The one where they mix and unmix, the same happens again but then they vanish by Geraint Clarke 

A magician fooler I’ve kept locked away…

I’m lucky enough to travel the world with Ellusionist and see more magic than most.

Every magician that meets me wants the top shelf liquor, they want to be fooled.

They don’t want to see something they’ve seen before. They expect me to have something new in my back pocket that will blow them away. An exclusive.

This is one that I’ve been using to **** magicians up at conventions & lectures all over the world… for years.

BUT FIRST, YOU NEED TO READ THIS

Imagine I asked you to buy a strawberry ice-cream from me… moments after telling you it was the worst flavour. That’s what’s going to happen TODAY. But instead of ice-cream, it’s a card trick.

I’m not going to try and ’sell’ you something. Instead I’m going to tell you something and my hope is, at the end, you’ll still want to buy it.

Good magic is when your spectator’s expectations and the reality of what just happened are misaligned. If they expect it to happen and it happens, you’ll get a golf clap.

However, if they expect a good trick and you show them a great trick, the magic hits harder.

SO WHAT’S THE WORST PLOT IN MAGIC?

Using that rule, the worst plots in magic are ACAAN and Oil & Water. In ACAAN, they name a card and number and you ask them to count down. By the time they get a few cards down, they already expect their card to be at the position that they named. So their expectations and the reality of the effect align. It’s not a good trick.

“BLASPHEMY. BURN HIM”

Hear me out. Now imagine that deck was blank and the ONLY card in the entire deck is the card they named and it’s at the position they named. Now that’s a great trick. They expected it to be in the position they named and it is. Okay… But you flip over the cards and their free choice is the only card that exists. Their tiny mind is BLOWN. The reality exceeds their expectations.

BUT THIS IS ABOUT OIL & WATER – PERHAPS THE MOST TERRIBLE PLOT IN MAGIC

The cards mix. They separate. They mix again. They separate again. They mix again. They separate again.

Now to finish, the deck separates too.

After the first phase, your audience now expects it to happen. So every subsequent phase is on a level plane. Their expectations and reality are aligned.

“HOW DO YOU FIX IT?”

My approach to creating my version was simple.

1. It needs to be IMPROMPTU
2. No EXTRA cards
3. I should be able to BORROW a deck if the moment calls for it.
4. It needs to have 2 potential METHODS for each phase, so I can repeat it with the same audience watching and still not get CAUGHT.
5. At least 1 of those 2 methods needs to be VERY EASY to do, so I can teach my younger fan-base. (Or attendees in my lectures can do it right away).
6. It MUST get more impressive each phase.
7. The FINAL phase has to KICK them in the teeth outta nowhere (not literally).
8. The STORY or presentation should make sense.
9. The Magic ABSOLUTELY must happen in the SPECTATOR’S HANDS.

Thus, “The one where the cards mix and unmix, the same happens again but then they vanish” by Geraint Clarke was born.

In the first phase they’re mixed fairly, face-down and unmix themselves.

In the second phase the magic happens face-up in the spectators hands, with everything looking so fair. (This is achieved with a crazy sleight you’ve never seen before).

The third phase, the ‘water’ cards vanish from the intense heat of a flame from a lighter (or a pretend one – we’re magicians after all).

It escalates in impressiveness towards a finale they could never expect.

Taste is subjective, but for me, it’s made the oil & water plot fun again.

Those who know me by now know that I NEVER EVER EVER release magic to the industry, or put my name behind something unless I’ve fully worked and developed it over years.

I don’t produce Instagram magic or intensely gimmicked visuals. I produce magic that can be done any time, anywhere and pack the same punch whether the audience does magic or not.

So you can trust me when I tell you that I’ve seen enough bad tricks in my life to know what makes a good one… and my reputation of best-sellers at Ellusionist means more to me than a quick buck.

I’m not paid to create magic here. I publish only when I feel I can add real value to the community (or when you incredible magicians I meet boost my self-esteem on an original effect).

This trick isn’t the best one you could ever do, but it’s the best strawberry ice-cream that I can offer you. The best rendition of the worst flavour.