Royal Road to Card Magic The

that will be offered to explain this trick, in which you name a selected card by reading a lady's pulse, and she in turn reads your pulse and names a card you have selected.
    1. Force a card on a lady and, after she has noted its value, have her place it to one side face downwards.
    2. Say, 'It is an interesting fact that the principle of the so-called lie detector has been used by magicians for over a century. For instance, it is entirely possible for me to name the card you have chosen by reading your pulse.'
    3. Hold her wrist so that you can feel the pulse. Say, 'The lie detector measures physical reaction to stimuli, as we all know. When a significant question is asked, no matter how well the subject may discipline his emotions, his body reacts abnormally. To show you how magicians have used this principle in the past, I shall call out
ace, two, three
, and so on, and, no matter how well you dissemble, I shall know the value of your card when I name it. I will ascertain the suit in the same way.'
    4. Count, 'One, two, three, four,' and so on up to 'king'. Immediately say, 'When I counted five, your pulse jumped. Your card was a five.' Of course, you name the value of the forced card.
    5. Repeat this with the four suits, naming the proper one, and have the card turned to prove that you are correct.
    Usually there will be some discussion of this phenomenon, and after a moment you offer to prove that what you say is so.
    6. Take the pack and shuffle it, withdraw a card and note its value. Place it face down to one side without letting anyone see it.
    7. Have the lady feel your pulse and instruct her to call the values and suits as you did. Press the tip of your middle finger firmly against the tip of your thumb, and when the value of your card is named slide your thumb inward on your fingertip for a few millimetres. The muscles of the wrist tighten and this is felt by the lady taking your pulse. When, at the end, you ask her to name the value of your card, she names the proper one.
    8. Repeat this with the suit, have it named, turn your card and show that she has named it correctly.
    Since you have mentioned 'jumping pulses,' the lady in many cases is prepared to swear that your pulse jumped!

CHAPTER 17

Top and Bottom Changes

    Top Change
    There is no other sleight in all conjuring with cards that will give you so much pleasure as this. More than any other sleight, it lends itself to improvisation, the delightful adlibbing with a pack of cards that causes so much laughter and more nearly approaches a battle of wits with your audiences than any other conjuring manoeuvre. To exchange one card for another boldly and under the very noses of those who watch, without being detected, is a sweet triumph! It is also good entertainment; indeed, Robert-Houdin, the father of modern magic, observed over a century ago, 'I know of nothing more surprising than the effect of a card neatly "changed".' The words are still as true today.
    Let us say you are going to exchange secretly a card held in the right hand for the one at the top of the pack, which is held in the left hand, as for dealing, but with the index finger resting at the outer end.
    1. Hold the card in the right hand, at its inner right corner, between the outermost phalanxes of the middle finger and the thumb. Place the index finger lightly alongside the middle finger, but do not hold the card with it. The other fingers are free (figure 121).

    2. Move the right hand to the left hand and slide its card under the left thumb flush on to the pack. The left index finger at the outer end prevents the card from overlapping. Do not draw it on to the pack with the left thumb.
    3. Simultaneously with the preceding action, and as the right hand approaches, push the top card of the pack over its side to the right for about 25 mm (1 in), then lift the thumb a little so that the right hand can slide its card under it.
Do not push off the top card before the right hand begins its swing to the left.
    Although we have described the actions in steps 2 and 3 as separate processes, we have done this only for clarity. Actually the left thumb pushes the top card to the right as the right hand approaches and slides its card under the thumb and on to the pack.
    4. Grasp the inner right corner of the card pushed off the pack between the right index finger and thumb (figure 122). Hold the right hand motionless with the card, and move the left hand and the pack away to the left.
The right