This is a method, based on a well-disguised mathematical principle, for having a spectator unknowingly place cards at specific locations in the deck while he freely cuts the cards into several packets and then assembles the deck. The principle was first conceived and described in a manuscript by John P. Hamilton, “The Eyes of the Gods”, marketed in 1948 by Max Holden. This manuscript was reprinted in the August 1970 issue of Pallbearers Review (Vol. 5 No,. 10, pp. 351 and 356).

Some years later, Gene Finnell independently reinvented the principle and applied it to a spelling location, “Spelling the Aces”, which he sold in 1967 as a one-trick manuscript. He quickly followed this up by publishing several more applications in a booklet titled Gene Finnell's Free Cut Principle (also 1967).