Meir’s Muses
MyMagic eNewsletter #1,451
November 7, 2026
I have always been a fan of packet tricks and card magic using small numbers of cards. The below routine is visually interesting, and the method is surprisingly simple. It looks like artificial intelligence is causing the magic, yet you can easily do it with some practice.
John Bannon has slowly transitioned himself to be a packet trick aficionado and has released many great ones. Below you will find two of his best-selling ones and the math-based routines in his Outnumbered book.
►Cross Fade:
A clever method of making it look like a signed selection visually materializes and dematerializes while isolated between two cards. It looks like a camera trick.
With a slow wave a signed card appears piece by piece in between two cards. It is actually in between the cards! It then vanishes just as visually to be found elsewhere. As an added surprise the card magically changes position with the sandwich cards.
An incredible visual piece of magic with an ingenious method and many surprising moments. The secret is a custom-printed, hand-made device. It’s easy to use, yet it creates impossible looking, visual moments that last. No flaps, no elastic, no moving parts, hinges, magnets or optical effects. Kyle has fused a clever card gaff with sleight of hand to make a high impact routine audiences won’t believe from beginning to end.
Watch and buy: HERE
►Outnumbered:
Outnumbered features six card routines that use hidden mathematical principles that are incredibly deceptive and will fool you as you perform them. You do the procedure leading to surprising, inconceivable results. If it’s magic to you, it will be magic for your audience.
Routines include: Game Set Match!, Blindsided Plus, Counter Intuitive, Psychic Encounter, Cosmic Conspiracy, and The Sum of All Fours.
Get a copy: HERE
►Chop Shop:
Play a game of find the lady that ends with the transformation of all of the cards into the aces. With this trick, you get to challenge your audience to catch you while knowing that you have a killer ending that no one will see coming. The best part is that at the end, all of the cards on the table are examinable. Watch the trailer for the exact routine.
Watch and buy: HERE
►Spin Doctor:
An incredible 3-phase routine with fast-paced magic, followed by a surprise ending.
Spin Doctor is a packet trick that packs a huge wallop. The sleights are easy to perform, and best of all, the cards are completely examinable at the end. The structure of the routine makes the triple kicker ending a huge surprise. There is no palming or difficult switches, just some simple sleights that anyone can do.
Watch and buy: HERE
►FOR EVERYTHING JOHN BANNON GO: HERE
Did you look at the trailer for Kainoa Harbottle’s download? The second coin vanish which he calls Squishy is one you can learn in minutes. Also wanted to remind you that the introductory sale price expires on Tuesday.
►Flying Wombat & Squishy:
Kainoa teaches two original coin vanishes and appearances that you likely never saw anyone perform. Both are designed to be performed for people who are in front of you, and the vanishes and reappearances are very clean and magical.
►Flying Wombat: Designed to look like the gimmicked Raven vanish, a coin is placed on your palm and vanishes as you wave your hand over it. Another wave and the coin appears back on your palm. Uses one regular coin.
►Squishy: A coin is shown at your fingertips and as you squeeze it slowly disintegrates into nothing. Uses one regular coin.
Watch and buy: HERE
►BACK IN STOCK:
Max maven probably published more packet type routines than anyone. His Pocket Nightmare, uses an entire deck but involves a single card. It is also the routine he used in all his stage shows and one he used to fool magicians with before it was exposed.
►Pocket Nightmare:
One Max Maven’s signature routines, which he has been using to fool magicians and laypeople, is what is now called Pocket Nightmare, and is available for the first time to the magic community.
The basic routine: You tell your audience that you will perform an effect with only one hand, to make sure that everyone knows that sleight-of-hand is not possible. The other hand is placed in your pocket. The spectator peeks at a card in the deck. You are then able to divine the card that the spectator is only thinking of.
The deck is then given to the spectator who is invited to search through the deck for their card only to discover that it completely vanished. You said you would do the trick with only one hand, but you did not specify which hand. You remove your other hand from your pocket holding the vanished selection.
Watch and buy: HERE
►eBay:
Will be out performing this weekend so there will be fewer new tricks added to eBay but am adding some rare stuff that I think you will like. There are also many auctions ending on Saturday and Sunday nights.
►eBay Auctions direct link: HERE
►eBay Store direct link: HERE
►UPCOMING APPEARANCES:
►NOVEMBER 8: Spinnato’s Comedy Magic Show at Comix @ Mohegan Sun Casino in CT. Tickets: HERE
►DECEMBER 6: Spinnato’s Comedy Magic Show at Comix @ Mohegan Sun Casino in CT. Tickets: HERE
To view all my upcoming appearances, go: HERE
Stay happy, Meir
PS: Just heard that another shipment of Easy Breathers will be arriving on Monday afternoon or early Tuesday. You can sign up for instant notifications: HERE
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“Magic has offered a never-failing source of entertainment to mankind throughout all the ages of history. Indeed, it has had no rival in its power to divert, to charm and to enthrall with its ever-varying array of wonders.”
…Edward Summers Squier (Tricks And Magic Made Easy, 1919)
