In a pub/bar, on young, drinking age girls, that are playful and teasing ( and can be annoying ) it's a great trick. They scream and everyone laughs ( at elast they're friends do ). because they are with their peers, they never get mad.

It gets back to "know your audience".

It's one of the best effects ever created. I daresay, ingenious. It takes ashe in the palm and ignites with plutonium. KILLER EFFECT for the righ time and place!!!!

I purchqased the web, and was dimayed by the nebulous instructions..

They said that I should be very careful who I perform the effect for, and I take that to mean, do NOT perform this for someone with arachnophobia. Well then, how do I know if someone has the fear unless I ask them "Do you have arachnophiobia?" Well then, guess what? I've just blew my ending!

I find it quite paradoxical that the people who will have the strongest reactions are the ones whom I should not show it to, because their hair might turn white, and a heart attack could lay them at my feet, with their lawyer breathing down my neck! I can just see the headlines now. "Magician kills bystander with spider magic trick!" I'm not looking to be on the cover of the weekly world news.

and to boot, none other than the great Michael Ammar wrote that he performed this trick, and got such a horrible adverse reaction from someone with arachnophobia, that he never performed it again. Now my question is this. : If Michael Ammar can't pull this one off, then how in the world can you and I?

Someone please straighten me out here.

What you have to realise is: people with a spider phobia will have a violent reaction merely at the suggestion of a spider without any trick! Seriously you don't need a trick to scare the crap out of them just tell them there is one in the room.
They will scream cry in some cases before running out of the room like a lunatic.

If that's the case you have to wonder how good the trick is and if its just relying on a common phobia to get a reaction. If that's the case save your money and just go around scaring poor spider haters.

On the other hand I've cured many phobias including spiders and wouldn't want to exploit that reaction for entertainment. I once knew someone who at the slightest suggestion of a spider being in her house couldn't go back into it until her husband fully searched the premises. It drove him wild as he would get phone calls while at work asking him to come home to search the house.

I would keep away from such effects there are better ones around just my opinion. ( I haven't seen it performed).

Very well said! That was truly enlightening to realize that some people have such extereme phobias that the mere mention of the word sends them screaming.

There are also some effects available that deal with fire in a close-up situation, and now I'm starting to rethink that matter, because it's possible that I could run into someone with pyrophobia. Sounds silly, I know, but the possibility is real. I just wonder how much thought was given to this matter by the people who create these effects?

Good point! That's why I'm very careful for who and what magic I perform. Here's my list of magic I won't do anymore:

Acerophobia- Fear of sourness- I never perform bill in lemon because of this.

Decidophobia- Fear of making decisions. - I never use equivoque because of this.

Belonephobia- Fear of pins and needles.I never perform needle through arm because of this.

Agyrophobia- Fear of streets or crossing the street. I never perform Mike Close's Pothole Trick because of this.

Chrometophobia or Chrematophobia- Fear of money. I never perform the bill switch because of this.

Anablephobia- Fear of looking up. I never perform Card on the ceiling because of this.

Doraphobia- Fear of fur or skins of animals. I never perform Rocky Raccoon because of this.

Geliophobia- Fear of laughter. I never perform comedy magic because of this.

Aphenphosmphobia- Fear of being touched-I never perform ashes in palm because of this.

Linonophobia- Fear of string. I never perform gypsy thread because of this.

Essentially I've stopped performing magic altogether. I can't take a chance I might meet someone with a phobia!

MagicChris,

That is the most sensible post I've read so far on this thread (apologies if you are linonophobic!).

You are a genius...

Scott

Thanks, Scott! Just a little tongue 'n cheeck to show we can all get carried away worrying, when there is no need to.

"woory is a dividend paid to disaster before it is due"
........Old Japanese proverb.

After all the post I've read of yours, that has got to be my favorite.


I applaud you MagicChris!

MagicChris,

My sides hurt from laughing...hoo boy, did you ever hit it spot on! Ha! (Copy-paste...) Gotta keep that one for future reference (may I quote you from time to time?)!

Doug

Thanks MacGyver and Dougini! Yes, feel free to quote me.

I hope daffydoug takes it in the good spirit in which it was meant!

Chris

MagicChris, for a second there, I thought your post was serious! I thought, "Man, this guy is a wimp!" Good one! You got me!

hahaha. I thought if I put 3, you guys would think I cracked up. A hundred took up too much of Steve's band width, so I settled on the few that would leave me no magic to perform;-)

Chris,

I found your post on the phobia list jocular beyond all limits! I found myself laughing harder than I have all week. (If you knew what a week this has been for me, you would understand what I'm saying, but I don't need to go into the atrocious details. suffice it to say that it provided a much needed moment of humor for me in what has been a very serious and laughless week.

But you forgot these:Spectrophobia (fear of mirrors) Don't perform the flexible mirror, or any effect where you pull an object out of a mirror or penetrate a mirror, or God forbid the unthinkable Walking through a mirror!
Aerophobia (Fear of air) No levitations, no suspensions, and definitely no blowing up baloons!
Hematophobia (Fear of blood) No knife or needle through the arm!
Mastophobia (fear of breasts) sorry guys, but the sucker bra effect is out!
Ichthyophobia(fear of fish) That does it for any gold fish effects, or any other fish production!
Phasmophobia(fear of ghosts) Well that leaves out about a gazillion tricks with a ghost or spirit theme!
Chromophobia(fear of colors) Leave your kiddie effects involving coloring crayons, or magically coloring pictures in the drawer!
Megalophobia(fear of large things) Well, all our stage illusions go down the crapper with this one!
Belonophobia(fear of needles) Shoot! I loved my super needled baloon! And to boot, you mean I can't swallow them and regurgitate them anymore?!
Chionophobia(fear of snow) Need I say?
Phonophobia(fear of speaking out loud) Oh well, I always wanted to do a mime act.
Graphophobia(fear of writing) Time to trash our nail writers
And last but not least-Arachibutyrophobia (fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of one's mouth) And I spent so much time perfecting my routine for Tim Wenk's P.B.& J.
I could name a few more off the top of my head, but I'm AFRAID to continue.. Let's see now, fear of continuing.....

Good man daffydoug!! I knew you'd take it in all fun!!!

Chris

OH yeah! The old Dougster sense of humor comes shining through again!

I have had this effect for a little over a year now, and the select few times when I do this I get great reactions. For the same reasons as mentioned before, I am careful who I perform for. If I wish to do this trick, I am extra careful to read the specator and find out what kind of person they are. Although I have never tried this yet, perhaps as you show the webbed cards, you can casually ask them, "spider webs doesn't scare you, do they?" or something like that. If they are truely terrified of spiders, I would bet they say so right then an there. Of course, at this point, they have a spider on their hand. This is obviously a bad situation. I am curious what you guys think of this, and any suggestions to get out of this "mess"

Mann, give jim a break...we all dislike certain tricks..and we all love certain tricks...so if you do not like the web then don't buy it or stop performing it if you bought it...i thought it's a very good ice breaker and funny trick when I saw the demo at penguin...though the 'magic' is not that great in my opinion, it certainly has a cool and funny ending...if I have this trick, I'll use it more to as a prank or a joke..but I'll still love it..

Ha! Alien Autopsy is "out there" too...LOVE that one, but another one that's not for everyone...one lady I did that in front of, never wants to see me do a trick again...Ha! She still says, "Ewwwww", every time it's brought up...

Price ya pays, fa' bein' different!

Doug

Hey there, if I may chime in here. I had a very nice routine that I used to market called I.Y.Q. It was The Web.. but done with pictures of clowns each holding a sign that read IYQ ( I like you in clown talk ), and there were only three cards. The pictures actually seem to animate as the clowns faces went from a smug look to startled when counted into the hand of a spectator. Anyway, long story short my friend Steve Pennington came out with Caterpiller Love with my approval. And then I did not feel that it was time for me to go full force into marketing IYQ.
It has been six years now and I think that it may be time to try this out.
Jim Pace

I think so, Jim!

Let me know! Caterpiller Love is a bit hard to find, but I.Y.Q. sounds like a winner!

Doug