The Secret Putpocketing Method

When I started writing a weekly magic newsletter, a few people asked whether I'd eventually run out of things to write about. The answer was and always will be, nope. In the ten years I've spent working on magic TV shows, I've absorbed a lifetime of magic knowledge. I can talk and not stop talking about magic.

Putpocketing is totally new to One Ahead.

I've never mentioned it in the three years we've been doing this every week!

Well, what is it?

Well, it's the opposite of pickpocketing.

Instead of stealing an item from someone, you're planting it upon them.

Sometimes, you'll do both. You might pickpocket someone's wallet, add something, and then return it to their pocket for a later reveal.

Putpocketing tends to be an opportunity device magicians use when they notice a spectator has an easily accessible pocket or similar, which they can exploit. I recommend against using it in this scenario. It always feels forced, inevitable and more like a joke than a trick. People tend to understand what happened because the trick is rushed, improvised, and unthought-through.

My advice is to focus on the pacing of any routing which involves putpocketing and be sure to add convincers like good acting, time misdirection and equivoke. You need to really divert people away from the idea that you putpocketed them earlier.

If you putpocket due to opportunity – you see an easy pocket, open backpack, wallet on the table – do one of two things:

1. Perform a trick you already know. Dump a corner of a card into the wallet and perform Angle Zero. Inventing a new trick will often feel too rushed unless you...

2. Invest in time misdirection. Use the time you wait to do the reveal to come up with the perfect trick and think through how you'll get to the ending naturally.

The obvious

Of course, the obvious thing to do is drop a playing card inside someone's pocket and then force the card at a later point. You can then "make the card vanish" and cause it to reappear inside the spectator's pocket.

In this instance, you're using putpocketing as a magic reveal.

It's a lazy reveal; there's no doubt about it. But if tricks like a coin on shoulder or card to mouth work so effectively, how can we make a card to their pocket feel genuinely impressive, too?

• Time misdirection: Leave time between the putpocketing and the reveal. I know magicians who have waited hours.

• Use an assistant: Putpocketing is always more fooling when carried out by a secret accomplice.

• Nail the force: The selection should occur after the putpocketing, and the force must feel genuine.

• Equivoke: Use good acting or tools like equivoke to make the final location of the card feel impromptu.

• A fast transpo: You don't want them thinking you dropped it in their pocket after they saw the card last – make it vanish and appear instantaneously.

The less obvious

Imagine you need to do a coin trick with a gimmicked coin.

Well, what if you want the coin to appear borrowed?

I guess you could switch it.

But what if you didn't need to?

What if you putpocketed it?

My friend and I still discuss when a magician putpocketed us all with gimmicked coins thirteen years ago. He asked if we had coins, and we pulled out a handful of change. From the handful, he reached in with bare fingers and plucked out a coin to use for the trick (the gimmicked one).

So in this scenario, you're looking at putpocketing as a type of pre-show. You're loading the spectator with an item you can later use for a magic trick. And boy, oh boy, is it fooling on almost every level.

The push and pull

The easiest way to putpocket is to do so openly. But if you're doing this, relying on an assistant or some strong time misdirection is crucial.

Open putpocketing is basically non-secretive and happens openly, often with the assistance of the spectator.

The most common method is the push/pull because you go one way and then the other with the items. You might ask the spectator to empty their pocket and return the items moments later. There's a push and a pull to the motions.

A simple example would be if you were to ask the spectator to show you the change in their pocket to check if they have a fifty pence coin you need for the trick. It shows up best on camera, you tell them. And when they take out their hand, and you rummage through the coins, you add the gimmick. Perfect, you say, and ask them to return the cash to their pocket.

In these motions, you've openly easily putpocketed them.

An assistant can do this before the spectator joins you on stage or by the magician before the camera starts rolling.

I've also heard of magicians doing the opposite. Instead of taking things out and putting them back in, they start by putting things in and taking less out.

A simple example might be asking the spectator to place a deck of cards in their pocket. They don't know that a single playing card is actually on the outside of the box, held lightly in place by some wax. When the spectator retrieves the box later, the single card will be left inside the pocket due to the friction of the pocket itself.

Think creatively about your push and pull, think long-term, and see it as a challenge to turn your usual magic into something occasionally more interesting.