Dear Friends of Magic,

For Theater of Marvels on Saturday, August 15, Dr. Wilson will attempt one of the great challenges of magic, seldom performed in this day: walking through a playing card.

Magicians have attempted to walk through playing cards almost as long as there have been magicians performing with cards. The effect was made popular by the 19th-century Scottish magician John Henry Anderson, the "Great Wizard of the North." Anderson would place a playing card selected by a member of the audience over a card-sized hole in a partition between two compartments in a large wooden cabinet. A committee of audience members would examine the cabinet before Anderson entered one of the compartments. His assistants would close the cabinet doors. A moment later, Anderson would emerge from the other compartment, having walked through the playing card.

Anderson abandoned the effect following a performance in Aberdeen in 1841, when an audience member selected the Ten of Clubs. Anderson entered the cabinet, but failed to emerge from the other compartment in the usual amount of time. After considerable delay, his assistants opened the cabinet, only to find that the performer was in neither compartment. A quick-thinking assistant carefully removed the playing card from the cabinet and placed it in Anderson's dressing room at the theater. Within the hour, Anderson appeared in the dressing room, somewhat worse for the experience. He explained to onlookers that he had become lost within the thicket of tree-like club pips on the card. He never attempted the feat after that, and was said to have acquired an aversion to the entire suit of Clubs as well.

American magician Harry Kellar picked up the effect where Anderson left off. In the early part of the twentieth century, Kellar occasionally performed a version of Anderson's feat using a massive steel plate, six feet by eight feet, to hold the card. Loose drapes concealed both faces of the plate, but the edges showed beyond the drapes, making it impossible for Kellar to simply walk around the wall of steel without being seen. Kellar favored using a playing card that he had selected, rather than one chosen by the audience, typically using court cards like the Queen of Hearts.

In reviving the effect, Dr. Wilson has rejected the use of cabinets or draperies, and will walk through the playing card in full view of the audience. The card will be a standard poker-sized playing card from a Bicycle deck, manufactured by the U.S. Playing Card Company. For this performance, Dr. Wilson will use the Ace of Spades, a card rated by experts as one of the easier cards to walk through.

The August 15 performance of Theater of Marvels will also feature magic by Professor Miller, sword dancer Labyrinth, and dance group Tribal Spice. The doors open at 6:30 pm for a 7:00 pm curtain. Admission is only $8 for adults, $5 for persons 12 and under, and free for those 2 and under. The performances benefit the Otter Creek Aid Association, which maintains the historic Otter Creek Hall.

http://www.theaterofmarvels.com/news.html

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Please enjoy the photos here:

http://www.theaterofmarvels.com/gallery.html

Special thanks to Todd Robbins for his excellent book!

Yours,

Paul

I have often though of including the topological version of the stepping through a playing where a standard size card is cross cut in suck a way that it expands enough to let you step through it. Of course in this version you have to have the card prepared in advance with all the proper cuts. I am still tearing cards as I try to step through, but I will keep trying.

Where can we find information on walking through a playing card????