Here is a different approach to the classic Out Of This World effect. It does away with stacked decks and having to change the color of the indicator card in the middle of the deal. The participants can shuffle the deck before the effect begins.

Effect: The performer shows a deck of cards and four opaque envelopes. He invites two participants, a man and a woman, to test their psychic abilities. The performer points out that a woman is normally drawn to red cards, because of the hearts and diamonds. A man, on the other hand, seems to be drawn to black cards, the clubs and spades. The performer says he would like to test this theory by conducting a test in which both participants rely on their psychic hunches to determine if a card is red or black. The woman will focus only on red cards, while the man will focus only on black cards.

Assume for example that the woman is Becky and the man is Bob. The performer shows four opaque envelopes that measure roughly 4 x 6.5 inches. He takes a red marker and writes on the face of one envelope, Becky’s Reds. He writes on another envelope Becky’s Discards. On the third envelope, he writes with a black marker, Bob’s Blacks, and on the last envelope he writes, Bob’s Discards.

The performer places Becky’s two envelopes in a row in front of her, and Bob’s two envelopes in a row in front of him. The deck is handed to the participants and they are invited to shuffle the deck between them as much as they want.

The deck is handed back to the performer who spreads the deck face down on the table. The performer does not look at the faces of the cards. The performer says, “Before we begin, I have made a prediction regarding the outcome of this experiment and here it is.” The performer puts a folded piece of paper on the table in full view.

The performer tells Bob, “I will remove face down cards at random from the spread. If you think the card is black, then take it and put it face down into your envelope marked, Bob’s Blacks. If you think it is red, or not sure about the color, then I will place the card into your discard envelope.”

The performer tells Becky, “With you, it will be the opposite. I will remove face down cards at random from the spread. If you think the card is red, then take it and put it face down into your envelope marked, Becky’s Reds. If you think it is black, or not sure about the color, then I will place the card into your discard envelope.”

The performer starts removing face down cards from the deck WITHOUT LOOKING AT THE FACES and alternates between Bob and Becky asking each whether they believe the card to be red or black. If Bob says it is black, it goes into his black envelope. If he is not sure or thinks it is red, it goes into his discard envelope. If Becky says the card is red, then it goes into her red envelope, otherwise it goes into her discard envelope.

This continues until roughly 30 cards have been removed from the deck. At this point, the performer turns the remaining cards face up showing a mixture of red and black cards.

“Let’s see how you have done,” the performer says. The performer asks Bob to remove the cards from his envelope. Bob opens his envelope (remember the performer has not touched the envelope) and removes all his cards. Unbelievably, all Bob’s cards are black! This is repeated with Becky and all her cards are red!

However, it does not stop here, the performer says, “Let’s see if you missed any of your colors in the discards.” Bob opens his discard envelope and removes all the cards. Amazingly, they are all red! Becky then opens her discard envelope and finds all the cards to be black, except for one red card. She only got one card wrong; she put a single red card in the black pile by mistake.

Finally, the performer asks Bob to open the prediction paper and read it aloud. The prediction reads, Only one mistake will be made, Becky will confuse one red card for black. This makes for a killer ending.

Many lay people know how Paul Curry’s OOTW works as the original secret has been widely spread. However, putting the cards into envelopes with the participant’s names on them will throw off the wise ones and fool many magicians.

This is a different approach to OOTW. It overcomes many of the weaknesses found in the original trick. First, there is no stack and secondly, the participants can genuinely shuffle the deck. Unlike Grant’s Nu Way Out Of This World, the performer does not look at the faces of the shuffled cards.

Finally, there are no indicator cards, so that means you do not have to switch the indicator cards in the middle of the deal. Overall, this is one of the cleanest versions of OOTW you will find.

• envelopes are not gimmicked, regular envelopes available in any box store for about a buck

• no skill

• no sleights

• extremely easy to do but baffling beyond words

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