So far we’ve used a variety of magical secrets to cancel the possibility of a marked deck.
These next three don’t use any additional secrets. In essence, the spectator picks a card, you read the mark and name the card. In these three tricks, the What Else—the thing that keeps the spectators from thinking of a marked deck—is the presentation.
These three scripts are designed to fascinate the audience so that they not only don’t think of marked cards, they don’t think about the method at all. Each of these presentations is designed to be more interesting to the audience than trying to figure out the trick.
I’ve done each of these tricks for knowledgeable spectators, both magicians and otherwise, and never been called on the marked cards. But I never do more than one trick like this in a performance, mostly because the effects are too similar.
These are written as scripts, in screenplay format. There are no notes on method: the method is you read the mark.
Each of these scripts was first published in Scripting Magic. Think of them as a bonus, rather than a cynical repackaging of old work.
Echoes
Int—Living Room—Evening
Pete sits at the table with his friend Alex, shuffling a deck of cards.
Pete
Echoes never die, really. Anytime energy goes out, it bounces off something and comes back. It doesn’t come back as strong, so it fades. But it never goes away completely. It just gets so faint we can’t hear it anymore.
Pete takes the deck and spreads it face up on the table.
Pete
This deck is in a random order, mostly. But it’s not completely random. Because it started in new deck order, and since then it’s been shuffled, I don’t know, hundreds of times, probably.
Pete picks up the deck and gives it a few more shuffles.
Pete
And with every shuffle, the original order gets fainter and fainter, but it never goes away completely. No matter how many times you shuffle, an echo of that order will remain in the deck. I’ll show you.
Pete spreads the deck face down across the table.
Pete
Alex, if you would, please touch any card, but don’t move it out of the spread, that’s crucial.
Alex touches the back of a card.
Pete
Okay, leave that one face down. But we’re going to turn up four cards on each side.
Leaving Alex’s card face down, Pete turns over four cards above and below it. Pete looks at the cards for a few seconds.
Pete Well, it’s a Club.
Pete begins repeating the names of the cards surrounding the selection, to himself, over and over.
Pete (to himself)
Let’s see, Three of Diamonds, Four of Clubs, Ten of Spades, Queen of Spades. Three of Diamonds, Four of Clubs, Ten of Spades, Queen of Spades. (pause) Three of Diamonds... Four of Clubs... Ten of Spades... Queen of Spades. The echo is very faint, but that must be the Seven of Clubs.
Alex reaches for the card.
Pete
Or maybe the Eight. But probably the Seven.
Alex turns over the card. It’s the Eight of Clubs.
Pete
Let me do that again. You shuffle this time.
Alex shuffles the deck.
Pete
Because this probably looks like a card trick. You shuffle, so you know... Great. Thank you.
Pete spreads the shuffled deck across the table.
Pete
Touch any card—doesn’t have to be from the same part of the deck. It’s not any easier or harder. It’s the same echo.
Alex touches a card.
Pete
See if we can do it with just two cards. I usually close with this, but I got four cards pretty well, so let’s go.
Pete turns over two cards on either side of the touched card. He draws his breath in sharply, as if he does not like what he sees.
Pete It’s... a black card.
Pete studies the two face-up cards. He takes a deep breath, and tries to relax.
Pete (very calmly)
If you force it, you get nothing. (pause) That is either the Four of Spades, or the Jack of Clubs. It’s the Four of Spades.
Alex turns over the card—it’s the Jack of Clubs.
Pete Damn.
Pete turns over a few more cards above the selected card. Then he turns over a few cards below the selection, where he finds the Four of Spades.
Pete (to himself) Below?
Pete frowns—he does not understand what went wrong.
Pete
Well, I hope that was close enough that you’ll let me try one last time.
Alex Of course.
Pete
Shuffle three more times.
Pete gives the deck to Alex, who shuffles three more times.
Pete
Alex spreads the cards across the table.
Pete Touch one.
Alex touches one.
Pete
Now don’t turn over any cards. Count all the cards above the card you touched.
Alex counts.
Alex Eighteen.
Pete
So you touched the nineteenth card in the deck..
Alex Yes.
Pete
Okay. You could never do this first, just count to a number, tell you what card that is. But because I’ve seen, what... half a dozen cards during the last few phases. And I know where every one of them is in the original deck order.
Pete takes three rapid breaths in and out, then one last huge breath in, which he lets out very slowly. Suddenly it comes to him, and he looks up with a smile.
Pete
It’s the Nine of Diamonds.
Pete turns the card around. It’s the Nine of Diamonds. Pete picks up the deck and begins shuffling.
Pete
And because the original order is still echoing around in the deck, if your fingers are very sensitive, it is possible to reverse the effect of all the shuffles that
have come in between, including the four or five shuffles you gave.
Pete spreads the deck face down across the table.
Pete
Echoes never die. If you listen hard enough...
He slowly turns the spread over. The entire deck is back in new deck order.
Pete
...you can still hear them.
The End
Notes
This is just tantalizingly possible. That’s the key—people want this to be true. But to have this work for you, you have to act as though you are doing exactly what you say.
You do not have to be a great actor. You’re not pretending to experience the depths of human emotion. You’re just pretending to make some calculations. If you want to be a method actor, actually do some calculations. Divide 363 by 7, in your head. By the way, studies show that when people do math in their head, they tend to look up and to the right.
This script invites the audience to be profoundly silent at the end, so it may not generate loud applause. But the profound moment will resonate long after the applause would die down. You’ll get that applause back at the end of the show, with interest.
Echoes is a great script for people who do not have a great deal of experience acting.
The acting requirements are really very straightforward—you can do it, and if you can’t, you can learn how. But the acting is vital to the trick. You can’t pretend, you have to act as though you were actually doing it. A lot of magicians, when they come to a moment that requires acting, just pretend to be doing the thing. Audiences can immediately tell the difference. And, by and large, they’re not interested in watching people pretend.
So if you’ve always wanted to try acting, to see what it can do for your magic, grab a marked deck and give this a go.
Method
If you use the (optional) new-deck-order climax, you’re obviously going to have to switch decks, then do a few false shuffles until you want to reveal the climax. I’ve used
a deck shell for the switch, so the stacked deck is concealed on the table during the entire routine. All the best deck switches I know are all based on scripting. In this trick, you act as if the trick is over. At that point, you could just put one deck in your left pocket and pull the other one out of your right pocket, and it would fly. In fact, the best deck switch I know pretty much works exactly like that.
The climax is optional. I’ve done this without it, and the final phase, where you determine the card just by its number in the deck, is a good finish.