This is another classic effect made famous by David Blaine when he performed it in one of his television specials. It's a great effect although by no means one of the easiest to accomplish as it requires that you obtain complete mastery of The Double Lift. However, as this is one of the fundamental techniques of all card magic and essential to other popular effects such as The Ambitious Card I strongly recommend that you take the trouble to learn it well.

The magician lifts the top card off the deck and shows it to the audience. Let's say it's the Queen of Diamonds.

The magician then asks the spectator to hold the card between her/his fingers, with the face downwards.

Now, the magician lifts the next card on top of the deck which is, let's say, the Queen of Hearts.

Now the magician switches the two Queens between his own hand and the hand of the spectator a couple of times. S/he asks if it would impress the spectator to doscover that s/he'd swapped them over and the two Queens were now in different positions. Most people will say not very much!

That's the point at which the magician invites the spectator to turn the cards over.

To the spectator's inevitable surprise, neither of the cards is a Red Queen - they are both Black Aces!

PREPARATION

Okay, to do this you need to prepare the deck. First up take the Queen of Hearts and place her on the top of the deck. Then place the Ace of Clubs on top of that and then the Queen of Diamonds last, on the very top. Finally, place the Ace of Spades on the bottom of the deck. Now you're set.

To perform this trick well, you'll need not only to gain mastery of the techniques mentioned above but also gain real confidence with your skills of misdirection.

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Method:

First up, lift the true top card (the Queen of Diamonds) and show it to the audience. Then ask the spectator to pinch it between thumb and forefinger, face down.

At this point, you can invite them to turn the card over and say aloud which it is. This does two things: it shows that there's no 'funny business' going on and at the same time it gives you plenty of cover, as all the attention is on the guy holding the card, to prepare for your second double lift.

So now, you double lift the next two cards, showing the Queen of Hearts and with the Ace of Clubs hidden behind it. You then flip the cars back over and take the top card off the deck (which, of course, is actually the Ace of Clubs) and you switch the cards around between the spectator's hand and your own, making sure that at the end, s/he has the Ace and you have the Queen.

You now ditch the Queen onto the top of the deck and slip the Ace of Spades off the bottom. Now you say that you'll switch the cards one last time. This time you do it very slowly. Then ask, "Okay, which Queen is where?"

At thi stage of course, it' doesn't matter what they say because both cards are now Aces!

Now watch David Blaine performing this trick:

Here's what you can do next:

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