Too Good To Be True

My friend, Dr Lennart Green is from Sweden. He is a physician turned professional magician. His expertise is with playing cards. When he was younger, and doing the late shift at the hospital, he used to amuse himself with card magic. He learnt some basic card moves from only one magic book – that was it. What spewed forth from his fertile and creative mind was unorthodox, original and impressive.

Every three years, the international magic community organizes FISM – the equivalent of the Olympics of magic. In 1985, he was disqualified despite a dazzling performance. Stumped by his amazing performance, the judges incorrectly concluded that the spectators who helped shuffle his cards were stooges. The gentleman he was, he did not create a fuss. Six years later, he won the competition (in the Close Up Card Magic category) hands-down, and tossed the deck to the judges to inspect. He has not looked back ever since.

Described as the uncle who asks you to ‘pick a card’, Lennart can create near-miracles from his, apparently, clumsy handling of the cards. He talks about chaos theory, fractals and statistics and the deck re-orders itself. His Laser Deal is bizarre, as dealt cards vanish instantly in the beam of light.

Here is a lecture he did for the TED network. TED is an annual symposium for Technology, Entertainment and Design. Enjoy!