What happens: The magician is performing for a group of people. He asks one of the spectator to choose a card. The performer then instructs the spectator to stretch his hands in front of him, palms up. The performer than takes the selection and places it face up on one of the palms. He then instructs the layman to close his eyes. He tells him to do so in order to fully experience the magic. He makes sure to tell him that none of his friends will aid him in the performance of this effect. “I shall make your card levitate from this hand, to the other. Since there is no way for you to tell if I will be using my hands or not, and there is no insurance for me that you won’t be opening your eyes, what I will do is place both my index fingers on your closed eyes-lids. This way, we both know, that the other can feel comfortable and experience what is going to happen.” What appears at first to be a gag, ends up transforming into quite an experience for both the spectator and everybody else.
How it is done: Some of you might be familiar with this gag. I first experienced this as a friend was performing this to one of my colleagues at school. He made the poor boy close his eyes, put his right index and middle finger on his eye-lids then slaped him, after which the boy quickly extended his right and left index finger, making it seem as if his hands were always on his eyes. This meant that one of us, the viewers, slapped him and not the performer. Not ok... for us.
The First Phase: As you move forward with both your index fingers, once the spectators shuts his eyes, you will extend your left middle finger and place two fingers, one on each eye. This allows you full use of your right hand. The first phase is where the gag finds itself: all you do is use your right hand to move the selection from one hand to the other.
The second phase is where the magic happens. Tell the spectator you will reveal to him, if he hasn’t already figured out the method, how you’ve accomplished the feat. Repeat the first phase, but this time, have the spectator keep his eyes open and instead, place your two fingers on his forehead. The other spectators know what is about to happen, or so they think. With the help of an invisible thread, proceed to really levitate the card back to its original position.
The piece of thread could be stuck to the tip of your right index finger. As you move the card from one hand to the other in the first phase, stick the invisible thread to the back of the card. Of course, in order for this to work, you would need a longer piece of thread so the card is not moved as you move back your right hand. Clip the thread between your index and middle finger then proceed to levitate the card. Unstick the thread as you hand the card for inspection.
What I love about this effect is that the rest of the audience believes they are in on it, only to find themselves flabbergasted at what will happen next. Another thing you could do is perform the second phase on one of the other spectators under the ruse of showing the first one how you achieved the effect. This will cause the audience to tell the guy you’ve actually levitated the card and, of course, he won’t believe it because he witnessed how the effect was done in the first phase.
A third phase would have to involve everyone. Hmmm... what could the twist be? A stooge, for sure. Stick the invisible thread to the stooges hand and have him perform the effect on you. Yep, this would be the perfect ending phase. Or levitate yourself instead of levitating the card. Or have the card stay still as you switch hands. Hmmm... no, still the stooge one would have the biggest impact. Someone get this over to Dynamo’s Crew. They would definitely love it.
Ideas
You can take this and develop it into a sketch or use it inside of a movie. Remember that it is not important to perform the effect with a playing card. You can switch the object with a ring, a piece of paper, a bracelet - any object that will fit your movies storyline.