♪ dramatic music
For some people, magic's just a fun hobby,
but for me it's so much more than that.
I've been designing tricks for so long
that you could name an object,
and I've probably helped create an effect around it.
But a deck of cards, that's something special.
Simple, yet adaptable; familiar and yet mysterious.
It's like the Swiss Army Knife of magic.
I can't imagine hitting the stage
without my 52 closest friends.
Maybe it sounds a bit dramatic, but for me,
a world without cards,
well, it would be like a world without air.
Hey, everybody! How are ya?
♪ dramatic music
I'm Shawn Farquhar, and I'm a professional magician.
Please welcome Shawn Farquhar.
Wow. I want you quietly, just to yourself,
to count the number of paragraphs
that are on page 64.
This was a lot easier when I was younger.
I go by the title of
two-time World Champion of Magic.
The last three words on that page were like,
William Gottfried Sigmunds.
- Is that right? - Yes.
I'm the fourth generation in my family without a real job.
My pages are blank.
There's not even, like, glass in the glasses.
I just...
And I wouldn't have it any other way
because it hasn't stopped me from doing what I love,
which is entertaining people.
And getting a platform like the Ellen Show,
where I can perform for millions at a time,
was a dream come true.
I don't know anything about anything else other than magic.
I started my career as a stage magician and I loved it.
I performed in shopping centers, casinos, nightclubs,
small hotels in Las Vegas, cruise ships.
I did television shows and it was cool.
Fool us once. Shame on you.
Fool us twice.
Shame on us.
Grand illusion, floating ladies, stabbing with swords,
and then went into manipulation style with cards and live birds,
cockatoos, parakeets, and doves.
But I got older and carting all those boxes hurts my back.
I wanted some way to do things differently
and so I started switching my focus to sleight of hand.
2009, I went to Beijing, China,
focused solely on card magic.
I entered the competition as a card magician,
and I won the World Championship of Card Magic
and the Grand Prix World Champion for sleight of hand.
In the end, I wanted to have my own theater,
so I built this little place we're sitting in right now.
It's called the Hidden Wonders Speakeasy Magic Experience.
Hidden Wonders, I feel like I'm in my perfect environment.
I wanted a place where I could experiment.
When people look around my theater,
they'll see black and white photographs,
and props, lots of memorabilia.
And all that stuff is the props that my mentors gave to me
that I used in my shows over the years.
I'm kind of carrying on their traditions.
My dad was a jack of all trades, master of none.
He was my biggest influence in magic.
He was more than a magician,
he was a mechanic, he was a musician.
He could do anything
and he inspired that in me.
Magic allowed me to go into new schools
all the time
and be able to do something
that was cool, fun, and different
that none of the other kids could do.
I'd vomit a deck of cards out of my mouth and people went,
"Look, he's a geek!"
And they were cool to me.
And so I was less likely to be beaten up.
So I have this stock line where I say I learned my numbers
and colors from deck of cards, and it's absolutely the truth.
They were around me all the time
This isn't magic that I've just collected,
it's magic that my father, my grandfather collected.
My mum and dad would hold them up just like flash cards
and I did my math.
Card tricks big enough that even in the back of the room,
an audience would be able to see that this is the king, right?
The queen was a 12, a king was a 13, jacks were 11,
and my dad would put two of them together
and I would have to tell them what the number was.
It's just a baby deck of cards.
But one day it'll grow up to be
I just love a deck of cards.
A lot of people ask me
how many cards do I have in my house and, at the moment,
somewhere between four and five thousand decks of cards.
More playing cards from pretty much around the world.
Every one is different.
I buy pairs,
one that I open to play with, to feel them and everything
and one I keep sealed.
You might have noticed I've got more playing cards
on the side there.
Each one is designed for a specific trick.
I've held a deck of cards in my hand
pretty much my entire life.
But it was only recently
that I actually started looking at the designs.
In 2006, a friend of mine, Steve Beam, wrote a book.
In it, he had a trick called "The Head Turns Around".
He got up, he said,
"Everybody take out your queens, put them in this order."
And he made one queen
so it faced the opposite direction of the rest.
It blew me away.
I asked him and he goes,
"Well, all Queens of Spades
face the opposite direction of the other ones."
And I was like, "How did I not know this?"
And then it got me wondering
what other weird things are there in a deck of cards?
And I started looking.
All this art started to focus me
and now I can't stop looking at them.
And I want to make more magic tricks that talk about it.
I'm curious
have you spent any time
researching the history of playing cards,
and why they look the way they do?
Never looked into deep meaning of the cards.
I'll be honest with you and say
my research didn't take me very far.
We don't know exactly what is the history of the card,
perhaps you know?
I don't know much about the designs
on the court cards,
but I do know they represent figures from the past.
Kings and queens throughout history.
When you pick up a deck of cards,
you see a king and a queen.
This is a direct link with the Middle Ages,
when every region, every state was led by a king or a queen.
This was normal.
In some occasions, they added names to the cards.
For instance, the King of Hearts was named Charlemagne,
Charles the Great.
These names are meant as a memento,
as an aid to remember cards, to identify cards.
So I'm not entirely convinced
they are really portraits of existing people.
The idea that these court figures
actually represent real people
I don't think is valid, quite frankly.
People can make up stories, of course.
And, you know, they look at the cards and say,
"Ooh, that must be, you know, the King of Hearts.
That must be Henry VIII."
There's no real evidence that this is the case.
If you have a standardized figure,
it's because it's practical,
not because you want to represent somebody.
What would you say if I told you
that hidden in the art of a standard deck of playing cards
are the clues to a 500 year old cold case murder mystery.
You know, knowing that there is a murder
in cards
is just, wow.
The notion that a deck of cards
represents a murder mystery, yet to be solved.
Well, you've got my attention.
I think it's great.
This is another mystery wrapped
in a riddle and followed by an enigma.
And... do you want the polite version?
No!
You are crazy.
Thank you. I am.
We have in our documentary
the director is crazy.
I believe that the court cards actually represent people.
Yeah, just not the people that we're told they represent.
But the designs on the court cards are intentional.
The symbols aren't random.
It's just loaded with so many little clues.
Oh, well, there's one king that has a really bad headache,
and I think it might have something to do
with a sword stuck in his head.
Suicide King is one of the thing we used to call the guy.
It never struck me as odd as to why
the King of Hearts
has a... he's stabbing himself in the head.
When I got to the King of Hearts I looked at him
and I noticed that he had two sets of hands.
I said, "That's weird. All the other kings all have one
"Why is that?"
And then I noticed
that the sleeves of the king were different.
You can go all the way back to the 16th century,
and see that the art we have in modern cards,
is drawn directly
from the ones that were made back then.
I need to travel, and learn more the history of playing cards
and their design.
I need to visit friends, magicians,
and tell them about my discovery, and ask them
about what their favorite plots are in magic.
Then, I want to take the plots that they have
and intertwine them all together
to create a new effect that I'll perform
right where the murder happened.
A routine that will tell the history
of this 500 year old cold case murder.
So the whole world can learn
how I think the King of Hearts really died.
My first stop is Turnhout in Belgium.
♪ dramatic music
Playing cards are fascinating.
They are very common daily objects,
but there is a hidden history behind it.
A fascinating history, telling about people, the passions
and emotions of people, about art,
about printing, about technique.
So, it's a world on its own.
It's a mirror of history.
Playing cards came from the East.
It was introduced in the past centuries
by tradesmen, by soldiers, by explorers.
Every region, every country
developed its own types of cards and games.
But the general idea is the same.
When we see Chinese cards or Oriental cards,
they look very strange,
but they are very similar.
They are based on a system of different suits,
different series with court cards
and numeral cards.
This type of technique is documented
by the oldest reference to playing cards in China,
which dates from 1294,
when gamblers were apprehended and brought to trial.
China invented paper.
They also invented paper money.
They used to gamble with these notes
and that was a bit rough on the notes.
So they decided,
"Well, we'll have to have tokens to replace these,
because otherwise we're destroying the money,
which is valuable."
And so they invented their playing cards,
which are sort of long and thin.
That process of production went on for centuries.
It's only in the 15th century,
the French card makers
invented a fascinating suit system
with hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades.
It's a system that could be reproduced easily, cheap,
by stencils.
The effects on the design have been brought about
by trying to get some kind of standardized pattern.
You need to recognize your cards immediately when you play.
Is this a king? Is this a queen?
It helps if the design is exactly the same
as the design you are used to.
That's why playing cards are reproduced over centuries,
in even the smallest details, exactly as they were.
Rouen in France was a major production center
and it was commercial, very successful.
They had an economic advantage
and they started to make cards for exportation.
Here's an example of the King of Hearts from Rouen in France.
Then when England got hold of it,
you can still see the basic outline.
Got the cloak, edges, hand on the cloak,
and the hand up in the air.
What was originally an ax
has now turned into something, nothing,
because obviously they filled out the picture,
and they had to put it somewhere,
and they pushed it behind his head.
Another one where a similar kind of shape.
And then finally one where he's got a sword,
because somebody redesigned it and thought,
"What the heck is that behind his head?
Oh well, it can be a sword."
So you can see that the figure got bigger
and bigger, and filled up the card more and more,
changing the design.
It wasn't until the 19th century that major changes came about.
Like, for example, double-ending
This is a really great representation
of a double-ended deck.
It is one of the earliest examples
of double-headed cards.
It's made in Brussels in the middle of the 18th century.
They cut the design into half and put the two halves together,
which made play for players a bit easier.
This is all about hidden messages.
It looks very ordinary and respectful,
but when you put a candle
behind the cards, you could see through the cards.
- Oh, yeah? - And reveal
something very much...
Look at that.
That's a little naughty.
And no one would ever know
unless they held them to a candle.
That young lady's doing something
that she shouldn't be doing to that gentleman.
- And... - Why not?
Well, that's true, now I think about it.
Probably just not in public.
I'm sure one of the reasons why
a lot of the early English cards didn't survive
is that they were probably destroyed
during the Cromwellian period.
They certainly frowned on them, the church.
They were the instruments of the devil.
The nobility, they could play cards,
they could afford them as well,
and they could gamble if they felt like it.
And the common people were not supposed to waste their
time playing cards.
During the 15th century, there was a move
to make playing cards more widely enjoyed.
It's a printing press,
and it's the first printing press
made entirely of metal.
This one is from 1829,
it's a beautiful piece of equipment.
The inventor of this press was the Earl of Stanhope
and he gave his design to the open market.
You could copy it.
He was a great admirer of freedom of the press.
Everybody should be able to press something.
And that was it?
That's it.
- That was the pressing of it? - Yeah.
Okay.
And that at least five thousand times a day.
Yeah. Five thousand. That's... hardly a job.
That's awesome. Look at that.
Look at the intricacy in there, even, and all...
- You see all the details. - Yeah.
And to imagine that at one point this was all carved with
tools in the wood by hand.
Yep.
That's...
That is so fast.
- Yeah, maybe too fast. - Maybe too fast?
Maybe too fast.
Comes from here.
This one's fully-automated. It's a Heidelberg?
Yes it is.
It was made in Germany in the beginning of the 20th century,
using a steam engine to produce movement.
It was called, in Germany, a "Schnellpresse".
- A speedy press. - Speedy press.
Yeah.
It could print about a thousand sheets an hour, or even more.
Wow! And the other one was 500 to 1000 a day.
That's quite a process.
Yeah, it is.
The speed of this press was good for in this time.
6000, 8000, 9000 sheets in an hour.
And then I put on this
and then he is printing.
Oh!
Look at that.
So, from the small one which was 500 in a day,
to 1000 an hour on the bigger Heidelberg,
to an hour, 6000.
6000 to 8000.
And then you get this as the result.
Look at that.
That's crazy cool.
The definition in there.
Look at all those small little details.
Yeah, the details.
Yeah. Yeah.
How perfect is that?
When playing cards were first made, their backs were blank.
Yes, this is not waste.
You can write your name and address on it,
an advertisement, a calling card, you know.
Compose music on the back of playing cards
like Mozart did.
Really?
He was a very great playing card enthusiast.
I did not know that.
That's crazy cool.
Playing cards have been a part of our lives for so long,
it's hard to imagine a world without them.
Since their introduction centuries ago,
these unassuming playthings
have traveled the globe, and become a regular fixture
in the lives of billions of people.
They've been banned by churches and kings,
they've been used to read the future,
and helped make and break the dreams
of countless gamblers.
♪ dramatic old west music
And sometimes they show up
in unexpected places and do unexpected jobs.
Like in 1685, in the French colony we now call Canada,
when cards became the official currency of the land.
The young nation was highly dependent on France
for most of their supplies,
and that included the actual coins
and bills that fueled the economy.
Sometimes these shipments got delayed
and the local government, well,
they were forced to get creative.
Cards were stiff and durable.
And in the days before anything was printed on the back,
served for many
as the only readily available source of paper.
Of course, they were also easy to counterfeit,
which led to other issues.
♪ tense music
A century later,
destitute mothers in the Netherlands
used cards to keep a bond
with the children that they, sadly,
could no longer care for.
♪ tense music
An infant left without a card
was one the mother knew she'd never return for.
But, by leaving half of a torn card,
she'd leave the door open for reuniting with her child,
because, together, the two matching halves
would prove her claim to parenthood.
♪ tense music
Another example of how playing cards have been used
to reunite people
occurred during WWII,
when the United States Playing Card Company
collaborated with the American Government
to produce a very special version
of their popular Bicycle deck.
♪ tense music
These cards were cleverly designed
to help allied soldiers
escape from German prisoner of war camps.
Although they looked normal,
the cards were actually printed with an unexpected secret
hidden inside, that could only be found by peeling them apart.
♪ dramatic music
When the pieces were arranged properly,
it gave the captives a map of the surrounding areas,
so they could plan their escapes
A scheme that would ultimately save an untold numbers of lives.
So, how would we have gotten by
in a world without cards?
♪ dramatic music
In the late 15th century, people were largely illiterate,
so painting and other forms of art,
including playing cards,
were the most effective way
of sharing stories with the masses.
That's why my Court Card Conspiracy story
starts with the King of Hearts.
So, let's take a second to notice
a couple of interesting things about him.
First, he's the only one of the four kings
who doesn't have a mustache.
And second, he's the only king whose suit doesn't appear
all over his outfit.
Instead, he's got these little symbols.
The lack of a mustache immediately told me
he was meant to be young.
But what are those funny little things
that are all over his cloak?
While touring in France, I discovered a castle
that had been home to kings,
and even Leonardo da Vinci,
in a small town called Amboise.
I couldn't pass up the chance to pay a visit,
and as I walked around,
I started seeing these familiar symbols everywhere.
Then I went and saw the throne room.
There was the throne, and there was this big shield,
and it was divided in half.
And half of it was the fleur de lis
and half was this symbol.
And it wasn't until the airport,
and at the airport I saw this flag waving,
and the custodian was sweeping around.
I lifted my feet and I said,
"Excuse me, sir, can you tell me what that flag is?"
And he goes, "Oh, that's Brittany. It's the region."
And I was like, "Oh, my God!"
And immediately my head just, it clicked.
And I got out a deck of cards. I saw it.
It's all over his cloak.
And it represents the ermine,
a feisty little creature
that's related to the weasel and the ferret.
Brittany and the ermine are forever intertwined.
For more than 500 years,
Brittany was an independent nation bordering on France,
and Brittany adopted the ermine as its national symbol.
The Ermine of Brittany,
which was one of the favorite animals
of the Dukes of Brittany, is a symbolic animal
that is a sign of fidelity,
loyalty and also purity.
So, that got me wondering,
what the ermine symbol was doing here in Amboise,
hundreds of miles from its spiritual home in Brittany.
Answering that question became a bit of an obsession,
but all roads eventually led back to King Charles VIII,
who ruled France from this castle
between 1483 and 1498.
So, when Charles came to power at the age of 13,
his father knew that he'd be too young to rule.
So, before he died, his father appointed a guardian,
to make all the big decisions that governing a nation requires
But it was a choice between his sister Anne
and his cousin Louis.
Eventually, his sister became the Regent.
Anne's appointment as Regent was not a guarantee.
In fact, she had to start building political alliances
very quickly because Louis
was out to become the Regent.
In fact, he went so far as to try to kidnap Charles.
He even gathered together lords of different regions
and went to battle in what is known as the Mad War.
Louis d'Orléans was one of the main lords
to oppose Anne de Beaujeu.
Louis D'Orléans
fought side by side with François II.
He also fought on the Breton side
against the king of France.
The Mad War would end just shortly after
Charles comes of age and assumes all the roles of the throne.
He wins a number of decisive battles,
and François sees the writing on the wall
and decides it's time to surrender.
Charles stipulates in the surrender
that he'll have a say over
where François' daughters are married and to whom,
so that he can envelop Brittany into France.
As the king who finally brought Brittany
into the fold of France,
he became known as the King of the Bretons,
even though the people of Brittany
didn't love him very much, or at all.
The symbol of the ermine,
the symbol of Brittany, became his symbol as well.
And that's why when I look at the King of Hearts,
I think of him as being the young Charles VIII.
With the 525th anniversary
of Charles' death only weeks away,
I'm already getting excited
about bringing his story to life again
in the ancient corridors where he once walked,
in the only way I know how,
and that's through magic.
Magic can really transcend language.
It transcends borders, it transcends age.
Society has grown into the idea
that magic is something for children.
But it's not just for children,
it's for everybody.
It makes adults become children.
You have to be curious.
You have to be a person
who's willing to be educated, and to be wrong.
You also have to be brave
because you can be standing in front of an audience
and fail.
You have to be different.
Traveling the world, as much as I have, has given me
the incredible opportunity to meet and trade ideas
with some of the most inventive minds in the world of magic.
So, as much as I love the home I've built myself
at Hidden Wonders,
I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss those late night sessions,
on the road, with my peers.
That's why,
instead of developing the Court Card Conspiracy routine
just on my own,
I've decided to bring in some of the performers
who inspire me the most.
so they can be part of this journey with me,
and their magic can influence the path that I'm going to take.
♪ energetic music
How far back do we have records
of cards being used for magic?
Probably from the very, very start of playing cards.
Magic is very old,
probably very early on, playing cards were used by magicians
as an interesting tool to manipulate, to trick,
to amaze people.
Please welcome the amazing Richard Turner.
- Well, howdy! - Howdy!
I love it when the audience shows up
♪ steel guitar
I'm going to show you something you never do, John,
something you never do when you play cards for money.
Never do this.
Never shuffle a deck, one in each hand,
it makes the other players nervous.
And John, when they see you shuffle with one hand,
while you backflip cut with the other,
they get up and run and you are left playing solitaire.
People say, "Why do you call yourself a card mechanic?"
That's the term. I didn't come up with that.
Auto mechanic fixes a car, a body mechanic, they fix a death.
I fix a card game.
People think that because they see someone
do card magic,
they're a threat at the card table.
That's one of the farthest things from the truth,
you're playing two different instruments.
That guy would be the first person
shot in a card game.
I was about seven years old, and we were very poor,
and we had four things:
A Monopoly, chess set, a checker set, and a deck of cards
and we played for M&M's.
We would actually five finger discount the M&M's at the store.
I was the oldest and I wanted to win,
and I realized just one extra card gave me an advantage.
I'd sit there and deal out hand after hand after hand
with four or five players and start figuring out the odds.
So that's kind of what got my first interest in gambling moves
When I first started, I could see
out of the corner of my eye.
I had no macula,
which is the center part of the retina, was gone.
So if you just picture wherever you look, there's
a hat in front of your face.
But then as the years went on, what vision
I did have continued to degenerate
to where there was nothing left.
So my fingers are like ten eyeballs.
I don't see things visually,
so I developed my little
individual "perceptors"
that feel all the elements of a card
to make those cards do what I want them to do.
In fact, one of the neuroscientists from Harvard
said I have the most developed tactile neural network
of anybody on planet Earth, which is kind of a cool thing.
People come over to our house
and they're always amazed at my office
because you walk into that room and there's about 7000
decks of cards.
Over the course of a two week period
they will build up where I have a stack of them
by the piano, stack where I sit, stack of them
by the dinner table,
and other piles randomly throughout the house.
For the past 50 years, an average day for me
has been 14 to 16 hours
practicing with a deck of cards.
I'm always doing at least two things at any given time.
If I'm in the gym working out, I'm focused on whatever exercise
I'm doing, and the other hand has the cards going.
I think the art of manipulation is an art,
a very fine motor skill art.
People are all living their lives
and they have all their different
trials, and tribulations, and family, and work.
And I think magic is that little piece of escape
where they can revert back to their younger years
when everything is imagination and fantasy.
When I'm performing, my goal is to have them go,
"What did I just see?"
I want them to laugh
and leave in astonishment beyond comprehension.
I want them to think to themselves.
"I have no clue what I just saw,
or how what I just saw was possible."
When it comes to card magic,
what's your favorite plot?
Back in the early eighties,
I came up with a plot.
My goal was to take a shuffled deck of cards
let the audience choose the game,
choose the number of players
and tell me which player they want me to have
win the hand.
And they can even take the cards out of my hand
any time they want,
shuffle them up,
and not even give me back the whole deck.
They can give me whatever they want
and I'll still make it happen.
That is my plot.
♪ ethereal music
So, I truly love your choice of plots,
and the Shuffled Deck,
and them being able to do absolutely anything.
And I know that you incorporate multiple techniques,
but the one you incorporate the most
is the second deal, is my guess for most of the stuff?
You bet.
That's my favorite of all moves,
all sleights, is the second deal.
It's my weapon of all my weapons.
I've calculated right around 5 million times,
I've demonstrated the second deal or used the second deal
in the course of my show.
So I've done 5 million second deals.
I love that as you said that you were doing them.
Oh, yeah, that's subconscious.
I know, but that was great. It really was.
The idea is to have people think you didn't do anything
because you didn't get ready.
I'll try to do it a little slow.
And there's almost no movement of the top card. See?
It just kind of melts through the deck.
It looks like you're striking the top of the deck.
No, my hand's, my thumb's
not going anywhere near the deck.
Right.
It's just off to the side.
As soon as someone goes up here, they're busted.
Yeah.
Never going to learn that in a short period of time.
Your thumb gives the impression
that it's doing it right from the very top,
but it's not even connecting until it hits the very edge.
It's that edge. And it's only a microsecond.
It's five microseconds, actually, is what we calculated
when it's going across that median right there,
and then taking the card.
The fingers are down deep enough to allow two cards to push.
- Oh my God, I just did it. - Did you do it?
Well, I felt much better about that one.
With the first part of my routine now locked in,
it's time to turn my attention to the next player
in our conspiracy to kill the king,
namely the Queen of Spades.
Or, as I like to call her, Anne of Brittany.
Did you learn anything about Charles VIII
in school?
No. We have never learned about Charles VIII,
and if I did learn something about it, I just forgot it.
It comes in one ear, go out,
because it was not a very important king.
Do you know Anne of Brittany?
Brittany?
Ah, Bretagne. Anne de Bretagne.
- Anne de Bretagne. - Anne de Bretagne.
Did you know she was the only woman
to be Queen of France twice?
- It's true? - Yeah.
True? [French] That's amazing!
I think it's ironic that despite all of Charles' efforts
to be an effective king and to leave his mark on history
he most likely will be remembered
as Anne of Brittany's husband.
Anne of Brittany was François II's sole heir.
The Duke of Brittany wanted to avoid
Anne's marriage to the king of France,
in order to maintain her independence.
François II died shortly after
the battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier.
Anne of Brittany was only eleven
when she was given the title of Duchess.
Charles and Anne's wedding
took place during the war
and the marriage was imposed on her.
The relationship between Anne of Brittany
and Charles VIII was an antagonistic one.
There was a contract stipulating
she could no longer officially bear
the title of Duchess of Brittany
for the duration of Charles VIII's reign.
Anne is clearly defeated,
but this did not prevent her
from fulfilling her duty towards Charles VIII,
as she went on
to have six consecutive pregnancies.
Of these pregnancies,
two children died in infancy,
and the others ended in miscarriages.
Tragically all of Anne's children with Charles died,
and I believe they're represented
by the six ermine she's holding here.
She was expected to publicly present
as a perfect queen, pious,
and loyal to her husband, of course.
Anne of Brittany also could not bear
her husband's indiscretions,
as he continuously sees other women
while in Italy.
Anne's life in Charles' court
was not joyful.
She was alone.
She spent all her time being tutored by Charles' sister,
who didn't like her.
And Charles was away almost all the time
on campaigns.
And when he was at home,
he was basically making her as a baby factory.
She was having children,
the children, sadly, were dying, and she was just living a life
of being pregnant and in despair.
And none of that was likely to change anytime soon,
were it not for her husband's unexpected death
under some pretty silly circumstances.
Over the years, my magic has become very personal.
And now I talk about my dad and my grandpa in the show a lot.
So, taking on the story
of a medieval king as an inspiration,
well, has been a fun way to flex my creative muscle,
and to rethink my approach to storytelling.
Really slow...
What did you get?
Oh, the Queen of Spades.
And you got the King of Hearts.
I don't know how that works.
The only thing I know is that
the King of Hearts
Wow!
and the Queen of Spades are bad people.
Okay, cool.
Thank you.
Oh, you like... Oh, wow!
That was so good!
But the real reason I'm here in London,
is to meet my old friend Michael Vincent
and I can't wait to see what he's got in store.
My name is Michael Vincent,
and right now we are in the British Magic Circle.
This headquarters is the home for British magicians.
I've been passionate about magic since I was six years old.
My relationship with playing cards
is a passionate love affair.
There isn't anything I cannot achieve with a deck of cards,
you give me a deck of cards, it could be dog-eared,
it could be beat up, I can create an effect with it.
My first deck of cards was a Tally-Ho Circle Back,
red back, my favorite deck of all time.
It took me several weeks to save up
my pocket money to buy one deck,
and it was a treasured item, and I made it last.
I often think
it would be wonderful to go back to my childhood
and to have that moment of pure life,
that pure astonishment.
You're transported out of this normal realm of life
into another sphere where life becomes exquisite.
And here's a funny thing.
When I decided to study magic, I gave up the right
to ever have that experience again,
because I've learned so much about the subject.
However, it came with a deep responsibility.
I have now become the architect of astonishment for my audience,
and it's my duty to make them feel it.
All right. Okay.
If you look at the two red jacks,
you notice anything interesting about one of them?
I believe magic, as an art,
has to begin as a craft.
Do you notice how the Jack of Hearts
has only got one eye?
- Oh, yeah. - Right. One-eyed Jack.
At the craft level, it's not even art yet,
it's just raw material,
and that raw material will be picked up by someone
who has experienced astonishment.
See, the other Jack has traveled to the bottom.
But, lets assume we've mastered level one.
What's level two all about?
You've got to overcome the fear of performing it
and not getting caught.
This can take several decades.
Third stage, getting it right.
So where the audience don't feel the presence of technique.
Next stage, character development,
personality development,
understanding people,
the psychology of human nature.
The great magicians have mastered all of these levels.
The way my audience members respond
to my magic is something
that was inspired to me by Dai Vernon.
Dai Vernon, David Frederick Wingfield Verner, a magician
from Ottawa, Canada, who basically revolutionized
the way card magic is done.
I really don't know where the world of magic would be
if Vernon hadn't changed the way we do card magic.
A great many people think that you have to be
the seventh son of a seventh son
to perform tricks.
As a matter of fact, when you know how they're done,
some of them are very simple.
And if you spend a little time practicing, you too can become
a famous magician.
When I think of Dai Vernon,
I have to acknowledge his influence over all of us.
When I first saw him on video, he cut a very dashing figure.
And when I saw him execute magic,
I did not feel the presence of trickery or sleight of hand.
It looked and felt as if by magic.
He gave us a powerful reason
to love card magic in the way that he did.
The first book that transformed his life
was The Expert at the Card Table.
He was a young boy when he got a copy of it.
Vernon took Expert at the Card Table,
and moved it into the 20th century,
improving on those techniques.
It's astonishing to think that this book
about cheating and card tricks
would influence the mind of a young boy.
As he navigated through life, that book became his bible.
The techniques of the gambler
were equally as applicable to great sleight of hand magic.
I believe, because of Dai Vernon,
more magicians have probably read this book
than gamblers.
The way he changed magic was the way he looked at it.
Magicians were always showing their flair
and all these little techniques,
"Oh, look at how clever I am."
It's almost like juggling.
And he said that that wasn't magic.
He wanted it to be like a gambler,
to be more natural, more relaxed.
You just be as clear and concise and hit them with the effect.
He took muddled effects, cleaned them up
until they were perfect, and then presented them to the world
and became a legend that we know today.
Vernon sought gamblers out across the country.
If he heard about somebody that could do some new gambling move,
he would hunt them down and either trick or trade them
into tipping whatever method they were using.
When I met him in 1989,
we were at the bar having a drink
and he said to me, "Michael, always remember this,
perform as often as you can
for many different kinds of people
because the way laypeople respond to you and your magic
is going to teach you
everything you need to know about how they approach life."
Vernon was the last person I would have expected
to say that to me,
but he gave me a million dollar lesson.
Some people respond like children,
as if magic is real.
Some people are slightly more closed
and you've got to coax them open just a little bit
until they surrender.
Some people won't let you in.
"Okay, big shot, fool me."
What is the emotional experience
the viewer or the audience is left with?
So the premise, chaos versus order,
looks at the randomness of a shuffled deck.
So the highest arc
of that concept, that premise,
is to take a deck of cards that has been thoroughly shuffled
and at the end reveal all the cards
in perfect numerical order.
The more I think about it,
the more I'm convinced that chaos versus order
is the overriding arc of all card magic.
That's my favorite plot of all time.
Triumph.
So, Michael,
when I asked you about a plot, the first thing you said
really intrigued me, this idea of order and chaos,
which led into your description of, you know, Triumph.
I would love to know
what drew you to Triumph and who the first person you saw
or first read about,
and then what you did to change it to make it your own.
Christmas Day, 1978,
my mother presents me with a Christmas present
and it was a hardbound copy of Stars of Magic.
This was where I first encountered
Triumph by Dai Vernon.
And I learned the routine exactly as described
in the book,
and I fooled myself as I did it.
You fooled yourself? That's awesome!
I thought, "Wow, what's going on here?"
This routine impacted me so much.
While I'm talking, I'm going to illustrate some concepts.
Sure.
When you buy a brand new deck of cards,
this is how they come directly from the factory.
- Okay? - New deck order.
No matter how often a deck of cards is shuffled,
we don't really know what happens
to the cards before, during, or after a given shuffle.
This is why,
when a deck of cards is shuffled
in a manner that I'm about to show,
we can now have a graphical illustration of total chaos.
So I'm going to do the shuffle again,
but this time I'm going to use
a style of shuffle which guarantees
a perfect mixture throughout the entire deck.
And it's been proven by no less of an authority
than someone at Harvard University
that when a deck of cards
is shuffled in a chaotic manner, at least three times,
we can have a wonderful graphical illustration.
Look at this.
Look at the condition of the cards
throughout the entire deck.
It's mixed.
In every type of scientific experiment,
there's always a control element to measure the results against.
In a moment, I'm going to turn my head.
With your right hand I want you to lift up a bunch of cards.
It could be a small group, a big group, doesn't matter.
One of two things will happen.
Wherever you cut, you may see a face down card,
or you may see a face up card.
Doesn't matter. If you see a face up card remember it.
Okay.
And then turn it over. Leave it turned over,
put the cards back.
Do the same thing if it's face down.
Turn it over, leave it turned over, but remember what it is.
You get the idea?
- Sounds like a plan. - All right.
This will be our target for the rest of this experiment.
- Excellent. - Ok.
I cut,
I look,
I remember,
I replace.
We're good.
- Excellent. - You're done?
- Yep - Okay, splendid.
So right now, I think it'd be fair to say
inside this chaotic mess,
you know roughly where your card is.
But picture this.
Imagine if I split the deck in half,
give it a shuffle.
Would it be fair to say you have no idea where the card is?
Yeah, that'd be fair.
Not only that, you know whether you turned it over or not.
So, look, imagine if I turn over a few cards like this.
Would it be fair to say
you have no idea which way your card is facing?
Don't know now.
So check this out.
If I give the cards, another shuffle,
given the condition of the cards right now,
if I could take this deck,
give it one shuffle,
and bring all 52 cards under complete control,
what would you say to that?
Astonishment.
In all my years in handling cards,
it actually takes me two shuffles.
But not only that,
if I cut the deck at the right spot
and give the cards three cuts, I can tell you categorically
that every single card in the deck
is now under complete control.
Really?
But not only that, your card is now facing the correct way.
What was your card?
The Three of Hearts.
And what we have here is complete and perfect order,
under complete control.
It's awesome.
Now, this whole concept is about being lost in the shuffle.
Yeah!
Being lost in the shuffle is really about
coming to terms with feeling comfortable with uncertainty.
Do you remember how we started this conversation?
We started with all the cards in perfect order.
But then we saw the beauty of chaos
and the randomness of our
scramble on the table.
Real magic is about feeling comfortable with uncertainty,
but also addressing one simple fact
that real chaos in this life
is about the balance, peace, and perfect harmony
that can be found inside a deck of cards.
And I can't think of any way
better to end this conversation
than showing you that I saved the absolute best for last,
and what we have here...
- Okay. - Perfection.
Perfect reflection.
That's so good.
That's beautiful.
It's really beautiful.
The subtext is life is supposed to be chaotic.
Creation is supposed to be chaotic.
It took 4.4 billion years for the universe to form itself,
and planet Earth,
and an environment for us to live on,
and all the horrors, dramas, and genius that have existed.
So this routine...
carries a very subtle message
that chaos is necessary for life.
So for me,
Triumph has become
the number one routine in my life
that has allowed me to come face to face
and accept chaos
as a necessary ally in my self-development in life.
This card trick has literally saved my life.
♪ calm piano music
A wild ride.
Michael Vincent,
going to the headquarters of the Magic Circle.
Very cool
being able to watch him up close,
shoulder to shoulder as he presented routines.
And Richard Turner.
This guy is just the best card technician in the world,
and to be able to watch up close
while he's showing me stuff was...
There's not another word for it. It was unbelievable.
Everything has been unbelievable so far.
Chaos and Order by Michael Vincent.
What a great place to start.
But I look at it now
and in driving around London all day today, I realize
it's not the start, it's the ending.
That, if I can find a way to take and mix the cards,
and end up with them all back in new deck order,
that would be epically cool.
Richard Turner's,
he can do anything with a borrowed
shuffled deck of cards.
I get it because it's Richard Turner,
but now I feel that might be the start.
It could literally be the start of the routine
is to hand the deck of cards to spectators at Amboise and say,
"Shuffle the cards, mix them up."
and get them lost in the shuffle.
And once they're mixed,
then proceed to do my favorite plot
which is, you know, Story Deck,
but you can tell by the hesitation in my voice,
I haven't got a clue how I'm going to do that yet.
And I still have to learn
Alexandra Duvivier's, what her plot is,
and I have to learn Juan Tamariz's
and it'll be the last plot,
days before I have to do it at Amboise,
so...
Yeah, yeah, I'm...
Yeah, I'm right on track. Yeah.
- Are you from the US? - No, Canada.
- Canada. - Yeah. That's why I'm friendly.
I'm sorry.
- Do you guys play cards? - Yes.
You see, all these cards are different.
No two cards are the same. Would you agree?
- Agreed. - Yes? Would you take out a card
You can have any card you want to,
just reach in and grab one out.
Show everybody else it's the Nine of Hearts.
But don't let me know it's the Nine of Hearts.
So, then there's a choice...
Oh, did you get the Nine of Hearts? Oh, that's weird. Okay.
I think more than ever, nowadays, we realize
that we can't actually trust history
the way history has been written.
- What did you get? - King of Hearts.
Oh, you could not have picked better cards.
That's the King of Hearts. Am I right?
- It is. - Oh, it is.
And then this one is the Queen of Spades.
Am I right? Yeah.
These are the two main character in a movie we're making.
But not everyone in the Court Card Conspiracy
has been immortalized in the decks we use today.
In fact, one conspirator managed to avoid this honor
despite the key role he played in our mystery.
The sole account we have
of Charles' death comes from Philippe de Commines.
De Commines was a writer and a politician at the end of
the 15th century with strong ties to the French royal family,
and is regarded as one of the premier historians of his time.
Here's what he had to say about Charles' last day.
♪ harpsichord music
April 7th, being the eve of Palm Sunday,
the king took his queen by the hand
and led her out of the chamber
to a place where she'd never been before,
to see others play jeu de paume in the castle ditch.
They entered into the Haquelebac Gallery,
known as the nastiest corner of the castle,
crumbling at its entrance,
and everyone did piss there that would.
The king, though not a tall man,
knocked his head on the doorframe as he entered.
Then he spent some time
looking upon the players and talking freely with everybody.
The last expression he used while in health
was that he hoped he would never commit a mortal sin again.
And with those words, he fell backwards
and lost his speech.
It was around two when he collapsed
and he lay motionless until 11 at night.
And everyone went into the gallery that pleased,
where the king was laid upon a crude bed
and he never left
until he died, which was 9 hours later,
in a sordid and filthy place.
♪ foreboding music
History is written by the victor,
and the victor writes it to benefit them.
So now we have to
look at historical records through a different lens.
Things like de Commines' memoirs
might not have been the absolute truth.
It is important to consider
how confident we can be
in the accuracy of these stories
as they've been passed down
especially from the 14th,
15th, and 16th centuries
when so little was actually written down,
and we do realize
that we are basing our understanding
on the accounts of people who may have
written these stories many years
after the King's passing.
I find it very surprising, if not impossible,
to believe he died from a head trauma.
Why do I think this is impossible?
The kinetic force from hitting a door
wouldn't be enough to cause
such a severe case of head trauma.
For an acute subdural hematoma
there would have to be a strong kinetic force,
such as from a fall from over two stories high
or a crash going at least 30 kilometres an hour.
Personally,
I don't think anybody should believe what de Commines wrote.
Philippe de Commines' relationship
to the family is an old one,
but he did not support Charles VIII's
early political ambitions,
which led to his being captured
and imprisoned in 1487.
The fact that he told his own story
means that he may have embellished
or invented some things.
Reading his memoirs,
you get the sense that he was there
but there is no evidence attesting
that he was in Amboise
on the day of Charles' death.
He was imprisoned by Charles.
Charles had him imprisoned in a cage,
and we're using what he wrote as the facts of the story?
I think the story should be re-examined.
While I was in France, I decided to drop by Le Double Fond,
Paris' only dedicated magic theater,
which just happens to be co-owned by my good friend,
Alexandra Duvivier.
Look at this.
Merci.
The most important quality a magician
or an artist should have is to be curious.
Thank you so much, and I brought you a little gift.
Because if you are not curious in your own life,
how would you be interesting in your magic?
What are you going to say, what are you going to tell,
what are you going to express,
if you don't have anything inside?
You need to have all of your four cards.
So we are going to do...
So yeah, curiosity is the best thing.
My name is Alexandra Duvivier.
I am the daughter of Dominique Duvivier,
who is a passionate, gifted man into magic.
First step is to shuffle the cards.
From an early age I have seen my dad working, doing magic.
Now you stop shuffling
and you're going to cut once your pack.
But I didn't see my dad working.
I saw my dad enjoying, playing.
Then you rip them apart,
you have one pack in each hand.
And that's a luck to see that when you are a child,
because you understand that,
okay, he's working, but he's having fun.
You're going to take the three top cards and you're
going to place them all at once right in the middle.
I kept asking him,
"Please, show me your trick, show me your trick."
And he never did.
Now you take the top card,
the top little card, and you place it against your heart.
I was not born to be a magician.
My dad wouldn't have stand me
being a magician because he was a magician.
And now this is my favorite moment.
You're going to exchange
the top card, this little piece, with someone you don't know yet.
He brought me into FISM in 1988.
FISM is a great competition in Holland.
He was performing, and when I saw 700 people rising,
I was just blown away.
I realized that magic can create such an emotion.
Starting from that day,
I said to myself, "I want to do that."
The daisy flower, you know, he loves me, he loves me not.
So first you say "He loves me.",
so you put the card underneath and say, "He loves me!"
So you keep it.
He loves me not. Ciao, bello.
It was a challenge having the same name as my dad,
and being his daughter because people were expecting more.
She's the daughter so
she's going to be less good.
I feel lighter!
And she's a lady magician. But I worked.
He loves me!
He loves me not.
What helped me the most was the advice of my dad,
saying, "You should go and do tricks
outside, you should perform."
Now you should have one piece left in your hand,
you have one piece under your butt or under your heart,
and if it matches,
it means that you will have one week of pure happiness.
I was so shy
and magic was kind of a therapy.
It's like, if you go towards
things that are difficult for you,
and magic was very difficult for me.
My first card trick, very easy,
I have a video of it.
I was eight years old
and I didn't remember doing that trick.
- Card? - No.
- What was your card? - Three of Hearts.
I have learned it to my daughter
- That's so awesome. - That's great.
So doing shows over and over again,
Doing table hopping over and over again,
you have to learn your job.
You have to learn your craft, and that makes you be braver.
My dad has the oldest magic shop in the world, 1808.
Being in the shop was so helpful because when you
show tricks, you have to know how the trick is done.
If you don't know what you're talking about,
they will feel it.
And for a coach, it's really important
that you understand the process of each trick.
So, having all this information gives you some knowledge,
because afterwards, you just, it's like a computer.
You just take the good information
at the good moment when you need it.
In magic, what we need the most is being curious
and being aware, being aware of everything,
because everything can be inspiring.
So you are just inspired by the everyday life.
You read an article in your newspaper
that's an inspiration.
You dream about one effect.
Let's try to make it for real.
So there are many, many things that come together,
and that's great because it's a never ending approach
about learning things throughout our lives.
Do you remember? What is it? The 8 of Clubs.
Magic is an art form that feeds from the other arts.
I have to use psychology,
I have to use so many other stuff
than just sleight of hands.
We have to be an actor as well as doing a technician,
and we have to learn our text as well as doing the trick.
And in the meantime we have to smile
because we have to pretend it's easy
what you're doing, and it's not.
There are millions of tricks already invented
and there are millions to come.
You have so many plots so you can
make them tell so many things,
but my favorite plot in magic is the Wild Card.
There are so many plots
that I am a fan of, but Wild Card is one of my favorites.
I have red cards, only red cards, except for one,
which is black by itself. Okay.
And you know what?
I put some the reds over there.
I have some more reds over here, and I have my black card.
And you know that in French we say that
craziness is contagious.
Yeah, that's it.
So if I just rub one card onto one another
without any suspicious move,
it prints.
No, but you can go faster and you can do it like this too.
And this is crazy because it's working
- It's great. - I love this.
I love this because, you know, you can say that
cards are completely normal, but craziness is coming to you.
So I just put those cards I didn't do yet.
I've done those, okay. And I've done those.
I put them aside.
And if I just do this,
I can transform them.
I love it.
And these are more classical-style
cards so the people know it.
Et voila. Exactly, exactly.
And that's classical.
That's a classical one, and no more reds.
And you can do whatever you want and that's so cool
to start from that and having later on
something more, let's say,
not classical but something like this you know.
I have here very special cards.
This is not exactly the case
because I have some normal cards.
Yep.
And some special cards.
That's the normal cards and that's a special card.
Let me show you why they are so special.
Because I have wild cards.
And in a normal deck of cards, you never have any wild cards,
don't you?
That's not normal.
Everything's fine until you put a wild card
on a normal card because you can see it.
That's great.
But if you don't rub it, nothing happened.
But if you do rub...
- That's very crazy, isn't it? - Yeah.
You know, you can still do it like this.
No point, but you know, or like that, it's very special,
you just have to be careful that the ink is dry.
But this is, you know, this is.
It's crazy.
You know that nowadays
we don't have time to do things fully because,
you know, you're zapping and you don't have time,
so you do things by half and even by half it's working.
That's great.
You know, and my very special silk,
even on the silk, if I rub it.
And even on the case.
The special....yeah, even on the case,
it's working.
Okay, you've given me a challenge, and I love that.
That's, all of this is great, but this is...
yeah, um...
really fantastic.
You've really taken this to a level
far beyond the very first,
you know, versions going out there.
You can see you've spent a lot of time on it.
It's, it's crazy good.
I used to do a trick called RSVP Resealed Verified Pack,
where the cards go back in new deck order,
and this really goes towards Michael Vincent's Triumph.
If there's a way I can work
part of something I already know into it
and flourish it so that it uses Triumph versus...
my method, but for a different presentation
that will make that part a lot easier.
And then from there I have to be able to...
the term we use is cull.
I have to actually go through like I'm
looking at the cards, trying to see the order,
find those cards,
secretly pull them from the deck
and then arrange them in an order
so that the opening...
My plot's Story Deck, so I want the whole thing
to be about, you know telling how our story begins.
Of course, that's the date.
Then I think maybe the age.
Having stuff come in, like his date, 1498.
So I have to get to the point where I'm finding the Ace,
but it's got to be this way
because if it looks that way it looks stupid.
So there's the ace,
that'd be a 14 and it's going to be 98.
So it has to be in that presentation as I put them down.
At this point, it has to become more interesting.
Then it's got to go into why I had the interest in it.
The fact that it didn't start with the Kings,
so it'd be about the four Queens.
So, it would be at this, oh...
That went well.
So, there'd be four Queens. Look!
And the one that I want isn't there.
That's, that's really good.
So I didn't cull as well as I thought.
Are you nervous at all about mistakes like that
happening in front of a bigger audience?
Yeah, I'm nervous about having them happen any time,
especially when something like that takes place,
because I was pretty sure I got them in position.
And in this casual situation, now add pressure to it
and the fact that there'll be, you know,
multiple cameras on me and human beings watching it
who will not know me.
Yeah, yeah.
Anybody who told you
that that wasn't a pressure thing is just a liar.
And remember that, one, we're going to film
until like midnight, then go for food.
It's going to be two or three in the morning,
and then you've got us
getting up at stupid o'clock to fly to get there.
Oh, yeah.
I'm going to be working on absolutely no sleep.
So, yeah, things like that are, um...
But I used to have an expression, I still use it,
pressure makes diamonds, but it also crushes coal.
Yeah.
Getting to share the Court Card Conspiracy with Alexandra
was so much fun.
But what I found interesting
was that, for all the weird twists of the story,
she kept coming back to the same question.
Why wouldn't they have moved him up to a bed someplace?
- He's the king, right? - Well, I don't know.
I'm not a physician.
And here, we are dealing with a real enigma.
Charles VIII only had a priest by his side,
so we have to ask ourselves why?
What were the surgeons doing?
What were the doctors doing during that time?
This is also something that surprised
a lot of historians
who don't understand why a French king
wasn't surrounded by all his doctors
in his room.
What we're proposing as a hypothesis
is that he had epileptic seizures.
It is possible that the idea of epilepsy
was not well-received at the time.
Suggesting that the king
was possessed by a demon
wouldn't have been possible,
and so he may have connected the king's death
with the incident in which he hit his head,
in an attempt to present his death
to the public in an acceptable way.
At the time, epilepsy was not well understood,
that is for certain.
It could be interpreted as demonic possession
because people would be seen suddenly
moving brutally in ways that didn't make sense,
which might explain why nobody
other than those close to God would go near him
because they could fight being possessed.
Hence the role of the priest.
We also know that Charles VIII
had a lot of mistresses,
he had a lot of girlfriends.
So, the theory we're putting forward
to explain Charles VIII's death
is the well-known sexually transmitted disease,
syphilis.
When Charles VIII invaded Naples,
there was a syphilis epidemic there.
What is also certain,
is that a poet who accompanied the king
to write the story
of his seven invasions of Italy
described that the king had caught syphilis,
which would explain why he was weaker
towards the end of his life.
We can then consider neurosyphilis,
in which case
he could have had epileptic seizures.
If not receiving adequate care,
one can die quite suddenly.
The theory that Charles died of syphilis
is a very interesting one, but I don't think it's the right one
and I think the cards are telling me something different.
♪ tense music
You would think that being surrounded
by magic would make me think that anything is possible.
Yeah!
It's the exact opposite.
I was taught how the tricks worked.
So instead of instilling a sense of wonder in me,
it instilled a sense of skepticism in me.
It made me question everything.
It wasn't until I saw a Spanish magician
by the name of Juan Tamariz.
He performed,
and for the first time in my life
I felt like I was six years of age,
experiencing what I saw on the faces of other people.
One of the great originals of magic, Juan Tamariz.
Maestro, so nice to see you!
Thank you so much for coming.
Good evening. - Good evening.
How are you, good?
Aha!
Very good!
You speak Spanish!
A little, a little.
I wanted the best in the world to be able to talk about why...
No! I am not the best, I am the most elegant.
Yeah.
You are the most elegant? That's awesome.
My name is Juan Tamariz.
I've been a magician since I was a little boy.
I have been a magician
since I was four years old
when my parents took me to a magic theater
and there was a magician who took out
fish tanks with live fish in his hands
So I was born at that time,
until then I didn't exist.
In the stage I'm more myself than in the life.
The life I'm very shy,
in the stage I can do anything,
then I can sing, I can do... like this,
and I can do magic that I love.
I'm going to do a special trick. Can you help me please?
Yes? Oh, thank you very much.
The trick is the most, the fastest card trick in the world.
Fastest card trick in the world, right?
I've always believed that there are
much better magicians than me,
much better.
There are even more elegant magicians,
which seems difficult, but there are.
Take this one, and can you see the card?
You remember the card, and now
every, nobody here can know the card.
Myself, I cannot know what is the card. Okay?
But what there isn't,
is a magician who loves magic more than me.
As much yes, but not more.
Yes it's important thing, to take one
to show very quickly, please very quickly
fastest card trick in the world,
you put back again, and I make something like this.
It's the only card, this is the top card, ok.
Can you imagine a world
without playing cards?
Are you insane?
- It's crazy! - I know
It's crazy.
For me the cards have something very special.
The cards, I have some cards here.
For 40 years, not a single day
have I been out on the street
without a deck in my pocket.
Without one, I feel I'm missing something.
It's as if they took my soul away
and told me to go out into the street.
No. I have to carry my soul,
I have to carry my deck.
So for me, the relationship is one of passion,
of eternal love
and will continue to be for the next 80 years.
Wow! How good!
Go, go, go, go.
And a card!
I believe that in magic,
each trick has a symbol
that represents something very powerful;
an impossible desire that is fulfilled.
When I create tricks, subconsciously,
there is a little bit of symbolism
that is projected in the trick
and in the performance.
- Yes? - Yes.
I believe that all the arts are quite close
to magic in some way.
Theater represents reality,
but with real people
who are flesh and blood actors on a stage.
The cinema presents fantasy,
dreams, the impossible,
but with people who are not real, with images.
On the other hand,
magic has a bit of a mix of the two,
because it represents the impossible,
your dreams,
but with real people;
the magician and their spectators.
That's why magic enchants everyone,
especially children.
Though not only to young children,
but also to the inner child
we all have within us
and sometimes it is wonderful to perform
and see that there is a three-year-old child
who comes out of the stomach of a spectator
and greets you.
Your child and their child greet,
smile at each other and give a smile,
and send each other a kiss and a hug,
and that's wonderful.
He approaches magic, as an actor would.
He talks about how to use your whole body
to work in unison and to connect with the audience
to experience magic in a different way.
The psychology of the human mind
and memory is very fragile,
and one's memory, psychology
and perception are very easily manipulated
by someone who knows how to control that.
A spectator is engaged by the magician,
at the same time look to distract the attention
of the spectator -
some words that put the psychology
of the effect in the mind of the spectator.
The words are very important.
At the same time, the position of the hands
or the movement of the hands
doing - and now the cards are going to pass
from here to here.
And this loop is more artistic
than only from here to here
Oh pardon, excuse me!
So, you have so many plots to choose from,
I love that you picked the Rising Card,
why the Rising Card?
I think that is because a lot of things,
but the first one is because it
up and up, and it means this, ascension in English?
- Yes? - Ascension! Yeah.
Ascension is like in religion.
- The ascension of the... - Christ going to heaven?
It means the glory.
Sure.
What's the most amazing version you've seen?
I remember
one of the best ones is the De Kolta Rising Card.
- De Kolta? - De Kolta.
- Okay. - Buatier De Kolta.
- Yeah, great inventor of magic. - Great inventor.
The idea is you put - it's a table, a long table
and you put a glass here and a glass here
in this glass you put the deck of cards inside.
Uh huh.
Vertical position. And you ask for the card that you see
or the card that you remember, the chosen card before.
And you stay here, apart.
- And you make a gesture, - Yeah, the magic move.
And slowly the card goes up, up, up, up, up.
Until now is like other rising cards.
But the card go more and more and more,
more and more and more,
totally free.
- Really? Above the cards. - Above the cards.
So it's like floating like this.
Floating.
And you say, "Go there".
And the card in the air -
- Moves across? - Move the card.
And go, go, go, go, and when it stay in the middle,
you say, "Stop, please".
- And the card stops. - Just floating.
- Wow!
And you say, "Second spectator, what is your card?"
Because it's a different card, two spectators.
He says "The Seven of Spades" and this is the Five of Clubs.
And you go [snap],
- and the air it changes! - Just right there in midair.
Without touching it, without nothing.
And people are "Woah!"
And you say "Thank you",
and go, go, go, go, go, enter in the glass.
And then it slowly went back into the glass?
In the glass.
It enters in the glass and you finish.
That's crazy!
Well now I have to figure out some way to incorporate it.
I love Rising Card, but now I need
to find some way to make it -
it won't be this amazing because that's incredible.
It's amazing, yes.
That's awesome. Thank you so much.
We're at the airport in Nantes.
No, I didn't fly here.
We drove here 13 hours since we started the journey.
They cancelled the plane.
Yesterday was phenomenal,
getting to spend time with Juan Tamariz was a dream.
I've got less than 24 hours to prepare for the big day.
And that's at Château d'Amboise.
We still have another drive and we'll get there.
My date with destiny in Amboise is only a few days away,
which doesn't give me a lot of time to integrate
Juan's Rising Card plot
into my tale of Charles' death before the big premiere.
The speed at which Anne and Louis
moved to assume power
after Charles passed was remarkable,
and the regalia for her coronation process
are represented in the cards too.
Let's look at what she's holding.
For every royal coronation, there are four pieces of regalia
that are key to the ceremony.
The first is the sceptre, which the Queen is holding.
The second is the anointing spoon
that the Jack of Spades is wielding,
and I believe he is meant to represent Louis.
Next comes this orb,
which represents Christ's dominion over the earth.
And last but not least, is the sword known as "Joyeuse"
which dates back to the 9th century
when it was the personal weapon
of Charlemagne.
There were special clauses
to Anne and Charles' marriage.
One of the clauses stipulates that
should the king of France pass away,
Anne of Brittany would marry his successor.
An important clause of the marriage
was that if Charles died
the Duchy of Brittany would return to Anne.
As soon as Charles died,
two days after Charles' death,
Anne had the Chancellery of Brittany
re-established.
Charles' death left Anne with
the rights and titles over her duchy once more.
She was once again able to directly govern
her duchy,
in addition, she remained the Queen of France
so she was at the peak of her political power.
And with Charles having left no ale heir to assume the throne,
that honor now falls on his closest male relative,
none other than his cousin, and one-time kidnapper,
Louis d'Orléans.
When Louis became King, everything changed.
There was a mutual respect
in their way of functioning
which was already a bit rare at the time.
Louis d'Orléans got to know Anne
when he pursued an alliance
with François II of Brittany.
It's an affectionate relationship
however she still has the duties of a Queen,
who has to try to have children.
But she's also in a unique position
because she is the previous King's widow.
And through her considerable resources,
she's able to lead her own life at court
as a patron,
which enables her to travel.
She has true autonomy.
Which marks a huge difference
from Anne of Brittany's first marriage,
in which she was entirely at the mercy
of her husband's will.
Presented with the opportunity to rewrite her destiny,
I believe that Anne was too smart to let it pass.
and that leads us to our final clue.
The King of Hearts is the only court card
with two sets of arms.
And what's even more unusual,
is if you look at the sleeve of the arm holding the sword
and the one that's across his chest,
they don't match.
Even stranger, is that if you look
at the Queen of Spades, we notice that her sleeve
is a much closer match to the arm that's killing the king.
♪ harpsichord music
So, given the unlikeliness of Charles having died
as de Commines tells us,
what other options should we be considering?
And, should foul play be among them?
♪ harpsichord music
With a chance to reassert her independence
and rule France with the man she loved within easy grasp,
Anne and Louis surely had a motive
to see Charles removed from the throne.
It is also not hard to imagine
de Commines would want to avenge himself
against the royal family,
A family that had once imprisoned him
in an iron cage.
The solution?
Well, spinning a story
that would benefit him and his co-conspirators.
♪ tense music
So, maybe Charles did die from a blow to the head,
but it probably wasn't as innocent
as the history books tell us
because I think they've had it wrong this whole time,
and that the clues have been hidden under our nose
for centuries.
♪ tense music
Hi, everybody.
I'm Shawn Farquhar, and welcome to Château d'Amboise.
For those that don't know, I'm a magician.
I've been a magician all my life,
my mum says when I was born,
the doctor slapped me and I said, "Pick a card."
It's all I've ever done.
I learned my numbers and my colors from a deck of cards
and I'm going to share with you a card trick that I created
and you'll be the first people to ever see it,
it's the premiere.
And why am I at Château d'Amboise to perform it?
Because this is the 525th anniversary,
of the death of a French king - King Charles VIII.
He died right here, at Château d'Amboise
and I'm going to tell you the story of his death.
It's not the same as you've heard in history,
it's better.
I'm going to use a deck of cards that I created.
There's only 1500 in the world, and this is 1119.
A brand new deck of cards, I'll pop it open.
Inside, a deck of cards,
in what is referred to as new deck order.
They run ace through king, ace through king,
then the kings meet in the middle,
king through ace and king through ace.
In hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades.
If I were to mix up the cards,
it might be sleight of hand.
Would you do me a favor?
Would you mix those cards? Give them a good shuffle.
After you've given them- yeah!
Oh, you're very good at that. It's excellent.
Would you mind- Oh that was good! I do that too!
Would you mind passing them to the lovely lady next to you?
And Miss, would you mind mixing the cards a little bit, too?
That's excellent.
Now, there's no way I can keep track
as you're mixing up the cards.
And, sir,
would you be so kind as to
perhaps take the cards from the lady,
and would you mix them too?
I like that you're showing me the face. It's very nice.
Do me a favor,
put them behind your back and give them a little-
that'll be more difficult for you,
but behind your back will make it more difficult for me
because now I can't track it.
There's no way I can know where the cards are
or the position that they're in.
And from this chaos I will try to create order
and make a magic trick
with a borrowed shuffled deck of cards.
Oh, would you do me a favor and give them a cut, too?
Yeah? Perfect.
Thank you very much.
A deck of cards, mixed up.
I will give them a cut too.
I do it with one hand,
this is called showing off.
The cards are now mixed, and it's time for me
to tell you a little story, with a simple deck of cards.
My story begins where this person's story ends.
This is the King of Hearts.
Now, people will tell you he was the Suicide King
because there's a sword running through his head.
But I will tell you, this is not suicide,
this card tells the story of a murder.
A murder that took place at Château d'Amboise 525 years ago.
The date, yeah, was 1498.
Yeah, that's when he died.
And he didn't die in battle,
he didn't even die of old age. In fact, the king was young.
He was just 27 years of age. 27 years of age.
Oh, and what did he look like? He didn't look like this.
Although this king is young, you can see he has no mustache.
Our king looked like this.
This is. This is.
Yeah, this is Charles VIII
looking as handsome as ever.
I'll just put them under there.
How did he die?
He died after watching a tennis match.
Yeah. Ten - tennis match.
Yeah.
What happened was he was walking through the stables
and he bumped his head and he complained that it hurt,
but then he went to the tennis match.
He watched the tennis game.
After the tennis game back through the stables.
Then he collapsed in the stables.
Oh but he didn't die right away.
In fact it was nine hours.
Nine hours
he lay in the squalor of the stables before he died.
You got to love that. Come, look.
Come on! Love that! It's- okay. It's just-
He left behind a widow. Aw!
This is the sad part of the story.
This was the widow.
Her name, of course, was Anne of Brittany.
Yeah, that's what she really looks like.
And it wasn't long before suitors came
offering a hand in marriage.
In fact, it was the Duke of Orleans,
that's the Duke of Orleans, the Duke of Orleans came.
He would soon become Louis, Louis XII.
Yeah, same guy.
What's interesting about it is he looked a lot like this.
Yeah, that's him, see?
It's an accurate representation.
It's very good.
Interesting enough, there were more kings in the world.
There was dukes and kings, all of them together like this.
These three kings each have their suits.
The diamonds are in his,
the spades are in his, and the clubs are in his.
But the King of Hearts has no hearts in his tunic. Why?
Because he was the King of France
and all of France loved him.
But you'll notice in his hands there are little tiny images.
These are called ermines
and it was small, like a weasel or a ferret-like creature
with a beautiful white coat.
And all the kings and royalty used it,
but none valued it more
than Brittany,
which is why Brittany assumed it as their logo,
their national symbol, which is very cool.
Now, these dukes, they fought in a war
called the Mad War, and of course, Charles won.
I should get - now I'm ahead of myself.
Let me explain.
How did I come up with this idea?
Well, there were these queens.
My friend, Steve Beam,
wrote a book called Semi-Automatic Card Tricks,
and in it there was a trick called Turning Heads.
If you look at the queens,
you'll notice these three queens all face one direction.
But my friend Steve pointed out that one queen
faced the other direction!
Isn't that crazy? One queen faces the other direction.
And what's unique about this queen?
She holds the ermines in her hand. Do you see that?
There are six of them in her hand
and she holds a sceptre.
The sceptre is very important
because that is the symbol of power
and queens didn't hold power.
The queen's job was to make babies,
which is why the other ones
all just have flowers in their hands.
But she has a flower and the ermine, and the sceptre in it,
which is very unique.
I couldn't believe that these queens
had such importance to me.
In fact, once I heard about it, I was just,
I was stuck thinking about it.
If I take these three and I do this with them.
Remember, one, two, and three, and I mix them.
I'll put them like this so it's easy.
All I have to do it take a singl card like that,
rub it against it,
and this one will look like a Queen of Spades.
If I rub this one like this,
this one will look like a Queen of Spades.
If I rub like this, this one looks like a Queen of Spades.
Even this one looks like a Queen of Spades.
It doesn't matter what I do.
As much as I mix them up, I keep finding Queens of Spades.
Even when I did this
and I just spread them out
and I just looked for a position
one card would rise above the rest.
And yes, it's the Queen of Spade
It didn't matter what I did.
Every time I looked, I kept seeing Anne of Brittany.
All of this drove me to a passion to continue
to look at research, to understand.
Because when history is written
it gets mixed up and people try to sort it out,
and as they're trying to figure out, historians
sometimes agree sometimes disagree.
But in the end,
they come up with one story that they stick to.
This is a mystery for the ages.
You see, history is just basically two words:
His and Story.
Things can be mixed up.
People can tell a story and leave parts out.
Oh, we should make a little bit more of a puzzle out of this,
let me mix some face up into face down.
You can see this,
they really are beginning to mix face up into face down.
I will do another one like this so they mix one more time.
I need someone to help. Would you help me for a second?
Would you come up and mix these cards a little bit more?
We need them to be face up into face down.
So if you give them another shuffle
just to make sure they really are mixed up,
face up and face down.
Oh, you shuffle excellent.
We'll take all those cards, place them back inside the box.
So they're out of the way.
Are you right-handed or left-handed?
- Right-handed. - Are you really?
I'd give my left hand to be ambidextrous.
Take this marker and write your name on the box
where we placed the cards.
- All right. - Yeah.
Very good. Now let's recap.
That's good.
Hold your hand out just like that.
Place these here,
place your other hand on top, trapping them in between.
You're holding the cards. You're holding the future.
You're also holding the past.
And of course, right now everything is confused.
But time will come when everything straightens up
and history will be correct.
The problem is because, we've lost it in history,
it's hard to retrace
and now that these cards have been shuffled,
it's even more difficult
to put together the pieces.
But given time, everything can be found.
In fact, everything can go back the way it should be.
Open your hand and take a look.
It's a brand new deck of cards, sealed.
Still numbered 133.
I'm going to break the seal.
Inside, a brand new deck of cards
never touched by human hands.
And if you look, they are in new deck order.
Oh but look, there are two cards facing the wrong direction.
That's crazy. This one -
well, that's Charles VIII, the King of France
and the other one, well that's her, his murderer.
Anne of Brittany.
Thanks so much for playing.
Thank you very much for watching, guys.
You guys have been awesome!
So the Queen of Spades is killing the King of Hearts?
He is. She's killing him.
Wow.
Well, I'll never look at the King of Hearts
in the same way again.
I was surprised myself to just look at my cards.
Look at the court cards. Really?
And French history? That's cool!
They left clues.
I am going to say something more
In fact, it's a murder that happened, really,
and I was the murderer.
You were the murderer? That's awesome.
But don't tell anyone.
Fascinating.
But it's dangerous to be a king in France, isn't it?
I have no way
of being able to support this thesis.
We have no evidence that Charles' death
was anything other than an accident.
I think it's fantastic.
And the thing is, we don't know and we will likely never know,
but it doesn't mean it might not be true.
I firmly believe in my theory, but should that time come
that somebody were able to discredit it and prove me wrong,
I don't think I have a big problem with that
because of the experience and everything that I've learned
from this experience.
First and foremost,
I learned to look at a deck of cards differently.
I studied the deck of cards,
and from that I learned a little of the history of France,
something I never really understood.
And on the journey I got to see and renew old friendships,
and share ideas with them, and create a brand new routine.
It's taught me that I should look at things differently.
I take too many things for granted
and now maybe I'll go out there
and look at other things in a different light.
I just love what I do and I love sharing it with other people,
and this opportunity has been that.
Thanks for coming out to play folks.
We'll see you all again.
♪ intriguing music
As incredible as it is to consider
how many thousands of card tricks
have already been created
and how many thousands more are sure to come,
there's a number
inside each and every deck that's even more mind boggling.
It's called the 52 factorial.
And to keep things simple,
mathematicians will often write it out to look like this:
And you'll quickly see why
that exclamation mark is so appropriate.
When you open a brand new deck of cards,
you'll find the suits all laid out.
Ace through King, Ace through King,
King through Ace, and King through Ace.
We'll call this combination number one.
If I swap this Ace and place it between the Two and the Three,
that's combination number two.
Between the Three and the Four,
combination number three, and so on and so forth.
Fully expressed, the number of possible
configurations in a standard deck of cards
looks something like this.
Now, for comparison, the universe as we know it
has only been in existence for about this many minutes.
So if just for fun, you really did want to shuffle
a deck into every single possible combination,
how long would it take?
It all starts
with our galaxy, the Milky Way
and the 100 billion stars that fill it.
Now, let's imagine that surrounding
each one of these stars are a trillion planets.
And on each of these planets, there are a trillion people.
And each one of these people were somehow
able to shuffle a thousand decks per second.
And they all single mindedly have been working on this task
since the Big Bang made our universe possible
a mere 13 billion years ago.
They'd still today only be about halfway
through the number of possible
combinations that exist in just a single deck of cards.
Which is to say,
every time you shuffle a deck of cards,
the odds are very good
that never in the history of mankind
has there ever been a deck of cards in that exact order.
Nor will there ever be.
♪ intriguing music