This is a fairly simple tip for your handling of the Invisible Deck that should be compatible with most every presentation, likely unconsciously inspired by Paul Harris’ Son of Stunner.

I thought this was common knowledge for a while, until I actually started paying attention to other magicians performing the ID. How are people not already doing this?

A lot of the time, it seems people will just leave the spread face up, and sometimes even replace the card in front of the spectator, resetting the deck but compromising the spec’s sense of wonder.

This is rare, but a savvy person may intuit that there’s something they aren’t supposed to see on the other side of the spread. It’s the obvious solution if you have a quick mind, even if you don’t know how it would work, and it happened to me once before I started doing this. While unlikely to actually happen in practice, even if they aren’t that savvy, this convincer should help cement what they just saw happen.

I should note that this handling is similar to what people will do with stacked decks for easy reset, or even the Invisible Deck, but with a little added bit unique to the ID that seems to be overlooked a lot. Hope you enjoy.

First, do your presentation. It better not be the classic “I have an invisible deck” one. Seriously, what do you think they’re going to Google after that if not “invisible deck magic trick”?

Then we come to the reveal. I like to page through the cards one at a time, so that when the paired card shows up I can smoothly move it over and the target card reveals itself without any suspicious appearances in the middle of the spread. Plus, it builds the tension. Then I spread through the rest a bit faster to show that they’re all facing up. That’s all unnecessary though, to implement this handling.

Here’s the tip:

Cut the deck between the facedown card and its paired card. Extend the facedown card towards them, so they can grab it. After they do, complete the cut. That is, bring the balance to the bottom.

You can now safely turn over the deck and show a facedown card, the very paired card you just saw before. Don’t make this obvious, of course, just casually show the back as if relaxing your hand, turning it from palm up to palm down.

When they give you back the card, just put it on top of the facedown paired card, facing down, and rebox the whole thing. When you next have the chance, turn their chosen card over and you’re reset!

You know, now that I write this out, this might be a more critical tip than I was thinking. This just feels so much more natural than only holding the deck in one orientation the whole time, even to a spectator! They may not even recognize what feels off, but there are few tricks where the deck stays strictly face up the whole time throughout, you know?

That’s what I have to say on that. Obviously, this works with nearly any presentation. In fact, I don’t know of a presentation that wouldn’t work with this not-so-little convincer. Hope you get some use out of it.