United Nations of Magic

Five playing cards are shown bearing national flags from The United Kingdom, The United States of America, France, Germany and Japan. Each flag is literally cut in two and mixed up. A spectator somehow manages to help magically unite the Nations’ flags without even looking!

Secret: This is one of those wonderful card tricks that requires no false moves or secret apparatus. It literally works by itself but will still baffle your audiences.

When you first receive the cards you will have to cut them in half. Printed on the back of each playing card is a dotted line to be used as your cutting guide. To perform, Display the half cards in a line face-up on the table (picture one).

Using both hands, pick up the half cards in order from one end of the line to the other (picture two). You have two matching piles of half cards, one in each hand.

Place one pile on top of the other and then place them face-down on the table. Ask a spectator to cut the cards and then complete the cut. Surprisingly, cutting the cards will not affect the outcome of this trick.

Explain there are five flags cut in half into ten pieces. Pick up the pile of face-down half cards and deal the top five cards onto the table. This reverses the order of the top five cards without causing any suspicion.

Place the remaining cards down beside the pile on the table. You must now ask your audience the ‘magic question’ … “WILL THE FLAGS UNITE?”.

Explain that the cards will be mixed up totally depending on our audience’s direction. For every letter in the ‘magic question’ you will place the top card from one of the piles to the bottom. Which pile you use each time is completely your audience’s choice.

For example: For the letter ‘W’ from ‘W.I.L.L’ a spectator may choose the left pile. In which case you take the top card from the left pile and place it to the bottom of the left pile.

Carry on in this apparently random way until you complete the first word: ‘WILL’. At the end of each word put the top cards of each pile next to each other face-down away from the remaining pile. Repeat the process exactly for the next word: ‘T.H.E’ and then again for ‘F.L.A.G.S’ and finally for ‘U.N.I.T.E’.

You should now have five sets of half cards in front of you. Explain that normally the chances of one or more sets matching is unusual. Now, proceed to dramatically reveal each set one by one (picture three). Amazingly, they will ALL match exactly! Unbelievably, this works automatically, no matter which pile your audience selects. A magical demonstration of united nations!

Acknowledgments: Based on an effect by Larry Becker using a principle by Howard Adams.