I had the great honor of entertaining Yogi Bhajan on his 70th birthday!
Harbhajan Singh Khalsa, born as Harbhajan Singh Puri and also known as Yogi Bhajan and Siri Singh Sahib to his followers, was a Yogi, spiritual teacher, and entrepreneur. He introduced his version of Kundalini Yoga to the United States. He was the spiritual director of the 3HO (Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization) Foundation https://www.3ho.org/ with over 300 centers in 35 countries.
A Rising Card
Yogi Bhajan’s birthday celebration was at the end of a seminar he held near Orlando, Florida. As a Magician & Mentalist in Miami, it was a fun trip North, filled with anticipation, as I had studied Kundalini and was excited to meet the master!
One of the highlights of the evening was when I performed the Rising Card with him. It is fitting that Yogi Bhajan introduced Kundalini Yoga to the U.S. and that my version of the Rising Card is distilled from Jeff McBride’s original, called “Kundalini Rising“!
Even though I knew of the Rising Card effect before meeting Jeff, it was his innovation to take the deck out of the hands of the Magi and to put it into the spectators’. Jeff generously shared that with me and I’ve been performing it that way ever since https://www.magicbymio.com/videos/ (Magic on South Beach).
In the ancient Kundalini practice, the rising serpent energy is the culmination of the alignment of the chakras and reveals the latent power within oneself. When I perform the Rising Card effect, I encourage my volunteer to unleash their own inner power and I give them full credit for the ensuing levitation!
So, Getting Back To Yogi Bhajan’s Birthday Celebration…
I asked Yogi Bhajan to select any card and to show it to the crowd, then put it back into the center of the deck. I put the deck into an empty box (that had been verified to be empty by another audience member) and handed it to Yogi Bhajan, smiling, and asked,
“Yogi Bhajan, have you ever levitated?”
Laughter drowned out his response! I asked again and Yogi Bhajan answered, “Of course“ which was followed by more laughter!
In a few moments, when the card did actually rise out of Yogi Bhajan’s hand as he sat there upon his pillows, the ensuing pandemonium was electric!
I continued my performance with my Signed Card routine, impossibly pulling Yogi Bhajan’s signed card from a sealed envelope in a zippered compartment of my wallet, only to have it fly up and stick to the rafters high above the crowd!
The picture I’m holding is a Polaroid of Yogi Bhajan with the card he selected which first disappeared, then subsequently appeared when the photo developed right before everyone’s eyes!
Mio’s Mind Melding Mirror
Today, 19 years later, my new TV Program, Life Is Magic, aired on PBS on January 5th, 2019. https://www.magicbymio.com/mio-hosts-tv-show-30-second-promo/ One of my favorite Extraordinary Moments was performing a variation of this effect in a Close-Up Magic set. Using a volunteer’s cell phone, I take their picture, and a card that they simply thought of instantly appears on a Mind Melding Mirror that they are holding! It’s an image captured forever by their own cell phone camera!