Tricks that seem like real magic?

Fin · 12-05-2011, 12:54 AM

For me one of the most important things seems to be who I perform for rather than what trick I choose, although that is obviously also very important. Some people don't need much before they think you're performing real magic; others need to see more incredible things before they are amazed.

On which tricks are best, that's down to performance more than anything. A simple card force done well with a solid, well performed reveal can be a complete miracle. I have performed alchemy for a couple of people and seen genuine looks of panic in their eyes as it hits them. The sleeves were up.. I was a few feet from their face, and yet the solid piece of metal vanished at my fingertips. Even just a really good retention vanish can be done so close-up and so convincingly that I feel it can provide an incredibly strong moment of "real" feeling magic, when done really well, but then I'm a visual magic kind of guy. I LOVE mentalism but at the moment, the type of magic I want to perform is the visual stuff.

I think it's valuable to think carefully about exactly what you want to give others, and what you want to gain yourself, from your magic. Some magicians want to amaze, some want to confuse, some want to fool, some want to trick, etc. I, like you, want people to hopefully have that moment where they think "wow is this guy actually doing something impossible here; could magic be real?". I'm happy to say that occasionally I do indeed get that sort of reaction, and I'm sure you must do too Albert

Sounds like maybe its time to go through your repertoire and strip out the "tricks" and get it down to the "pure magic" feeling magic that you know;- to build one of those routines that, by the end, has hit them with so many miracles, that they are left truly spellbound and hypnotised, although I'm pretty sure you've probably achieved that long ago. I recommend studying the recent big names who seemed to have done well at this. Derren Brown and David Blaine are two names that immediately spring to mind when I think of people who really had me thinking "

WTF

" when I saw them from a layman's perspective.

12-05-2011, 12:54 AM	#9
Fin Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 530	For me one of the most important things seems to be who I perform for rather than what trick I choose, although that is obviously also very important. Some people don't need much before they think you're performing real magic; others need to see more incredible things before they are amazed. On which tricks are best, that's down to performance more than anything. A simple card force done well with a solid, well performed reveal can be a complete miracle. I have performed alchemy for a couple of people and seen genuine looks of panic in their eyes as it hits them. The sleeves were up.. I was a few feet from their face, and yet the solid piece of metal vanished at my fingertips. Even just a really good retention vanish can be done so close-up and so convincingly that I feel it can provide an incredibly strong moment of "real" feeling magic, when done really well, but then I'm a visual magic kind of guy. I LOVE mentalism but at the moment, the type of magic I want to perform is the visual stuff. I think it's valuable to think carefully about exactly what you want to give others, and what you want to gain yourself, from your magic. Some magicians want to amaze, some want to confuse, some want to fool, some want to trick, etc. I, like you, want people to hopefully have that moment where they think "wow is this guy actually doing something impossible here; could magic be real?". I'm happy to say that occasionally I do indeed get that sort of reaction, and I'm sure you must do too Albert Sounds like maybe its time to go through your repertoire and strip out the "tricks" and get it down to the "pure magic" feeling magic that you know;- to build one of those routines that, by the end, has hit them with so many miracles, that they are left truly spellbound and hypnotised, although I'm pretty sure you've probably achieved that long ago. I recommend studying the recent big names who seemed to have done well at this. Derren Brown and David Blaine are two names that immediately spring to mind when I think of people who really had me thinking "WTF" when I saw them from a layman's perspective.