Spice up your act with the air magic card trick

By Catalogs Editorial Staff

Learn to master the art of dropping cards to pull off this trick.

The air magic card trick is a favorite among many magicians and audiences alike. If you’re looking for a good magic card trick that is a variation of the pick-a-card magic trick, try this one on for size.

Pick a Card

This magic trick starts out as a ‘pick a card, any card’ type trick. First, fan out the cards and ask a participant to pick a card, any card.

Once your participant has done so, take a peek at the bottom card on the deck. You might turn your back to the participant so you can’t see her card and peek at the bottom card. There are variety of ways to quickly catch a glance at the bottom card of your deck.

Control the Magic Card

Inform the participant that you’re going to show her that you haven’t done anything tricky just yet. Fan out the entire deck face up to the right so that all the cards are visible. Ask your participant to look at the cards and make sure that her card is still in the deck. As she’s doing this, you should look for your card.

Remember that your card is next to hers. Given the current set-up of the cards, yours will be just to the left of hers. Remember what her card is, but only for a moment. Pay more attention to where her card is rather than what it is.

When she’s satisfied that her card is still in the deck, pick up the fan. Meanwhile, you’re going to secretly cut the deck, moving her card to the top of the deck. Do this by starting at the right-hand side and pick up all cards up to and including her card.

Then starting from the left, pick up the rest of the cards. Place them all together and flip the entire deck face down. The card you originally remembered is now once again the bottom card, and the participant’s card is now the top card in the deck.

The Drop

Pick the deck up with one hand. Using your thumb, slide the participant’s top card slightly to the side. Bend your hand so that the card curves upward ever so slightly. Say a magic word, then let go of the deck.

The main part of the deck forms a block-like structure, which will fall straight down as a whole. The card that you slightly removed from the rest will fall separately and the air pressure will cause the card to flip over before reaching the ground, causing it to be the only card facing upward.

Practice This Trick

The air magic card trick won’t work every time you do it at first. It requires a great deal of practice. Practice the action of causing just one card to flip over when dropping a deck of cards. If you can master this maneuver so that it becomes second nature, you will have an amazing card trick that will become a crowd favorite.

You might also want to add a creative story to this magic trick. The trick itself is already elaborate and makes a great trick to go somewhere in the middle of your magic show. This is a good audience participation trick that will surely wow everyone. If you add a story to the trick and promote the idea that you have magical floating air powers, your audience will begin to believe in you as a magician once they see that the participant’s card was the only card that floated out of the deck.