Introduction

The first exposition of the principles of card magic was published in 1769 by the French writer Guyot, and he it was who first laid down the dictum that mastery of the pass is the first requisite of the art of conjuring with cards. His actual words were: "Before risking an attempt at these kinds of Recreations, you must know how to make the pass."

All succeeding French writers on the subject followed his lead and insisted that the pass is the first essential. Professor Hoffmann, whose book Modern Magic , published in 1876, was the first scientific treatise on magic in the English language, took most of his material from the French authors and followed their example in this respect. He described the pass as "the very backbone of card conjuring," and for years this statement was accepted as gospel by all our other writers, who reiterated without exception that, "without the pass, card magic is impossible."

The pass is a very difficult sleight to master, and this insistence on its indispensability makes it easy to understand why the would-be card conjurers of the last century, after a prolonged and vain struggle with the intricacies of this sleight, finally decided that conjuring with cards was not for them and turned to some easier hobby.

After all, the principal use of the pass is to bring a chosen card from the middle of the pack to the top, or vice versa; but it was not until the turn of the century that card conjurers freed themselves of this inhibition and devised easier methods of attaining the same objective.

We have shown in the preceding pages that the pass is not absolutely essential to card conjuring and that any trick can be performed without using it. Any intelligent person who really has the urge to perform good tricks with cards, and to do just that in the shortest possible time and with the simplest possible methods, has been shown how it can be done. The methods which have been given are simple, but always in conjuring the simplest methods are the most effective. By mastering the simple, natural ways of making all necessary moves which we have given you, you will have made great progress in a surprisingly short time.

Although we have relegated the pass to the role of a subsidiary sleight, we do not wish you to think that it is unimportant. When it is done well it is the most important sleight in card magic; but, because it is so difficult to master, it should be the last sleight which the novice should be called upon to learn. We can think of no good reason why you should not be performing good card magic in the months it will take you to learn to do the pass well; we do not want you to wait until you have learned this difficult sleight.

And if you never do learn this sleight you still will be able to perform mystifying, amusing, and deceptive tricks of card magic by using the other methods which we have given you; these you will continue to use in any case, even when you have mastered the pass.