lfhd
Jerx’s haunted deck is such a cool approach to the trick. I have an interesting idea to do it without any gimmicks. There are some compromises though: you’ll need to be the one that sets down the cards instead of spectator and can’t have a camera to film it from the inside. BUT they get to shuffle the cards after the selection is returned, which means that the deck is normal, and they can immediately examine everything after opening the door.
One caveat though is that it may not work with every room. I live in a small one bedroom apartment, so I’m limited in testing this out. It does work very well for me, and I’ll let you know why I think that is in a bit.
Here’s what this looks like: you give the deck of cards a quick shuffle and ask your friend to cut the cards and memorize the bottom card of the packet. They shuffle that packet then shuffle that with the rest the deck. You guys walk over to the door of a room, and you place the deck down inside. You close the door, wait a bit, and talk about how the day’s weather is perfect for some ghost action. Then have your friend slowly open the door to find the deck cut, and one card has jumped out. They can immediately check the card and the deck.
How this works. Their card is reverse crimped, you shuffle it into the middle, they cut/memorize/shuffle, then you control or shuffle it back to the top as you guys walk over to the room you want use. The deck is placed on the floor inside. My bathroom door clears the deck, so I this is how I do it.
So how does the deck to cut? Well, it doesn’t. Before performing, I take about a fourth of the deck and set it right behind where I want the door to be. I don’t open the door all the way. So I’m only working with 3/4 of the deck at the start. And when I set the deck down, I make sure it’s right in front of the door. Looks like this.
When the door closes, a stream of air shoots inward and lifts the top card (their selection with a reverse breather crimp) off of the deck and send it flying forward. This is what it looks like from inside.
So there you go. That’s the method. Super simple. You’ll have to test how close/far the deck will need to be and how hard you have to close the door. I think it works well with my door is because it’s pretty heavy. So I don’t need to close it too hard to get a good stream of air. Oh, sometimes it might go face up.
When they open the door, have them open it all the way so it goes past both packet- so they see that the deck has been cut and there’s a single card by itself away from the two halves.
One idea if you want them to set down the deck- is to have some sort of ritualistic markings on the floor that has a center in its design. Make your presentation about how you heard about strange things happening with it- and have them set the deck in the middle to try an experiment or something.
The card is forced, so there’s that. And it can also be signed.
There you go. The lofi haunted deck. Test this out- see which door works best, where to place the cards for maximum effect, and how hard you need to close the door. If you have to slam it, probably don’t do this. Haha.