THEN WHAT YOU SEEK IS EIGHT CARDS DOWN

This card is put aside and the spectator now continues to deal cards slowly onto your hand, counting each of them

The eighth card he is asked to keep hold of. He names his card (the Jack of Clubs) and then turns the card over to show that he has found his chosen card.

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Simulacrum

Dan Burgess Presentation / Script

“While in his 20’s, Karl Zener was travelling in India where he met a mysterious man in a bazaar who offered to sell him some special spirit cards. Zener was naturally curious and was interested in the paranormal, so asked the man to elaborate.

“The man showed him a deck of cards. It was a normal deck, and of surprisingly good quality. He placed the cards down on his small wooden table and said, ‘Please sir, cut the cards.’ Zener did as he was requested.

“’Please Sir, look at the card to which you have cut, but reveal it to no one.’ Zener again did as he was told, being careful not to let anyone around him in the market see the card to which he had cut, which was the Queen of clubs. Zener was left perplexed as to what this was all about. He put the card face down on the table.

“‘Sir, I offer to you these Spirit cards, fashioned by a fakir many years past. They will answer any question asked of them. And to demonstrate, I will now ask them to tell me of your choice of card.’

“The man proceeded to pull a small packet of cards from his pocket and spoke to the sky, ‘Spirits, hear my request, please tell me the card this man has chosen.’

“He looked at the cards and Zener saw that they bore strange symbols. It took a few seconds for the realisation to hit Zener that the symbol was actually a letter, an English letter at that. How odd he thought.

“‘You see, the spirits can answer in multiple languages,’ the mysterious man quickly pointed out. ‘The answer is given on the cards.’

“‘T - H - A - T - C - A - R - D … That card. You see sir they knew, they knew your card immediately,’ pointing to the tabled card he shouted “that card sir, they knew you would pick that card.’

“‘No wait sir put your fingers on the cards. Lift one, you have chosen the T … that means that the spirits certainly knew you would pick that card, you see T for That.’

“Zener stepped back, laughed and walked away muttering various expletives as he did. The Man shouted, ‘Sir, sir, please, sir only 50 dollars sir.’

Zener didn’t return, he left India a few days later with this encounter still fresh in his mind. He thought about cards being used in this manner, divining some sort of psychic message, and he set about creating his own cards.

This deck was later brought into the wider psyche by a J B Rhine of Duke University when he started to use Zener’s deck as a way of testing for extra

sensory perception or ESP. It is a shame though that Zener hadn’t returned to the stall, as he would have found he had something much greater before him. You see if he had waited, he would have seen the mysterious man shrug and turn over the selection revealing it to be the Queen of clubs, then turning over the spirit card to show the spirits did know after all.”

Effect

The above is the script. Here is the basic effect: A spectator cuts the pack. The performer shows four cards, which have letters on either side. The letters are shown to spell out

"THAT CARD". One of these "spirit" cards is chosen by the spectator and upon turning it over a message is seen to have appeared on the card. The message reveals the card that the spectator has cut to in the deck.

This effect is based on Alex Elmsley’s “What Card,” which was marketed by Harry Stanley in the 1950’s.

Set-up

This effect uses the breather crimp. This crimp allows a card to be forced when the spectator cuts the deck. This adds to the impact of the trick as you don't have to touch anything. If you are worried about the accuracy of using this method then any force will do, or you could even use a one way force deck.

To make a breather crimp, take any card and put both thumbs in the centre of the back. With your index finger and middle finger beneath, apply pressure and run your thumb and fingers to the corners of the card; repeat for the other two corners. This will put an x-shaped furrow in the card, which is not visible to even close inspection but acts as a brilliant crimped card (Fig. 1). Whether you put your thumb on the back of the card or the face of the card determines if the card below or above the crimped card is forced.

You will also need 4 double-blank cards. Take one of the cards and write a large letter T on the upper side and the letter H on the underside.

Take another card and write A on the upper side and C on the underside.

Take a third card and on the upper side write the name of the card you will predict - for this example we will make it the Queen of Clubs. Then write the letter T on the underside.

Finally take the fourth card and write the letter R on the upper side and D on the underside (Fig. 2).

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

The lettered cards are stacked together in the order shown above with the T/H on top and the R/D card on the bottom. Put these cards in your pocket.

Place the crimped card above (or below, depending on your Breather) the Queen of Clubs and set them in the middle of the deck.

Working

Have a spectator cut the deck. Due to the breather crimp they will cut to the force card. To check that they have, remember which card has the crimp on it and glimpse the bottom card of the pile they cut off. (If it wasn't the crimp then replace the pile and tell the spectator that you feel you may have influenced them and that they should clear their minds and cut again. This makes them relax as they cut and they should get it on the second occasion.)

Ask the spectator to look at the card they have cut to (the force card) and bring the letter cards from your pocket.

You ask the question of the cards, “What is the card that ‘John (spectator’s name)’

chose?” With the T on top, turn the top card over to show the H on the back and table this card.

Next show the A card and then perform a double turnover to show the T on the back of the force card. Table this card next to the A card being careful not to flash the card on the back.

Next show the C card then turn it over showing the A, then table this card.

Finally show the R card then flip it over showing the D. This spells out "That Card" which is the answer (if you think about it) to the question you asked. This gets a laugh from most people, or a groan from magicians.

You now have the cards tabled in order now from left to right: H, T, A, D (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3

Ask the spectator to take their right hand and place their four fingers on the table. Their middle finger will be in the same position as the T card. Now ask them to lift one finger to represent a card. 99% of people will lift the middle finger so you have forced the T selection on them in a seemingly simple and fair manner, which adds to the impression of you not influencing anything.

If they do not lift the middle finger, continue using magicians’ choice until you end up with the T card.

You then ask them to show what card they selected earlier; the Queen of Clubs. You explain that you knew the card was going to be the Queen of Clubs as per the opening script above. Or you could invent some cod scientific meaning for the T meaning Queen in the phonetic alphabet they use to train dolphins. Obviously the spectator is not impressed with the trick until you turn the T over to reveal that the A that they saw on the back of it has now been replaced with a message from the spirit world.

End Note

Having performed the above effect, you could now introduce an ESP deck and demonstrate further experiments with the actual deck that Zener created.