#12 Ancient Hieroglyphics from Egypt

A freely chosen unknown card is placed into the Egyptian tomb and it’s identity is revealed by Ancient Hieroglyphics which appear magically when the tomb is folded over!

Making up a story for a magic trick is a welcome change from just stating what you are about to do. Also, it can add mystery to your physical manipulations. So, instead of saying pick a card and then revealing it, you can invoke the aid of ancient words from a mystical culture. Sounds mysterious already, doesn’t it?

This simple story and ancient writing helps to make a classic card force into a memorable magic effect. I misspoke the name of the force in the video: it is the “Flip Over Force”, not the flip over fold force. In this case, the force card is the one you have written with the ancient hieroglyphics.

This card is on the top of the deck. First, you show the deck by fanning it to show your audience it is a regular deck. Then, you take small number of cards and flip them over, and then you move further down into the deck pushing off another small number of cards and flip them over along with the first group of cards and you continue this way until you get through the entire deck (in the video I had an imaginary volunteer choose a number from 1 to 7 and flip over that many times).

Next, you spread through the cards until you come to a face down card and that is the chosen card. The great thing about the Flip Over Force is that the audience believes that once you have flipped over the cards several times that the deck will be totally mixed up with some cards facing up and some facing down all the way through the deck – but that is not the case. Once you are done flipping the cards, there will just be one group of cards face up and the other group face down. And the chosen card is right in the middle, either face up or face down.

That’s why you have to turn the deck over if an odd number is chosen. When an odd number is chosen, the force card will be on the face up side, so if you spread the cards without turning the deck over, it will be the last card of the face up cards, but you want it to be the first card which is face down. When you turn over the deck, it is. Try it. After flipping the cards over an even number of times, just spread through to the first face down card to find your force card. After flipping over an odd number of times, TURN OVER the deck and spread through to the first face down card to find your force card. Get it?? Got it! Good.

So most of the physical work for this effect is in the tricky prop you are going to make. Just follow the instructions on the video and have fun with this. Make up your own story about an ancient cave in Africa or the secret room in a Medieval castle or the top of the CN Tower in Toronto! And if you want to do this trick in a strolling situation, make 2 or 3 different versions so the previous table can still watch and they will see you use a different card (this means setting up the deck for the next table or having different decks ready).

So, once you’ve created your prop and rehearsed your story and after you’ve practiced the Flip Over Force until you know when to turn over the deck or not, you will be ready to create some Ancient or Medieval or Torontonian Magic!!
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Steve Baker is a magician located in the GTA residing North of Orangeville.

Since 1997, Steve has entertained adults and children at private functions and large public venues to amaze them with sleight of hand, strolling magic tricks, mentalism and fun characters from North Bay to Niagara on the Lake and from Arnprior to Point Clark, Ontario.