EDAS: Princesses of Darkness

This is an EDAS trick as described in this post. You can get the full details of that concept there, but essentially the idea is to have a display of “interesting” decks. Each deck is tied to a story. And then there is a trick that goes along with that story and that deck.

The inspiration for this idea was an email from reader Jeff F-M. He wrote to tell me that McDonald’s is giving away decks of Disney playing cards in their Happy Meals. The specifics of the presentation that follows are mine, but Jeff provided me with the original concept, so thanks to him for bringing this deck to my attention.

I made the mistake of trying to track one of these decks down by going to a few different McDonald’s. The first two I tried didn’t have the decks. They had some other garbage no kid would really want, like a poster or something. Eventually, I did track down a deck. It might be more efficient to just buy a deck off ebay. (Just the deck though. Don’t get your Filet o’ Fish off ebay.)

You also don’t need a McDonald’s Disney deck to do this. Any Disney deck will do.

The “story” that goes along with this trick will make more sense in a few months or years when this is no longer available at McDonald’s. But now is the time to snag the deck if you can.

So the idea is that someone would see this deck in your collection of interesting decks and wonder what the story is behind it. Why do you have this Happy Meal deck? What’s so interesting about this?

“Oh, you didn’t hear about that? Actually, that doesn’t surprise me. It was a big story for like a day and a half and then McDonald’s had it wiped from the internet.

“I don’t really know what is rumor and what’s reality, but I’ll tell you my understanding of it.

“You know there have been rumors for years that Disney has occult roots? Well, playing cards have a dark history in the occult as well. So when McDonald’s released these, there was some uproar online that these were made to attract kids to the occult and devil worship and stuff like that.”

The cards are taken out and shuffled.

“There were even people saying that they had inside sources and they were told that drops of Walt Disney’s blood that had been saved since his death were mixed in with the coloring used in the manufacturing of these cards.

“At the time, I didn’t buy any of this. I just thought it was a dumb urban legend. But I thought it would be funny to have a copy of the deck in my collection.

“Then about a week after I got my deck there was this video going around on tiktok where a guy showed something unusual that happens with this deck of cards. That video got posted everywhere. But then, like 24 hours later, the videos were all down and that guy’s account was nowhere to be found.

“Check this out. Cut off a packet of cards, like this. Now another one. And another one.

“This deck was shuffled. You cut anywhere you want. But look at the cards you cut to…

“666. The number of the beast. The devil’s number. We’re supposed to believe that’s just a coincidence? When you could have cut to any of these other cards.”

Display all the other values.

“We’re supposed to think that there’s not something fucked up about these cards? That they weren’t intended to indoctrinate children into occult activities? Are people that naive? I’m not buying it. Whenever someone cuts the deck like this for the first time, this is the result. It’s messed up. I don’t even like to have them out for too long.”

After letting the spectator look at the deck, you box up the cards and put them back in your display.

In fact, it might even make sense to have this deck stored separately in a sealed container.

Method

Any method that can be used to produce four aces can likely be reworked to produce three sixes. I use Bannon’s Directed Verdict. You could also use something like Chad Long’s Shuffling Lesson. Or whatever other handling you like.

Keep the deck in your collection with three sixes on top of the deck and you’re ready to go at any time. When you remove the deck to tell the story, you can either shuffle the cards yourself and keep them in place or palm them off and have your friend shuffle.