By 1860, an estimated 25 percent of all cards used in America were marked during manufacturing. In 1895, the Fort Wayne News reported that a gang of cheats, posing as card salesmen, disseminated large quantities of marked decks to general stores across Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, and West Virginia.

us. It was Peter Turner, a world-famous mentalist, a form of magic categorized by mind reading and other impossible psychological effects. A gregarious and audacious guy, he is also a skilled hypnotist. It’s rumored that he once went into the Grosvenor, a casino in London, hypnotized the roulette dealer, and made off with £40,000 in five minutes.

“Without a doubt Walter Scott is the cleverest man with a pack of cards in the world,” The Sphinx, the most prominent magic journal at the time, wrote shortly after the meeting. “I am as much at sea as anyone. Can’t explain or give any clue. There is simply no explanation.” Two months later, the publication wrote of Scott again: “I cannot begin to

Xavior held court at a corner table and showed a small crowd his work on Raise Rise, an effect invented and made famous back in the 1990s by legendary magician Ray Kosby. In this trick, the spectator’s card is placed toward the bottom of the deck, protruding halfway (or out-jogged, in magic parlance). The card then magically rises up and up the dec

“A great trick, like a great song, should be an inspiration,” Jim Steinmeyer told Esquire in 2012. “It should lead you to other things that are also wonderful. That’s what happens in literature, and it happens in music, and it happens in art. But in magic, they don’t do that. They just take it. You would hope that what you do inspires, but instead

Like all art, the greatest magic has always reflected the current state of the human condition.

gig. Once I made that first dollar, I sold all my guns and quit the gang. I never looked back,” he said. “I can say, without a doubt, that magic saved my life.” “It seems to be a theme with magic, you know? I’m starting to see that it can do remarkable things.”

Mulholland developed two manuals: Some Operational Applications of the Art of Deception and Recognition Signals. The first was based on close-up, sleight-of-hand moves used by magicians, adjusted slightly for in-field use,

as we chatted with Laura on speakerphone. She had just started her one-woman show, CHEAT, a residency performance in Edinburgh, Scotland, based on a fictitious female card hustler. For the show, the stage is adorned with a square felt table surrounded by wooden chairs—a makeshift gambling parlor. A framed photograph of Geraldine Hartmann, the femal