🕳️ The Hole in Your Hand

The Hole in Your Hand Illusion for kids: the whole trick

You roll a sheet of paper into a tube and offer it to somebody like a telescope. They look through it with both eyes open and hold their other hand up beside it. They see a hole straight through their own palm. It's a level 1 apprentice trick for ages 5 to 9 (grades K–3rd), takes 1 minute to learn, and needs one thing you already have. Flick, the shop's rabbit, reads every step aloud with a picture, so a child can follow it alone.

The secret

Each of your eyes is sending your brain a different picture, and your brain tries to use both at once. One eye sees the view down the tube, the other sees a hand, and the two get stuck together.

What you need

• A sheet of paper

How to do it

1. Roll the paper into a tube about as wide as a coin and hold it shut.
2. Hold the tube up to your right eye, like a pirate's telescope.
3. Hold your left hand flat against the side of the tube, halfway along.
4. Keep both eyes open and look at something a long way off.
5. A hole appears in your palm. Now hand the tube over and let them try.

Magic words to say

“I've got a special power. I can put a hole right through your hand without hurting you at all. Want to see? Don't worry. It closes up afterwards.”

Pro tips

• This is the one trick where the audience does it to themselves, so let everyone have a go. The gasps come one at a time, which is lovely.
• It takes a few seconds to appear. Tell them to keep looking and not to blink hard.
• Learn it before a long journey. A rolled-up magazine works just as well as paper.

If something goes wrong

If somebody can't see it, they're probably shutting one eye. Say "both eyes, look past your hand", and nine times out of ten it arrives.

Safety notes

• No fire, no flames and nothing sharp in a child's hand anywhere in the Magic Shop. Nothing ever goes in a mouth, a nose or an ear.

The science behind the trick

Your eyes are a few centimetres apart, so they never see quite the same thing, and your brain normally blends the two pictures into one. Give it two pictures that can't be blended and it uses bits of each, which is how a hand ends up with a hole in it.

What kind of trick is this?

⭕ Penetration. Something passes through something solid. Almost every trick ever invented is one of eight kinds, and knowing which one you're watching is how magicians work out how a new trick is done.

The skill it teaches: Working with helpers. A helper should walk away feeling brilliant. Perform it and it counts towards the Paper Wizard badge.

Questions about the hole in your hand illusion

How many magic tricks are there?

Thousands. But almost every one of them is built from just eight ideas: making something vanish, making something appear, changing it, moving it, floating it, passing it through something solid, mending it, or knowing the answer in advance. Once you can spot the eight, you can see how any trick is put together.

What do I need to start doing magic?

Almost nothing. A deck of cards, a coin, a pencil, a rubber band, a paper cup and some paper will get you through dozens of tricks. A wand is fun and completely optional.

More from The Paper and String Drawer

• 📎 The Linking Paper Clips (level 1, 2 minutes)
• 🪢 The Instant Knot (level 1, 5 minutes)
• 🚪 Walk Through a Piece of Paper (level 2, 15 minutes)
• 🧻 The Torn and Restored Napkin (level 3, 2 to 4 days)
• All 80 magic tricks for kids, the easy ones by age, and how to put on a magic show