Magic has been synonomous with casting spells for generations. Take the Arthurian Legend for example - one of the key characters Merlin the Magician had the power to cast spells and is perhaps the most legendary ‘magical’ figure of all time.

If you fancy doing a card sleight, here’s a nice little card trick you can try called The Magic Spell. Basically, you reveal a chosen card by apparently casting a spell. Great fun.

If card sleights don’t appeal to you but you quite like the idea of delving more into the Arthurian Legend in music, there’s a unique symphonic rock album based on it. Called ‘The Earth In Turquoise‘ you can download mp3 samples by following the link.

Now here’s something REALLY interesting for card trick fans! The 2 famous magicians Penn & Teller have launched an iPhone application at the TechCrunch50 conference in San Francisco. It makes it possible for  iPhone users to perform card tricks and, as they do, convince everyone that they’re friends with the famous illusionists.

Essentially, you have your friend pick a card from a deck, then you give them your iPhone with the iphone app turned on. The app looks like your standard SMS text message interface, where they’re supposedly going texting back-and-forth with Penn & Teller to guess the card that they picked. There’s a lot of sarcastic, funny patter as the app asks questions about your card, then finally guesses the card.

What would Penn and Teller do at this point?: Collect any bets, then show your audience how the trick works. What your friend didn’t know was that as you were activating the app, you also entered the card’s suit and value. Penn & Teller’s app, despite making lots of noise pretending it was calculating a guess, already knew what your friend’s card was.

For more information go to Penn & Teller’s iPhone App page