An unbelievable, no-sleight card effect that's impromptu and can be performed with a borrowed deck!

You tell your audience that you have acquired a rare secret from a Himalayan Yogi and will demonstrate to them how you are able to read a person's thought through his heart throb. You ask your hostess to lend you a pack of cards and when the pack is brought forth you decline to touch it with the assertion that you do not wish them to think that you employ sleight-of-hand.

However, you request your hostess to hand the pack to some prominent guest at the party and to whisper in his ear any particular point at which a card is to be chosen mentally. When Guest No. 1 makes his mental choice, no one else knows the identity of that card.

The hostess is next requested to retrieve the pack and to deal several cards on the table and call upon a second guest to select any one of the cards on the table and return it to the pack. Remember, while all this is going on, you, the magician are standing with your BACK toward the scene of operation and definitely do not know which two cards have been chosen. In fact, no one except the two guests knows the identity of their respective cards.

You now ask the hostess whether she knows the identity of the two cards and she naturally says, "No," which, in fact, is the truth. Request her to hold the pack in her left hand while you place your ear against the heart of the first spectator with your face turned away, so you are not able to see what is about to take place. Ask the gentleman to take one card at a time from the top of the pack and to hold it a second in his hand. As each card is taken off the pack, you tell him to drop it on the table until you get an urge through his heart beat and you promptly ask him to retain that card in his hand with its face toward the floor so that its identity may not be revealed.

The same procedure is repeated with the second spectator.

Ask each of the two gentlemen to name his card, and upon turning over the two cards held by them, they prove to be the ones selected.

Note: The magician does not touch the cards at all.

Supplied are directions, patter, and presentation, exactly as performed by Eddie Joseph for a number of years. Use any cards.

Originally sold for the equivalent of $26.00 in today's money. A dandy ice breaker for any party or get-together.

"A miracle card effect." (Lloyd E. Jones) "A miracle. Strictly a one-man effect and there are no confederates." (Sid Lorraine) "Save it for those occasions where you truly want to present a miracle with no possibility for using marked cards, stack systems, accomplices, mirrors, electronics or other nefarious swindles." (T. A. Whitney)

Magic World updated and expanded edition features three new chapters.