Because magic is always an illusion which, if the illusion is revealed, becomes just deceit, magicians will almost always refuse to reveal the magic trick secret. In fact, the Magician's Oath swears them to reveal their trick secret only in the course of teaching it to another magician. Even then, some magicians-usually the great ones died with some secrets unrevealed.

It is even more difficult to maintain a secret when there are more people in the know. Sooner or later, someone will give away a portion of the secret and that's usually enough for the concept to become general knowledge.

There are situations where the magician uses a person who is not sworn in order to be able to complete an illusion, such as a celebrity assistant. This makes the illusion even more difficult to maintain, because the celebrity must either be brought in on the secret or must be sucked into the illusion with all its wonderment as well.

When a magician demonstrates a trick, then shows how it was done, and repeats it successfully and does not use the secret he's just disclosed is when an illusion is most effective.

There are devices sold in magic shops that purportedly help to create an illusion, but somehow this seems like cheating to find it necessary to use special equipment. The most effective use of the illusion is one which does not have special equipment, does not require a partner secret or otherwise.

An example of a trick of this sort is a dice trick. You ask a audience member to roll a set of dice and add the two numbers together. Then you pick up the dice, or have the audience member pick up the dice and add those two numbers together. Finally, you add the two results numbers together. Then you hand a deck of cards to the person and ask them to count down the total of cards just calculated by the dice and turn the final card face up. You then open a sealed, pre-prepared envelope containing a piece of paper which will contain the words "I predict that you will select the _______" The card just turned face up will match the prediction.

This trick will amaze the viewers in the audience, but it's quite simple to accomplish. You will need to do two things to prepare. First, on a piece of paper, write the words "I predict that you will select the ____". You could use any card for this; for example, the nine of clubs. Place the piece of paper in the envelope, seal it and write PREDICTION on the outside. Next, place the nine of clubs card in the 14th position in the deck of cards and place it back into the box.

The secret to this trick that most people are unaware of is that the total of the top and bottom die faces is always 7. Therefore, the sum which will be arrived at by adding the die faces on the top and the bottom of a set of dice will always be 14.

So with a slight bit of pre-planning, you will have a simple trick which doesn't require an assistant or special equipment. Of course, this trick couldn't be repeated easily with the same audience. Sooner or later they would realize that the total of the dice top and bottom numbers was always 14.