Effect:

The mysterious bank-line-stander-inner is nimbly rolling his last silver dollar (about to be deposited) from knuckle to knuckle, hand to hand when suddenly he is accosted by a nearby observer. “You must be magic . . . show me something,” she says. Mr. Mystery quickly yet smoothly hands a lighter to Ms. Curious as he also removes a balled up piece of paper from his pocket. Mr. asks Ms. to light the paper on fire while Mr. pinches it between his left thumb and finger.

The paper bursts into flames! As the flash of fire appears, Mystery risks it all and plunges his right index finger into the fireball. The flame is gone, and nothing but a cut little origami hat on the tip of his right finger remains.

Ms. Curious faints but not before she coughs out one last statement . . . “you made magical origami with fire.” You nod knowingly and step over her limp body getting you once step closer to the bank teller and one step farther from your last silver dollar.

Method:

I guess I could have just said, “a piece of tissue paper magically origami’s itself in a flash of fire.” But where’s the fun in that. I’m guessing you’ve already figured out the method. You just need some tissue paper, flash paper, a lighter and the ability to make an origami hat. There’s a link at the end of this article to an excellent site that teaches various origami folds.

Other than that, the prep is simple. Make a small origami hat from a piece of tissue paper that’s roughly the size of the piece of flash paper you’ll be using. You want it to fit nicely on top of your index finger. Have a lighter and a balled up piece of flash paper in your pocket.

When the moment’s right, hand the lighter to the spectator. Reach into your pocket and secretly palm the hat as you bring out the balled up paper. Place the balled up flash paper on your open left palm to display it while secretly hiding the hat in your left hand (finger palm-ish). Reposition it at the finger and thumb tips of your left hand. Make sure the ball of paper has a little tail that you can hold like the image below.

Ask the spectator to strike and hold the lighter. As you warn her that you’re about to burn the paper at your finger tips, your right hand relaxes and maneuvers its hat into position. Then bring the balled up flash paper near the flame (making sure she extends her arm far from her body – the flame may panic her) to the lighter. As it burst into flames, plunge your right index finger in a pointing gesture right into the flame. Let the moment sink in.

Afterthoughts:

Obviously, a bank may not be the best place to create a fireball, so use good judgement. Also, if you think you’ll be in a position to do this a few times, simply have a bunch of balled up wads of flash paper in one pocket. Then have the lighter in another pocket that is full of mini hats (in case you want to give them away). You’ll have to change the handling slightly since the flash paper and hats are in two different pockets, but it’s easy enough to steal the hat when getting the lighter.

Further, keep in mind that this is simply a way to be ready to “show me something” on command in a setting where you’re out in public not really planning to do a show. Again, read this month’s article, K.I.S.S. for a better understanding of the situation you might use this. But, that doesn’t mean that you can’t do this in other settings and in other ways, so take a peek at the variations to follow.

Variation 1 – Phoenix

Rather than have the hat appear on your finger, it can be at your finger tips so that it looks like you reached into the flame and plucked out an origami creature. Keep in mind that you don’t have to do a hat. It could be anything. Consider making a bird. Then you’ve got some presentational possibilities centering around the “phoenix rising again.”

Start with an origami bird made from flash paper and introduce it as a Phoenix. Most people are familiar with the “Phoenix rising from the ashes” concept. If you’re not, Google it. Next, Squish the bird; crumple it up. Then as you burn it, you say that the Phoenix always rises from the ashes. You then pluck the revived bird from the ball of fire.

Further, you don’t have to pluck it from the flame. You could have one regular bird hidden behind the one your crumpled up. Then as you light it, the flash paper one vanishes leaving only the bird.

Finally, another option related to this would be closer to the original effect above. Have a pre-folded origami beast at the ready. Then rather than crumpling up a ball of flash paper, have one that you’ve previously crumbled up really tight, but then reopened. This allows you to have a piece of flash paper that’s basically opened flat (with a lot of crinkles in it). This helps the flash paper burn a little faster so you don’t burn yourself. An open piece of flash paper that has not been pre-crinkled might burn to slowly and/or burn you. You can then hide your secret origami beast behind the flash paper.

Holding the secret beast behind the paper, you appear to be holding a the corner of a piece of wrinkly tissue paper with your pinched index and thumb. Of course also pinched in the index and thumb is the secret beast. Thus when you light the paper, the flash paper vanishes, and the beast remains. It’s much more visual than some of the other techniques.

Variation 2 – Flash and Bones

When I ran this idea by Jay Sankey, he offered this fun idea. Keep in mind that this would not be for those “show me something” standing in line at the bank moments. This would be more of a show piece. It’s a combination of mentalism and magic.

You have prepared 10 or 12 flash cards with different origami animals on them. The spectator then thinks of one of the shapes, and you magically create it using any of the previously mentioned methods.

Obviously, you can simply force the shape you want. However if you want to allow a free choice, you could have a small origami index in your pocket to cover the outs. I highly recommend the INDEX-terity system by George Parker. You can purchase it at The Theory and Art of Magic Website.

Finally, if you’re going to have them think of one, you’ll have to secretly gain the information. There are many ways (CT, Peek, Fishing, Progressive Anagrams, etc.). That solution is for you to decide and certainly beyond the scope here.

Variation 3 – Cold Climate Birdies

This one involves one of my favorite things in the world, a Frixion Pen. Basically, you draw a picture of a bird on the back of your business card. You tell your spectator that this bird is different from most. He doesn’t fly south for the winter. He prefers the colder climates.

As you say this, place a balled up piece of flash paper on top of the drawing of the bird. You then light the flash paper and reach into the flame producing a real origami bird. You do this as you deliver a script along this line: “if the bird gets too hot, he comes out of hibernation and flies away.” The heat from the flash paper is enough to make the Frixion drawing vanish, so you’re left with a blank business card and a paper origami bird.

Here’s the best part, however. You tell the spectator to take the business card home and that if they put it in their freezer (a cooler climate), the bird will find it’s way home. Of course, the cold of the freezer causes the Frixion drawing to reappear. Beautiful. To take it a little bit further, start by writing a message like “Thank you for helping me find my way home” or something along those lines. Before you leave your house, write this message on your business card. Make sure you leave enough room to draw the bird.

Now vanish the ink with hit or the eraser that comes with the pen. Then draw the bird on the card with the Frixion pen, making sure to draw it so that it is not covering the place where the vanished message was written. Now you’re left with a secretly hidden message on the card and a bird drawn on the card. This is all done before you leave the house.

Once you’re ready to perform, do the routine as described earlier. However, when they put the business card in their freezer, not only will the bird reappear, but the previously hidden message will also appear. As you hand them the card explaining that the bird will come back if the card is placed in a cooler climate, leave them with this statement, “Call me if he comes back.” They will.

Finally, in this particular variation, you don’t actually have to use origami at all. You can use a very small toy bird. If it’s small enough, you can secretly wrap it in the flash paper ahead of time. Then when you place the wad of flash paper on top of the drawing of the bird and light it, the flash paper will vanish, and the little birdie will be standing there on the blank business card.

You then hand out the business card explaining the whole “colder climate” thing. You then put the bird in your pocket and tell them not to wait too long to put the card in the freezer because the bird will get too hot in my pocket. Once you put the card in the freezer, he’ll vanish from my pocket and reappear on the card and go back to hibernating.

One last thing . . . you could also openly vanish the bird after you hand out the blank business card. Tell them that the bird flew away seeking a colder climate. Hopefully you (the spectator) will get the card in the freezer before he finds some other cold climate to settle down in.

Resources:

• Excellent site for learning simple origami
• Review of INDEX-terity
• Purchase INDEX-terity
• Everything You Need to Know About Frixion Pen Magic
• Related Article: K.I.S.S.