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Well, I just got back from a small 'gig-ette' to some friends of my parents, and for a laugh, I tried a couple of effects using soley the Hindu as a force and secondly as a control.

Both times it worked a treat. But here's a real world observation:

It's unnatural to spectators.

In fact, I actually said:
"Now, I wonder if any of you have seen this shuffle. It's called the Hindu shuffle, and it's popularisation comes from casinos, because it absolutely cannot be deemed as sleight of hand because the deck is gripped at the sides, which basically renders the cards safe from manipulation."

Now, although that falls into the white lie category it further proves the versatility of it. During that patter, I actually had a signed selection replaced and controlled it to the top with a key card beneath it!

Again, this is another reason I love this shuffle so much. Yes, it's unnatural, but it also looks pretty clean.

To those of you who mentioned it looking suspicious, you should really take note of what I call the 'un-sleight' principle: which is, learn any sleight's NATURAL move fluently before using it as a control/force/sleight.

With the Hindu, the NATURAL move is to REALLY shuffle the cards. The Hindu does indeed shuffle the cards. But in the right circumstance, it's also a killer sleight.

By pre-conditioning your audience with a few 'un-sleight' moves, i.e. REAL usage of the Hindu as a genuine shuffle, you actually make way for acceptance of the move as part of your act.

Usually, I don't qualify things. But tonight I did, purely as experimentation. I even slowed down the Hindu to show how effectively it shuffles the cards at the magician's fingetips—apparently leaving no room or opportunity for sleight of hand.

Of course, the contrary is true. When performed smoothly, the Hindu, in my own opinion, is a fantastic sleight. And the added misdirection of it seeming unnatural to the spectator gives it a whole new appeal to me.

Thanks for re-kindling this one

You're welcome

But I still don't like it.

Although I know what you mean by qualifying a sleight. I now do it in my oil and water routine. It's entirely based on the Elmsley count. When I show all four cards the same at the start I use and Elmsley to show all four the same and then spread them to show that they really are all the same, in the hope of conditioning the speccie to believe that counting the cards this way really is showing all of the cards. Dunno if that made sense.

magic_evmeister wrote:Dunno if that made sense.

Dunno if my post made too much sense either—I was paid in beer tokens

Personally... I have yet to learn the controls moves with the Hindu Shuffle.

Looks good as a change though... everyone does overhand shuffle... everyone riffles... but not many people use the hindu shuffle. As seige said, most lay people have never heard of it.

its good for that, the force is pretty cool too...

Maybe of interest from a patter point of view: on a recent Penn Jillette podcast he said that he and Teller had travelled to India, and were surprised to discover this actually is the common method for shuffling over there.

That's interesting I'll say that next time I use it. I always say I'm using because it mixes the cards really well and do some little explanation bits as well. As a force I don't think it needs much explanation.

I use it as a force and am just learning how to use it as a false shuffle. I don't know how to use it as a control but I will have to learn because I find it to be a very user friendlyaction

Johnny Wizz wrote:I use it as a force and am just learning how to use it as a false shuffle. I don't know how to use it as a control but I will have to learn because I find it to be a very user friendlyaction

As a control, a simple 'place your card in the deck at any time during the shuffle' uses the Hindu to great effect for controlling the card to the top.

It is almost invisible, and genuinely looks as if the card is lost and buried in the deck.

I agree with Seige wholeheartedly. It's simple and convincing, and no one's ever spotted/worked out what's going on with me. But it does look bizarre to people. Best to do it before its needed, to get them conditioned to seeing it, and have a line/explanation ready for if and when someone pipes up, 'I've never seen anyone shuffle like that before.' Specs are always looking for 'what's unusual' in the way you do things, and the Hindu is that to them.

How...

Ev...

Er.

I must admit, though, that I don't do it that much nowadays. But I think this is because it was probably the first force I leaned. In the beginning I did it all the time, because I couldn't do anything else. So, in my subconscious - and dispite its sterling work - it's sort of got that feel of 'desperation force'. Not its fault at all, but that's the case.