| Biography | David Berglas is a British magician and mentalist of German-Jewish descent. His secret technique of locating a particular card within a pack has been described as the Holy Grail of card magic. He was one of the first magicians to appear on UK television.
Berglas was educated in several different European countries. He is German-Jewish, and escaped to Britain from Nazi Germany, aged 11. Keen to be part of the war, he discovered that the American Army was urgently looking for suitable recruits for an important role in the denazification of Germany. They had to have some previous military training and to be able to pass strict physical and mental tests. Most importantly they had to speak two languages besides English, one of which had to be fluent German. The required minimum age was 21. Berglas explained that he was only 19 but could meet all the other qualifications. He was accepted into the Intelligence Service of the US Army, serving an 'adventure filled' 18 months at the end of WWII.
In the 1950s, Berglas created what is now referred to as the "Holy Grail" of card magic, known as "The Berglas Effect",[6] in which a magician appears to allow someone to freely name any playing card and freely select any position in a deck ("any card at any number"), and the specified card is found at the specified position in a random deck. The effect was first named "The Berglas Effect" by Jon Racherbaumer in his 1984 book At The Table. |