Module 2 – Part 3: ‘An Experiment in Memory’
Benji
‘An experiment in memory…’
- The Mental
Let’s return to our new favorite magician, Chan Canasta.
Chan is a notoriously difficult magician to find taped performances of—due in large part to the fact he was performing way back in the 50s and 60s!
However, here’s the good news:
There’s one ‘uncut’ 30-minute performance from Chan on YouTube that is, alone, a masterclass in using the memorized deck to achieve the ‘viewing experiences’ we’re discovering.
In particular, we’ll be focusing on how he achieved the ‘mental’ view with an effect that leaves the audience lost for words.
Before we do, a quick recap:
Earlier, I said that with the ‘mental’ effects, you can:
“Convince your audience that your mind has powers beyond most mortals by revealing cards they’re thinking of, displaying stunning feats of memory and intuition, and finding cards lost in a shuffled deck!
The memorized deck makes all of the above ‘child’s play’. In fact, the effects listed above are some of the MOST basic effects you can do with a memorized deck.”
In this module, we’ll talk about HOW that works—by exploring Chan’s work.
First, you’ll need to watch the video linked below.
No, seriously— you’ll need to watch it before this will make sense.
(I highly encourage you watch ALL of it, but if you’re pressed for time you’re looking for the effect he performs from about 4 minutes in.)
Finished watching?
Great.
Now imagine watching the same video while half asleep, not sure if you were witnessing seemingly impossible card magic or just having the weirdest dream.
That’s exactly the experience I had.
The good news was that when I rewatched the video with a clear head—I was astonished to find that it was ALL real. Stuff that seemed so impossible I MUST have been dreaming it turned out to be legitimate effects with legitimate methods.
Over the following months I rewatched this video time and time again, and every time I felt a small thrill as I unlocked more of the puzzle.
I’ll talk about one of the insights I unlocked recently—and then get into the ‘meat and potatoes’ of what’s going on.
Here’s the insight:
Do you notice how Chan uses almost ALL of the ‘views’ we’ve defined?
He begins with a feat of mental prowess and ‘memory,’ then moves into a series of ‘coincidental’ effects where different spectators pick cards only to discover they have chosen the SAME card!
The real ‘musical’ element comes when Chan invites one of the audience up and does his infamous ‘pocket’ routine. This truly feels like a ‘spur of the moment’ decision, that wouldn’t have happened in any other performance.
After all, Chan invites him up as a way of answering a question. The question was ‘what happens if someone changes their mind?’
Therefore, the suggestion is that Chan is doing this effect for the SOLE purpose of answering this question.
(and the suggestion is, if the question HADN’T been asked…Chan wouldn’t have done this demonstration.)
The whole thing works because of the interplay between Chan and his spectator. This moment is one of the most fascinating of any magic video ever released (not an exaggeration) and beautifully highlights how the memorized deck can be leveraged.
(whether it is or isn’t 100% unplanned isn’t the point—the point is it FEELS like it is)
It’s almost like when a Rock band asks the audience for song requests. Chan is doing the same thing.
(in fact, at one point he asks them to ‘ask him any question’ and he’ll answer…that’s a pretty striking similarity, to me!)
The only thing Chan doesn’t display is the ‘technical’ because it doesn’t mesh with his character.
Which, in itself, is another lesson—you don’t NEED to display all 4 views when performing. You’ll need to select them based on your style and character.
Alright, that’s all well and good.
But how does the darned thing WORK?
Great question. In this case, I’ll be analyzing just the FIRST effect in the video (since it most directly links to our ‘mental’ view) – the feat Chan calls ‘an experiment in memory.’
However, as the course goes on you’ll be able to return to the video and figure out more and more of what’s at play. Speaking from experience, I think the process of figuring it out for yourself (and the sense of achievement when you do) is one of the best feelings you can get!
(if you’re still interested after that, buy ‘Chan Canasta: A Remarkable Man’ on lybrary).
So what’s going on in this effect?
Key cards.
That’s the ‘one line’ answer.
Here’s the more in-depth explanation:
A key card is simply a card noted in your mind that tells you the identity of the card before it (or indeed, after it.)
You’ve memorized that key card in advance, so when the spectator puts their card back next to it, you’ll be able to find it by looking for your memorized card.
It’s kinda like when you get picked up at the airport—you don’t know what your taxi driver looks like in advance, so you look out for the big sign with ‘Mr. (your name)’ written on it in big letters.
A key card is like a big sign that says ‘THE CARD YOU’RE LOOKING FOR IS HERE —->’.
We might not know the identity of a selected card, but as long as we get our key card to be positioned next to it, we can easily locate it by finding the key card and looking at the card next to it.
This concept is one of the very first ones magicians learn.
For example, we’ve all had the experience of looking at the card on the bottom of the deck, having someone select a card, and then cutting the deck so that the selection was replaced beneath the bottom card. It’s a tried and tested way to ‘mark’ the position of a selected card so you can quickly retrieve in upon examining the cards.
In this effect, although we might not have thought about it in this way, we’ve used a ‘key card.’
(You could also remember this term by thinking of key cards as being called that because they are the ‘key’ that unlocks a vault with the name of the card next to it inside. That’s not the official definition, but it may help you make sense of it in your head. I can’t remember if I picked up this informal definition from someone else, or created it myself, but either way use it if it helps.)
Key cards are explored in an early section of the Royal Road to Card Magic. If you have that book, you’ll know that there’s a LOT of powerful effects you can do with just ONE key card!
But now imagine if you could take 52X the power of that concept?
Well, with a memorized deck—you can!
Because you’ve memorized all the cards in the deck, each and every card will act as a key card.
How?
Well, if you look at one card, you’ll instantly know the card that comes after it.
(if the card you look at is the 23rd card in your stack, you know the next one is the 24th card in your stack…which you know the identity of)
Not only that, you’ll know the card that comes BEFORE it.
(whatever card #22 in your stack is)
Not only that, but you’ll also know the card that comes TWO spaces after it.
(whatever card #25 in your stack is)
You’ll also know the card that comes two spaces BEFORE it!
(whatever card #21 in your stack is)
Oh, and you’ll know the card that comes THREE spaces after it…
(whatever card #26 in your stack is)
Do you see where I’m going with this?
We could keep on going until we exhaust all the cards in the deck!
Once you have the deck memorized, just looking at ONE card will automatically tell you where all the other cards in the deck are!
And the best part is—this one card can be any of the cards in your stack.
Note – Juan Tamariz was the first person to really hammer home the idea of ‘each card as a key card’ for me, in his wonderful Mnemonica.
The simplest application of this principle is also one of the best.
Example effect—the strongest version of ‘pick a card’ ever?
Simply get someone to select a card from anywhere in the deck, and by glimpsing the card immediately above it—you’ll know their card.
Perhaps the easiest way to glimpse the card above the selection is as follows:
Spread the cards between your hands. Let your spectator reach in anywhere they like. When they remove their card, separate your hands slightly (as if to help them remove it) and after a moment, bring them back together.
But this time, let the right-hand packet slide in place BELOW the left-hand packet.
This LOOKS like you’re just squaring up the deck, but you’ve actually cut the deck so that the card above their selection is now on the bottom. (try it yourself to verify!)
All you now need is to look at the bottom card and you’ll know their freely chosen card.
How?
Hopefully, you’ve already beaten me to the punchline on this one—since it simply uses the technique we’ve just discussed.
Which is to say:
The selected card will be whichever card comes AFTER the one on the bottom in your stack.
If the bottom card is #4, the selected card will be whichever card is #5 in your stack!
This is one of the rare effects that can benefit from a few careful repetitions.
The first time you do it, they may be caught off guard and wonder if they missed something. The second time, they’ll KNOW that they had a free choice. The third time, their mind will be fried.
You may have noticed above that I’ve been referring to cards by numbers to help illustrate the example.
In a memorized deck, every card can also be thought of as a number. Indeed, when you get proficient with a stack, you might simply think of a card as its number, rather than its original identity.
That sounds confusing, so let me illustrate:
When I think of the 10 of Hearts (10H), I think of the number 38. Over time, that connection has become so strong that when I’m spreading the cards and I see the 10H, I don’t think ‘10 of Hearts’.
Instead, I just think ‘38!’
NOTE:
At this point, it might be helpful to order a blank deck of cards from Amazon. Take a sharpie and write the numbers 1-52 on that blank deck.
In essence, this is exactly what a memorized deck is, but it will help you understand the concepts I’m talking about with ‘cards in hand’ a lot easier (especially if you’re still working on getting the stack memorized.)
For example, as a visual aid for ‘cutting the cards.’
Try the following for yourself to see how it works.
One of the most fascinating and useful properties of a stacked deck is that you can cut the cards, complete the cut—and your stack will still be 100% operational. In fact, you can repeat this simple cut as many times as you like without upsetting the order of your stack.
Why?
A memorized deck is ‘cyclical.’
Which is to say, it’s kinda like a treadmill—it just keeps on going around in loops.
When we’re counting through a deck, when we reach the last card, we start again at the top.
(after all, there’s nowhere else to go!)
So try this on for size:
You start with card 1 on the top and 52 on the bottom. If you move one card from the top to the bottom, you now have card 2 on top, followed by 3-52, and 1.
Next, let’s say you move another card from the top to the bottom.
You’ll now have card 3 on top, followed by 3-52, and then 1 and 2 on the bottom.
But notice how 2 still follows 1? None of the cards are out of order.
Imagine you move two cards from the top to the bottom.
You’d be left with card 5 on the top, followed by 6-52, and then 1-4.
If you cut the remaining half of the deck to the bottom, you’ll have cards 27-52 on top followed by 1-26 beneath them.
If you try this with cards in hand, you’ll see exactly what I mean.
At no point do you actually disrupt the order of 1-52!
You can give it as many single cuts as you like, all you have to do is cut the deck so 1 is the top card again—and you’ll be back in stack.
(as we progress, you’ll be able to use your stack without even worrying whether card #1 is on top or not!)
This simple feature is a fact that simply doesn’t occur to most spectators (and many magicians, for that matter!)
Which makes it a very powerful tool indeed. 🙂
Back to the explanation.
So, each card in the memorized deck is a key card.
This fact becomes VERY helpful when we want to perform a routine like the one Chan does.
Chan is actually doing what we described above, but on a much bigger scale. Rather than letting his audience take 1 card, he’s letting them take a whole bunch of cards EACH.
This might sound harder, but the method is much the same.
When someone grabs a bunch of cards, all Chan has to do is cut the deck like we discussed so the card ABOVE their selected cards is on the bottom. Once he’s done that, all he has to do is look at the card on the bottom and he knows the cards the first spectator took.
For example, if he looked at the bottom card after cutting and he saw #22, he’d know that they took cards 23 onward.
Now, there is one caveat. At a glance, he might not know how MANY cards they took—which would make his job a little harder in knowing where to stop. (27? 28? 29?)
Now, as I discuss in the Live training that accompanies this module, there are ways of dealing with this.
You could attempt to guess how many cards they’re holding by just looking at them.
You could just keep on calling cards until they tell you you’re wrong (at which point you know you’ve exceeded all of the cards in their stack.)
You could also ask them to hand you cards as you call them out, in which case you’ll know when they’re out of cards—you’ll have them all!
One that I didn’t talk about at the time, but is very relevant here, is perhaps the easiest method:
You just ask them!
Indeed, that’s what Chan does.
But it’s so natural within the performance that it flies by to the point where many people will forget he even did so.
(including, yes, yours truly!)
But if he knows the number of cards in each hand, and the key card preceding each hand—why does he still make mistakes?
Let’s try it with number cards in hand.
Imagine someone reaches in and removes cards 12-17. You cut the 11 to the bottom and glimpse it.
Next, someone else removes cards 25-30, you cut the 24 to the bottom and continue.
Next, another spectator removes cards 44-48. You cut 43 to the bottom and continue.
Finally, someone might reach in and take cards 6-15.
Or at least, they WOULD have removed cards 6-15.
But since the first spectator took cards 12-17, they’ll end up getting cards 6-11 and 18-21 (12 through 17 are missing.)
You cut 5 to the bottom and glimpse.
So when it comes to naming their cards, if you don’t watch yourself and think clearly, you might get confused and mistakenly call out the last spectator’s cards as the same as the first—not a very impressive display!
Chan knows this and makes the necessary mental adjustments, allowing him to recall cards with blinding speed and a very low number of mistakes (all things considered.)
Anyway, I don’t want to get too bogged down in this.
Suffice it to say that Canasta had a lot of mental agility. And in our case, the goal is NOT to start with a routine as ambitious as Chan’s.
Indeed, I would suggest switching the presentation from a ‘memory feat’ (which is a little too close to the real method for comfort for me) to a ‘divination routine.’
I.e – you attempt to read their mind in order to guess the cards in their hands.
This gives you the room to work with just one spectator removing three or four cards.
If it were a memory feat, four cards wouldn’t be all that impressive, but as a mindreading feat, it’s nothing short of impossible under the apparently fair conditions!
This presentation will allow you to start with less spectator and less overall cards, and slowly work your way up so that you are only attempting stuff like Chan once you’re truly comfortable with the stack.
A final note on ‘groupings.’
This is a principle I was first introduced to from the work of Simon Aronson, and I think here is a good place to briefly introduce you to it.
The idea is this:
If someone removes a group of cards from your stack, it doesn’t matter how much they shuffle those cards—the identities will always fall within the range of the card before and after that group.
Whoa there, nelly. Slow down.
Try it with cards in hand. Remove cards 6-10 and cut the 5 to the bottom. Since you now know the card immediately before their group, and you can see they have four cards—you know those cards must be the cards that fall in the 6-10 range. It doesn’t matter how much they shuffle, those cards are always going to be the cards in the 6-10 range!
Now you can proceed to name the cards from 6-10 and you’ll be 100% correct.
After all, shuffling a group of cards doesn’t change the VALUE of the cards, just the order. The values will still be the same they were before—values that YOU know!
In fact, having your spectators shuffle the cards in their hand before you name them is something I would highly recommend you do. Not only does it feel more random to the audience, it actually further disguises the method.
If they HADN’T shuffled, they might notice that the order in which you name the cards follows the order of the cards in their hand. By shuffling, they do your work FOR you. Now you can name cards in the original order, but since they’ve shuffled that order, they won’t recognize them!
Of course, if you don’t want to make your audience shuffle, you can achieve a similar result by naming the cards in a random order. I.e if the cards were from 1-5, you might call ‘4’, followed by ‘1’ and so on. This takes more work though, so I’d recommend just getting the spectators to shuffle!
So there you have it—the ability to name any cards picked out by a spectator!
Don’t underestimate the power of this routine.
When Juan discusses it in Mnemonica, he tries to persuade the reader to close the book and spend a year just performing this one effect alone—it’s THAT strong!
More ‘classic’ mental effects:
Here are some of the other ‘classical’ mental effects that a memorized deck allows you to perform.
Weighing the cards: someone cuts the cards, and you instantly tell them how many cards are in their packet by holding them in your hand.
The method for this couldn’t be simpler. If you know the bottom card of the cut-off packet (or the top card of the remaining packet) you’ll know how many cards are in the packet.
How?
The stack number of the bottom card will be the exact number of cards in the packet.
Try this with number cards in hand. Cut the deck and look at the bottom card. The number on that card will tell you the number of cards in the overall packet.
Location: someone removes a card from the spread while your back is turned, and replaces it somewhere else. You look through the cards and name their selection.
The method, again, is simplicity itself. Your deck is stacked, so if someone removes a card in one place and places it back somewhere else—you’ll be able to instantly recognize it as the only ‘out of place’ card in the deck.
(i.e card #34 is next to #10 – you know 34 is the chosen card)
The only thing to keep in mind for this one is that the spectator MUST place the card back in a different place from where it started. You can ensure this by saying ‘put it back somewhere else so it’s harder for me to find it.’
Finally, let’s discuss our official effect for this section:
Our Official Effect: Predictably Unpredictable
Imagine this:
You spread the cards on the table in front of three spectators. Each spectator freely selects a few cards from random places in the spread. They shuffle the cards individually, then put the chosen cards together and shuffle them as one packet.
You take the packet and, even though it’s been shuffled and mixed, instantly tell your audience who picked which card!
Here’s how it works:
All you need to ‘spot’ is ONE thing—which area of the spread each spectator picks their cards from.
Say spectator A takes cards from the middle. Spectator B takes cards from the right of the middle (i.e closer to the top of the deck) and spectator C takes cards from the left of the middle (i.e closer to the bottom of the deck.)
Since you know your stack starts with low cards (1, 2, 3, 4…) to high cards (…50, 51, 52), you know that spectator A’s cards will be the ‘medium’ cards. Spectator B’s cards will be LOWER than spectator A’s (because he pulled them from closer to the top) and spectator C’s cards will be the highest cards (because he pulled them from closer to the bottom.)
Now, it doesn’t matter how much they shuffle the cards—you know the number of each card, so you can easily see the pattern even after shuffling.
For example, spectator A might have removed cards 31 and 32. Spectator B might have removed cards 14, 15 and 16. Spectator C might have removed cards 44 and 45.
Even if they shuffle those cards together, you’ll easily be able to spot the 3 groups.
E.g 14, 31, 16, 44, 32, 25, 45.
If you look at that, you can easily see that 14-16 belong together, 31-32 and 44-45 belong together. Now all that remains is to give the ‘medium’ group (31-32) to spectator A, the lowest group (14-16) to spectator B, and the highest group (44-45) to spectator C.
Of course, this will change each time. But every time, all you have to do is remember who picked cards from where and you’ll know which cards belong to which spectator.
You’ll need to make sure the cards they take are all next to each other in the deck—in other words, that they take their cards out as one group and not individually. This ensures they’ll only take cards from one spot in the deck, making your job easier.
(you can ensure this happens by first demonstrating what you want them to do yourself.)
I’m a little surprised at the fact this explanation feels complicated. It’s really not! Try it out with the cards in hand, or watch me demonstrate it in the Live session to see it in action!
That’s enough ‘mental’ for now. Let’s move into the next category of effect…