First Time/Every Time

This might be obvious, but it's worth mentioning since I’ve had a couple of people email me about it recently.

In my latest newsletter, I shared a trick where your friend cuts to a card in the deck, and then you show them a folder on your phone full of photos of other people, all holding the same card after doing the same cut.

The question I was asked was how I can reconcile a presentation like that (or something like The Protection Spell) with the point I’ve often made that tricks are the strongest when they feel like they are something you are discovering with the your audience for the first time.

It depends on the nature of the trick.

If the trick is built around a big idea—“Let’s go back in time two weeks,” or “They say this incantation can summon spirits”—then I think it’s strongest when it feels like something you’ve never tried before. You’re exploring it together, uncertain of the outcome.

But when the premise is small (a 50/50 choice, or a single-card prediction, for example) it can become stronger by implying this is something that’s been happening repeatedly for some reason. You don’t have to repeat it in front of them. Just show some lingering evidence—a photo folder, a tic sheet, a journal—that this thing keeps happening to everyone.

“I know what card you’ll pick.” Okay, fine.

But:

“I know what card you’ll pick... because everyone around me has picked it ever since I had this prophetic dream.” That’s a much more meaty premise.

That ongoing pattern is the big idea. It’s what makes the trick worth showing.