Module 3- Part 1: ‘The Trick That Fooled Houdini’ (and yours truly)
Benji
‘The Trick That Fooled Houdini’ (and yours truly)
I was 15 years old when I truly fell in love with magic.
Like most teenagers, I’d been dipping in and out of different hobbies for years. I’d discover something new, fall madly in love with it for a few months, and then move on to something else.
Magic was one of those ‘crazes’.
Only, it seemed to be sticking around.
But I still wasn’t sure. I’d gotten involved with magic before, multiple times, and each time it had eventually ‘faded out.’
This time felt different, but I wasn’t entirely convinced.
Then, everything changed when I watched Ali Cook perform ‘The Trick That Fooled Houdini.’
Perhaps I provide some context…
I’d been down in London for a week, visiting with family. We’d decided to catch a magic show while we were there—a show called ‘The Impossible’, featuring a variety of magicians, mentalists, and escape artists.
The whole thing was excellent, but there was a certain ‘moment’ that I’ll NEVER forget.
I’m sure you know what I mean by that.
(After all, the reason many of us are here is to try to recreate that ‘moment’ for other people.)
That ‘moment’ came at the climax of Ali Cook’s version of ‘The Trick That Fooled Houdini.’
Little did I know that this was simply Ali’s version of a classic. As far as I knew, this was THE real deal, the trick that Dai Vernon himself performed for Mr. Houdini.
So, with bated breath, I watched as Ali demonstrated how Vernon took Houdini’s signed card and placed it in the deck, then with a simple magical gesture, made it leap to the top.
He did this time after time, each time more impressive than the last.
Then came the ‘moment.’
Ali explained that Houdini, enraged that Vernon was fooling him so badly, asked him to try it again with HIS card (a red one that stood out sharply against Vernon’s blue-backed cards).
Vernon placed the red card in the deck, made the magical gesture, and turned over the blue top card to show that it was…Houdini’s card?
Houdini stopped him:
“No, my card is the RED one!”
Vernon paused, then slowly turned over the card to show that the back had magically transformed color to red.
Houdini paused, taken aback. Then he hit back at Vernon:
“If you’re so good, why don’t you do it with MY deck?”
Vernon just slowly smiled and turned over the deck, spreading it between his hands to display that every card in the deck had a red back.
“Mr. Houdini, this IS your deck.”
Goosebumps.
I’m telling you, this trick was so stunning to watch in person.
At the time, I had no idea that half of the story was fact, and the other half was fiction for the sake of strengthening the effect.
All I cared about was the feeling I’d just experienced.
The utter breathlessness, like the shock you get from falling into cold water, but somehow entirely pleasant at the same time.
It made me realize something:
Magic is mysterious.
Magic is powerful.
Magic can make people FEEL things.
And that’s quite an achievement.
However, there’s a difference between strong magic like the example I just gave and the majority of magic out there.
The reason I was fooled so darn badly by the example above is due largely to the idea of ‘false memories’ that Ali constructed in my mind.
Chiefly, the false memory that he’d been using a blue deck the entire time, and the memory that I’d SEEN the backs of all the cards.
Because I was so convinced that he’d been using blue cards from the start, the only possible solution in my mind was that he’d switched the deck. But I’d been watching his hands the entire time and I didn’t see him switch anything!
As Juan Tamariz might say, Ali had essentially barred the door to the true solution by creating false memories, which left us with no logical explanation apart from…”it’s magic!”
In this module, I want to talk about how to make your memorized deck work ‘invisible’ to the audience. Like Ali, I want you to be able to implant ‘false memories’ into your audience until they’re convinced there was nothing out of the ordinary going on.
See, when memorized deck magic is done right, it’s some of the best examples of the kind of mind-destroying magic I talked about above.
But that’s ONLY if it’s done right.
And the best way to make sure you get it right is to make sure your audience thinks ONE thing:
You don’t care about the order of the cards!
In this module, we’ll explain exactly how to do that, with practical techniques and tactics.
Oh, and you’ll discover another 4 effects, including:
- A way to find ANY card selected without a single ‘glimpse’
- An unusual take on the ‘lie detector’ effect that allows you to tell with unerring accuracy when your spectator is lying (even when THEY shuffle the deck.)
- A method to know which card a spectator selects even after they think they’ve shuffled the entire deck
- A variation on a classic that enables you to openly stack the deck in front of your audience (handy if you want to turn a shuffled deck into a stack)
Let’s get into it…