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> All you need to do some very impressive tricks is a single move — the double lift.

As someone who has had a casual interest in card magic and sleight of hand, here’s an observation about how so many different tricks can come out of such a seemingly simple sleight.

There’s a fairly simple formula that makes it possible to be very creative and come up with endless new tricks and variations.

At the heart of any trick is some sleight, such as the double lift, where the illusionist creates a seemingly trivial rift between reality as the audience perceives it, and reality as it actually is.

The illusionist can then get creative with what to do with this difference.

Usually you maintain the facade and do things that would be possible in both realities. From the audience’s point of view, it’s like the trick hasn’t started, when in a sense it is already over. Then, at a safe distance from the original sleight of hand, in terms of time and attention, the illusionist can now seem to break the rules of the reality the audience believes in, simply by revealing the difference between the two realities.

This allows you to amplify an underwhelming “Ok, so I couldn’t see that you picked up two cards” to a very impressive “Wow, my card magically reappeared at the top of the deck after you put it into the middle of the deck and let me shuffle it”.

2 comments

Really nice explanation, I kind of knew the idea in practice, but can't remember having seen it so well explained before!

Here's a thing I still wonder about:

I used to practice forcing, so I get the general idea. What I used to do was mind-reading etc, but there's one particular event that stands out for me, here is what I think I saw:

A pro magician shows up in a birthday party showing a deck of cards, asks the host to think of a card, shuffles the deck and shows the card, confirming with the host that it is correct, then goes on to do all kinds of amazing tricks where this card shows up again and again.

In my mind, there are only a few options here:

- they agreed on it (too risky. This bloke does big jobs, won't do that in an ordinary birthday.)

- somehow influenced the host ahead of the selection process (how? when? Is this actually possible with NLP or something? Something about the setup of the deck?)

- maybe he tricked us into thinking he had a full deck and all there ever was was 4 of clubs? (Sounds crazy, bit not impossible for a guy who'll pickpocket the craziest things, walk around with a flying piece of furniture while exposed to 180 degrees of audience, non staff on the stage and a TV crew filming.)

- somehow guessed it based on eye movements (what I used to tell when I did stupid "mind reading" tricks that was only stupid forces)

- somehow tricked the host into thinking this was the chosen card even if it was another (again how?)

Anyone wants to share pointers? A few words, links to books, web sites, anything?

How many times did you see this magician perform? If just the once, then it’s also possible that the magician just lucked out. I know of magicians who will always ask an audience member to think of a card as the first thing, just in case they happen to pick the card that the magician knows is the top card (by briefly peeking or by having it set up). If it is, then the magician looks amazing. If not, then the magician performs another trick instead and the audience is non the wiser.

I don’t know how what you described was performed, but I know that magicians often leave themselves multiple outs in case the audience doesn’t do what they want them to.

Ah, good old time-misdirection! I love it. You explained it very well and gave me something to think about for my own routines.