magician

  6. As Isaac Asimov said, “The true delight is in the finding out, than in the knowing.”
  7. I would argue that the desire to find out, the
    8. desire
  8. to know, ends in disenchantment. It’s like chasing a rainbow and never finding a pot of gold.
  9. This desire is based on a discomfort with ignorance that can make a person jump to conclusions, “it’s up his sleeves,” “it’s a trick of the light,” “I must not have been paying attention,” “it’s smoke and mirrors.”
  10. Those incorrect conclusions are innocuous enough, but the urgent compulsion to know will haunt you regardless of how much knowledge you acquire.
    The alternative is to embrace ignorance. I must accept I’m a human, and only a human, and I’ll never know all the secret knowledge there is to know. It isn’t profitable to strive after gathering more and more secrets.

    Just be okay with not knowing as you go along for the ride.
    Now I’ve given my advice against reading further, I’m going to outline the two simple ways that will help you if you find you cannot follow the above recommendation (the recommendation to give up now while you still can).

    On the other hand, I predict my recommendation will not work on you. Curiosity is inborn and for all I know can neither be cultivated nor extinguished.

    Here goes…

    Secret #1

    The simplest method is to cover your ears. Next time you
    watch Fool Us
    Dynamo

    I muted the television. Have you ever watched the news with the television on mute? I have.

    The anchor looks ridiculous when you do this. The same effect can be had when muting the magician. Again, this applies to tricks depending on misdirection and not tricks depending on technical skill or optical illusions (many of the best tricks depend on both). By technical skill I am referring to manual dexterity, and by misdirection I’m referring to the magician’s ability to direct your attention away from what is important and compel your attention towards that which is unimportant. There are many effects which depend solely on misdirection (such as the popular one where the mentalist touches one person and another person feels the touch as if there were a ghost in the room), and many others that depend solely on technical skill. In the best magicians, both skills have been mastered (though there are many “practicing” magicians who focus on one or the other). Muting the magician is the first secret and is a useful one. Conversely, listening to the audio without watching the magician is useful. Either one focalizes each sense and heightens your awareness. You will discover things you missed. One of my other passions (which I have since subjugated to magic) is art. My skill is in replicating what I see. See some of Jon Finch’s portraits here. Most people find it challenging to draw a face, even any part of the face—a nose, an eye, a mouth. Some artists who can draw portraits cannot draw their own face. An artist came to me with this problem. Why can she not draw her own face? The answer is It is attached to her and she is attached to it. She sees it in the mirror every day. She feels proud of one part but fixates on another part about which she feels insecure. There is much meaning in the face (this is true for hands). In drawing a face, the first secret is mental. You must focus on the lines only. Or the shadows only. Imagine the face is a black and white image. Now you are undistracted by all the confusing colors. Do not see “a nose.” See the shadows.
    Secret #2
    The second secret to drawing a face is sounds much more difficult than it is. If you are drawing from a photo of a face, flip the photo upside-down. Now you are looking at… A meaningless image. The face you draw when you are drawing it upside-down will look much better than the face you drew when you were drawing it right-side up. I promise.
    This is similar to muting a magician (or listening to the miracle man without watching). You shut off a part of your senses, and it paradoxically opens you to more information.
    HoudiniThe second secret to discerning the
    magic method to an effect

    is related to the first but is more difficult to articulate because it is mental.
    When a magician does something or says something (sometimes even a single word,the word choice, can make for strong magic) seemingly unimportant, that can in fact be the most important thing of all. Sometimes it happens in milliseconds, it’s impossible to notice unless you watch him with earplugs in your ears.
    When a layperson witnesses a magician levitate. The burning question arises, “How did he float?” This, though, is an unhelpful question.

    All answers to this question will be false answers. I realize it is difficult to find the right question when that first question that popped into your mind, “How did he float?” echos incessantly. But you have to ask a question.
    The above question carries with it the assumption that the illusionist did

    what he presented to do. But he is an illusionist. Remember that card trick he did?
    • That was charming, but
      • that
    • wasn’t real magic.
    • If he is this miracle man who can float, float, then why is he punctuating his life with clever card tricks?
    • Ask yourself,
      • If I discovered I could levitate for real, would I waste my time learning a neat card trick?
      • If this magician, after mastering card magic, had somehow stumbled upon the secret to levitation along his route while reading books on card magic in the library, would he keep those card tricks in his act or discard them?

    Probably he would discard them, perhaps with regret—but people would constantly ask him to do the levitation (that’s why I never start my set with any levitation and I rarely do it at all these days—the spectators can’t focus during the remainder of the performance).

    what is the right question? 

    The right question assumes the truth, not the illusion.
    But what truth can you know if you don’t already know the secret?

    You know without a powerful superconductor, even a human-sized magnet cannot float a finger ring a foot in the air (or if you didn’t before, now you do). You know the object or the magician is suspended in the air without any cables, strings, or bed beneath him.Wait a minute! Take a step back. There. How do you know this? Because it is obvious. There are no cables, strings, stepping stool, or bed beneath him. You know this because you have seen beds beneath people, you’ve seen string, you’ve seen cable, you’ve seen a stepping stool. You might then conclude It is magnets or static electricity. But comforting as those explanations are to the earnest seeker, they fall flat. You’ve seen how big a magnet needs to be to reach across space even half a foot. The magician was not by any table and didn’t have any impressions in his clothing indicating a cinder-block-sized magnet. Neither can static electricity explain an object (let alone the magician himself) floating a foot in the air. Even if it could, you then have the problem of how the magician is summoning this electricity. With our customersThe question you need to ask is not, “How did he levitate?” Which had a great time! Instead, the question you need to ask is, “How did he make me blind to the supports?” or “How does he render the cables invisible?” Thank you!” – Stephanie Gordon Get inside the head of the magician. He no longer think. “ How can I levitate? ” but “ How can I make it obvious there are no strings? ” magicians suit what does a magician wear

    Held at our house for 100 people.

    He was
    outstanding

    !
    We were looking for someone

    Who would casually work the crowd

    But not demand a stage
    Kind of performance,

    More in the background
    And Jon was perfect and

    so entertaining

    !

    The
    feedback we received was so positive

    and people were blown away at how fun,

    Professional and talented he is.
    Jon was on time, stayed way later than we expected (bonus!) and did a great job of mingling and engaging the crowd. We would hire him for another party! – Stacy Purcell