I’VE PERFORMED THE DEVANO RISING CARDS for years and without going into detail I have, I believe, a stunning presentation and patter theme which has become a very successful highlight of my table and close-up work. It gets me repeat bookings.

 I knew Mitch Devano, the inventor and bought many packs off him – he always had a supply in his case when at The Magic Circle. I still have six today and they still work perfectly. I have tried the other methods offered on the market that use a sticky pad rather than Devano’s needles but I personally have found the original design to be the most reliable.

But there was one tip thatAlex Elmsley gave me years ago which made all the difference in the world to the presentation. Magicians who do this effect will often find that the card will start to rise then jump up very quickly and tilt to one side. Not very mysterious. Alex advised me to apply zinc stearate powder to the whole pack and the result is that the cards rise almost imperceptibly and very, very slowly and keep straight during the rise. This drags out the tension and for me does make the magic of the effect far more mysterious. I’ve done this for years and coat the cards about every few performances to make sure that the amount of resistance between the cards is constant between shows. It has made a lot of difference to what I think is one of the great classics of magic.

Filed under: Magic Ideas, Magic Thoughts