Revealed

The Levitating Woman – Stage Trick Revealed

Performance, Revealed, Stage Magic

We’ve all seen it before: The Levitating Woman. It has to be one the oldest illusions in the history of stage magic. It’s one of those tricks where you would never be able to figure out how it works unless someone told you.

You’re about to see why in just a minute.

What the trick looks like?

Once the woman lies down, a sheet is draped over the board.

The lifted sheet gives the audience the impression that only the two chairs at the end of the board are holding it up.

The magician then puts the pretty lady in a trance and slowly raises his hands.

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Two assistants remove the chairs.

The lady magically floats up under his hands.

The assistant next to him hands him a hoop, which is drawn over the board so that the lady passes through the middle of it.

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Next, he slowly lowers his hands and the lady floats down gently.

The assistants put the chairs back to catch the pretty little lady. They unwrap her and she sits up, swinging her legs over the side of the board.

How does it work?

So now you want to know what really happened.

The board is actually being held up by metal rod in the back of the board.

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The chairs do nothing at all. They are only there for illusion.

When the magician isn’t standing there, the rod is clearly visible. But the magician blocks the rod from view with his legs.

The platform that the magician is standing on is the biggest key to this trick.

It is mechanically designed.

Under his feet are two hidden buttons which allows him to control the mechanism up and down.

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These gears are what raise up that pretty little lady with the touch of a button under his foot.

So how does he make the hoop pass through?

That metal rod that the magician is hiding with his legs are attached to the board the woman is laying on in a very specific design.

It is designed specifically for the hoop!

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1. So on the first pass that hoop is brought to the bend of the S.
2. The second pass he does is to untangle the hoop so that he can hand it to the assistant.

This all might sound complicating, but it’s really not. It’s all a prop trick that any magician can do with just the right equipment.

Take a look at the entire performance below.

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Watch the complete trick and the revealing

What makes this trick so cool is that you are not even looking at the magician’s legs.

You are so mesmerized by the hoop going around that even if he stepped out of the way so that you could catch a glimpse of the rod, you would probably miss it anyway.

It is really easy to see why this trick is so popular. It is fun, fast, and completely mesmerizing.

How Does Criss Angel Walk Through A Solid Glass Window Without Breaking It?

Criss Angel, Performance, Revealed, Tutorial

In his DVD special, Mind Freak, Criss Angel performed a trick that most people thought was done by CGI (computer generated imagery). But the fact is, it was real. He did it live without the help of any computer editing.

This is how Criss Angel walks through a solid glass window without breaking it.

What does it look like?

In the trick, Criss Angel visits a shop. He has the people stand outside of the office window.

He then has two people hold up a large piece of paper to cover the area where he will come out of. He makes sure that everyone can see that it is solid glass with no openings.

He walks around to the other side. Then all of a sudden there is a rip made through the large paper and Criss’ hand comes sticking out. The audience is in disbelief.

He goes on and sticks his whole body through the window until he is out onto the other side. They immediately remove the piece of paper, and the window is untouched.

Watch Criss Angel perform the trick:

The trick is revealed

The way he does this is actually pretty brilliant. He does have assistants involved in the trick so the “spectators” in his DVD performance are obviously just actors. You can actually see what a terrible job they do at acting surprised if you watch them carefully.

So how is it done?

The assistants are hiding on the other side, crouching below the window sill. The window is custom built into the frame. It’s actually extremely tall, and has a small opening cut out at the bottom.

It’s tough to see clearly, but thats a rectangle cut out of the window. You can notice the handles on both sides for the assistants to manoeuvre it.

cut out in window

The window is built to slide up and down.

So when the magician moves to the other side of the window, the assistants simply slide the glass up far enough so that the opening is up above the sill.

The opening is still covered by the piece of paper on the other side so it’s impossible to see it from there.

Then, the magician cuts a small hole with a sharp tool like a nail or pocket knife and rips it open with his hand.

On the other side, it looks as if the magician just put his hand through solid glass.

Then, the magician continues to put his entire body through it until his whole body is on the other side.

The glass is slid back down and the paper is removed to show that the glass remains intact.

Watch the full reveal video to see how it’s done

It’s a common theme in a lot of Criss Angel’s videos. The spectators are fake. They’re there just to magnify the effect.

Unfortunately, a lot of people can catch this because their acting is terrible.

In this case, you need assistants to do this trick. It takes a lot of preparation, but the effect of it makes you look like you are some sort of supernatural being.

How Dynamo Turns a Paper Butterfly To Life

Dynamo, Revealed, Tutorial

Dynamo does a pretty insane trick here with Natalie Imbruglia, a judge from X-Factor, where he takes a display butterfly (made of paper) off of the wall, holds it in his hand, and turns it into real life.

It looks surreal and we’re going to reveal how it’s done today.

What does it look like?

First, Dynamo sits down at an empty club with Natalie Imbruglia. On the wall beside them are a bunch of butterflies made of paper and stuck to the wall for decoration.

butterflies

Dynamo grabs one off of the wall and places it in Natalie’s hands.

dynamo butterfly

He then blows on the butterfly and it jumps right into his hand. He then cups it and blows on it some more.

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When he opens his hands, it turns to real life and flies away.

As it flies away, all of the butterflies on the wall jump off and fly away with it.

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The effect is amazing.

Revealed: So how does he do it?

First of all, the butterflies have been set up there before the trick. He didn’t just randomly sit down, see a butterfly on the wall, and decide to turn it into real life. It was set up there by he and his crew.

Making it jump into his hand

When he takes one and places it on Natalie’s hands, he uses invisible thread to make it jump into his hand.

This is what invisible thread looks like.

invisible thread

It’s invisible even at a close thread.

In the trick, the thread has been attached from the beginning. It’s attached to his shirt button, and on the butterfly.

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All he has to do is hook the string with his left hand. After he does, all he has to do is pull on the string to make it look like it’s jumping into his hand.

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So he catches the paper butterfly in his left hand, and he grabs a prepared real butterfly with his right hand.

When he brings his hands together, he simply palms the paper butterfly and holds the real one in his hands.

At this point the real butterfly is now in his hands and he blows on them to make it look like he’s transforming it.

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Then he opens his hands and can simply dump the fake one when the spectator isn’t looking.

When he opens his hands, the real butterfly is revealed and it flies away. When it flies away, ALL the butterflies on the wall come to life and fly away with it, creating an amazing effect.

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How do all the butterflies come to life??

They don’t.

If you watch the video in slow motion, you’ll see that they all just drop off to the ground.

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Again, that is done with invisible thread. Most likely a crew member assistant has done the pulling as it would require a greater pull to snap all of them off.

Then, all that’s left is having a concealed assistant releasing some real butterflies in the commotion.

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The trick fooled Natalie and it can trick anybody really. It’s a truly amazing effect, which you know by now isn’t that difficult to pull off.

Anybody can do it with just a little bit of practice, and the right set up.

How Does Dynamo Twist An Iphone In Half?

Dynamo, Party Tricks, Revealed

Dynamo does a lot of cool tricks with an iPhone, and one of the most popular ones is the one where he twists the iPhone in half. He takes a regular phone, holds it in his hands, and then twists the bottom part right in front of the spectators.

Half of the iPhone is turned to the front side, and the other half is turned to the backside without breaking it. The audience loves this trick.

This is what it looks like when he twists it:

Seriously, it looks surreal when you see it live and up close.

Remember, he does this with someone else’s phone so that there can be no suspicion of him using a prepared prop phone.

He then twists it back into place, and hands it back to the owner.

So how is this done?

The trick is actually really simple to do, and a prop is involved. He obviously is not actually flipping the phone in half.

The secret is this:

From an identical model iPhone, he has the top half of the back cut off in preparation for this trick. Not the entire half, just half of the back of the lid.

He holds it in his left hand. Watch his left hand before he does the trick and you can see him getting it ready and concealing it.

After he takes the phone from the spectator, he adjusts it into place.

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He uses a small strip of double sided tape and sticks it on the front of the spectator’s phone. Nobody can see him doing it because they are standing in front of him.

Then, all he has to do is flip over the entire phone. The top half will be covered with his own prepared half that he taped on, and the bottom half will show the spectators screen.

To the audience, it looks like he is only twisting the bottom.

Then, to turn it back into place, he again makes a twisting motion but flips the entire phone again.

After that, all that’s left is concealing and removing the prop half that was taped. He slides it into his right hand as he presents the phone and then conceals it in his hand as he hands it back.

Watch Dynamo performing the trick and a full revealing video

TIP: Before you flip over the phone, make sure to turn on the spectators lock screen. That makes the trick even more impressive because they can see that it’s their own lock screen.

Revealed: David Blaine’s Impossible, Disappearing Card Trick on Jimmy Kimmel Live

David Blaine, Performance, Revealed, Tutorial

To promote his TV special, Real or Magic, David Blaine appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel show. There, he revealed why Harrison Ford kicked him out of his house and other tricks he performed on celebrities.

During his interview, he performed a card trick that astonished the audience and left Jimmy Kimmel speechless. If you view the comments, it actually made people believe that David Blaine has supernatural powers.

What was the trick?

David asks Jimmy to pick a card. After that, the card he picked is actually imprinted on the sharpie that he gave to him before the trick.

Jimmy then signs the card and David puts it in the middle of the deck. He asks the audience to name a suit other than the one on Jimmy’s selected card.

Immediately, as David squeezes down on the deck the deck starts to shrink. Cards disappear from the deck right before everybody’s eyes. David turns over the deck and every suit is now the one that the audience randomly called out and in the middle is Jimmy’s card.

Let’s watch the performance first.

So how did he do it?

This trick probably isn’t the best choice to do on live television since there is a lot of room for error.

Step 1: Forcing the Card

When David asks Jimmy to select a card, it was actually forced on him. You can see the pinky break he has on the deck before he spreads the cards for Jimmy to choose.

Jimmy was going to select the 7 of clubs no matter what.

Important

Don’t worry about forcing the card or having it show up on the sharpie. This is a separate move that David added in just for a better effect. You don’t need to force a card on them, and it doesn’t have to be on the sharpie.

They can choose whatever card they want. They can show you, or they can decide not to. It doesn’t matter. The effect of the trick is in removing the other suits, and having over half the deck disappear before the spectator’s eyes.

Step 2: Removing the other suits from the deck

This is the risky part. He has to switch the full deck he has now to one that has only hearts. The camera angle is not clear on David so it may be difficult to notice, but watch as David asks Jimmy to sign the card. He gets up slightly from his seat and switches the full deck with the prepared one.

How did he know the audience would choose hearts?

For those of you wondering, yes it was hearts all along. So, how did he know the girl would choose hearts? He didn’t.

Watch the video again and watch how he chooses his words when he tells her to name a suit. He doesn’t tell her to name a suit that the deck will change into. He says, “Name a suit, any suit… to ELIMINATE.”

Therefore, if the woman said something like diamonds, he could say, “Ok, now name another suit.”

So, yes it was very lucky that the girl picked hearts right away, so the effect of the trick was way greater.

Step 3: The Sleight of Hand Grip That Makes It Look Like a Full Deck

This move is what makes this trick what it is. It’s a sleight of hand that allows you to spread out the cards in the deck to make it look like a full deck, even if you only have about 13 out of the 52 cards in your hand.

It will take a lot practice before you can even attempt it in front of an audience.

Watch the tutorial below

Conclusion

I’ve read around many forums and discussion boards all discussing this single trick.

There’s one thing that makes this trick look so cool. It looks impossible and supernatural to the human eye. There’s no logical explanation they can come up with on how you did the trick.

People who watch this are convinced that David Blaine has supernatural powers. That’s how powerful this trick is.

It will take a long time to practice, yes, but it will definitely be worth it.