Good points George.

or, we present a false premise, (which the audience is capable of conceptualizing), followed by a series of convincing though flawed experimental controls. The only explanation possible is the false premise, and we have magic instead of confusion or mere surprise.

Both of these thoughts are excellent examples of food for thought. But Michael, what would a good example of a false premise be? If my false premise is not magical, but scientific, I still end up looking more like a skilled engineer than a magician. Or am I missing something in your point here?

Jeff

Perhaps, false and impossibly absurd premise, would be more accurate and help with this distinction. Yes, it would require "magic" to occur -- something that is known to not exist. If I succeed in convincing them only that I have invented something truly marvelous, I have failed as a performer. As surely as if I had convinced them that "magic" actually exists and I can do it.

I can accept this up to a point, and I can certainly understand how such an approach would work in a talking act such as close-up. Whit has mentioned it several times.

However, what I find hard to grasp is how this approach would work in a non-talking act (i.e., stage manipulation), or in a stage illusion without turning it into a gadget demonstration. Not saying it can't be done... just saying I can't recall seeing it done and just can't picture how it would be done.

Selling snake oil is also an example of proffering a product under a false premise where the pitch is accompanied by false witness and specious arguments...

Okay is that magic and if not how is magic different?

or as surely as if I had merely convinced them the snake oil really works.

Magic is a very special place between reality and dreams. A world where enchantment still rules and the laws of time and life are briefly suspended. Through sleight of hand, Magic is a moment of fakery, but "Real" fakery, and before you know it, that little timeless moment is over and you are back into the reality of the Impossible. A simulation of the unreal that prevents us from realizing that the real can no longer be found anywhere but in that very special place we call Magic. Why else would the audience part with the money that they do?

Randini - how do you find that place? And how do you lead others to that place?

Exactly.

That's what Magic is. Right there.

Hi Jonathan - I don't think you really find that place, rather, it finds you!

Magic comes from our childlike qualities and this is one reason that children are most often more magical than their adult counterparts because they have yet to lose their faith in their surroundings and in humanity as a whole.

Remember the first Magic book you ever read? What was the spark found within those very pages that ignited the passion you have for the Magical Arts? True Magic can only be found within!

You don't lead someone to Magic, you take them on a journey... They find the Magic along the way through that very passion that started you on that journey!

You take them to that private place within, through your performance that's filled with Magic, special thoughts, that place of mystery, the Impossible made possible, if only for a brief moment. You need not travel far to find the Magic... but once found, it's a wonderful journey that lasts a lifetime.

That special place between reality and dreams has always been there... The performer (You) awakens that reality.

The first magic book I ever read was at a friend's house, where we were playing with that old thing about turning matchsticks into a star with a drop of water. Then I went to the library and found Joseph Leeming's Fun With Magic.

But you're right. There was something there, in making something impossible appear real, that grabbed me. To this day I don't have a clue whether it was the magic itself or the idea that doing it would get me attention, but it did fascinate me.

Unfortunately, after a couple of years, when I became "serious" about magic, that initial fascination did fade away as I started analyzing it and making sense out of it. It was still a lot of fun (and to this day I think it's the most creatively challenging thing I've ever done), but that initial sense of discovering a new world, of "Gee whiz, I never knew this all existed," was gone.

And I hope it comes back.

Magic to me is like a “Fairy Tale”. You know it is not real, but you yearn for it to be. You would like to find that “pot of gold” at the end of the rainbow, but deep down you know you will not. Would it not be great to fly like Peter Pan and venture into “Never Never Land”. “All you need is faith and trust...and a little bit of pixie dust” –Peter Pan.
My point is sometimes these discussions seem to leave behind the point that we are entertainers. We are here to amaze and amuse people. Not to convince them that we have “powers”. I remember the first magic trick I purchased was a paddle trick with a straight and wavy arrow. The demonstrator showed straight arrows on both sides, waved the paddle and the arrows were wavy on both sides. The demonstrator then ran his thumb over the wavy arrow and a “miracle” it was straight again. I plunked down my quarter so fast my head was swimming. That’s right 25 cents. An Adams paddle was a quarter in 1950! I grabbed the paddle and ran man thumb over the wavy arrow, but nothing happened. Then the demonstrator said “here kid, let me show you how you do the trick”.
Ah, the key words “the trick”. My point is, I doubt if that demonstrator had any inkling of the “psychology” behind what he was doing. Thank God he didn’t, because if he did chances are I would not have ended up spending my life in the wonderful world of magic.

I like what you wrote MichaelMagicArt.

It would help us as a group of you (or we) sifted out the components you described and put them into fully described context (well formed sentences without deletions).

For example, is magic more like how you feel when reading a Fairy tale - or more like how you feel when remembering a fairy tale? Are there specific fairy tales which bring you to that feeling more than others? Would you describe what parts of those tales do that for you?

*This is about something called elicitation - gotta play real nice if you want to learn about this side of people's inner worlds.

What is Magic?

It's what pays my bills.

Thanks, Jon. You have elicited this from me:

I made a coin vanish for my two year old grandaughter, Carmen.

She was "stupefied," much like the chimpanzees.

She stared in surprise and disbelief, and with a touch of concern.

She did not know anything of magic or magicians, but she knew enough about the persistance of objects to know that coins don't just vanish. They have to be some place.

When I pulled it out of her ear, she was startled and somewhat relieved to know that the coin had not just "ceased to exist."

Now she began to focus her brain on the problem.

Grandpa had made it happen. Maybe he could do something really wonderful and useful that was new to her.

"Again," she demanded.

The coin vanished and again it came from her ear.

"This just isn't right," she seemed to think and she looked at me skeptically. "Again!"

She seemed more and more frustrated as she looked around to see where the coin could have "gone."

"Again!"

(Two year olds are relentless and heartless taskmasters as anyone who knows one can tell you.)

After about ten "vanishes," she suddenly reached out and grabbed my right hand and turned it over.

There was the coin!

She cracked up and rolled on the floor laughing.

Reality was restored! She wasn't wrong about the way the world worked, Grandaddy was some kind of trickster playing a game on her!

I think the educational leap she made was deeper and broader than most people realize. She now knew that kindly, loving grandpa can't always be completely trusted, he might be "pulling your leg."

Next time something strange happens when grandpa is around, she might be a little more suspicious and look at him for the real causative agent.

She learned that sometimes you get information that doesn't fit with what you have learned or surmised on your own, and that you might have to "check yourself" and be sure that what you know is right, or you might find that everything you know is right, and the "phenomena" is not what it appears to be--there may be someone or something pulling your leg.

This she learned from the process, not from any educational intent on my part. I was just having fun and screwing with her head.

She is too naive and innocent to imagine someone tricking her for their own advantage or with harmful intent--Grandpa is just "playing."

She is too dependent and too young for that sort of knowledge--she still needs to have "trust" in those around her.

As she matures, her survival may depend on learning that sometimes people might trick you for purposes that are malevolent.

That sort of knowledge will be important to her soon.

It is learned by slightly older children in Faerie Tales where the important lessons of distrust of strangers--the wolf in Red Riding Hood, or the witch in Hansel and Gretel--and the importance of using your wits to protect yourself as in Johnny and the Wolf, are all taught.

I don't know where anyone got the idea that Faerie Stories are innocent and fun and "childlike."

They are almost always the very opposite--the introduction of children to adult themes and knowledge like betrayel, jealousy, murder, cannibalism, crossed purposes, strange adult desires and needs, trickery and dangerous deception.

This is true across many, perhaps all human cultures.

Magic is not about making people "believe." We are perhaps, healthy ministers of mistrust. Children and adults come to magic to experience and explore the many deep and varied meanings of deception--its uses in play and work and in survival. The nature and purposes of deception.

The ability of grandpa to look just as surprised and innocent as you--discovered only after realizing he knew what was really going on all the time!--teaches us a little about acting and lying which are both important survival skills.

How else does Hansel and Gretel, Br'r Rabbit, Bugs Bunny or Wiley Coyote survive under threats from those bigger and stronger than they?

Magic creates a dilemma that forces the brain to think in new, and sometimes uncomfortable ways. This is why it takes such a fine and delicate touch to make it pleasant and fun for others.

Magic has many different purposes and benefits.

But making people change their view of reality, or exchange reality-based thinking for magical thinking is not one of them.

Magic makes us more skeptical and makes us less likely to be suckers for the charlatans who might want to do that to us.

Magic, unlike charlatanry, reaffirms and celebrates reality.

"What IS magic?" Whatever it IS to you that's what magic IS.
Heisenberg's uncertainty principal states: "The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentun is known." In a literary sense we might say: the more closely one studies a subject, the less clearly defined it becomes.

Thanks, Whit.

(I'm too lost in thought to say more than that right now.)

Excellent Whit!

A deeply-felt thank you Whit.

Thanks. I'm glad you found something useful in it.

If we can not define and understand our craft, we can not continue to grow.

This isn't to recommend conformity, but to say that even those who explore new territory need to understand what they are doing and why. You can not just say that each vision is entirely original. All artists are derivative. The creativity and originality come from adding to the common understanding of the art.

The best way to do that is to seek to understand and appreciate the work that has gone before.