I read recently "magic and showmanship" a nice book rich of many tips and advices.
I am posting here to make some considerations about the "suspension of disbelief" and ask other people opinion. The basic is that in the spectator mind, after he/she saw a magic trick and after the istant surprise, what remains is a puzzle: "how did you do that?" Puzzle because of course they don't believe it's true magic and that you are able to make things fluctuate or disappear and reappear in another place ( I am talking about adults and not kids)...but if you can do the suspection of disbelief maybe somebody gets caught in the illusion and may think that there is the possibility you can really do that.
Going to the point when you do something very fantasy style as sponge balls are ( I work a lot on sponge balls) and going to one basic move as the push out production, it's almost impossible to do the suspension of disbelief because after the spectator go past the surprise and start to think the puzzle's answer well.... is quite simple if they review what happened: you reach behind the arm or the head to grab a sponge ball they know that no sponge ball was behind them and to say "you had it in your hand" it's quite logic even if of course they didn't see the ball until we produced. Same for two in the hands if you just put 2 sponge balls on the table and put one in your hand and another in the spectator hand when 2 pop out...also here the answer can be quite logic: "you put 2 in to my hand".
I am not telling this because somebody caught me for a mistake in a routine, it's just logic and disbelief.
After saying all this of course I still think sponge balls are great and on the moment for just few seconds can amaze the specator if done properly but after the show is finished what remains of the "magic" is just a puzzle unsolved and in some parts maybe quite easy to guess (push out), this doesn't mean that spectators didn't appreciate you but there is no supernatural aura around but just they consider the magician a skilled entertainer with a very good sleight of hand.

I would like to listen to other people opinion about this.

(sorry if in some parts of the post my english is confusing)

This has happened to me when I do tricks for my friends and family, first they are suprised but then they figure out how they think the trick is done. There are a few ways round that, you could say that your an expert in sleight of hand and admit that it is not real magic but merely skill. Or you can do tricks that are very hard to figure out and then it does seem like real magic .

Most people who watch my tricks though are usually just amazed, they don't ask many questions.

Yes exactly, same as me. The point is that I perform mainly with sponge balls and of course in an audience you have many people that liked to be entertained and after beeing amazed they don't ask too many question to themselves. But in a group you have always the smartest one or somebody that likes to think with logic what you did and in some case they can find out or if don't with more complicated routine they can however guess the basics. About family yes it was(and it is) the same for me too because maybe there is more confidence and after the surprise they can expose genuine thoughts. An audience expecially of adults maybe even if they guess how the trick was done they will not say nothing to don't ruin the climax or just they don't ask themselves too many questions as you said.

Mago-

First, I do not find your english confusing- you should be proud to speak a second language so well.

A few thoughts:

1. Suspension of disbelief is temporary- Most can do it for a magic show, or a movie, but when it is over their minds linger over how "they did it".

2. Few people in today's information and technology environment believe in real magic. We are a world of skeptics. Lower your expectations a bit.

3. Some specs get an ego boost out of "outing" an effect. In my performances, I try to head this off by creating a magical atmosphere and attitude, and I openly state that, like shouting a spoiler in a movie theater, saying you know what was done or how spoils the moment for others and is crude.

4. Working up a full routine is critical. If you do one trick the space that is left at the end is fertile ground for specs to wonder how. But if you go from A to B to C they can not follow and get lost in the magic.

5. I always try to have something hard to explain away in my performance. For example, with sponge balls, I end with the effect where the sponge balls keep appearing from one hand and being put in your pocket with the other. I find it unexplainable to most specs and what a great way to end~

Hope some of this helps, mago!

Jim

Maybe it's like fighting with a sword and shield: the sword of attack is the high impact of great technique, psychology, and other principles of magic (number 5 in the preceding post); the sheild of defence is the suspension of disbelief, attitude/approach, atmosphere, and routining (numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4) which all defuse the challenge aspect and puzzle curse.

I think if you create a sense of theatre and evoke the dramatic, then your audience will willingly suspend disbelief! We are dealing with modern age spectators. Strive to entertain them in the moment....if they walk away with memory of a great performance, then great! If they can't explain how you did it, then awesome !

Yes this is true the spectator sometimes knows on a trick that something had to be cocealed in the hand.but all in all it is how good you perform the move.they know you don't have real magical powers. but when you perform a trick and do it very well.
it is very entertaining to watch. no matter how many times I watch david roth perform coins across using a shell and knowing what hes doing. I am still very entertained watching him do it.because it still looks unbelievable.
todd

Since the many shows on how magic is performed and all the youtube vids, I doubt the adults
actually suspend disbelief, but instead are just eager to see what you'll do next.

Thank you to everybody for your answers, so trying to recapitulate: fantasy style magic as sponge balls where you make things disappear and reappear can amaze people on the moment and then just leave the good impression of a nice performance of the entertainer who was able to make that look like real magic using sleight of hand. I think this is the point, isn't it?

In your performance, you can only guide the audience - you cannot control them. You can create an atmosphere of "magic" - fun, mystical, theatrical, whatever- that makes it easy for the audience to suspend disbelief and momentarily supress their desire to examine and explain or feel challenged and defensive. But you can't control them and totally eliminate that from every audience at every performance.

If you're going to do magic for real people (nstead of just YouTube), you're going to get this from time to time.

Ed

Yep is just what happened performing with real people, not every time but as you said sometimes. This evening tried carry on more the routine and it was better.

This is why I like to perform for kids, if you can hold their attention long enough the reactions at the end are better than with performing for adults, who are just trying to figure out how it works.

I often find it the opposite. It's not at all unusual to find kids yelling out "I know how you did that!" Adults (sober, that is, and with a bit of maturity) are generally more polite than that.

Ed

Here's my favorite thread from The Magic Café on this topic, started by Randy Wakeman in 2003:

Suspension of Disbelief

@Alan,
Thank you for the reference to that thread! What a great read. I would like to add by sharing a comment I received from one of my audience members. It brings home the responsbility we have as performers: "The reason we enjoy watching you so much is because you believe it is truly happening when you do it ... you make it real." This has to be one of the best compliments I ever received and remembering the feeling of that moment is a great motivator each and every time I prepare to perform. Suspend the disbelief for your audience!

Excellent point!! If *I* don't believe in my magic, why should they?

Of course, that means I must practice to the point of putting myself outside of my performance. If I am so concentrating on what I'm doing mechanically that I can't detach myself - that is, watch my routine with wonder and amazement - there's little hope the audience will.

Ed

Alan-

Thanks for the great link! A great read, indeed. Does anyone know what happened to end it?

Jim

This is a source of much discussion (and argument) in the mentalist forums. Mentalism is maybe the last area where otherwise sane people still actually believe in the “magic”.

That said, we don’t have to make it easy for the non-believers. Bob Cassidy (mastermindreader) has written an excellent ebook, “The Logical Disconnect”, which details exactly how to “pull the plug” on those brains who like to back track and unravel exactly how we fooled them. It’s not really intended for magicians, but the principle should still be applicable.

Basically the idea is to examine the most logical explanations, and make them appear to be absolutely impossible. Knock these down, one by one, until you are left with “no possible explanation”. Easier said than done in some cases, but that’s where your thinking should be aimed.

All of this goes to the point of making your magic the best it can possibly be. After that, the discussion of controlling the atmosphere (because you CAN’T really control the audience) becomes critical.

You must provide the moment that allows them to become lost in it. Some part of all of us still wants to believe in magic, that pixies come out at night, and that if you speak the right words, your future will remain bright. This is the setting that will draw your crowd into your magical world, willingly, eagerly, to believe, just for that short period of time, that magic still exists.

After that moment has passed, it doesn’t matter if they want to mull over the explanations. You’ve already handled that by the Logical Disconnect. What they’re left with is the magical feeling that makes us want to see the same movie more than once, or be with the same person again and again.

At that point, you are Magic. It won’t make any difference if they discover a method, because the magical feeling doesn’t come from a gimmick or a trick. It comes from You.

That is Theatre!

This might help.

Try building convincers and different layers into your magic. The more layers in an effect the more our spectators will have to break through to come to a conclusion of how the effect was done. Layers in the sense that different techniques are used in the performance of an effect. An example is to force a card on one spectator, not allowing him to look at his card. Then turn to another spectator and use equivoque to have them name the selected card instead of you simply telling the spectator what card they selected or pulling a prediction from your pocket. Watch the surprise when the first spectator looks at his card and it matches what the second spectator selected.

A convincer will convince the spectators that all is as it should be until you want to let them know that the magic has happened. This is different than time misdirection. For instance, you feint putting two coins in your hand. The convincer will tell a spectator there are two coins in your hand as you shake your hand. However, when you open your hand the coins have disappeared. The sound of the two coins rattling in your hand convinced the spectator that there are actually two coins in your hand when in fact you have already executed the magic. The sound of the coins hitting one another is not coming from your hand.

Mark and DWRackley have pretty well covered the point that I was going to make and if you want to read a bit more on convincers get a copy of “Strong Magic by Darwin Ortiz, it’s a great investment.

To give some practical examples of what Mark and DWRackley are saying look some effects that I have had experienced with which I have modified for this exact reason.

One is Elevator Aces where four aces are placed face down on the table and one by one each ace being placed in various locations in the deck seem to travel to another location in the deck consecutively. The Problem I had with this effect was that suspicious minds would think that I never placed the four aces on the table at all and that what was on the table where in fact indifferent cards. After some tinkering I decided that it was better to add a display that showed the cards seconds before they are placed on the table.

Also take into consideration that versions of effects have naturel dispositions for nullifying suspicions, an example of this is ace assemblies where the same thought could arise similar to the one in the Elevator aces effect. This is why McDonalds Aces is such a strong version of this trick because the nature of the method allows to spectator to see the aces to the very end up to the point of the assembly.

Another was when I was performing the “Three Way Test” out of Mark Wilsons Complete Course In Magic where the one ahead principle was used and people would assume that I had somehow forced or had known beforehand what was going to be selected. So at the point where I had to force something I made it so convincingly free that it seemed impossible at every stage that anything could have been perceived as being forced or possibly known. At this instance I had a marked deck being handed to one of the three spectators and freely shuffled and noted the marking of the top face down card and then at the required time gave him instructions for the cut deeper force. The complete hands free aspect of this completely nullified any further thoughts on anything being forced or known beforehand.

I hope that Gives you some Ideas.

Magically


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