Magician Performs Senses Card Magic Trick | Penn & Teller: Fool Us | The CW

Eric, thanks for helping out. Morgan, thank you so much for helping out. Now, when people see card tricks, they often assume that it's all just manual dexterity. But it turns out that we sleight-of-hand artists use all of our senses to our advantage. So, I'll give you an example of each. So, Morgan, as I spread through these cards, I just want you to touch one on the back, and I'll spread through them slowly. This card here, would you hold out your hand for me, but palm down? And I want you to cover that card up, cover it up completely. Now, Morgan, I'll turn away, and I want you to take a quick peek at the card so you know what it is, and then cover it up again. Have you done that? Yes, so you know what the card is? Perfect. Now, theoretically, if I were to look through all of these cards here, I'd be able to see which one was missing. Now, I do apologize. This is a time-consuming process, so try to get it over with as quickly as I can. King of Diamonds. Is it the King of Diamonds? Indeed, it is the King of Diamonds. But of course, you can't just go looking through the deck if you want to impress anyone. So that's where the other senses come into play. If I listen to this shuffle really carefully, I can hear where her card lands in the deck. So listen with me. Okay, I don't know if you heard that, but I think her card landed 13th from the top. This is your moment to say, yes, I heard it land 13th from the top too. Well, I won't just count down 13 cards. Instead, using only my sense of touch, I will cut off exactly 13 cards. That's 13 cards. That's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. I heard your card land 13th from the top, and the 13th card is the King of Diamonds. Sure, sight, sound, and touch are all useful, but if you really want to impress people, smell is the sense you want to use. I know it sounds weird, but I'll prove it, okay? So, Eric, here's what I'm going to ask you to do. I want you to reach over in a moment and cut over a group of cards from the top of the deck and put them right here. But just so we've got enough cards left over from Morgan, make it a small group of cards, like a quarter of the deck or less, okay? Just cut over a small group of cards from the top and then just put them face down right there. That's perfect. And then what I'd like you to do is I want you to cut over a group of cards from the top and put them here. However many you like, and just leave them face down right there. Perfect. Now, what a lot of people don't realize is that playing cards have smells, and it's the ink that gives them their smell. Now, the backs of the cards all have the same color ink and the same amount of ink, so they all smell the same. But the faces of the cards, different colors of ink, different distributions of ink, all of these contribute to the smell. Now, Morgan, here's what I'm going to ask you to do. I want you to hold your cards from above like this and just rub them on the mat right there and then put them back, but keep them face down. Rub them on the mat right there and then put them back. Okay, perfect. Here goes. Okay, I'm smelling black colored ink and I'm detecting hints of mercury and ferrous oxide, which they only use in the ink for the spades. You'd think they'd use the same ink for the spades in the clubs, but they don't. And it's kind of a medium-ish smell, so I want to say it's probably like maybe an eight of spades. An eight of spades. Tell me, Morgan, is this card here the eight of spades? Indeed it is, the eight of spades. All right, last but not least, taste. Here's what I'm going to ask you to do. I want you to take those cards and hold them under the table. Take them, hold them under the table. Now, once they're under the table, I want you to give them a shuffle. Mix them as much as you like. And then whenever you're satisfied that they're mixed, I want you to spread through the cards and take out any card you want from the middle, then bring everything else back out. Okay, so you've got just one card under the table, yes? Now, keep in mind that he didn't want this card here, nor did he want any of these cards. He wanted the card that he's got under the table. So here's what I'm going to ask you to do. I want you to stand up, and I want you to stand directly behind me. Stand up, come around and stand directly behind me. And I want you to cover my eyes with your hands like this. Cover up my eyes with your hands like this. Okay, great, but not too hard. I need to like still have eyes. And then, Eric, under the table, I want you to tear off a teeny tiny corner of the card. Under the table, really do it. Tear off a teeny tiny corner of that card. And once you've done that, put that corner in my hand. But keep everything else under the table. Okay, here goes. You know, no matter how many times I do this, I will never forget how much I hate the taste of the Seven of Spades. Would you show that card to everyone here? Is it indeed the Seven of Spades? That was very impressive. Thank you, thank you. Do you do magic at universities? Yeah, I go to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and I actually study neurobiology there. Wow, and are you going to use neurobiology in your magic? And if so, how? Yeah, I guess a good example is if I say, Allison, are you right or left-handed? Right. You're right-handed. The moment she has to answer that question, she has to turn her attention inward, right? To think, oh, am I right or left-handed? So we call this attentional blindness, because the truth is, in a magic trick, I don't really care if you're right or left-handed, but I do care about getting you to turn your attention inward for a moment so that I can maybe do some sneaky sleight of hand out in front of you that you wouldn't necessarily detect. Oh. That make sense? Yeah, so a narcissist is your best audience. Exactly, exactly. People were just totally obsessed with themselves. It's very easy to misdirect. Yeah, that's so fascinating. All right, let's see if Penn and Teller know how you did your trick. Penn, Teller. Daniel, boy, you know, a lot of magicians try that senses thing, and it's not usually very good. On you, this looks beautiful. And you also handle the cards with such comfort, and you're so natural that all the moves are natural. And I want to just say a lot of stuff it's not. There's no deck switch. These are the same deck all the way through. There's no rough and smooth. The cards aren't treated that way. You're doing this with raw skill. And we love to see that. We found a lot of the act, well, toward the end, got a little edgy for us. But other than that, it was a very sweet, very kind act. And now, something's been bothering me. When we were on Broadway, there was a musical, Cats. The main song from that show, what was the main song from that show? Don't know, I never saw it. Never saw it. You're a very fortunate man. But Allison will whisper to you what the major song in Cats was. And that might give you an idea that although we loved you, we don't think you fooled us. I'm super happy to be here. You're spot on. Thank you guys so much. Okay, so you didn't fool them, but you entertained us all. Thank you so much, Daniel. I have two moms and two dads. My dads are gay and my moms are lesbian. When they decided to have and co-parent a kid, my parents are scientists, doctors, and engineers. And I'm a senior at the University of Pennsylvania, studying neurobiology, and I'm about to graduate. But rather than go into medicine right after college, I'm actually taking a few years to do magic full-time. I'm really fascinated with the neuroscience of magic and sleight of hand, and also some of history as well. Card sheets of the 1800s and early 1900s, who actually used a lot of modern-day neuroscientific concepts to their advantage. They just didn't know it yet. Don't worry, mom and mom and dad and dad. My degree's not going to waste, because tonight I'll be combining what I've learned about sleight of hand and what I've learned about neuroscience to see if I can fool Penn and Teller.