Are You Confident Enough To Miscall?

There are lots of wonderfully courageous uses of miscalls in magic, be that miscalling a written prediction or much more terrifying use cases. Whenever I see a magician or mentalist use a miscall in any form, my butt tightens, I sit up straight and adrenaline floods my system.

I’ve seen big-name magicians miscall predictions for huge audiences.

I don’t know why it makes me feel like a giddy kid, but it does.

Are they going to get away with that? I wonder.

Did they just get away with that?! I wonder next.

The most straightforward variation of a miscall gets used in the opposite manner one might expect. It’s used less as a method but as a convincer. A convincer that no method has yet taken place and that the trick’s ending is not entirely locked in.

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The spectator names a card at random.

Let’s say they name the ace of hearts.

The magician snaps their fingers.

“Your card is gone from the deck.”

They draw a line to the card box.

“It’s traveled inside the card box.”

They hand the box to the spectator.

“You could have named any card,” they say, “but you named the eight of hearts?”

“The ace of hearts!” the spectator corrects them.

The magician gestures for them to open the box.

Inside is the ace of hearts.

The magician and spectator live happily ever after.

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In the future, I’ll write about more effective uses of the miscall principle. This example is a good one to introduce the concept and get the ball rolling.

You’re implying that the magic is beyond your control by miscalling the freely named playing card. It’s almost as if you never needed to know the card’s identity to make the trick work. If that’s the case, the trick is a hundred times better.

You run the obvious risk that the spectator just says yes to your miscall. Some say it’s a risk worth taking. Anyways, that’s one use of a miscall—now get those brain cogs going and think up your own.

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