This mind reading card trick is very popular and can be performed online or in front of a real audience. Even though the illusion is amazing, the secret of the trick is pretty simple and anyone can learn it in a few minutes. In my opinion, it’s the easiest mind reading card trick you can do.
So, how does this mind reading card trick work?
You show seven different cards to your audience and ask them to think of one of them. They don’t even have to touch the card. Now, you remove one of the cards in the pile – and it will always be the one your spectators have chosen.
You can perform this trick with any deck of cards, it really doesn’t matter.
Let’s dive in.
How this mind reading card trick is performed
This is – in my opinion – by far the easiest mind reading card trick you can perform. You don’t need any sleight of hand, special cards, or other things, just a normal deck of playing cards and you are good to go.
The great thing about this trick is that you can try it yourself, I will read your mind right through the screen. That’s right, here we go:
Just pick any of the cards down below, and remember this exact card!
Focus on your card, and make sure that you don’t forget it!
As you can see, there are seven playing cards in the image above. I will remove one of the cards, and it will be yours.
This is by the way how the trick is performed in front of a real audience as well, you just show them a bunch of cards and they pick one. They don’t even have to touch the card or tell you which one it is!
In the next image, one card is removed. You will realize that your card is gone.
Make sure that you still know your card.
Ready?
Here we go:
Now, if you’ve actually tried it and you’ve realized that your card is gone, it might feel just like magic for a short moment. At least that’s how I felt when I saw this trick for the first time.
It feels like magic until you realize the pretty simple secret of this trick:
The cards in the pictures are different, so it doesn’t matter which one you pick. It might sound pretty cheesy, but honestly, when I first saw this trick (I didn’t know it at that time), I was truly amazed.
How and why the trick works
Since you are reading this post and you can just jump back and forth between the pictures, you can easily compare them and reveal the secret.
The cards are all different, as you can see in this picture:
For the first picture, I just added one more random card (the five of hearts). All the other cards are the equivalents, making it look like they are the same.
The reason why this trick works for most people is that we only focus on our own cards. You don’t want to forget the card you’ve selected, but who cares about the other ones?
I’ve never seen someone revealing the secret of this trick the first time they see it. With social media, photos, and videos, it’s not that hard to tell how this illusion is done, because you can rewatch this trick or compare the images.
But in a real performance, nobody can compare the before and after, making this the perfect mind-reading trick that requires almost no practice.
How you can perform this mind reading card trick yourself
Depending on how you want to perform the trick, you might need some sleight of hand to switch the two different piles, but I’ll explain another version as well.
So don’t worry – if you don’t want to learn complex moves, I’ve got you covered.
Here’s a video explaining the advanced version (with switching the cards):
Even though it might look a little bit better, you don’t need to learn the sleight of hand shown in the video.
Here’s how you can do the trick yourself, without any practice.
How you can do the trick online
Now, first of all, the easiest version will always be doing the trick online.
You can record yourself and send the video to your friends, take two pictures (like I did), or perform it on a video call.
The only downside is that whenever you do the trick via the internet, people can rewatch or record it. So don’t expect crazy reactions if you just send a video doing this trick! In my opinion, the best way to do it online is via Facetime, Zoom, or any other live video call, because your viewers can’t rewind your performance.
Quick tip
In my opinion, the best way to do it online is via Facetime, Zoom, or any other live video call, because your viewers can't rewind your performance.
By the way: Even when you “only” perform it online, make sure to know what you are doing before showing it to anyone!
How to do this illusion without any practice for a real audience
But let’s say you want to do the trick in front of a real audience – here’s how I would do it.
If you want to perform the trick with a few people watching, the hardest part is to switch the decks without anyone getting suspicious.
Now, you could try to change them unnoticed, but let’s be honest here: most people will realize that something sneaky is happening.
So, how can you do it instead?
All you need are two decks of cards that look exactly the same and optionally one envelope, in which you put the other six equivalent cards. Show your viewers the seven cards and tell them to pick one card, without telling you which one they chose.
Put the first pile of cards to the side and tell your audience, that you’ve prepared an envelope with the same cards, but you’ve removed one of them. To make sure that you can’t cheat or do any sneaky moves, the envelope was closed and can now be opened by a spectator.
The reason why I would do it using the envelope is pretty simple: nobody will ask why you used a different deck of cards, instead of just removing one of the cards in the first pile.
When doing the trick with the envelope, you really don’t need any sleight of hand whatsoever. The illusion is still pretty impressive and you don’t even have to really practice it like many other tricks!
One more tip for making the trick even better: Use a Blanco Card
If you want to take this trick to the next level and add that little extra feeling to your performance, you can use a Blanco card for the second pile.
This way, you don’t only remove the viewer’s card from the deck, you “clear” the card, making the trick even more impressive. It works best with the technique explained in the video above, which requires some sleight of hand to switch the decks.
For your audience, it looks like you actually knew their card, made it completely white and all the other cards stayed the same. The principle is the same: you just swapped six of the seven cards and threw in a Blanco card, but doing it this way makes the trick feel even more like magic.
But honestly: even without any sleight of hand or special cards, this trick is super simple, looks amazing, and doesn’t require a lot of practice.
Have fun performing it!
Image sources:
All of the images are my own photos, click here if you want to use them.
