In the late 1940s, the British magician David Berglas started refining a trick that came to be known as “the holy grail of card magic.” To this day, nobody is certain how he did it.

…The trick is a version of a classic plot of magic, called “Any Card at Any Number”. These tricks are called ACAAN in the business. ACAAN has been around since the 1700s, and every iteration unfolds in roughly the same way: A spectator is asked to name any card in a deck—let’s say the 9 of clubs. Another is asked to name any number between one and 52—let’s say 31. The cards are dealt face up, one by one. The 31^st card revealed is, of course, the 9 of clubs. Cue the gasps…There are hundreds of ACAAN variations, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a professional card magician without at least one in his or her repertoire…For all their differences, every ACAAN has one feature in common: At some point, the magician touches the cards. The touch might be imperceptible, it might appear entirely innocent. But the cards are always touched. With one exception: David Berglas’s ACAAN. He would place the cards on a table and he didn’t handle them again until after the revelation and during the applause. There was no sleight of hand, no hint of shenanigans. It was both effortless and boggling.

…Further, over the years, a number of magicians have reported private, one-on-one performances of the Berglas Effect that left them stupefied. The magician and mentalist Barrie Richardson, for instance, described a 1977 visit to Mr. Berglas’s home in his book for magicians, “Theater of the Mind.” Asked for a card and a number, Mr. Richardson settled on the 7 of hearts and 42. After that: “He motioned me into his study and pointed to a deck of cards on his desk”, Mr. Richardson wrote. “When I counted down to the 42^nd card, I discovered the 7 of hearts. The experience was chilling!”…As the 2 neared the train, Mr. Cohen said that the next time they met, he’d love to see Mr. Berglas’s Any Card at Any Number. With the car parked, Mr. Berglas turned serious. Remember, he told Mr. Cohen, “that you were the one who initiated this—you asked me to show this to you.” He added that Mr. Cohen would remember what was about to happen for the rest of his life. It turned out that the 3 of diamonds, Mr. Cohen’s named card, was at the bottom of a deck that Mr. Cohen was asked to fish out of Mr. Berglas’s jacket, which was draped in the back seat. (Yes, it was the only deck in the jacket.)

…I ran these ideas by Aaron Fisher, a highly regarded American magician who did a commentary in July on his YouTube channel of an old live show by Mr. Berglas. Mr. Fisher said he didn’t know what to make of 43 either. But he noted that Mr. Berglas is not renowned for dazzling sleight of hand. “He messes with minds”, Mr. Fisher said, “not decks.” None of this resolved the stooge question.

Mr. Berglas may have a number of different methods, depending on the circumstances. [see “The Tuned Deck” & the Mechanical Turk] “He never knows what he’s going to do before he does it”, Richard Kaufman writes in The Berglas Effects—note the plural—a lengthy book for magicians that explains every card trick in the Berglas canon, with one very notable exception. The book suggests that Mr. Berglas is nothing if not a masterful improviser and a born gambler. What seems like a cohesive performance is actually a high-wire display of spontaneity with a heavy overlay of psychological manipulation. In hindsight, it seems likely that his anger was part of the show, a framing device. “I don’t need to prove myself” is just a different, more contentious version of “You’ll never forget what is going to happen next.”

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