Video clips (download) in Magic & Mentalism: page 9

This is a "Twisting the Aces" routine, here performed with the Jacks, that includes two color changes of the backs. First, they change from blue to red, and then the Jacks all have different backs.

1st edition 2025, video 3:32.

Want a sock finish for your favorite ambitious card routine? Here it is. The object card is always handled by two indifferent cards. A perfect effect to add "medical" themed patter to your routine.

[Cover photo credit: Louis Sahuc]

1st edition 2025, video 40s.

You start with two packets of four identical cards each, for example, four 10s of hearts, and four aces of spades. You interleave them, show them again singly to confirm that they have been interleaved, but then magically they have separated. You do this twice, once face-down, and the second time face-up.

1st edition 2025, video 2:04.

You start out with four aces and eight other cards. The four aces are placed individually on the table with two other cards on top of each other. The aces magically gather in one pack and then immediately return to their individual packets.

1st edition 2025, video 3:39.

Early books on magic, such as Modern Magic and Illustrated Magic (1931) stressed mastering the pass as fundamentally necessary to every card handler. As time went on, easier sleights such as the double cut to the break replaced it, rendering it anachronistic. Times change. Recently, a friend was asked to comment on one of today's card experts. Her reply, "Too much shuffling." Modern audiences often don't know what happened, but they sense when it happened (He did something tricky) because of excessive cutting and shuffling. Attention spans are shorter now so effects must...

A stunning color change. Four cards showing several pips, what Peter calls 'compressed cards', change into the four aces.

1st edition 2025, video 3:03.

While you turn over a small packet of cards, you palm the bottom card. Here, Peter uses this move in a small packet routine to have Aces and tens change their packets.

1st edition 2025, video 3:59.

Four blank cards, shown from both sides, suddenly have big holes cut through their centers.

1st edition 2025, video 4:25.

Four methods of this classic illusion, suitable for close-up, parlour or stage. Both DIY and sleight of hand to suit your needs and desires. Can be done surrounded. No threads, magnets, or hookups. Simple construction. Add the effect of giving life to an inanimate object to your performances for a real crowd-pleaser. Highly recommended for children.

Cover art: House of Horrors, Coney Island, 1961, Diane Arbus

1st edition 2025, video 1:57.

A small packet trick with several color changes. First, you have four blank cards. Then slowly, one by one, they turn all into the 5 of Spades. Then they all get red backs, and finally they all get blue backs.

1st edition 2025, video 2:46

A clean and easy matrix. Four coins are positioned at the corners of an imagined square. Two cards are used to cover coins temporarily. Cover two coins, and one is magically moving from under one card to under the other card. You continue this until all four coins have assembled in one corner.

Please note that this is a gimmicked version and will require certain performing conditions that are not present in all situations.

1st edition 2025, video 2:55

A new method for a simple oil-and-water type of routine. Nothing is gimmicked. There isn't any complicated sleight-of-hand either.

1st edition 2025, video 1:20.

Four cards are shown and counted repeatedly. Every time through the count, one card suddenly has a big hole through its center. These are real holes you can put your finger through. This goes on until all four cards have holes.

1st edition 2026, video 2:13.

8 cards and a bewildering number of changing faces and backs. Watch the demo video below.

1st edition 2026, video 5:32

A deck is shuffled and placed squared face down on the table. A spectator is invited to cut off a block of cards from the pack and to look at and remember the face card of the cut-away section.

The helper is now asked to cut his block of cards to lose the selection in the centre of the pile, and then he is requested to slip his pile somewhere into the middle of the cards still on the table, squaring the pack at the finish.

The magician has had no opportunity to catch even a glimpse of the chosen card, and in fact, the deck itself is put away in the box to preclude that possibility. Despite...

Six cards, three have a large red dot on their face, and the other three are jokers. The red dot cards change their backs multiple times.

1st edition 2026, video 2:35

Two sets of 7 cards are shown. One pile has pictures of the logos of 7 of the most common social media platforms. The other set has the names of these platforms written in words on the cards.

Two spectators who do not know each other are invited to see whether they can connect via the same social media platform. The pile of cards with names on them are shuffled and spread face down. Spectator 1 can touch the back of any one of the cards – it is a genuinely free choice. The selection is placed aside unseen but in view.

The pile of logo cards is shuffled and spectator 2 names any number...

You start out showing four blue cards. One by one, they turn red, and they have a big hole cut in the middle. This hole is not a fake. You can put your finger through it.

1st edition 2026, video 2:07

This is a wonderfully simple plot that creates a really puzzling effect. A regular, ungimmicked coffee cup is shown and a large sponge ball is tipped out from inside. The cup is clearly shown to be otherwise empty and both of the performer's hands also have genuinely nothing in them.

The ball is placed into a pocket, both hands again being shown to be empty. The inside of the coffee cup is displayed and then inverted mouth down onto the magician's hand. A snap of the fingers and when the cup is tipped backwards, the ball is found impossibly to be back underneath.

[Note that this is not...

You show four jokers and they all have the same back. The spectator picks a joker, and it has a different back to what was shown before. You will receive three variations of the same theme.

1st edition 2026, video 7:57.

A genuinely freely selected card (which can be signed if desired) is shuffled back into a deck. The performer then mimes the removal of that card invisibly and hands it to the spectator to hold for a moment. The cards are then spread face up to show that the chosen card is no longer in the pack.

Squaring the deck, the spectator is invited to push the invisible card he holds face up into the now face down pack. Immediately, the cards are ribbon spread face down again across the table to reveal the selection face up in the centre! Just a regular deck required, straightforward handling,...

A number of spectators appear to demonstrate some psychic ability when they create magical moments that reveal colours randomly assigned to them, and which, in theory, they should not be able to know had been allocated to them.

Simple to do, this is a nice laid-back mental/magic routine designed for parlour performance and which requires just a few simple props that you will probably already have or which you can easily acquire or make.

1st edition 2026, video 17:17.

A card is genuinely freely selected (and can be signed if required) and is shuffled into the deck, which is placed back into the box. A half dollar, which is marked with a sticker bearing a spectator's initials, is taken into the performer's hand from where it instantly vanishes.

With empty hands, the deck is slid from the box and is cut to reveal the marked coin resting on the back of one particular card in the centre of the pack. This card is turned over to reveal that it is the selection.

1st edition 2026, video 15:36.

A deck is freely displayed and shuffled, and a spectator then selects any card (no force). The helper then cuts a block of cards from the deck, and the cards are counted to determine a random number.

Reassembling the pack, the selected card is slipped into the deck at a position decided by the spectator, and the cards are then cut a couple of times to lose the card's position.

The performer then shakes the deck a little as he explains that the selected card and the randomly chosen number will come together. Handing the deck over to the helper, she counts down to the chosen number and...