead of in the pocket, the named card may be caused to appear inside a pocketbook, a sealed container, etc. It may be done with a borrowed deck.

Before I continue on to reveal the secret and disillusion you, I want to say that after I stumbled onto this effect I tried it many, many times, and only about once in every twenty-five trials does it fail. With this trick I have fooled magicians in the audience, and really have had the greatest of results with it. I’ll have to admit that you probably won’t be able to do this trick at every performance. However, read the details.

The entire effect is based upon what one might call a mental subterfuge. It’s a method of forcing a mind, and only a short way from hypnotism. Earlier in the evening, at private homes where I am expected to entertain, I seize the opportunity to corral some gentleman for a card trick or two. At a club it is easy to arrive early and locate someone — nite clubs and table work – a card trick on some one person. For him do one quick trick, AND THEN FOLLOW WITH Everywhere and Nowhere. (Ed. note : A standard classic with cards in which the same card keeps turning up in all positions and then isn’t found in any of them. Our favorite explanation of this Hofzinser immortal trick is in Downs’ Art of Magic, but variations, of which there are legion, can be found in almost any representative book of card effects.)

Force the same card used in the previous trick. Do your quickest version. Then I follow with one more quick trick using the same card, forced if necessary, the Ten of Spades — your spectator is dizzy seeing Tens of Spades. He’ll probably accuse you of having more than one — let him examine the pack. Then do still another — really I might say one long trick with the Ten of Spades showing up each time. You’ll have spectators saying their pack has become haunted. But — mind you — all this, for one spectator, preferably with no one else around, quite some time before your actual performance. Now, when you’re through with him, and before proceeding with your show, take an opportunity to place this Ten of Spades where you can reveal it most spectacularly. Slip it into someone’s pocket, even in one of your bewildered spectator’s pockets.

Now you no doubt begin to see the light. At the proper time during your performance you have the pack in your hands. State that you are going to have someone think of a card in the pack. Smile at the person who was your victim earlier in the evening and say “Will you, sir, just think of any card in the pack. Perhaps you can visualize one card that might seem unusual to YOU, some card you think outstanding. What card, out of the fifty-two, might seem to you one that would possess unusualness.”

I can’t tell you just WHAT words to say, but if you say anything along this line, and smile at your spectator in the right way, 99 times out of 100 (or at least 24 out of 25. Ed.) he’ll name the Ten of Spades.

Now you can cause your miracle to happen. And, believe me, it can be put over with a bang depending only upon the limits of a performer’s showmanship. Even the spectator himself will be astonished and he will not realize that you have prepared for it in advance. I have heard people ask him afterwards why he named the Ten of Spades, and he’s never yet given a clear enough explanation to anyone to make it suspicious.

If the spectator should, by any chance, fail to name the right card, just be prepared to go on with some other trick using the card named. But, as will happen in practically every case, he WILL name the right card and the spectators will mention it for weeks. I’ve found that it makes the most remarkable impression of all when used at the private party as a close-up trick for the small home gathering.

There are other ways you can use the idea, such as by using this spectator, in the course of your program, for the You Do As I Do effect. Or just have him stand and think of a card — after proper concentration you name it. The performer who starts using this principle of “forcing” a thought will find that it will become one of his most valuable secrets.