Note From the Editor:

This month’s effect has been generously donated by none other than Paul Harris himself . . . a true magical genius, and the guy who inspired a huge chunk of my work and really opened my eyes to what magic really is . . . a vehicle to end . . . astonishment. If you don’t already own his 3 volume set, Art of Astonishment, it’s an absolute must have. Make it your next purchase.

Today’s offering is from the The Magic of Paul Harris written by Jerry Mentzer

And so . . . ladies and gentlemen, Jeff Stone Presents . . . Paul Harris’s Illusion . . .

Effect:

A selected card instantly vanishes while trapped between two Jacks. The same card then appears face-up in the face-down deck! This is one of the strongest, most magical close-up card effects I know of. The audience sees the selected card up until the last moment and then it’s gone! There are no “excuses” or questionable actions; just a clear, piercing “Illusion.”

To Perform:

1. Place the Jack of Clubs and the Jack of Spades face-up onto the table about nine inches apart. Place the face-down deck onto the table below the two Jacks. Direct a spectator to cut the deck into two stacks. Take, with your right hand, the face-down card which the spectator cut to and show its face to the audience. Turn your head aside to reassure your audience that you didn’t get a peek at the card.

2. Place the Jack which is on your left, face-up onto the palm of your left hand. Drop the selected card face-down onto this face-up Jack. Take the remaining Jack with your right hand. As you take this Jack, extend your right hand towards the audience and give the card a snap. The instant that the hand moves forward to snap the card, the left thumb gets beneath the two cards in the left hand and flips them over. This reverses the order of the cards, putting the selected card face-up on the bottom while the Jack is now face-up on the top.

In a continuing action place the Jack from your right hand face-up onto the two cards in your left hand. To your audience you have sandwiched the selected card face-down between the two face-up Jacks. Your actual position from the top down is: face-up Jack, face-down Jack and face0up selected card. This “reversal” is a very easy thing to get away with. Do it casually and you won’t have any trouble with it.

3. Grasp the packet of three cards from above with your right hand, thumb at the back, fingers at the front with the right hand arched above the cards. Form a break between the top two cards and the bottom card with your right thumb. Slide the three cards back towards your body so that the top edges of the cards rest between your left second and third finger. You are about to “cop” the bottom card in your left hand.

4. With your right hand move the top two cards forward at the same time moving the left hand back to the edge of the table, letting the table edge conceal the exposed corner of the “copped” card. Place the two cards as three squared face-up onto the table. In a continuing action your right hand picks up the right packet from above and places these cards over the face-up card concealed in your left hand. This is done undercover of a “squaring up” motion.

5. Place the face-down packet onto the tabled face-down packet. Direct a spectator to hold his forefinger against the top of the deck.

6. The next series of action will very convincingly show two face-up Jacks and a face-down card sandwiched between them. Place the cards, still squared, into your left hand. Grip the cards from above with your right hand in Biddle grip position as your left thumb presses on the face of the top card, sliding it off and placing it still face up on the bottom of the “stack.”

Immediately turn over the two cards in your left hand and slide the top face-down card to the bottom of the stack revealing a face-up Jack. Your patter line here is, “Your card is trapped face down between the Jack of Clubs and the Jack of Spades.”

7. Next you are going to let the back ends of the two cards snap off your right thumb, sounding three distinct snaps. Here’s how. With the cards held against the left palm held in place by your left thumb, grip the cards from above with your right hand, thumb at the back, forefinger curled on the face of the top card and the remaining three fingers at the outer narrow end. Your right thumb separates the two cards at the inner end pressing firmly against both.

Your left little finger presses against the bottom right corner of the lower card. Your right thumb slowly moves up letting the bottom card snap off the left little finger. The bottom card then snaps off the thumb, and finally the right thumb snaps off the top card. To your audience it looks and sounds exactly as though you had riffled off three cards.

For the final convincer, lift up the back edge of the top card. With your right thumb and forefinger, slide our the bottom face-down card about half an inch towards yourself. Then square the cards up again. This appears as though you pinched the face-down card out from in between the two face-up cards. Your audience should now be convinced that you have, beyond a shadow of doubt, three cards.

8. Now for the “vanish,’ of the sandwiched card. Position the two cards so that they are in the classic palm position in your palm up, left hand. Place your right hand palm down directly over your left hand, trapping the cards between the two hands.

Twist the right hand to the left and the left hand to the right, each hand retaining one card, both hands being palm down. Let the two Jacks drop to the table face-up. Then slowly separate your fingers to show your hands empty.

Toss the two Jacks out for examination. You have just performed a miracle, vanishing a card under impossible test conditions. For the final climax have the spectator who had his finger on the deck this whole time spread through the cards. This reveals the selected card face-up in the face-down deck!

Suggested Presentation of Patter:

I am going to show you an ‘Illusion.’ You appear to have cut to the Four of Hearts and your eyes see me place it between two other cards (cop card). The Jack of Clubs (counting action) and the Jack of Spades. You can hear the three cards (snap move) and you can feel the three cards (pinch move).

But as I mentioned before this is all an illusion and your card was never really here at all (perform vanish).

Finish routine by having spectator discover the face-up card in the face-down deck.

Don’t neglect the point of having the spectator place his finger onto the deck. This gets the spectator more involved plus adding to the impact of the effect.