Make Your Own Jerx

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Last month, The Jerx passed the 2000 post count. AI estimates the time to read through the full site as 150 hours. And about 25%-100% longer if you're taking notes and following links. So, maybe a month to a month and a half of full-time work to read the site completely.

Hitting that milestone number makes me feel like this is a good time to wind things down.

Oh, don't be so glum. You always have the Steve Brooks "blog section" of the Cafe, My Side of the Screen with the three posts he wrote 20 years ago to keep yourself entertained. You'll be fine.

I'm just busting your beans, dude. I ain't going anywhere soon. We're going for 10k.

I frequently get emails from people telling me some idea or other that they found on my site that they really like. That's always nice to hear. But it occasionally happens—and it happened twice last week—that I have no idea what they're talking about.

Oh, that's called early-onset senility, Andy.

No, I don't think that's what it is. It's just if you write 2000 posts (and 100s more articles and tricks in the newsletter and books) your brain just doesn't bother holding onto every little thing.

So first, a request: if there's an idea/trick/concept/post from the history of this site that had an impact on you but wasn't something I revisited often—something that is sort of lost in the sea of content—send me an email and let me know about it. I like to be reminded of these things and may start a small feature where I highlight some of them.

Second, a suggestion: if you're someone who feels you get something from this site, it's probably worth it to go through it from the beginning and keep a document or notebook of the ideas that resonate with you. I've found myself doing this with the magic content from the creators I regularly revisit. I have a notebook for each and it's been so valuable to have a concentrated version of their output that I can reference when I don't want to take a more relaxed stroll through their full output.

The larger concepts are easy to remember. But often there's a brief line, premise, or idea that connects with me when I'm reading and I think, "Oh, that's great. I should remember that." And then instantly it's like…

I don't remember it. In fact, I'm lucky if I remember that there was something I wanted to remember.

With 2000 posts on this site, the odds are pretty good there are a handful of those moments scattered through the archives that you forgot to remember. So creating your own condensed version of the site might be a worthwhile endeavor. It won’t take you six weeks of full-time work. Skip the posts about Josh Jay and Andi Gladwin’s “partnership,” and you could probably get through it in a long weekend. (Looks like they’re heading to Hawaii this year for one of their sodomitic bacchanalias. Oh, sorry—I mean they’re going there to “learn magic.” Funny… last time I gathered with people to learn magic, it was in the conference room at a Courtyard by Marriott, and that served us just fine, thank you very much. But I guess that location doesn’t give you as many opportunities to prance around in your little speedos and rub your buns together or whatever you sickos do.)

Long Forcing (Another Revelation Pro-Tip)

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I believe it was noted philosopher Obi-Wan Kenobi who said, "Use the force… and make that shit long, bro."

When you're doing a trick that consists of a force and a revelation, do your best to make sure the force takes at least 30 seconds.

Why?

Because the structure of the trick suggests a force, so we have to do what we can to eliminate that idea. How can we do that? You can't do it through the cleanliness of the force itself. The only selection procedure that people can't conceive of as a force would be one with no procedure, and a borrowed deck, done in the spectator's own hands. Even then, some would say, "he must have made me pick this card somehow."

How can we eliminate a force as an answer?

The only real way to do that is to give them the option to change their mind *after* the card has been selected.

This is not a new idea. I've been doing it for decades. Riffle force > "The 4 of Spades. Happy with that, or…? Okay, so if we look at the mustard stain on my shirt, you'll notice something a little interesting."

The problem with doing it like this is that often people didn't remember I gave them a choice because I would rush past it in hopes they wouldn't take me up on it. That's how magicians suggested you do it. You blow past the choice so they don't really have the chance to take you up on it, but later you can mention that you gave them the opportunity.

But remember, speed kills magic. So about 15 years ago I started slowing down and giving them an obvious, fair opportunity to change cards. I made it clear that in a moment something would happen that would have them saying I must have made them choose that card. So if they wanted they could switch for a different card.

The problem with slowing things down in this way is that a lot of people took me up on the offer. Maybe 20-25% of people.

And why not? It took two seconds to pick a card before. And did I really stop riffling the deck exactly when they said stop? Why not spend another two seconds just for some certainty?

What I realized was I needed to make the selection procedure longer so that the idea of starting over again was much less attractive. This is something I first explored on this site back in the Reverse Psychology Force post.

Spectators don't mind a little foreplay before they get to the climax. They don't mind a little 'procedure' on the way to the payoff. But almost none of them want to go backward. They've invested something—time, decisions, mental energy—and starting over means losing all of it. No one wants to re-experience the set-up for the trick. They want to see the return on their investment.

So if you do a longer selection procedure (one you can frame as "ensuring the selection is random") you can confidently give them an unrushed choice to start over and be fairly certain they'll say no.

Think of something like the 51 Fat Chances trick by John Bannon that I've written about the past few months. This is essentially just a forcing procedure. But one that takes time—with the spectator shuffling, cutting, dealing, and making decisions along the way. After all of this, spectators will want to see what happens next. But if you make the option to change their mind incredibly explicit, they'll remember they could have had something altogether different. How could that be when there was clearly only one card tattooed on your baby's forehead?

Now, here's the Pro-Pro-Tip.

Give them the chance to start over with the force card face-down—before it’s revealed. If they're a "problem" spectator, they'll take the opportunity at this point, and you can just shuffle the card back into position and force it again. If they're someone who wants to see where this is going, they'll say they're okay with the card. Here you can turn it face-up and give them another seeming choice. "Okay, so the Queen of Clubs. And you're good with that?"

I'll walk you through the full process:

[Selection procedure narrows us down to one face-down card.]

"Okay… In about 30 seconds you're going to be convinced that I somehow made you pick this card. And I want you to be able to enjoy this, so right now, before we go any further, I want to give you the chance to change your mind. We can put this card back, shuffle up the deck, and start over again from the beginning. [beat] You're good with this one? Okay, just remember I gave you that chance."

Turn the card over.

"The Queen of Clubs. You're okay with that?"

"You're okay with that?" This again sounds like we're giving them the chance to change for a different card. And we are giving them that chance. But at this point they have to imply that they are somehow "not okay" with whatever random card they got, which, I think, seems silly for most adults. So they always say they're good. But now you can go back and point out you gave them two opportunities to change for a different card. Once before and once after the card was revealed.

This is something they almost always comment on after the reveal. "But I could have changed for a different card." It fully blows up the "force" explanation.

I've been doing this for years, and I've never had someone ask to change for a different card at this final point along the progression. Will it ever happen? Possibly. But it's still not an issue. You just start over and go into a different trick with whatever card they do end up with. Sure, you tattooed your baby's head for nothing. But it's not like your friends will know that. So your dignity is intact.

Mailbag #165

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A note to supporters who got yesterday’s Keepers #3. The first item I mention in that issue is—at the time of this post—half price. It doesn’t say that on the sales page, but if you add it to your cart it will show it as 50% off.

I have a question related to the idea of forcing multiple cards rather than just one (as shared here: https://www.thejerx.com/blog/2026/2/17/a-revelation-pro-tip)

Do you think this also applies if the multiple cards are obviously related to each other? 

If you force the four aces, or a royal flush for example. Does that feel like forcing “one thing” in the same way that forcing one card does. Or does it still benefit from forcing multiple items —SW

That's a good question.

While this wasn't part of our testing, I would think the answer is yes.

This is based on my experience with something like Spectator Cuts to the Aces or Chad Long's Shuffling Lesson. The best reactions I've had with these methodologies is when I don't force four of a kind.

Do I think people perceive these types of things as "forces"? No. But there is something like an inherent inevitability to this kind of climax that can feel a bit too clean.

You can feel it yourself. Think of doing a Shuffle-Bored style trick where cards are shuffled and mixed face-up and face-down. In the end, it's revealed the face-down cards are all diamonds. And your prediction says, "All the face-down cards will be diamonds."

Now compare that to a standard Shuffle-Bored where the face-down cards are a mixture of all sorts of different cards. That you could have predicted that seems much more impossible—even though, mathematically, it's all the same.

I think it's also about how the magic moment unfolds. Turn over two aces on top of two piles and people already know what's going to be on top of the third and fourth pile. There's no surprise with those last cards, so the trajectory of their response diminishes over the climax. Whereas if you turn over four random cards, you have unresolved tension that you can ratchet up as you conclude the trick—with one unexpected climactic moment when you reveal the prediction or revelation.

It all depends, of course, on the trick and the premise. But generally I'd say a procedure that forces a known group is weaker than one that forces a seemingly random group, even if the person doesn't perceive the procedure as a "force."

Do you have any experience with magnetic coin detectors? I have a routine in mind but have never played with these and was wondering if you had a recommendation. —OR

I can recommend Sixth Sense by Hugo Shelley if you can find one anywhere. I've had one for at least a decade and it still works perfectly fine.

I also have Flux by ProMystic. But that conked out on me after maybe six uses, so it's hard to recommend—although ProMystic is usually noted for their quality. I just got a lemon in this case.

The Goblin from Lewis Le Val is another intriguing option. It's not a device, it's an app on your phone. I don't have it, so I can't comment on whether it's any good, but it might be something to look into.

Good lord. I just found your site and love what I’ve seen so far, but where do I start? —TD

Well, I would say start from the beginning if you want to get the whole story. Otherwise you can just jump around.

There are three fundamental concepts that currently guide my magic that have evolved from writing this site. This month I will be doing a post on each. So even if you just read those you’ll have a good base of knowledge to go forward (or back).

Good point about speed. On a related note, I nicknamed the sudden burst of speed that many magicians (including me sometimes) do when performing a secret move as the 'scared sprint'.

I notice it most when skipping through magic videos to find a certain trick. Even if the technique is flawlessly done by an expert, you can usually still tell when the move is, as their pace suddenly quickens e.g. diving their hand into a pocket to load a palmed card into a wallet.—OM

Tempo is one of the biggest tells in magic. I’m tempted to only perform tricks that would still fool at half speed. That might be extreme, but it gives you a lovely buffer to know that you never have to rush for a trick to be fooling.

This isn't, like, some sort of esoteric concept that I'm harping on, but only because I spend so much time thinking about and performing magic. This is a fundamental issue with laypeople when they watch magic. "He's going too fast. I just can't follow what's happening."

When I was a teenager, I used to do a coins across routine that used the Han Ping Chien move. If you know that, then you know it's a lot of tossing the coins around and slapping them to the table. It's a very kinetic move. The routine fooled people, but also didn't look "magical" in the least. It looked like someone who was dexterously juggling the coins in his hands in a way that gave the illusion they went from hand to hand. At that age, I was too dumb to know the difference. If people couldn't follow exactly what I was doing, I considered that a success.

These days, I wouldn't bother with a trick like that. Trying to make people feel like they've seen something magical while rushing through moves is embarrassing for both of us. I'm trying to make someone feel something impossible happened…but then I'm being cagey with the way I present it to them? That doesn’t work.

If I say, "I bought a bag of broccoli florets for dinner," and I flash you the bag quickly, you probably believe me, even if I actually showed you a bag of peas.

But if I say, "I won the Oscar for best actor," and quickly flashed this…

you would be unconvinced because my claim—if true—is not the sort of thing I would be furtive about when presenting the evidence.

Similarly, speed is incompatible with the feeling of magic because it eliminates conviction, which is necessary for wonder.

"I know that top hat was empty, but then he pulled a bunny from it." That’s magical.

"I think the top hat was empty. I'm not 100% sure because he only flashed it. But it did look empty. Probably." That’s nothing.

Until March...

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This is the final post of February. Regular posting will begin on Monday, March 2nd.

The next issue of Keepers will be sent to subscribers on Sunday, March 1st.

David E. writes:

I’ve never seen anything like the push for the Breakthrough System. It’s got a 15 page thread on the Magic Cafe and hasn’t even been released yet. It’s $125 for some downloads and that’s a “presale” price. And every mailing list I’m on seems to be pushing it: Daily Magician, Christian Grace, Mark Esldon, magicreview.org, Craig Petty, Lloyd Barnes and maybe more. What is going on with this thing? Do you feel left out?

No, I don't feel left out. Johannes (the trick's creator) asked if I would promote it on the site and I said I don't really do that. He then asked if he could sign up to advertise in the newsletter and I said no, and things kind of stalled after that. It probably didn't help that I sent him a link to me writing about another project of his where I said it was something you should only do if you want to seem like a "socially dysfunctional weirdo."

I think I often come off as unhelpful to people trying to market their stuff. 🤷‍♂️ I'm not trying to be. I just try to keep a guardrail up that prevents me from being influenced by people who offer me things for free. I want readers to know that if I'm talking up a product, it's because I'm genuinely using and liking it.

The Breakthrough System looks cool. I have no idea how it's done, and it seems like it'll fit in well with my Zero Carry thinking. So I'm sure I'll check it out eventually. Which means he really has nothing to gain by sending it to me.

As for the marketing blitz: I understand why people would be annoyed by this style of promotion, but I also understand what he's trying to do. He's trying to maximize pre-sales of a digital product that will likely get bootlegged the moment it's released. I can't blame him for that.

And a 15-page thread on the Cafe before something's even out? That's healthy for 2026. Years ago you'd regularly see 30 or 40-page threads for tricks that hadn't been released yet. And sometimes the tricks didn't even really exist. Those were the days.

I've always enjoyed the correspondence I receive from writing this site. It always gives me something to think about and often inspires future posts or things I want to try out in magic.

That being said, it can also be a little overwhelming. It probably averages about 15-20 emails a day, which is not exactly Henry Winkler during peak Happy Days level — [Fonz Gif] — but it's still a lot when the emails are frequently proposing new ideas or asking for an opinion on something. It's not like getting an email from my grandma saying, "Thinking of you!" that I can respond to with a simple, “Love you, Nana!” They're emails that require some thought even just to give a minimal response.

I used to feel somewhat bad about giving short responses to long emails. If someone writes me eight paragraphs and I respond with three sentences, that feels inadequate in some way—even though I know people understand the position I'm in.

Fortunately, Google has created a new feature in Gmail that solves this issue. It now gives you a proposed response that you can just send with one click.

Now, I would never use these responses because they’re frequently nonsensical, and even when they're not, they go beyond cursory to the point of being insulting. But what I appreciate about them is that they make me feel better about my own responses, even if they're just a few sentences. I could have really bitched out on it and had a robot write the whole thing for me.

This Week In Bad AI Marketing


Dear Magic Companies:

You can just write a Facebook post from your own fucking brain. You don't have to run everything through ChatGPT and end up with this gobbledygook.

"No drama. Just fast decisions."

What does that mean? Drama? There's no context in which I would ever assume "drama" because you sold 30 units of a magic trick at a place you went to sell magic tricks.

AI has taken a powerful rhetorical tool (antithesis) and reduced it to just: "It's not X. It's Y." And it uses it constantly. But because it's not a human living in the real world, it doesn't really understand the dynamics that make for a meaningful juxtaposition.

The issue is that AI is trained on a lot of marketing, SEO, and "conversion" writing. It's optimized for a persuasive rhythm, and then it just tries to fill in the blanks even if it has to use nonsense. "No drama. Just fast decisions."

Oh, okay.

"What's exciting is not only the sales. It's the conversations."

Oh! Exciting conversations! I wonder what they were? Did someone use their product to land a huge contract? Did a 12-year-old save up his paper route money to buy one? Did someone incorporate a PeekSmith into a trick they did to propose to his girlfriend?

No. The "exciting" conversations were:
"I'm upgrading my setup."
"I'm buying one for the first time."
"I'm refining my systems."

Oooooh… tell me more.

Look, goofballs, that's just three ways of saying "people are buying things."

AI doesn't know these conversations are inherently dull, so it doesn't know not to frame them as exciting.

"If peek devices are on your list, don't 'swing by later.' Later is unpredictable."

Later is unpredictable. Damn, bro… that's real deep.

This is another thing AI does constantly. It attempts a mic drop when it's holding a hairbrush. It wants to be profound, but it's impossible to be profound when the underlying message is: "We might sell out of our peek device." So you get this mismatch between the language and the actual intent, and it ends up sounding dopey.

I'm not just trying to point out every dumb flaw in this post. I'm trying to empower you. You can just write stuff as a human for other humans.

Offloading all your marketing to AI makes you sound generic and corny. And it undermines your ability to capitalize on the most compelling thing you have when promoting a product or your company, which is someone relating their lived experience.

Speaking of PeekSmith. I have one that I will be selling, along with a few other electronic devices (Synaptic, an Anverdi Mental Die, and maybe a couple of other things). All unused, and at least at a 30% discount. This is part of my attempt to move towards a more minimalistic magic collection.

If you’re interested, the information will be sent with the next Keepers magazine. Keep an eye out for it on the 1st and get in touch quick, as the things will go first-come, first-serve. Don’t wait for later because—as a wise man once said—”later is unpredictable.”

Byyeeeee! See you back here in March

Speed Kills

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Today we're back to talking about the Carefree Philosophy when approaching magic.

This is related to yesterday's post where I talked about the issue with quick glances when peeking.

One of the basic tenets of this philosophy I'm working on is that speed is anti-carefree. In fact, I think speed is anti-magical.

Eliminating speed from your performances is one of the biggest levers you can pull to make things feel less like "tricks" and therefore, less dismissible.

Areas where speed kills magic:

Quick Glances - As discussed yesterday, this trait is almost a caricature of a suspicious individual. In casual performing situations, there is no excuse to be darting your eyes in different places. Even if they're not sure precisely what you're looking at or how you might be seeing something of importance, it comes off as sketchy and non-magical.

Quick Actions - "The coins are going to magically travel from one hand to another."

Okay, fine. But quick, awkward, jerky movements are completely incongruous with the notion that something magical is happening. We've come to accept these things because we've lost sight of the idea that we're supposed to be emulating doing something with no possible explanation. Real magic would never look like frantic hand movements.

I've gotten rid of anything in my repertoire that looks like sleight-of-hand. And quick, unusual movements are the tell-tale sign of that.

There's a huge difference between a trick that leaves someone thinking, "That was sleight-of-hand," and one that leaves them thinking, "It must have been sleight-of-hand, but I can't see how." And you get the latter by only doing sleight-based tricks that can be executed calmly and casually.

Quick Pacing - A quickly paced effect will often come off as:

  1. Confusing or

  2. Overly rehearsed

Both of these things kill the feeling of magic.

That's not to say you can't be hyped up with what you're showing them: "Holy shit! Check this out. Look, look, look." That's fine. Enthusiasm feels human. What I'm talking about is a quickly paced routine made up of several magic moments. That's going to come off as your little routine that you put together for the Boy Scouts or something. Not a true moment of mystery.

Rushed Decisions - "Name the first flower that comes to your mind when I snap my fingers. <SNAP> A rose? Amazingly, I have a rose for you right here."

There are magicians who do stuff like this and think it's fooling. It's not.

In fact, any selection procedure that feels rushed will always lead to the effect coming off as more trick than miracle. This is the issue with the Classic Force. Or rushed Equivoque procedures.

If I was trying to show you something amazing that worked with "any" thought of flower, chosen card, selected object, etc., the last thing I would do is rush you through that selection process, because that would completely undermine the demonstration.

A misinterpretation of what I'm suggesting with the Carefree Philosophy is that you should just do easy tricks in a chill manner. That's not what it's about. It's about removing tightness and tension from your performances, so what they're seeing feels like this unreal moment that's living in a natural interaction, not "just a trick."

Speed is one of the big sources of tension that permeates magic. But it's also something that's pretty easy to identify and avoid. Unfortunately, there are a lot of tricks that rely on it, so it limits your options in some ways to eliminate them. But it’s worth it. My repertoire has only gotten stronger and more impossible seeming since I've worked to flush those tricks out.

What Your Creepiness Reveals About Peeking

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I've been trying to express how to peek information for years now. But I think I've finally found the perfect analogy.

Ask a woman in your life; they will confirm this. Hell, we actually have women who go to magic conventions now; they'll confirm it too. In fact, they probably had to deal with this a bunch while at the last convention they went to.

Men think they can get away with this.

You can’t. They know.

You'd actually be better off just staring straight at her chest. "Oh my god, that necklace is incredible. What's the story behind that? It's so eye-catching!" (This works best if they’re actually wearing a necklace.)

This furtive glance nonsense isn't fooling anyone. There must be something in our genetic code that spots it immediately. In fact, the quicker you look, the more obvious it is. If I'm talking to someone and they stare off a little over my shoulder or something for an extended period of time, it can seem like they're processing what I'm saying. But if they quickly glance over my shoulder and back, then I know they're actively looking at something.

This is instinctual. But magicians act like they don't understand. "I'll do the Center Tear and look at the information real quickly while I tear it!" But everyone notices the quick glance at the paper. Rapid, darting eye movements grab our attention and are almost universally associated with shifty, suspicious activity. "Hmmm… good point," says the magician. "Oh, I know! I'll look at it really REALLY quickly!"

This is how fucking dumb we are.

I've already written the general rules of getting a peek here, so I won't reiterate them in this post.

But the thing to keep in mind is that the card, the drawing, or the piece of writing is a "hot" object. It's suspect. So if your peek is built on a quick glance (suspicious) towards a hot object (suspect), an audience will almost certainly see through that, even if they don't know precisely how you saw the information.

Next time you're crafting a peek, think of every woman rolling their eyes when you “quickly” glance at their cleavage and remember this post.

[Note: In order to make my points more accessible to the average magician, I will be rewriting every post from the past decade of this site using analogies based on how women are weirded out by your creepiness.]

A Revelation Pro-Tip

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I received an email last week from a guy who used to help with the testing we were doing in the late 2010s. He reminded me of something we learned back then that you may find useful.

When we spread a deck for people and had them select a card, and then revealed that card on the back of the magician's shirt, almost everyone—when asked to explain how it might have been done—said the card was forced. (Not everyone used that word, but they expressed a similar idea, saying something like, "You made me pick that card.")

When we did a selection procedure that happened in the spectator's hands, we eliminated the "force”/”you made me pick it" explanation by about half. That's real progress.

But when we used a selection procedure that forced more than one card, the "force" explanation was almost fully eliminated. (Under 10%, from what I remember.)

Why?

My theory is this: for the non-magician, the idea of "forcing" a card is something you do mechanically during the selection of one card. That's their concept of forcing.

When they do a procedure that produces 2–5 cards, I don't think that jibes with their understanding of what a force is.

If I show you a card on the back of my shirt and it's the card you chose, the easy answer is that I made you pick that card.

But if I show you the back of my shirt and it has a poker hand on it, and it matches the five cards you just cut to, then "he made me pick those cards" is a much less easy answer. It's sort of its own impossibility.

Think of something like the Creepy Kid Card Revelation. If it was just a drawing of one card, then it's easy to wave off as, "He made me pick that card somehow." But when it's a string of four cards, the force explanation feels much less satisfying.

So that's the tip. When you have a revelation you like, ask yourself: Can I make it a reveal of multiple cards? If so, it's going to be much less easily dismissible.

(As for the type of procedure I'm talking about, think: "Gemini Twins," "Directed Verdict," "Shuffling Lesson," "Shuffle-Bored," etc.)