Ryan_m_b said:
Turn on your TV, log onto YouTube, walk down the street and you can find a magician doing fantastic things. I once had a magician do a similar trick to me, I had to write a name on a card that I'd pulled from a deck and put it in an envelope. He wrote a name and did the same. Then after some talking and handwaving he produced a card that had both the names on it and was a fusion of the two cards (I.e if the two cards were 5 of diamonds and 6 of hearts the card was 5 of hearts). The cards in the envelope became blank.
Now I have no idea how he did it, but does that mean that it was magic? No. I'm not saying it couldn't have been but with all the experience the world has with trickery supernatural explanations just get smaller and smaller.
Now you won't be able to read many scientific papers on the subject because investigating magic tricks is not what scientists do and it would be a waste of time and resources. If you want to figure out how to do it buy a magic book and take a few classes.
The claim it was a parlor trick on the principle that most of these sorts of things are parlor tricks has almost no persuasive power to someone who has swallowed one hook, line, and sinker. It is soooo much better when you can explain, step by step, how it was done and duplicate the trick before their eyes according to your explanation.
I have one such trick I know about. Here's how it looks when you don't know what's going on:
You're playing cards with friends. During small talk in a break in the game one of the players mentions how they don't like playing with another of the players because that player seems always to be able to read their mind. You ask what they're talking about. They say that, whenever they are concentrating on a particular card, they seem to send the message of that card into the other player's mind. You say, "Prove it!" They go, "OK. I'll even let you pick the card I concentrate on."
The "receiver", the one who knows what card the other is concentrating on, is sent into the other room. 9 cards, 3 rows of 3 cards, are laid out on the table and you are told to pick one. You pick. The other person is called back in, looks at the cards, and instantly picks the one you picked.
If you object that the other person was looking through a crack in the door, or heard what card you said, they will repeat the trick by sending the receiver outside the house or anywhere you choose. If you object that the "sender" is cuing the receiver somehow with eye signals or finger tapping, they repeat the trick with the receiver sitting stock still and them not looking at each other.
You're left without ideas as to how they did it. If they have a good "act" they can do all this with great seriousness, as if they actually have a telepathic bond they, themselves, can't explain. That could be pretty creepy if you are suggestible.
The way it's done is that the "sender" must have some form of rectangular object at their disposal. This could be the deck of cards, a cigarette pack, an iPod, a phone, anything rectangular. The 3 rows of 3 cards naturally get laid out in an overall rectangular arrangement and each card represents a position on the rectangle, say, row 1 card 3, or row 2, card two. The sender casually indicates the position of the selected card by laying a finger on their indicator rectangle in the relative position of the card. The girl who showed me this trick used her iPod. I was paying no attention whatever to the fact she had picked it up and seemed only to be casually holding it, but her accomplice had only to glance at what position she was indicating on it with her thumb to know which card I had told the "sender" to concentrate on.
