Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to the exciting world of magic.
VisionQuest Enterprises is proud to present Ron Schafer's Learn at Home Magic Series.
Doing magic is fun, but learning how can be difficult.
That is why the Learn at Home Magic Series makes it easy for you by bringing a personal
instructor right into your home.
He is professional magician Ron Schafer.
Ron has been performing for audiences for over 20 years.
He has won several awards for his unique style of magic, including trophies for stage presentation,
close-up magic, and originality.
Ron's simple-to-follow teaching style makes learning magic easy and fun.
The same style has helped him introduce the art of magic to thousands of students.
With the Learn at Home Magic Series, Ron is now prepared to reveal the exciting world
of magic to you.
Here now is magician Ron Schafer.
Hi, I'm Ron Schafer.
Magic is one of the most fascinating hobbies in the world.
Anyone, no matter what their age, can have fun learning to perform magic, and I'm going
to show you how.
Each of the tricks I'm going to present to you have been specially chosen because they're
easy to do, practical, and most important, will allow you to amaze your friends.
But in order to fool them, you have to do each trick well, and that means plenty of
practice.
And remember, don't reveal your secrets to a non-magician, and no matter how much they
beg you, don't do a trick more than once, because it's a lot harder to fool them the
second time.
Now, let's have some fun doing magic.
We're going to start off with some card magic.
Almost every household has at least one deck of cards, so if you know a couple of good
card tricks, you're always ready to perform and demonstrate your skill as a magician,
and this first one is one of my favorites.
As you can see, the cards are already well-shuffled.
All right?
Let's see, Jeremy, what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to take this deck and cut
it in half and place it right there.
That's good.
Okay, now I'd like you to take this deck, cut it in half, and place it right there.
Perfect.
All right?
Now, take that deck, cut it in half, and place it right aside of it.
Good.
Now, I'm going to take this pile, and I'm going to deal three cards face down, one,
two, three, and put one on top of each of the remaining piles, just like this, and replace
that pack.
I'm going to pick up the second pile, deal three face down, one on top of each of the
remaining piles, and place that pack.
Do the same thing with the third pile.
Three go face down, one on top of each of the remaining piles, and place the pack.
One more time, I'm going to deal three cards face down, one on top of each of the remaining
piles, and replace the pack.
Now, the cards were well-shuffled in the beginning, and he cut them into four piles.
I had no control where he cut them.
To further mix up the cards, we dealt three cards off the top of each pile.
So, right now, the cards are well-mixed, but even though they're well-mixed, something
amazing has happened.
The four aces magically appear on top of the piles.
Isn't that amazing?
All right.
Now, every magic trick has two parts to it.
One part that the audience sees, and another part that the audience doesn't see or isn't
aware of.
Now, what they're not aware of in this trick is that you set this up ahead of time.
Now, to set it up, here's all you have to do.
Remove the four aces from the deck, and place them on top, face down, and put the cards
back in the box.
It's always best to start that way.
Remove the cards, show everyone that the cards are well-shuffled, being careful not to flash
the four aces, of course.
Turn them over.
Now, from here, I'm going to turn the aces face up so you can see what happens to them.
Of course, you wouldn't do this for the trick, but I'll do it just so you can follow along.
Have someone cut the deck in half, and place it right there, and have them cut this pile
in half, place it right here, have them cut this pile in half, and place it right there.
It's important to keep track of where the four aces are, because you have to use that
pile last.
Now, starting with this pile, you're going to deal three cards face down, and one on
top of each of the remaining piles, and replace the pack, right there.
Same thing with the second pile.
Three go face down, one on top of each remaining pile, replace the pack.
Again, with the third pile, three face down, one on top of each remaining pile, replace
that pack.
Now, watch what happens when I do it with the last pile.
Deal three face down, one on top of each of the remaining piles, replace the pack.
You see the aces end up there automatically.
Of course, they'll be face down when you finish this up, and your audience will be very amazed
when you turn the cards over, and they see the four aces.
That's how you perform the Four Ace Miracle.
Next, I'd like to show you another card mystery.
In this deck of cards are two very special cards, the King of Clubs, and the King of
Spades.
They're the detectives of the card world.
They're going to attempt to track down and capture a criminal card.
Now, we're going to pick that criminal card at random.
Now, Kelly, what I'd like you to do is this.
As I push these cards from hand to hand, just touch the top of any card you want.
That one right there?
Okay, I'll turn that over.
The Seven of Clubs.
I'll leave it face up right where it is.
Now, the two kings, the detectives, are going to attempt to track down and capture that Seven
of Clubs.
Watch.
I think they did it.
Let's take a look and see.
There's the Seven of Clubs.
I'm going to move that card with the one immediately below it and the one immediately above it.
Let's take a look and see if indeed they did capture the criminal card.
Now, in order to do this, it requires just a simple setup.
You place one king on top of the deck, put this back, and the other king on the bottom.
That's all there is to it.
What makes this work is the way you turn over the chosen card.
Now, I'm going to turn the king's face up so you can see what happens next.
You're going to push the cards from hand to hand.
Let's pretend that someone picked this card right here.
You're holding this packet with your right hand and this packet with your left hand.
With your left thumb, you're going to push off the chosen card, and with the right hand
packet, you're going to push that card down underneath the left-hand packet, turning it
over as you do so, just like this.
You see this automatically puts it between the two kings.
Of course, they won't see that when the cards are face down, but when you turn the cards
over and show them that the kings did capture the chosen card, they'll be very amazed.
That's how you perform the detective card mystery.
Next, I'd like to show you some rope magic.
What I have here is a piece of magic rope.
I didn't realize it was a piece of magic rope until I attempted to tie it in a knot.
You see, every time I attempt to tie it in a knot, the knot just disappears.
Did you see that?
Let me show you that again.
You see, every time I attempt to tie this in a knot, for some reason, the knot just disappears.
Sort of like a knot that's not a knot, sort of.
Now, in order to do this, first you need a piece of rope about four or five feet long.
The softer, the better.
I always put tape on the ends of my ropes so they don't unravel.
The only other thing you're going to need is a piece of wax.
Now, if you live near a magic shop, you can buy magician's wax.
If not, you can find wax in almost any store that sells candy.
I'm sure you've seen these wax candies before.
With the syrup inside, the wax for this is perfect.
So, what you want to do is squeeze off a little piece of wax about the size of half your fingernail
and put that ball of wax on your rope about one-third of the way down from the left-hand
side.
Put your left hand over, covering it with your thumb.
Your right hand's going to be about one foot to a foot and a half away, like this.
Now, I'm going to turn this way so you can see what happens.
Using your right hand, come over behind your left and form a loop with the rope and put
that piece right over the wax and press on it with your left thumb.
Drop your hand down to this piece and bring it towards your body and then through the
loop this way.
Now, lift up on this piece with your right hand and let go with your left.
Because the wax is holding it in place, it will appear as if you're about to tie a knot.
But when you give it a tug, the knot just disappears.
And that's how you perform a vanishing knot.
Now that you know how to create the vanishing knot, using the same piece of rope, I'm going
to teach you how to make the impossible knot.
Now, it's called impossible because it's impossible to do unless you use a little bit of magic.
Now, holding the rope like this, what you have to do is tie a knot in the center of
the rope without letting go of the ends.
And there's the knot.
Now, to show you just how impossible this is, I'd like someone to come up here and try
this along with me.
Kelly, bring your rope up here.
Let's try it together.
Okay.
Hold the rope like this.
Now, bring your right hand over towards your left and drape this piece over your left wrist.
Bring your right hand down and over to the right.
Good.
Now, we're going to go through that large opening right there and immediately out this
opening right here.
And spread your hands apart just like that.
Now, all you have to do now is throw the rope off your wrist.
Spread your hands apart just like, hmm, I have a knot but she doesn't.
That's because she didn't use a little bit of magic.
Okay, Kelly, you can have a seat.
I'm going to show you just how to create that magic.
It's all done with a little movement of your right hand that goes unnoticed.
First, you're going to need a piece of rope about four or five feet long.
Now, I'm going to turn this way so you can see exactly what happens.
Now, bring your right hand over towards your left and drape this piece over your left wrist.
Bring your hand down and over to the right like that.
Now, we're going to go through that large opening right here and immediately out back
this opening right here and spread your hands apart, keeping your palms facing each other.
Now, here comes the tricky part.
What you're going to do is you're going to let go of this piece right here and re-grab
it at this piece right here that runs along the bottom of your right wrist.
You're going to do that as you throw the rope off your wrist.
So, you're going to let go right here and re-grab right here as you throw it off your
wrist.
And when you pull your hands apart, it forms a knot.
Now, this is a little tricky, so you're going to have to do it slow until you get the idea,
then do a little faster.
And that's how you create the impossible knot.
Next, I'd like to show you some magic with money.
What I have here is a $1 bill and a $5 bill.
I'm going to place them on the table in front of me like this with the $1 bill on top of
the $5.
Now keeping them like this, I'm going to roll them together just like this.
Now, Jeremy, what I'd like you to do is put your finger right here on the $1.
That's good.
Now, Brandon, can you put your finger right here on the $5?
Just like that.
Now, even though they're holding on place, some magic is about to happen.
Watch.
Now, when I unroll the bills, the $5 is now on top of the $1.
See, they switched places by magic.
Now, let me show you how this is done.
What I like about this is you can do it any time.
All you need are two bills, a $1 bill and a $5 bill.
I'm going to use these over here to show you.
Lay them on the table in front of you in a V shape, keeping the one on top of the five.
Now, instead of having them at the edges by the corner, what you're going to have to do
is move this one up that way away from you about an inch.
That's very important to make this work.
Now, keeping them together like this, you're going to roll them tightly.
Now, because that one has been moved up, the five will roll up first.
See how that's almost rolled up?
If you continue to roll without my fingers hiding it, you would see that five flip over
like this.
That flip, believe it or not, is enough to make the bills change places.
Now, as you're rolling it, you hide that with your left fingers.
When you get to the end, you have someone put their finger right here, Jeremy, put your
finger right there.
Then you can feel the flip with your left fingers, push it down and say, hold that with
your other hand.
Okay?
Then when you unroll it, the five will now be on top of the one.
That's how you perform the money roll.
Next, I'd like to show you something I call the spooky spools.
What I have here are three wooden spools threaded onto two shoelaces.
Now, as long as I'm holding the ends of the shoelaces, it's impossible for the spools
to come off.
Now, to further trap them on here, I'm going to tie one of the shoelaces in a knot like
this.
Now, Kelly, what I'd like you to do is reach over here and grab these ends right here,
and Dan, what I'd like you to do is reach over here and grab these ends right there.
Perfect.
As long as they're holding the ends, it's impossible for those spools to come off unless
we use a little bit of magic, which I'm going to do right now.
Now, when I say now, pull on your shoelaces.
Now, and the spools come off by magic.
The nice thing about this is that you can have your spectator try to duplicate this
trick, and they'll find it impossible to get those spools off there.
Now, this requires a little setup ahead of time, which creates the illusion that the
spools are threaded onto two shoelaces, but they're really not, and here's how you do
that.
First, take one of the shoelaces and fold them in half, and you're going to thread first
one and then a second spool onto that half, right like that.
Now, you're going to take the other shoelace, fold it in half, and thread the other spool
on that one.
Now, you're going to put the middle of the shoelaces together so that they overlap just
like that.
Now, you're going to reach there and take the bottom piece and pull it back over the
top again so it overlaps the second time, and just simply squish that together in a
ball, and with the other hand, pull on the shoelace so it pulls that ball into the center
spool just like that.
This creates the illusion that the spools are threaded onto two shoelaces when they're
actually not.
Now, if you were simply to pull on them right now, you'd end up with one shoelace here and
one shoelace here, and that would give the trick away.
So, what you have to do is take any two ends and tie them in a knot just like this.
This is very important.
You must do that.
Kelly, would you hold these ends right here?
Okay.
Dan, reach over here and hold onto these two ends just like that.
Now, you cover it up with a hand shift.
Now, underneath, what you do is pull that ball out of the center spool and have them
pull on the shoelaces.
Go ahead and pull, and the spools will come off like magic, and that's how you perform
the spooky spools.
Next, I'd like to show you something I call the traveling penny.
In this envelope, I have one, two, three, four, five pennies.
I'm going to place one of the pennies in the center of the handkerchief, and I'm going
to cover it up so it can't be seen, just like this.
Now, that leaves us with four pennies.
One, two, three, four.
I'm going to put those four pennies back inside the envelope and set everything right here.
Four pennies in the envelope and one, there it is, in the handkerchief.
What I'm going to attempt to do is cause that penny to vanish from the handkerchief and
reappear in the envelope.
Watch.
Let's take a look and see.
The penny has vanished, and now inside the envelope, we have one, two, three, four, five
pennies once more that reappeared inside the envelope.
Now, to do this, you're actually going to be learning two tricks in one.
First, I'm going to show you how the penny vanishes from the handkerchief.
In order to do this, you're going to need another piece of wax.
Just like the piece we use in the vanishing knot.
Take a piece of wax about half the size of your fingernail and put it in the corner of
your handkerchief.
Not real close to the edge, but about half an inch down, right like that, and drape that
corner off the edge of your table so it can't be seen.
When you put the penny in the center of the handkerchief, you're going to bring that corner
up, place the wax right over top.
Don't press down at this point because it'll look too suspicious.
Bring the other corners together to the center so that you form a square with your handkerchief.
When you go back later to feel if the penny is still there, aha, there it is.
That's when you press down on the penny.
Now, what you're going to do next is you're going to grab the corner of the handkerchief,
the bottom right hand corner with the forefinger and thumb of each hand.
Grab the corner and spread your hands apart as you lift up, and that will bring the penny
up behind your left fingers where it won't be seen.
Now, as soon as you feel it behind your fingers, securely held, then you can shake the handkerchief
and show both sides and show that it's vanished.
Now, I'm going to show you how to get the penny to reappear in the envelope.
For this, you're going to need another piece of wax.
You take a piece of wax and place it under your table right at the edge.
Then take an extra penny and stick it on that piece of wax so the penny can't be seen.
All right?
Now, when you count the pennies, the four pennies that are left, count them near the
edge right above that hidden penny.
All right?
So when you reach under the table like this and scoop them off, you're going to be taking
that penny along with it.
So you put those in the envelope, and when you dump them back out, they will see five
pennies once more, and they'll look as if it reappeared in the envelope.
And that's how you perform the traveling penny.
Up until now, all the magic that I've shown you has been magic that you can do close up.
This next bit of magic is one where you don't want your audience to be too close.
In fact, they should be about 10 to 12 feet away.
That's why I asked my helpers to move back a bit.
Now, there's a little story that goes along with this to help make your magic more entertaining
and even add a bit of humor, and it goes like this.
About two weeks ago, I went to see another magician perform, and he was really good.
He did this one trick that I really liked.
He had a packet of cards, and he counted them out.
He counted out one, two, three, four, five, six cards, and then he threw away one, two,
three cards, but he still had left one, two, three, four, five, six cards.
I liked that so much I went backstage after the show and said, I really liked that one
trick you did.
Would you teach it to me?
He said, which trick was that?
I said the one where you counted out one, two, three, four, five, six cards, and then
threw away one, two, three cards, and still had left one, two, three, four, five, six
cards.
He said, oh, you mean the one where I count out one, two, three, four, five, six cards,
and then threw away one, two, three cards, and still had left one, two, three, four,
five, six cards.
I said, yeah, that's the one.
He said, well, for $50, I'll teach you how to do it.
Well, I didn't have $50 at the time, so I couldn't learn that trick.
You know, the one where you count out one, two, three, four, five, six cards, and then
throw away one, two, three cards, and still had left one, two, three, four, five, six
cards.
Since I can't show you that, I'll have to show you something else.
That's how the story goes.
Now, it might look like this is very complicated and a difficult trick to perform, but it's
really not.
You have to prepare a few things ahead of time.
First, you're gonna need 22 cards, and in addition to that, you're gonna have to make
some special pocket cards out of two cards together by taping one edge and the bottom.
This pocket will hold three cards.
Even though you're holding three cards, because it's a pocket, you can handle it as if it's
only one card.
Let me show you first how to make this pocket.
Take two cards.
One of the cards, you're gonna make a notch in with a scissors by cutting a triangle-shaped
notch like this about to the middle, just like this.
This notch will allow your thumb to go in to pull out the card.
Next, you're gonna turn this card over and place it aside of another card, and using
some tape, you're gonna tape them two together, just like this.
That allows you to flip this card over.
Now, you're gonna have to tape along the bottom, so take another small piece of tape, put it
at the very bottom with half of the piece of tape hanging out over the edge, turn that
half back up like this with a sticky side up, push this over so it'll stick on the bottom
also.
Now, you have a pocket that will hold three cards.
You're gonna have to make four pockets like this.
Each pocket will hold three cards.
Now, in addition to that, you're also gonna need two regular cards.
I have them all made up right here.
I have one, two, three, four pocket cards, each holding three cards, and I have two regular
cards right here.
Now, let me show you how you're gonna handle the pocket cards so you always have a full
pocket to the back.
You're always gonna keep an empty pocket with the regular cards to the front, like this.
First you count them out, one, two, three, four, five, six, keeping the single cards
to the front.
Pull out the first three cards in the back pocket.
One, two, three.
Pull out the empty pocket.
The full pocket goes behind, full pocket behind, full pocket behind, and the single cards go
to the front.
Now, you're ready to pull out three more cards.
One, two, three.
Take the empty pocket, full pocket goes behind, full pocket goes behind, empty pocket to the
front, single cards to the front.
Now you're ready to pull out three more cards, one, two, three cards.
Pull off the empty pocket.
The last full pocket goes to the back.
The rest of the empty pockets go to the front, to the front, and the single cards to the
front.
Now you're ready to pull out the last three cards, one, two, three.
Now just count out what you have left, one, two, three, four, five, six cards.
Now make up those special pockets, putting three cards in each, and then practice handling
them like I just showed you, always keeping a full pocket to the back.
Then go back in the tape and watch it and follow along with the story, and you'll have
a very entertaining piece of magic called the six card repeat.
Next I'd like to show you a magical way to begin any card trick that you wanna do, watch.
The entire pack rises up to your waiting hand, and from there you can perform any card trick
that you'd like because the cards are totally unprepared.
However, the card box is specially prepared.
Let me show you how that's prepared.
First you're gonna need two identical card boxes like this.
Now unseen inside the one card box is a rubber band that actually causes the cards to rise
up.
Let me show you how to make them.
First thing you're gonna do is on one of your card boxes, you're gonna cut off all the flaps
like this.
Then using a knife or scissors, you're gonna make two slits in the card box, right in the
center about an inch from the top.
Here's where I made mine.
And on the other side, make one in the same location, about in the middle, about an inch
from the top.
There's another slit right here.
Then you're gonna need a rubber band.
The one I use is about one and a half inches across like this.
Yours could be a little bit smaller, a little bit bigger, it doesn't really matter that
much.
Now you're gonna have to thread that rubber band through one slot, out the other slot
so that you have about an even amount coming off both sides.
Now the rubber band inside doesn't have to be real tight across there, it could sag just
a little bit.
Now next, what you're gonna have to do is fasten the rubber bands to the box.
Now the best way to do this, I found, is by using a stapler.
Slide your stapler in there, and staple one end, turn it over, slide it in again, and
then staple the other end.
Now of course, if you left it like this, everyone would see the rubber bands and that they're
stapled to the box.
That's where the other box comes in.
What you're gonna do, is you're gonna cut off the front panel, like this, and the back
panel, like this, from your extra card box.
Now you're gonna put a little glue on this side, and a little glue on this side.
Place the one extra panel over the top like this.
Turn it over, put the other panel over the back like this, and then let it dry.
When it's dry, you'll have a card box that looks like mine.
This looks like an ordinary card box, but it's specially prepared with a rubber band
inside.
Now, you take your deck of cards, place them into the box, and push down, so the rubber
band stretches.
At the bottom, you squeeze real tight with your fingers, like this, so they don't pop
up.
Now, at any time you want, you simply release the pressure on the cards, and they'll slowly
rise out of the deck, just like that, and that's how you perform the Rising Pack.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this volume of the Learn at Home Magic Series.
If you're interested in learning even more magic, print your name, age, and complete
address on a postcard or letter, and mail it to Ron's Magic, Post Office Box 8807, Allentown,
Pennsylvania, 18105.
And I will send you some information about the other videotapes in this series, along
with a free newsletter filled with magic tricks, games, puzzles, and tips on becoming an even
better magician.
I hope to hear from you soon.
This is Ron Shafer, along with my friends, saying, so long for now.