The Salt and Pepper Trick | ★★ |
Sprinkle some salt onto a piece of paper, and then sprinkle some pepper on top of the salt. Challenge the audience to separate the salt from the pepper! Nobody will offer an easy solution.
Secret: Remove a comb from your pocket and run it through your hair a few times, or rub it on a wool sweater. This will generate static electricity. Then hold the comb just over the pile of salt and pepper and the grains of pepper will jump up and cling to the teeth of the comb, leaving the salt on the table.
The Banana Trick
Effect: Display a banana to the audience and then ask a volunteer to choose a number between 1 and 4. Peel the banana. If the volunteer says “2,” show 2 pieces of banana, if the volunteer says “3,” show three pieces of banana.
Performance: Before the show, take a needle and insert it in one of the dark patches on the banana skin. Once inside, you can slice the banana by moving the needle from side to side. Do this twice so that you can produce either two or three slices of banana.
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The Sloppy Surgeon 
Effect: The Magician does not feel pain! | ★ |
Performance: Take a potato and cut from it a piece about the thickness of your thumb. Place this piece underneath a handkerchief, as if it were your real thumb. Now push a needle through your “thumb” in front of the audience.
Make sure that you put the needle through the potato and NOT your real thumb!
★★
Performance: Take a piece of paper 3 in. x 2 in. and then borrow a coin and place it on the paper. Fold up the paper from the bottom covering the coin; do not let the edge meet the top of the paper. Pick up the paper in your left hand. Fold the right edge downward and back onto the coin. Then fold the left edge down and back. Finally, fold the top edge down and back, leaving a neat packet containing the coin. Press the paper down on to the coin, so that the shape of the coin becomes visible. Then turn the packet over so that the coin can slide secretly into your left hand. Continue to hold the paper as if it still contained the coin, and transfer it to your right hand. Meanwhile, let your left hand containing the coin casually drop into your pocket. Finally, tear up the paper to show that the coin has vanished.
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