The Worlds Greatest Magic

Fists of Frost - Michael Ammar

Early in my magic career I became fascinated by stories of Max Malini, such as how he would produce a block of ice in some impossible situation. So I played around with several different effects with ice, a couple of which revealed selected cards. In one effect, the card box was found filled with a block of ice which had the selected card frozen in the middle. Another effect found the folded selection frozen into an ice cube.

Then I heard about Winston Freer, who would pour water into his fist, and then follow that by sticking a thermometer in, as well. Apparently, you would see the temperature dropping, and when he opened his hand, you would find the thermometer frozen in the center of an ice cube. I loved hearing about this, because there was a discrepancy in the Winston Freer effect which I ran into during my Card Cubes phase. Which is this…

When water freezes, it will conform to the shape of the vessel it’s in. So when ice appears in the shape of a cube, then it must have been in a cube when it froze. Which by default means the water did not freeze while it was in your hand, or the ice would be shaped like the inside of your fist.

This problem rolled around in my head for almost 20 years before I came up with a solution. I finally figured out a way to freeze the ice in the same shape it would be if it really did freeze inside your closed fist! Look closely enough and you can almost see fingerprints in the ice!

Sure, this isn’t the kind of effect you want to perform while table hopping, unless you’re hopping on some really nice tables. But find the right time and place and you will have a miracle!

Found on ETM Card Miracles Vol. 9