A good magician should be able to cause inanimate objects to move by themselves. This magic trick will teach you to do this and it looks very spooky when people are watching it.

How It Looks To The Audience

The magician ties a knot in a silk handkerchief and holds the handkerchief by one corner, in front of him. He then wiggles his fingers at the handkerchief. To everyone’s amazement, slowly and spookily, the handkerchief unties itself!

How The Trick is Done

For this trick you will need a thin silk scarf or handkerchief about eighteen inches square. You will also need about five feet of fine, silk thread, which you can get from any sewing shop. Sewing shops also sell a thread called invisible thread, which is also ideal.

Tie one end of the thread to one corner of the handkerchief. If you are wearing dark clothes, this will not be noticeable. The thread will remain invisible as long as it is in front of a dark background and you are not too close to the audience.

Begin the trick by holding one corner of the handkerchief in each hand. Your right hand should hold the corner with the thread attached. Stretch out the handkerchief horizontally and about waist level.

Twirl the handkerchief between your hands a few times to roll it up like a rope. As you are doing this, move your right foot over the free end of the thread.

If you cannot see it, then just put your foot where you think it is and then raise your right hand slightly until you feel tension from the thread. If you have missed it, you can give yourself time to find it by twirling the handkerchief again.

Once you have your right foot on the thread, bring the right end of the handkerchief up and tie a loose single knot in the handkerchief. Then let go the right end of the handkerchief with your right hand.

When you have finished, you should be holding the left end of the handkerchief in your left hand and the end with the thread attached should be hanging freely – pointing towards the floor. The thread now runs through the knot and runs all the way down to your foot.

Now wiggle your right fingers at the handkerchief and at the same time,  slowly raise your left arm. The bottom corner of the handkerchief will start to spookily, rise up and go back through the knot. If you keep up a slow steady pressure on the thread, the handkerchief will untie itself.

If you perform it slowly and correctly no one will notice your left arm slowly rising. Also, by wiggling the fingers of your right hand, you will divert attention away from your arm movement.

After you have finished the trick, you can just roll up the handkerchief (and the thread with it) and place it in your pocket. If you wish to let the audience examine the handkerchief, then you will need to secretly break off the thread and let it fall to the floor. No one will ever notice it.