Card Trick - Do as I do

"Learn an easy card trick that will stun your friends and family."

Do as I Do

An easy card trick to learn.

This is one of the best of self-working feats, an easy card trick which enjoyed phenomenal popularity in its heyday. In its present version a new presentation gives it an additional climax in the guise of a prediction effect which ensures for it a fresh lease on life.

Effect:

A prediction is written and placed to one side. A spectator freely chooses any card from one pack and the conjurer selects a card from another. Each card is turned face upwards; they are identical. The pips of the two cards are added and the spectator is invited to remove the card at this number in one of the packs. It is the card named in the prediction which was written prior to the start of the trick.

Working:

Write the name of any card that can be found easily in the pack, such as a court card or an ace, seal the paper in an envelope and hand it to a spectator for safekeeping. Let us say that you have written "The ace of spades."
Offer the spectator the choice of one of two packs and request that he shuffle his pack while you shuffle the remaining one. Sight the bottom card of your deck, say the seven of diamonds, as you hand it to the spectator and take the pack he has just shuffled.

"You have shuffled my pack thoroughly," you say in explanation of the exchange of packs.

"I have shuffled the pack you now have. Clearly you cannot know the position of any given card in your pack, nor can I know where any particular card is in mine. I would like to show you now a most peculiar paradox with a pack of pasteboards, a curious concatenation of events which has puzzled our most erudite scientists. First of all, you must make your mind an absolute blank, so that you may receive the mental impulses which I shall presently hurl your way. Do you think you can do that, sir? You know during the middle ages the learned and bewhiskered scholars of that day made their minds a blank by contemplating how many angels could dance on the point of a needle. You might try that if you have trouble blanking your mind. The theory is that, like counting sheep jumping over a fence, thinking about angels dancing on the point of a needle can grow very monotonous; after a time the mind is lulled into an almost hypnotic slumber, mainly because no one has yet thought of a good reason why any sensible angel should want to dance on the point of a needle. The entire project presently seems to be rather ridiculous and the first thing you know you're bored and your mind is a blank. . . . Can you visualize the point of a needle, sir? And now you're counting the angels? You are? Then, from now on, I should say that anything can happen."
Place your pack, squared, on your right and spread it in a long ribbon towards your left.

Address the spectator: "I must ask you to do exactly as I do. First of all, spread your pack as I have spread mine."

Extend your forefinger and run it back and forth over your spread pack, requesting the spectator to imitate your actions. Hold your hand poised over the cards;

then say, "Now slide any card from your pack, any card at all, exactly as I am doing, look at it but do not allow anyone near you to see its face. Remember your card and I shall remember mine."

Look at your card without letting anyone near you see what card it is, then place it at the left end of your spread pack, inviting the spectator to place his card similarly on his pack. Gather the cards, always insisting that the spectator's actions shall coincide with yours, and cut the deck several times. The condition now is that the spectator's chosen card is directly under the key seven of diamonds in his pack.
"Now we'll exchange packs," you say. Take the spectator's pack and hand him yours.

Request him to remove his card and place it face downwards on the table as you remove the card you thought of. Run through the pack until you find the predicted card, the ace of spades, and cut this card to the top. Continue thumbing through the pack in apparent search for your card until you find the key card, the seven of diamonds, place the card under it, the chosen card, at the top of the pack above the predicted ace of spades.

Let us assume that the chosen card was the eight of clubs. Double the number of pips and deduct one, in this case arriving at a total of fifteen. Run off fifteen cards from the face of the deck and cut them to the top. Fan the pack and remove the spectator's card, the eight of clubs, from amongst the top cards, placing it face downwards upon the table. Thus you have placed the predicted ace of spades sixteenth from the top during an apparent innocent search for your card. Almost invariably you can complete these preparations before the spectator will have found his card; it is good psychology to have your card on the table before he places his there, although it is not imperative.
When both cards are on the table, carefully place one above the other, at right angles. Take the spectator's pack and put it on the table; then place your pack upon it also at right angles, doing all this gravely with an air of meticulous regard for detail.

Recapitulate what has been done: "You remember I shuffled one pack, you shuffled the other. You chose a card at random from the face-down pack which I had shuffled: it was impossible therefore for you to know what card you would take. Similarly I took a card from the face-down pack you shuffled and could not conceivably have known beforehand which card I would draw. I have placed my card on the table and you have placed your card there. Now, would you be surprised, sir, if you found that we both have chosen the same card?"
The spectator intimates that he would be surprised; you reach out gingerly and grasp both cards, still at right angles, and turn them face upwards on the table; they are two eights of clubs.

During the ensuing moment, in which your audience has the very natural desire to comment amongst themselves upon this strange coincidence, keep your hands well away from the packs still resting on the table.

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Then say, "There is a prediction written on the paper I gave you long before you chose your card, sir. It was plainly impossible for me to know at that time what card you would choose, or what card I would choose. I think you will grant that when I wrote the prediction it was impossible for me to know that sixteen would be the number at which we would finally arrive. Will you please take your pack [reach over and tap the upper pack of the two upon the table. Because of the several exchanges of the packs, and natural forgetfulness, this statement will go unchallenged] and count down to the sixteenth card. Place that card face down on the table."

When this has been done, request that the envelope be torn open and the prediction be read aloud:
"The ace of spades!" you exclaim. "Gentlemen, let me show you what happens when you contemplate the number of angels dancing on the point of a needle!"

Slowly turn the tabled card face upwards and show that it is the ace of spades.

Enjoy this great and easy card trick. Focus your effort on building up your best presentation. Don�t memorize the words in the script. Try to find a way to create a script to fit you.

Write out your own script. I really mean that you should write out your script. Set it aside for a day. Pick it back up and read it out loud. Make some changes if you need to.

Memorize your script and have fun performing this easy card trick.

I hope you enjoy getting the great reactions that I have gotten over the years.

Magically yours,

*material selected, adapted, and modernized from Expert Card Technique: Close-Up Table Magic by Jean Hugard and Frederick Braue (2d ed. 1944).