The post that was scheduled for today will appear tomorrow instead. Consider this post a “moment of silence” for Simon Aronson—a brilliant creator of magic and a friend and supporter of this site from the beginning—who passed away earlier this week.
You mentioned a different schedule and content for next year. Can you give us any idea as to what that might be? —RG
Sure, but don’t hold me to this.
As I’ve mentioned before, my thinking is that the website is going to be for shorter, timelier, and stupider stuff.
The newsletter will contain more in-depth ideas, reviews, and effects.
And tricks/theory/testing that is fully completed or that has proven to be particularly valuable to me will be in whatever the annual publication is.
I actually planned on making this change last year, as described in this post. But the idea didn’t really stick because I didn’t have things set up properly. I needed to have more issues of the newsletter and more scheduled breaks from the site (to devote more time to the newsletter). That’s why next year the newsletter will go from four quarterly issues to ten issues monthly from March-December. And to make time for that ,the site will work on a schedule of, like, three weeks on, one week off. Or 20 days on, 10 days off. The “off time” will be when I’ll prepare that month’s newsletter.
This is all up in the air, of course, but that’s the plan as of now.
Here’s a question I’m hoping you can shed some light on. When spectators watch a card manipulator act are they thinking, “oh my, he’s materialising cards from thin air”, or are they thinking “oh my, how is he hiding those cards on his hands and pulling them out one by one?”
I genuinely have pondered about this and have no idea what an audience makes of manip acts of this kind.—NA
I think you probably know the answer to this, but you may have been in magic so long that your perception is clouded.
The combination of an adult so naive that they believe in the physical manifestation of objects from thin air, and a manipulation act so fooling that it would support that delusion, would be a rare thing indeed.
I sometimes think, what if there was a guy who could genuinely produce and vanish billiard balls or playing cards? I mean, someone who could do it for real. Would we watch that shit for more than 30 seconds? Probably not. We would want that guy in a lab being studied by scientists, not boring us on a stage.
I’m not saying manipulation acts are boring. I’m saying the thing that makes one watchable is the fact that it’s fake.
(If you know of any great manipulation acts of any sort from the past 5 years or so, send me an email and let me know about them. I’d be interested in checking them out.)
I assume you’ve seen people change their style of performing to a more casual, conversational style from the standard presentational style. If that’s the case, what is the biggest stumbling block or mistake you see them make?—MM
Hmmm… good question. The first thing that comes to mind is that they present the material in a way that is too tongue-in-cheek. There is too much of a wink and a nod to their presentation.
I was watching the download for one of Gregory Wilson’s coffee-shop tricks the other day and he and David Gripenwaldt were discussing the motivation for why they would do a torn and restored sugar packet. They mentioned a time-travel presentation. Then Greg said:
“I think the key is, you don't want it to sound like fantasy patter. You don't want to make it look like, 'Welcome to my little romper room, sesame street story, that only exists in my head.' So you do it with tongue firmly planted in cheek.”
This is the exact wrong advice. (Perhaps it’s the right advice for the situation Greg was performing in, where he was a stranger approaching random people in a coffee shop for the purpose of showing them a magic trick, but so few people are actually performing in that circumstance that it’s almost not worth mentioning).
If you’re showing a trick to friends, acquaintances, or anyone who has known you for at least 60 seconds, you don’t need put your tongue in your cheek when you tell them that you can travel back in time 15 seconds. Give them a little credit for being able to discern it’s not meant to be taken seriously and give yourself a little credit that you don’t come off like a fucking lunatic to people.
There’s really no purpose in doing such a presentation if you’re not going to take it seriously.
You might say, “But I want it to be funny, not serious.”
Ah, there’s the problem. You have a magician’s understanding of humor. You think letting everyone know you’re not serious is going to make it funny. That’s the opposite of how it works. If your premise is ludicrous (like using time-travel to reseal a sugar packet) then it’s only funny if you take it incredibly seriously. The more humorless you are, the funnier it is.
So that’s the mistake I see people make when they’re transitioning away from a traditional style of performance. It’s almost as if they feel like—since they’re not using close-up mats and scripted patter—they need to go out of their way to let people know that this is still “just a show” or “just a trick.” This sort of leads to the worst of both worlds. The audience isn’t getting the polish and professionalism of a formal presentation, and they’re not getting the immersive aspect of a social interaction because the magician is too busy winking at them and letting them know it’s just a goof.
A few weeks ago I was traveling for a non-magic-related project. I was also working on a new trick. I was in a situation where I had a few minutes with a number of different people so I was getting the opportunity to try it out rather quickly. After the fourth time performing it, I was ready to give it a rest. It was getting good reactions, but “good” reactions doesn’t do it for me. At least not with a 2-3 minute trick. If it’s something quick and visual, then I’m fine with “good.” If it’s just meant to be a semi-weird oddity, then I’m fine with “good” too. But if it’s intended to be something I really want them to take an interest in and capture their imagination with in some way, then it really needs to be better than just “good,” in my opinion.
So, after abandoning the new trick, I went back to some old standards. Effects that I know are very strong and have used for a significant period of time.
But those were just getting “good” reactions too.
I wasn’t sure what was going on. Was I off my game? Was it something about the people in the part of the country I was in that they didn’t respond as intensely as I was used to?
I quickly processed the situation and realized what it was.
I was with these people for just a few minutes, and I was trying out some tricks on them that took just a few minutes from start to finish. And because of that, I was violating one of the precepts that had slowly evolved in my performing over the years.
Let me take a quick detour.
The other day I was watching the movie Gremlins. The movie is one hour and 47 minutes long. Do you know at what point the Gremlins actually appear?
An hour into the movie.
More than half the movie is build-up.
I’m convinced that this is the proportion of build-up you need to really get the most out of magic in a social situation. I feel you should have at least as much time leading up to the trick as the trick itself.
For the sake of the point I’m making, I’m not talking about quick/eye-candy style tricks. Nor am I talking about tricks that are presented as a straightforward card or coin trick, or something like that. I’m talking about if you’re presenting a trick where you’re trying to establish some mythos behind what’s happening.
This is the mistake I was making with the performances I mentioned at the beginning of this post. I had a three minute trick to show them and I was trying to squeeze that into three minutes. It threw off the pacing I believe you need to establish if you’re trying to get people to engage with your performance in a deeper way.
Think of it like this. If I tossed a photo down in front of you and said, “Look, I took a picture of an alien.” You’d say, “Oh, that’s cool. Is that a mask? Or is it that a doll or something?” You would make some assumptions that what you were seeing wasn’t really that interesting, because I hadn’t built it up in the manner people do with interesting things. I hadn’t given it any weight.
But if I sat you down and said, “Okay… remember how I went hiking last weekend? Well, I took a wrong turn on the trail and ended up in an area of the forest that I had never seen before. I was totally disoriented, but I saw a light in the distance and I started following it.” And I went on to tell you the story of stumbling across this creature and here was this photo I took of it. You still may think my photo is fake, but it’s going to capture your attention to some degree because it’s presented in a way that interesting, compelling, important things are presented.
You might feel you already do this. You might say, “When I read someone’s mind, it’s one minute of build-up followed by a couple seconds where I read their mind.” But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not talking about the process of the trick itself. That doesn’t count as the build-up. That’s the performance time. So if it takes three minutes to perform the trick, then I think you need at least three minutes of build-up.
What would that look like?
Well, I’m not suggesting you do three-minutes of promotion like a carnival barker leading up to the trick. “Gather round everyone. In three minutes–three short minutes—I’m going to read your mind in the most amazing, the most incredible, the most unbelievable way you’ve ever seen in your life.” That’s not what I’m saying.
I’m saying you should at least plant the seed that will lead to the effect, a few minutes ahead of time.
For example. Let’s say you’re doing a mind reading trick.
No build-up — “I’m going to read your mind. I want you to write down a word on this card. Now I’m going to put it in my wallet.” Blah, blah.
Build-up (Direct) —“I’ve been looking into the subject of mind-reading recently. There’s no such thing, really. But there are some exercises you can do to build up synchronicity that can lead to something that looks like mind-reading.” You engage in these exercises for a couple minutes and then say, “Okay, let’s try it. I want you to write down a word on this card.”
Build-up (Indirect) — “Can I turn the lights down? My head hurts. I’ve been studying this book on mind-reading all weekend and my head is throbbing. I don’t know if it’s just because it’s got me thinking a lot or if it’s the actual process of practicing it that’s causing my head to hurt.” The seed is now planted. A little while later you say, “My head is a little better. Can I try something with you?”
Build-up (Long-term) — Via text: I can’t come out tonight, unfortunately. I’m going to this workshop on mind-reading. 😜 I’ll let you know how it goes. Later: Ok, that was weird as hell. I’m still not sure if it was a scam or not, but some strange stuff happened. Next time we hang out, I have something I want to try with you.
Regardless of how you present your effects (as psychic powers, as magic, as psychology, as examples of occult phenomena, or demonstrations of extreme skill, or whatever) you are almost certainly presenting them as something unusual, impossible, strange, or incredible in some way. And the way to present such things is with a slow-build before hand.
What I mean is, that’s how we present such things in the real world. So if you want to pull them in and make them feel like they’re about to see something special, then build to it as if it was.
Jumping right into the effect makes the whole thing seem rote and much less interesting. When I find myself doing it, it also feels apologetic and desperate. You might think slow-playing things would be dull. But I find it to be just the opposite. It takes confidence to not rush to the climax. And I think spectator’s sense this and get a feeling of, “Oh, this must be good.” And that colors their impression of what they see.
I’m not telling you to bore people with a five minute speech before getting to the trick. I’m just suggesting you give it the sort of build-up as you would anything of interest.
If you’re making a movie about puppies, then you introduce puppies in the first scene. Puppies are cute, but they’re also normal. If you’re making a movie about Gremlins, you wait an hour and ratchet up the tension and the interest until you unveil this weird/scary/strange thing.
Ideally, I think you want at least a 1:1 ratio of build-up to performance. That’s what I’ve found to be the minimum. But I will often start the build up in some subtle way weeks or even months in advance.
If you aren’t out there performing, you will undervalue how powerful this is. You will say, “I don’t see anyone else doing that. It can’t have that much of an effect.” The reason you don’t see anyone else doing it is because this sort of pacing doesn’t work on television, or youtube, or Instagram, or if you’re doing restaurant magic.
But if you’re showing people in your life some magic in the real world, then this type of pacing can significantly increase the overall power of your tricks.
First, some housekeeping.
The 2019 season of The Jerx ends on December 23rd.
The 2020 season—if there is one—will start up in February.
“If there is one”? Are you threatening us?
No, sweetie. Relax. If you’re new to this site, this is how it works: There are a group of supporters who fund the site each year. In return they get a bunch of bonus content including a book/newsletter/deck of cards, etc. These supporter slots are capped off at a certain number. At the end of each season I ask the supporters if they want to sign up again for another year. If at least 90% of the supporters say they want to buy in for another year, then I keep the site going. At some point I’ll probably want to stop the site for my own purposes, but as of now I’m happy to keep it going as long as people want me to. And this 90% threshold is a simple way of determining if people are still digging the site.
So that stuff will all be figured out at the beginning of next year. Assuming there is interest for a 2020 season, any unclaimed supporter slots will be made available in February.
The 2020 season will likely have a different schedule. I’ll give more details on that in the future. Content-wise the site will be different too. I’ve talked about that in this post.
An update on my Bounty Hunting post.
Regarding the fortune-telling napkin-holder thing: I learned that it’s a real thing that used to exist (not just a Twilight Zone invention). I think I’ve got a line on one from the 50s, so I won’t have to have one made. Although I want to thank the people who offered to create one. That would have been a fun process to be involved with. But it would probably be a needlessly complicated route to take.
Regarding the 1-on-1 PK Touches routine: Still looking into this one. I’m not sure any of the commercially available routines are going to work for my purposes, but I think I might be onto something after a brainstorm with Seth Raphael and Marc Kerstein. Seth’s initial idea was very clever (I may ask him if I can share it with you in the future) but wouldn’t have been ideal of the presentation I wanted to do. But it inspired a tangential method that I’m working on now. I’ll keep you updated.
Regarding the container trick: I had a lot of good ideas come my way. To remind you, the effect would use stackable containers the screw together. You’d put something in the top container, shake it, and it would fall down to the next container, and so on. So it would look like this:
Except for the fact that something would actually happen.
A lot of the ideas sent my way might look good on video, but few would hold up if done in person. (Anything using a hole between layers would, I think, get busted fairly easily.)
Here are some ideas from reader Erik K, that I thought were pretty interesting.
I think the one labelled #5 holds some promise, although it’s not exactly what I was looking for. You could have different colored beads in each container. Force one container via some sort of counting force, like Quinta. That container is removed and one bead is taken from it. That “random” bead is dropped in the top container, and there are duplicates of that bead in the other compass positions (South, West, and East if the original bead is dropped in at North) in the other containers. Then you could shake the containers and secretly rotate everything 90 degrees to create the illusion of the randomly selected bead going down.
The Ellusionist kickstarter has ended. Congratulations to them on having such a successful product launch.
Although, to be honest, I’m not sure I 100% agree with the last “stretch goal” they offered with their Kickstarter campaign. See below…
***
We’re excited to announce the final stretch-goal for the How To Read Minds kit. Now, every box will contain a pack of Black Dragon Extreme Hypnotism Pills.
Sometimes you need to pull out the BIG GUNS. Black Dragon Extreme Hypnotism Pills will make you the coolest guy in school, the talk of the office, and the envy of your church group.
Will it get people to buy you a drink? No, probably not. In fact, you’ll likely have to buy them a drink to use these most efficaciously.
But it will be worth it for the powers of seduction in a box!
Why should the guys with the personality and charisma have all the fun?
Really excited about the [new] book. Over the weekend I re-read most of Magic For Young Lovers again (I think my 4th time reading it cover to cover, not to mention reading my favorite parts even more times).
I was wondering if you're gonna tip anything more about the book to us. It's already December!! Maybe the title at least? (TOY?) I think with the past books you posted some descriptions of tricks on the site beforehand. Anything you can do would be awesome. —YR
There’s not going to be too much more information coming about the book. It sold out 10 months ago. It would be one thing to release some details here to whet the appetite of those who had bought it. But the vast majority of the people reading this haven’t bought it, and can’t buy it, so I’d feel like I was just teasing them with info in order to be a dick.
In fact, skip to the next question unless you’re a supporter and have the book coming to you:
I’ll just give you the basics. It’s 240 pages. 25 chapters. It’s about 60% unpublished material. There are some totally impromptu techniques and some big showpiece effects. It covers most of the major concepts I’ve worked on in regards to social/casual mentalism. And it has the results of the longest focus group study I’ve ever been a part of conducting. (120 hours total, because all the performances were done 1-on-1.)
Mentalism was an interesting subject to write about. It’s my belief that it’s very difficult to maintain people’s interest in the long-term when you present everything as a demonstration of your own powers. But that’s exactly what mentalism is: a demonstration of your own powers. Originally, when I had the idea to do a mentalism book a couple years ago, I imagined it would be me taking traditional routines and reframing them so that they were no longer mentalism. But that’s not what it became. In the end, all of these tricks are still mentalism, but the presentations are little less straight-forward than, “I can read your mind” or “I can predict the future.”
You’ll see.
Have you given any more thought to having a message board/facebook group/discord server or something to discuss The Jerx? You need to do it! —CF
No, I really don’t.
I have a lot of reasons for why I won’t be doing something like this. I’ve hit on some of them before.
The main reason is this: I’m just some dude.
Imagine you’re just some dude, or dudette, and people are saying, “We need a space where we can discuss your ideas.” Gross. It just feels weird to me. Especially because—unless I’m talking shit about Ellusioinist—most of what I write comes from my experiences with people in my life who don’t know I’m writing about these things. So then to have other people writing about those things publicly, that would be strange.
Here’s the thing, if there’s something I’ve written that you want to question or expand upon, you can just write me. I’m not dead. I want to hear about it. I don’t want to have to track it down on a message board somewhere. And if it pushes the subject forward, then maybe it will be in a post or a mailbag or in a newsletter or book. But even if not, it will go into my brain and become part of my thinking on the subject going forward.
I think that’s enough.
People will sometimes use the phrase (and I’ve used it myself) a “jerx-style” of magic. But keep in mind that that’s just my style. I’m not saying it’s a style you should adopt. I’m saying there might be something in my experience that you will find some value in; either because you have a similar personality, a similar friend-group, or similar performing situations. But I’m not hoping or expecting or wanting to “convert” anyone to my style. Just take the stuff that you think will work well for you and incorporate it into your own style.
Then the question might become, “Well, how about some sort of forum where people can talk about social/casual magic in general?”
Eh. I just don’t think you need more places to talk about magic. Especially not online. A forum or facebook group is kind of against the spirit of social magic, which I see as being about engaging people in real life, and discovering an approach that works for you in your own circumstances.
That being said, if Steve Brooks wants to sell the Magic Cafe, I’ll buy it and make it good.
My thoughts on your “Defining Reality” post.
[You write]:
They’re unlikely to think, “Well, there was the time he showed me a trick about a ghost dog who cut the deck to my card, and then there was the time he turned a red sponge ball into a red sponge cock, but now here… where he’s saying he’s reading my mind… you know, I think he’s really doing it!”
Though your conclusion is logical, it is (mostly) false.
Unfortunately, a very small percentage of people connect the dots as you assume they will ("I saw that he did card tricks, I've seen that he's good at tricking people, therefore the mindreading was also probably a trick.").
I've heard various people volunteer their conclusions: from hobos, to my patent lawyer grandpa, to Barbara Walters.
Of these responses I've cited, all but my grandpa's response are on video publicly viewable:
1. About 20 years ago my grandpa saw David Blaine or Criss Angel (I forget which) perform various tricks on TV, and then levitate. My grandpa said that the other stuff was tricks, but he thinks the levitation was something to do with spirits or occult, that David is messing with bad stuff.
2. Using his classic pass (one of the best classic passes ever), Derek Dingle performed Ambitious Card for Barbara Walters. He then fanned the deck and told Walters to think of a card. Dingle revealed the thought of card. Barbara said, "I can understand the card tricks, but when you read my mind!"
3. Hobo from Blaine's first TV special. Blaine threw hobo's card through window. After this (at least this was shown on the TV special as after) the hobo told the camera, "The card tricks I get, but the mind reading is real."
[…]
In conclusion, though it should be obvious that the guy who has spent years mastering the art of tricking people does not have a miraculous natural gift, I've heard expressions of belief (in the mentalism specifically) more frequently than the expressions indicating the correct, logical conclusion. This is despite the fact that I'm a card man.
Surprisingly, one of the very few who arrived at the correct conclusion (and also gave me his (correct) reasoning), was a 7 year old boy. It was a fundraiser held in a hoity toity home. There were a few younger kids--around age 7--who had been tagging along watching me perform for the adults. Towards the end, I did some mentalism for the kids--a book test with a book in their house, a drawing dupe with my business cards, etc. The boy said (after I probed for his thoughts) "Well.. I know that you can make cards go places. So maybe when I put my drawing back in, you made go somewhere where you could see it." —JF
I appreciate your perspective. And if you really believe people think this, I won't be able to talk you out of it.
But I think you're confusing this sentiment: "I understand card tricks and the idea of sleight of hand, but I have no clue how someone does the mind reading stuff." Which is very common. For this sentiment, "I think the card tricks were fake, but on the other hand I think he has genuine mind reading abilities." Which very few rational adults would think.
If Barbara Walters thought she had found a true mind-reader do you think she would have dropped it at that? One of the pre-eminent journalists of her day just relegating one of the biggest discoveries in the history of the world to her daytime talk show?
Also, I don't think the 7-year old had insights the adults didn't have. He just didn't have the filter they did. Many adults likely come to the same conclusion.
As far as your grandfather goes, he was, of course, reacting to a TV special effect, not something that could be done live. So that could play into things.
And finally, I was writing specifically about the amateur performing for people who know him/her. Perhaps there are some people who believe Blaine does some fake magic tricks, but also has some true supernatural powers. But I doubt those people are the people who know him in real life.
Look, the majority of people don’t believe in psychic phenomena in the first place. Of those who do, I would think a much smaller percentage believe it’s something that can be demonstrated so directly (knowing the word you wrote down on a business card, for example), and that percentage is going to be even less when the “psychic demonstration” is in an entertainment context, and then again less so if the psychic demonstration is mixed in with magic tricks. And, of course, once they really get to know you, it’s unlikely they’ll see you as having genuinely supernatural abilities. So we’re talking a percentage of a percentage of a percentage of a percentage of a percentage. Undoubtedly these people exist, but they’re the exception. (If you don’t believe this, it’s something that would be very easy to test. If you want to fund it, I have the people who can test it for you.)
Of course, confirmation bias gets in the way of us getting a clear picture of how people truly see us (which is why testing has proven to be so valuable). We take the nice things people say directly after a trick and act as if that’s representative of how they really feel.
A few years ago I was discussing a similar topic with a friend, Tom, and he said, “My wife really believes I’m psychic.” I was like, no, there’s not a chance in hell she thinks that. Then he gave me a list of things she had said which supported his assumption. I reiterated that there was no way she really thought he was psychic. So we decided to investigate. We had a third-party—a mutual friend who was with us—call her up and say, “I have something I need Tom’s help with. He has some psychic sort of powers, right?”
To which she responded, “What the fuck are you talking about? Like real powers? No, of course not.”
Tom grabbed the phone and immediately started asking her why she had said certain things in the past and responded to effects the way she had and why she would say things to her friends like, “Tom can read your mind,” or, “Tom can predict your future.”
She said something, the gist of which was: “What do you mean? I was just playing along. You pretend to have psychic powers and I pretend you have psychic powers. You thought that I thought you had real powers?” And then she laughed—cackled, really—into the phone for a straight two minutes. And that had me crying laughing too. Tom was so dejected. They had been married nine years at the time. For nine+ years she thought they had this sweet sort of inside joke. And for nine+ years he just assumed she thought he was psychic. (They’re still very happily married.)
Playing along is a natural human response from people who like you. Don’t discount that possibility. There’s nothing wrong with it either. It means they like you and they were genuinely fooled.
In this post you write:
If I tell you that I want to try an old gypsy ritual and at the end of it something amazing happens, you are likely to look at that ritual as part of the “theater” of the trick... But if I try an old gypsy ritual with you and nothing happens, then you don’t really know how to categorize that experience. It’s not presentation for a trick, because there was no trick.
I agree with this idea, but I feel that with some people this won't be the case if the presentation isn't up to snuff. It could be looked upon as "he had some weird theatrical presentation, but then the trick part didn't work." To shift the focus from the trick and onto the failed theater, I think it's important to attempt a fix (but still fail), but to demonstrate the fix is on the presentation side.
For example, with the coin vanish, instead of ending with the initial failure, close your hand around the coin casually but focus on readjusting your other hand's position on their shoulder. For the gypsy ritual, read the passage once more, with genuine concentration on the words. And then fail again.
Something like that subtly suggests that the ritual is the method. If it were a normal trick and the ritual just theatrical dressing, then an attempt to fix it would become completely mechanical - the magician focuses on the part that went wrong. We can also look at Harry Potter. In the scene where they are learning to cast spells, Hermione corrects Ron's pronunciation. She mentions his wand wave is too violent but doesn't seem concerned it will affect the spell (only that he's "going to poke someone's eye out" which has nothing to do with magic - that's just how sticks and eyes work together). The audience is left understanding that the words are the important part. And when Ron eventually gets it right, we're not thinking "oh he finally waved his wand correctly," but rather "he learned the words." —CC
Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.
The rule I would use is that you should do what you would really do in whatever faux situation you’re establishing. So, for example, if I really thought that I could affect someone’s perception via different pressure points, then I might try a few different variations if it didn’t work the first time.
On the other hand, if, for some reason, I really thought I might have an incantation that would make time flow backwards briefly, I wouldn’t keep trying it if it failed. I’d just say, “Oh, this is ridiculous. What was I thinking.”
Basing it off how you might actually address this sort of failure is going to make it feel the most legitimate to them.
A friend who read an early draft of this post said,
"I don't understand this post at all. It makes no sense. If I'm being honest, I'd say it looks like you just had some Max Maven gifs burning a hole in your pocket and wrote this whole post to shoehorn them in there.”
WHATTTTT??!!!! I mean... seriously? The fact that anyone would think I would write something just for the sake of posting Max Maven memes is ludicrous. "Hello! Table for one at the loony bin!” That's what you should be saying, at an insane asylum that is also a restaurant, because that's what you are if you think that I'd do that: insane.
And no, Ellusionist did not pay me $1800 to write a favorable post about them. That's absurd.
The fact of the matter is, I sat with my thoughts about that Ellusionist beginner's mentalism kit and read the ad very closely. Then I went into the woods and quietly meditated on it. Then I consulted my pastor. Then I did some journaling on the subject. And after a lot of soul searching I realized I was wrong in my initial assessment. It is unreservedly the greatest product in the history of magic.
Look, when I'm wrong, I say I'm wrong. And I was wrong about this. I thought it was a cash-grab by Ellusionist. Putting a bunch of basic mentalism props in a black box with a skull and pitching it to the lonely, the awkward, and the virginal.
I think what I failed to understand was that this isn't a box of mentalism tricks. After giving their kickstarter a much closer read (as I will do in this post), I realized this is something that will change your whole life.
From the kickstarter: "The How To Read Minds Kit is LIFE CHANGING. Open the box and discover….what these secrets do for you. But don’t open it if you don’t want your life to change. Who knew that a dumb 99 plunked down in a Kickstarter event could do so much?"
(No. That quote isn't edited. They put those ellipses in the middle of that sentence, I didn’t cut anything out. You might say you have... no clue as to why. It doesn't make... any fucking sense grammatically or as far as.... expressing an emotion with their writing. Well, well, well... I guess you've never hired someone off Fiverr who speaks English as a fourth language to write your ad copy for you.)
The kit is also described as being "Charisma in a box." This probably strikes you as odd given that the only time "charisma" and "ellusionist" have been used together in a sentence in the past is to say something like, "That guy from Ellusionist has all the charisma of a cement parking barrier." In fact, some of you would argue the mere notion of "charisma in a box" suggests a company that:
A) Doesn't understand the concept of charisma
or
B) Has no issue preying on people with no self-esteem.
Oh yeah? Well, have you ever considered the possibility that BOTH might be true? Didn't think of that, did you, smart guy? So don't go around pretending you know everything.
From the kickstarter: "Ellusionist followed the path of the intuitive, the glam-packed, but NATURAL way of ‘styling’ magic.”
I know you're probably thinking, "Is that supposed to mean something? Or did lightning strike a refrigerator and the magnetic poetry kit on the freezer door got demagnetized and fell to the floor and someone swept up the jumble of words and transcribed them before tossing them in the garbage can?" No! That's not what happened at all. That's a perfectly coherent paragraph. No words go together more than "glam-packed but NATURAL.” That's just a totally reasonable description of something. It is for me, at least. Here's my driver's license photo.
Glam-packed, and natural.
From the kickstarter: "Gone are top hats and tails, gone are the doves. Let them fly back to the 50’s where they came from. We put the magician on the street in jeans and a tshirt, doing miracles. We made magicians into ROCKSTARS."
Up until 2001, when Ellusionist started, all magicians were wearing top hats and tails and doing dove magic. We all were. Ellusionist changed all that. With their completely unique style.
No they, just ripped off David Blaine.
Oh, come on. What are you basing that on? Facts and chronology? The fact that Blaine’s first special came out four years before Ellusionist started as a company? That’s what you’re basing this on? Something you saw on television?
Exactly, Max.
I'm not saying Ellusionist hasn't had their issues in the past, but now they are not just mass-marketing magic to anyone who wants it, they're also providing really sound performance theory:
From the kickstarter: "Magic, and more importantly mind-reading, is meant to be done naturally, almost as an afterthought. Let it just 'occur'. Let your miracles out of the box slowly. There’s no need to pound the table for attention. You’ll never do that again. From now on when you speak, people listen. You will remain connected to those around you, but on another level. Don’t buy this kit if you don’t want that."
So true! Here’s an example of that natural/afterthought style. This is for one of those natural situations where you have a business card on you. And a pen. And an envelope. And another envelope that’s slightly bigger. Typical stuff you would carry with you every day. Then you just throw that all together, casually. I like the person to write down the word, seal it in an envelope, then seal that in another envelope, and only at that point do I subtly suggest that we could maybe do a trick with this particular circumstance. “You know, I just had a thought. An afterthought, if you will. Maybe I should read your mind of the word I had you write down on a business card and put in an envelope and then into another envelope. What a complete crazy afterthought to have just now in this moment. Totally unplanned.”
There’s no doubt that a super casual trick like this will blow people away. And there is something so beautiful about the look of surprise an effect like that can produce on someone’s face.
From the kickstarter: “You know those basketball games where they pick someone out of the crowd at halftime and give them a shot at the basket for some $50,000 prize? Can they get the ball in the basket? If they do, their life changes. The butterfly moves it’s [sic] wings in America and life changes in China. The crowd waits on pins and needles. The ‘player’ shoots their shot and everybody draws a breath and holds it.
That’s exactly how WE’RE waiting on YOU now. Our breath is drawn, sharply.”
Again, such strong writing. Sure, some of you might suggest that a person’s life changing because of something big and direct like winning $50,000 is the complete and total opposite of the butterfly effect, but that’s just because you don’t understand the poetry of an Ellusionist kickstarter. I suggest you take the night off and really immerse yourself in the beauty of their ad.
Okay, I didn’t know it was your bowling league tonight. Do it tomorrow. Then maybe you’ll understand the artistry of an Ellusionist advertisement.
From the kickstarter: “WILL IT BE YOU, OR WILL YOU BE WATCHING THE GUY DOING THIS STUFF AT YOUR CHRISTMAS PARTY GOING ‘THAT COULD HAVE BEEN ME….’”
Well, just to be clear, you won’t be saying, “That could have been me.” You’ll be saying, “That could have been us.” Because in that case both you and the other dude at the party would have the same little kit of stuff with you. “Hey look!” the hostess will say, “You both randomly brought a fake looking copy of the novel Dracula to a Christmas party. That is amazing!”
So, what do you think? Do you have the balls to buy the greatest product in the history of magic? Or does the thought of free drinks, wild popularity and the unconditional love this kit will most assuredly bring you scare you too much?
Listen, this is a chance to change your life. You can’t imagine how different things are going to be for you when you show people some mentalism reveals on a fake credit card you keep in your wallet. That’s life-changing stuff right there.
I can’t wait to be the coolest guy in school! In fact, I’m probably just going to wear the lid of the box on my head, like a slick, fashion-forward hat. That alone will probably have me beating back potential friends and lovers. When I walk in the room they’ll all say, “Damn, he’s fly!”
Good point, Max. “Damn, he’s ultra-fly!”
If you’re feeling the holiday blues, I suggest you check in with Ellusionist’s kickstarter page for How to Be a Mentalist. Every time I go, I find something new to put a smile on my face.
I particularly like this part…
“The breakdown of a reaction…
Think about what it takes to put this kind of expression on someone’s face. What does it TAKE? See a pink elephant? A car coming at you head-on? Win the lottery?
Reactions like this will be the norm for you…. after you master a couple of the items in the kit.”
Who writes this gibberish? How out of touch with human emotions do you have to be when your best examples of situations when people cry are seeing a pink elephant or a car coming at them head on? Who starts sobbing when a car is coming their way? How evolutionarily ill-equipped would we be if—when facing imminent danger—we stood there and worked up a good cry? “Oh, woe is me! A car is coming my way! And here I sit… a blubbering old fool. Yes, just a mere quarter mile or so and it will all be over. Well you had a good run, old friend. [Sobs] I can’t believe this is the end! Any moment now. Oh… hold on… red light…. Ok, here he comes again. Awww…. why me god? Why? I’m so sad! So, incredibly sad about this car that’s going to hit me! Whyyyyyyy!!!!” [Splat.]
The funniest thing about this is that the set is marketed towards people who can’t even carry on a fucking conversation with other people. Now they’re suggesting these social maladroits should go and try and make people cry? “Hey, Tommy, remember when the pretty girl approached you and you suffered nerve-induced sphincter spasms causing a little piece of turd to shoot out of your butthole? Okay… well… uhm…forget all of that. Go over there and tell her to write down the name of a friend she hasn’t seen in a long time. And really turn the screws on her to get the waterworks going.”
That’s going to work out well.
One of the things I found myself thankful for yesterday was magic as a hobby. You can like playing basketball, or playing chess, or knitting, or home-brewing, or yoga, or model train collecting—but I can’t think of any other hobby where there is the promise of something new and potentially revolutionary multiple times a week. Every lecture you download, magic book/magazine you open, or trick you buy has the potential to bring something totally new into your experience of the hobby. If you like whittling, for example, I bet you seldom get that same anticipation or thrill. You’re probably not like, “Oh, the new whittling magazine came in the mail today! I can’t wait to see what unimaginable wonders it might describe!”
It’s probably more like, “Oh great, here are more articles about carving stuff out of wood.”
On the other hand, the promise of something new always around the corner is, I think, also something that keeps people from performing. They tell themselves that this next trick is going to really be the one that gets them out there showing people stuff. And they just keep telling themselves that.
If you’re fine not performing, then it’s nothing to worry about. But if you want to be showing people more stuff, it’s good to be aware of this trap. I know I’ve been caught in that cycle in the past of just constantly looking towards the next thing—passing up really good tricks in search of some elusive “perfect” trick to show people.
Here’s a 13 minute audio story from This American Life that was sent to me by T.C. earlier this year.
I’m not 100% sure what to make of it, but I think it shows that people’s appetite for the fantastic is far greater than we may think.
As someone who watches almost no magic on tv or online, I was surprised how much I liked this 20 minute “magic mixtape” from Justin Flom. I enjoyed it more than any magic I’ve seen on tv or online in a long time. I’m a little burnt out on watching people do proper “acts” on stage. And even the more casual stuff I see online just feels too staged for me to really take an interest in.. But this was neither of those things. It’s a well-edited collection of quick vignettes where, in the end, you really feel like you get some sense of who he is as a person and the lifestyle of someone with a life-long interest in magic.
And look, let’s be honest, he knows where his bread is buttered. He’s got that adorable little muppet of a daughter who appears throughout the video. Justin is no dummy. He’s getting all this cute stuff on tape now. It’s not going to be any good when she’s a gawky, brace-faced, 12-year-old who is completely embarrassed by his bullshit. In fact, I believe he and his wife are expecting another child. I’m guessing the plan is—when the new kid reaches prime cuteness in a couple years—to send this current one off to an orphanage. And likely they’ll just repeat that cycle every few years. Nothing wrong with that, that’s just savvy marketing. Look, don’t be so naive, it’s 2019. You don’t get on Pickler & Ben without shipping off a few kids to an orphanage when they get a little long in the tooth.
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