This fifty-page booklet teaches a routine directly from Ben Seidman’s working repertoire.

The book begins with a comical forward by Mac King that really sets the tone for the book. This is Ben’s first book so I didn’t know what to expect, but I thoroughly enjoyed his writing style. This isn’t just a boring cut-and-dry explanation of his routine. This book is full of humor and levity, and it feels like Ben is personally sitting across from you, teaching you the routine. The humor doesn’t feel forced as it often does when a magician tries to be funny in a book. It comes across as genuine and makes the book a joy to read.

This whole book is just one routine. One seven-minute routine with three phases.

It’s good to frame this entire routine as Ben does. His philosophy is that it doesn’t matter what actually happens. What matters is what the audience believes happened. Right up front, it's good to know this routine relies on dual reality. Each spectator experiences an effect, but the audience as a whole experiences a miracle. This dual reality is designed with so many layers that even if a spectator describes their experience to someone else, the mystery won’t fully unravel.

The routine has three phases, so let’s examine each individually. I’ll use the effect description directly from the book for each phase.

Phase One

“A deck of cards is examined and shuffled by a participant. You fan the cards toward them and ask them to remember a card. For example, let’s say it is the King of Hearts.

They shuffle the deck, and the cards are placed into a wineglass. When they are asked, for the first time, merely to name their thought of card, the selection begins rising out of the deck. Everything is then examined.”

This first phase has, by far, the most complicated setup. If you want to perform it exactly as Ben does, you’ll need to do a good bit of arts and crafts. It’s a lot of effort for a rising card trick, but it shows the lengths Ben goes to make his methods as clean as possible from the audience’s perspective even if it means more work on his part. The advantage of this method over others is that the deck is shuffled beforehand, the performer is standing far from the table when the card rises, and the selection is merely thought of and only named after the deck is in the wine glass.

This first phase uses dual reality to make it seem as if the spectator freely thinks of any card, but in reality, that card is forced. If this DR makes you uncomfortable, it would be easy enough to omit it in exchange for a traditional card force, but this being a thought-of-card adds to the impossibility of the following phases. IMO this DR is so light that anyone should be able to use it without feeling guilty.

Phase Two

“The King of Hearts is placed amongst a few indifferent cards. It vanishes and immediately appears on the seat of the participant’s chair, underneath them.”

This phase also requires some arts and crafts to create a device that allows you to load the card in the seat with empty hands. It would again be easy enough to omit these arts and crafts, but the cleanliness you gain is worth the effort to make up. And even though Ben describes his exact device, you could easily simplify it.

If you’ve performed the “card on seat” before, you’ll have a good idea of what is going on here. The vanish Ben uses is clever, and some may say bold. The vanish relies purely on sleight of hand, and I think it's purposefully not the cleanest way to vanish a card since he needs to increase the stakes in the next phase, which also involves a vanish of the selected card.

This phase doesn’t use any DR, so there’s nothing to be worried about there. It’s the most traditional feeling phase. In fact, you could just about go out and perform this phase right away and have a solid performance piece even without the rising card leading into it.

Phase Three

“You take the King of Hearts and tear a corner almost all the way off. The participant is asked to take the corner and rip it off the rest of the way, making it clear that the corner is not switched. This card is then pressed into your palm and suddenly vanishes with no cover. It then miraculously appears in the back pocket of an audience member sitting across the room.

The two participants match up the corner, and it fits perfectly. Pandemonium ensues. The audience begins showering you with gold and fine jewels to show their appreciation for these miracles. A goat is sacrificed in your honor. A statue commemorating your performance is erected in the town square.”

You can get a feel for the humor throughout the book from that last paragraph. This last phase is the most magical. It is the “big moment” that the other routines are working towards. This begins with a bare-handed vanish of the selected card away from the deck with no sleeves. It’s a clever way to vanish the card that is a bit unorthodox. It takes a little practice to get it feeling smooth, but it’s certainly not hard to do. I had to laugh a little when I read the method because it's just so strange and clever. It's not the cleanest in the world as you're left dirty at the end, but because of the way you're left dirty, the audience won't think it's possible for the card to be hiding anywhere.

The impossible appearance of the card in someone else’s pocket relies on heavy DR. He uses a clever idea to make the person seem randomly selected, and the person does receive an effect, but their effect is very different from what everyone else experiences. To me, this is the phase that has the most that can go wrong. The spectator with their card in their pocket has the biggest chance of ruining their personal perceived effect. Hopefully, they won’t, and the script highly encourages them not to, but there’s still that chance. When it plays correctly, it will seem truly impossible to the audience and still amazing to the person who has the card in their pocket.

The Blow Off

This is Ben’s method for trying to stop the last spectator from saying anything that ruins the DR for the rest of the room, as that person is the most vulnerable.

Look, Ben admits this routine is a lot. There’s a lot of physical prep and psychological work that goes into it, but if you put the effort in, you have a three-phase card trick that feels truly impossible and plays to an entire theatre.

My one critique of the routine is that to me, it feels like three magic tricks that are stitched together and not like a routine that has a logical flow to it, but I understand that many people just want magic to be magic and don’t see the need for a presentation that makes it all make sense. The presentation is one of those where you basically just describe what is happening. There's no alternative plot or patter. That is a really small critique, though, because obviously, you can alter the patter to best fit you (and you probably should.)

It’s clear that this is a workhorse routine for Ben. The details are the types of things you only learn from performing it and perfecting it over time. I have to truthfully say I don’t think a lot of people will put in the effort to perform it exactly as he does (I don’t ever perform in environments where DR is a viable option,) but I do think there is value in reading how he puts the routine together and the efforts he takes to make his magic more impactful. Magicians should be inspired by this thinking and seek to implement this level of thought into their own work. It has certainly inspired me.

The Principles of Destruction will be available here on March 18th, 2025: http://vaninc.org/EUG73