Smash hit

Hand the spectator a deck of cards, saying, “OK, try this. You be the magician, I’ll be the spectator. Take this deck and give it a shuffle.” In a while, stop him shuffling the cards and tell him: “I’ll take a card and you’ll be able to tell me what it is. Sound good?” Sounds too good to be true. He has no idea how you can make good on this promise.

Get him to spread the cards face-up between his hands so that you can see the faces of the cards but he can’t.

What you’re doing is spreading through the cards so that you can get a good look at the top two in the deck.

Let’s assume that they are the six of hearts and the king of spades. You will cross-reference these two cards to lead you to a third card. For instance, if you mix the numbers and suits of the two examples here, you could arrive at either the king of hearts or the six of spades. Either card will work for this trick, so simply look through the deck until you find either of them, then take it out. Let’s assume that you take out the six of spades. Put it face-down on the table, saying, “Perfect. You’ll never guess this unless you’re really a magician. Let’s see.”

Tell the spectator to square up the cards. Then ask him to deal cards face-down, one at a time into a pile on the table. Tell him he can stop at any point he chooses.

When he has stopped dealing, ask him to put the remainder of the deck away, then “pick up the packet from the table and deal it into two piles, alternatively”. Make sure that he follows your instructions, dealing one card to the right, then the left, and so on. If he has followed your instructions, the top cards of the two piles are the same cards that you noted earlier – the six of hearts and king of spades. Here’s how you use that information.

Ask him to turn over the top card of one of the piles. Let’s assume that it’s the six of hearts. Now, this is the same value as the card you placed face-down on the table, so ask the spectator, “What value is that card?” He’ll say “Six”. Tell him to turn over the top card of the other pile, the king of spades. This is the same suit as the card you placed on the table, so ask him, “And what suit is that?” He’ll answer “Spades”.

Point to the six of hearts and ask him again for its value. Then point to the king of spades and ask him for its suit. Keep doing this so that he is constantly repeating the words “six, spades; six, spades”. Finally, point to the face-down card that you placed on the table and say, “And what card do you think I took earlier?” He will inevitably say “six of spades”. Turn up the card and show that he is correct. Then tell him, “That’s the best I’ve ever seen it done. But please, don’t tell anyone how you did it.”

Notes The only time this trick won’t work is if the two top cards are the same value or suit – for example, a queen of hearts and a queen of clubs, or a six of hearts and a nine of hearts. To get around this, just take one of those cards, glance at it, then push it back into the middle of the deck, saying, “Nah: way too easy. Let me take another one.”

Spoon-bending

Everyone has heard of so-called psychics who claim that they can bend spoons using the power of their minds. Well, now you can do it, too. You take an ordinary spoon, stroke it lightly and the metal mysteriously bends; it’s an amazingly convincing illusion to watch.

Some people claim to be able to do this for real: I think the technical term for them is “charlatans”. An easier way to bend spoons is to use sleight-of-hand and psychology.

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