Bring Out The Magic In Your Mind - The Highlights

Sure, I like to have fun on this site. I post my silly little gifs, or photoshops of Joshua Jay, or make some jokes about the predatory nature of kid-show magicians. Not today! Today I have something much more useful planned for you. Something that will not only start your weekend off right, but will go on to change the course of your life, I would bet.

In 1964 Al Koran released a book for the public called “Bring Out the Magic In Your Mind.”

A self-help book written by a magician for the general public is always going to be an odd sort of thing. The book is being published because of that person’s fame, but the person isn’t going to actually write about the tools he used to garner that fame. Al Koran didn’t write, “My self-help advice is: If you want to make a spectator’s ring vanish and re-appear with your keys, use a reel.” Instead he wrote stuff like this in the chapter, The Magic of Flowers:

Flowers are vibratory and give off radiations of a positive kind.

I have known women replace a pearl necklace with real gardenias on the neck, supported by transparent adhesive tape. It is far more glamorous than the most costly pearls.

Whatever you say, Al!

This is just some of the wisdom that—as the cover of the book suggests—will “launch you on the road to success.”

I recently picked up a copy of this book second-hand. I’m drawn to this sort of thing. Some of this stuff I appreciate ironically, some of it unironically, and some of the stuff in books about the power of your mind just make for good presentational ideas and patter.

Fortunately for me (and now you) the copy I bought was already highlighted.

So for today’s post I want to share with you the highlights form Al Koran’s Bring Out The Magic In Your Mind. Hopefully you will find these insights life-changing.

The Magic of Belief

• The magic of belief grants phenomenal results for all who accept it.

• Before I leap out of bed, I always say, “I believe, I believe, I believe.”

• To bring out the magic in your mind, belief is the very first essential.

How Belief Works

• The human body is a magnet. Sleep with the head of the bed North, so that you are parallel with the magnetic Pole running through the earth, and not lying across it. This is very important.

• Remember never to cross your legs, if possible, fold your arms or clasp your hands. [He goes on to note that you shouldn’t do these things unless you’re having “discordant thoughts.”]

• Discordant thoughts are not for you, and you must cut off the power of evil by crossing your legs, folding your arms, and clasping your hands.

• Belief is a positive word, and therefore creative. Everything negative is dead, and has no creative power whatever. Negative means reject; to put aside, not to be used.

• You must polarize your thoughts and words.

• Take deep breaths of this electro-magnetism; try it, live it, love it, become it. Don’t worry about what it is, but use it.

• Be able to say ‘no’ to the things you do not want to happen. You must rebel and say, I will have no more of this kind of evil, then it stops. Say, I’ll have no more of this from now on, and lo, by the magic you have brought out of your mind, the trouble stops.

The Magic of Visualization

• Don’t draw lines between the possible and the impossible. Leave it to your subconscious to get it for you in its own magic way by command of your will.

You obtain your desire by feeling as if you had already got what you want now.

• Visualize. See pictures. Look at your scrap book every day, and believe.

• Hold but one pessimistic thought and you will be cut off from the magic you are seeking. Cultivate a strong belief, be absolutely positive, and you will release this wonderful magic power. Be an optimist par excellence.

• You must repeat over and over again the name of the thing you want. Repetition is essential.

• Don’t ever complain. Bless every condition you are in, bless what you already have, then you can work magic.

Power of the Subconscious

• Give commands to your subconscious. The subconscious never fails to obey any order commanded, if the order is clear and emphatic and given with feeling.

• You must act on a hunch that your subconscious gives you, because the subconscious is always right.

Silence and Meditation

• You must silence your thoughts. Empty your mind.

• Say with all your heart, ‘Let there be wealth’ or ‘Let there be health’ or anything else you want, and these things are bound to manifest.

• Determine there will be no more chaos in your life, no more muddling through. Lift your mind high, high above the stars, and meditate.

The Magic of Love

• The torch of life is fed by the oil of love.

• Say to yourself again and again, ‘I will try always to be in love.’ In love with everything. When you love life you are able to say, ‘This is my happy day.’

• The other day a woman said of a man, “If he calls me dear, I’ll smack his face!” Never, never in a thousand years could such a person do magic.

The Secret of Wealth

• The money-conscious parent teaches the child wealth wants me, not I want wealth.

• Refuse to deal in little coins.

• This is the great secret of money magic. You must bless your money when you send it out, and you must ask it to return multiplied.

• Roll your notes. Put an elastic band around them, because, don’t you see, it represents without beginning and without end.

• Take yourself where riches are. Take yourself to the very best hotel for tea or go to a famous and smart hotel bar for a drink.

• Good luck comes to anyone who gives pleasure to others.

The Magic of Friendship

• Mystery lends charm to the personality.

• Always find something fresh to admire and appreciate in the object of your affection, and tell them so! Compliment again and again. Be grateful for friendships.

• You must have friends. Get out more. Mix more freely. Meet other people, widen your interests.

The Magic of Change

• Try something new every now and again, every day if you can.

• Change brings magic.

The Magic of Right Impressions

• You must impress the world with your importance if you would be a success, and if you would work magic.

• Pomp and power go together.

• You have got to look like a success before you are a success.

The Magic of Laughter

• If you can laugh, you are mentally healthy; the mentally ill can’t laugh.

The Magic of Colour

• By loving everybody you develop the rose-pink colour of loving kindness in your aura.

• Look at violet or amethyst if you want to reach a higher dimension, to purify your mind or solve a problem.

• If it’s money and abundance you want, concentrate on the little square of emerald green silk.

• To sharpen your intellect, yellow is helpful.

• By wearing red garments the colour has actually been proved to seep into the skin and make a man strong and dynamic.

• Green is employed for the decoration of eye hospitals, because green is most helpful to the sight.

The Magic of Right Habits

• Poverty is the result of the wrong habits of thinking.

• Do something, because action is necessary no matter what habit you desire to break.

• The word never should never be used in magic, except in the phrase, ‘You never know.’

The Magic of Music

• Music is felt in the same part of the brain that responds to pain. They believe that the sound of music can block off the brain’s reaction to pain by ‘jamming’ the signals from the nerve centres which are affected. Such is the magic of music.

Have Done With Fear

• What you are most afraid of won’t happen.

______

And that, on page 179 of this 288 page book, was the final highlight that the original book’s owner made.

Perhaps there was nothing of interest in the last 100 pages. Perhaps they felt they were already on the “road to success” and didn’t need any more information. Perhaps, “what they were most afraid of” was getting hit by a bus, and, with a new sense of invincibility, they crossed the street without looking. It’s hard to say.

I’d like to thank the previous owner—whoever that may be—for giving us their highlights of the book.

Tucked away in the book were two relics from that owner.

First, a business card for a Hypnosis Consultant in Sarasota.

And then this handwritten note.

Here’s to hoping the health, wealth, and understanding they needed came their way.

Casualness and Clarity

These are some not-yet-fully-formed thoughts I’ve been having recently about two separate approaches to instilling belief in a spectator. Sorry if this isn’t 100% coherent. I’m still working through the ideas.

Imagine these two scenarios:

Scenario A: We go out for lunch. After the meal you head to the restroom. When you get back I’m putting my credit card away, “I took care of the check. You’ll get me next time, yeah?”

Scenario B: We go out for lunch. After the meal you head to the restroom. When you get back I say, “I took care of the check. Your meal came to 18 dollars, and mine was 19 dollars. Here’s my copy of the check. I left a ten dollar tip. I used my American Express card. Here’s my American Express account homepage. You see it says there’s a $37 charge, yes? That’s for the meal. But it’s just ‘pending’ at this time. When it eventually goes through it will be for $47 because it will include the tip. If you want, I’ll send you a copy of my credit card statement when it comes so you can be sure.”

In which scenario would you be more certain that I actually paid the check? I’m not sure what the answer is. In Scenario B you definitely have more evidence that I paid the check. But in Scenario A you would likely never even think to question it.

I’ve been finding it useful these days—when trying to find the right move or technique and the right moment to employ that move or technique—to think if what I want to emphasize at that moment is clarity or casualness.

These are, I believe, the primary ways you can reliably establish belief in your spectators. Either your actions can be so clear that they can’t help but believe what your actions indicate. Or your actions can be so casual that they don’t think to question them.

For example, if I very fairly and clearly draw your attention to me placing a coin from my right hand into my left—and my false transfer technique is flawless—you may be convinced the coin is in my left hand. And that’s because my technique is strong enough to overcome your scrutiny of that action.

But if I just tap my hands together and then act like the coin is in my left hand, that action may also overcome your scrutiny, because the casualness of the action didn’t arouse much scrutiny in the first place. Your mind may process it and take it at face-value before it even knows that was a moment to be questioned.

The key to this concept however is that casualness and clarity are at opposite ends of a spectrum. You can choose to emphasize one or the other but you can’t really mix the two. They don’t mix. (You can mix them in different elements of the same trick. But not in the same element. For example, I can’t casually show my hand empty and show it empty with absolute clarity.)

When I have a trick that’s not working it’s usually because some element of it is stuck somewhere between clarity and casualness, and I need to push it one way or the other. You need to be on either end of the spectrum. If you’re in the middle you’re kind of accomplishing nothing.

As a social performer I would prefer to only rely on “casualness” to instill belief, but that’s not really possible. Most effects require at least some clarity to make them hit home. For example, the Ambitious Card. You can’t use casualness to fool people with that trick. They need clarity that their card is going in the middle of the deck. If that’s not 100% clear, the trick falls apart.

The general rule I use is that if I’m trying to hide something, then I strive for casualness. If I’m trying to emphasize something (often something that’s not true), then I strive for clarity.

Here are the two primary mistakes I make or see others making:

Mistake #1 - Sacrificing the Casualness of a Simple Technique For Something That’s More Advanced

Let’s say you have an “okay” push-thru false shuffle. You can do one as long as you concentrate on it and go somewhat slowly. Your “okay” false shuffle is actually somewhat worthless as a tool of deception. It’s not something that gets you halfway to where you want to be. It’s something that has you stuck midway between the two extremes of fooling: casualness and clarity. You can’t do it with enough ease that it seems like a casual shuffle, and you can’t do it expertly enough to really have them focus in on it to see the cards “clearly being shuffled.”

In this case you’re better off doing a simple overhand false shuffle and some sloppy false cuts that you can do haphazardly, even if that’s theoretically less convincing a mix than the push-through shuffle. In practice, the casualness with which you execute the maneuver while interacting with your friends is going to make them less likely to question the action.

Mistake #2 - Not Effectively Demonstrating the Clarity of the Conditions Because They Don’t Want to “Run When They’re Not Being Chased.”

I find a lot of magicians end up in a kind of grey area between the “invisibility” that casualness brings and the conviction that clarity brings. And it comes down to one piece of advice that I think is overused: “Don’t run if you’re not being chased.” That advice leads to a lot of muddy effects.

Traditional magic wisdom: “Don’t run if you’re not being chased! Don’t say, ‘Notice that the card case is empty.’ Instead just flash the empty card case.”

This is such common advice in magic that I feel weird questioning it. But the truth is, if you actually perform for people, and if you end up talking to those people after your performance, and you ask for a critical assessment of what you did, you are bound to have this sort of conversation very often:

“Well, I think the card must have been in the case from the beginning.”

“No. I showed it empty at the start of the trick.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, before I set the case down.”

“Uhm, okay. If you say so. I don’t remember that.”

How would anyone know to make a concrete mental note of an empty card case unless you tell them to? And if you really were going to make something appear in a card case with magic powers, wouldn’t emphasizing its emptiness be the first thing you would do?

There’s nothing wrong with saying, “And I place this single quarter—and nothing else—in my empty left hand.” If it adds to the clarity and conviction of an effect, then you should say it (assuming whatever technique you’re using allows for the increased scrutiny of saying such a thing). What you don’t want to do is just leave it up to the spectator to remember the details of what happened, because they won’t be forgiving. “I bet he had two quarters. One behind the other.” Once you start trying to retroactively clarify what you did (“No! I showed you a single quarter. You saw the edge!”) then you’ve lost.

---

Okay, let me try and summarize the ideas here.

There are two primary ways you can create belief with a spectator:

1. Casualness

   • Make your actions feel so innocent and commonplace that the spectator doesn’t think to question them.

   • “Don’t run when you’re not being chased.”

2. Clarity

   • Make your actions so clear that they can’t be questioned.

   • “Go ahead and run. Just be certain you can outrun them.”

Monday Mailbag #41

Is there any chance you would ever do a collaboration with Phill Smith? You are two of my favorite magic creators and I really love your thoughts on Stegosaurus and especially Quinta, which I think are game-changing. I’d love to see the two of you collaborate in some way in the future. —DH

Hmmm… okay, sure! I mean, I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. But I suppose anything is possible. I too am a big fan of Phill’s work. And I have some further concepts to be used with Quinta that I will likely share in some form someday.

By the way, Phill has a kickstarter that is ending in a couple days that I would recommend you sign up for. I will definitely be doing so myself. It’s a special deck of cards and a wrist band that creates a neural link between one’s mind and the deck of cards. (That’s the presentation, I mean. Not the reality.) You can see more details on the kickstarter page.

Now, if I had one trick to show someone, and I wanted to leave them as amazed as possible, this is probably not the trick I would show them. However I think it’s a good trick/presentation to have in your repertoire in order to keep your audience off balance. This is something that’s on the edge of believability. It’s the sort of thing you can perform in such a way that they are forever in a state of limbo in regards to whether they believe it or not. Or you can perform it in such a way that it feels quite legitimate, and then you ramp it up at the end and do something that seems beyond impossible. So just when they think they have an understanding on what might be real, you mess with them a little more. I think it will be a lot of fun. At the very least it will be a change of pace, as I don’t have any other tricks with this particular premise. Get in on it before the kickstarter ends.

---

Do you collect decks of cards? If so, do you display them in your home or are they stored away? —EC

There was a time, maybe 20 years ago, when I tried to collect every new deck I heard about. It was actually kind of feasible at the time. Or at least it felt that way. There weren’t a bunch of different companies releasing decks constantly. There was no kickstarter. Bicycle would release green Rider Backs and that seemed like a big deal. So every couple of months I might hear about a new deck and then pick it up for my collection whether I liked it or not.

Then, as more decks got released, I started only buying ones that I liked aesthetically. Usually they had some kind of mid-century design element to them.

However, these days, I really only buy and display decks that I feel I can attach a story to. The Phill Smith deck mentioned above would be such a deck. Or the Jerx Deck #4. Ideally I want people to be able to pick up any of the decks I have out at my place and for me to have something interesting to say about it other than, “I bought it cause I liked it.”

---

[Update 4/23 - I’ve removed a question and answer from this edition of the Mailbag because it mentioned a product in a not 100% flattering light. And the guy behind the product emailed me and was all defensive about it. Normally I would post such emails for you all to get a kick out of, but these weren’t the funny kind of angry emails. They were the sad, depressing kind.

However, I received a number of nice emails about the simple routine mentioned below. So I want to keep that there and the method to do the routine with a normal deck.

The subject of the original question was what justification I would use to do a peek of a word written on a playing card.]

Here’s what I’d do… I’d remove the joker from the deck. I’d note the fact the joker is often used as a replacement card for lost or damaged cards by writing that card’s value on the joker. I’d talk about my mom’s extended Italian family and how playing cards was always a big part of our interaction when I was growing up. I’d have them imagine a deck of cards spread face up on the table and a big dollop of marinara sauce falling on one of them, ruining the card. I’d have them write the name of whatever card they’re thinking of on the joker and slide it into the middle of the deck, which I would case and set aside. Then I’d reveal the card the wrote in some way.

Cards justified. Writing justified.

But…

Having the ability to peek writing and then using that to reveal a playing card could be seen as uninspiring, considering we already have so many ways to reveal a playing card.

So I would probably add another element to it. I’d have them write down the card and another piece of information. How do we naturally involve another piece of information. Hmm… I’d probably say something like, “Whenever I would alter one of the jokers in this way. I’d always write a little message on it to. For whoever’s deck it was. So I might write, ‘Hi Grandma!’ or ‘Hi, Uncle Bill!’ And that always made the card weirdly special to them. I know my grandma held onto a couple of these jokers long after the deck itself had been replaced with a newer one. So I want you to also think of a favorite relative of yours and write a greeting to them on the card as well.”

Then I’d have them put the card in the deck, cull it to the bottom, and case the deck (peeking the information in the process of casing the deck). If I was at a table I might cull it and then cop it or just drop it off the bottom of the deck into my lap and give the deck to the spectator. This may seem somewhat bold, but as I believe I’ve written about before, culling is a somewhat underrated sleight. Laymen see a card that’s put in the middle of the deck as a card that’s trapped by a bunch of cards on either side. In testing, when we asked people about how they would go about getting a card from the middle to the bottom without someone seeing, they had the concept of pulling the card free from the deck and placing it on the bottom “sneakily”, and they had the idea of cutting the deck very quickly (essentially a pass). But there was no real understanding in laypeople of the concept that a card in the middle can be easily extracted from a spread and slid to the bottom.

Next I’d ask them to imagine playing a card game with this relative and them needing one particular card to complete their hand. Blah, blah, blah. Eventually I name the card they’re thinking of and after some thought the person they imagined playing the game with as well.

The nice thing about this is you could go into it anytime, anywhere so long as you had a deck of cards and a marker. No special gimmicks needed. You could even use a borrowed deck since you’re just writing on the joker.

Dustings #35

Here’s an interesting idea from Michal Kociolek (who is also the person responsible for the April 1st—Vanishing Inc meets The Jerx header image).

It’s a way of transferring a signature from one card to another. So someone could sign this card:

And you’d end up with the signature on this card:

I’ll get to the method in a second. It’s pretty clever. But it can’t be done during a performance (unless you had someone assisting you backstage). That raises the question if there’s any real benefit to a signature transfer that can’t be done in performance. If you signed something at one point and later I show you that signature on something else at another point, I feel like you’re just going to assume I copied the signature, yes? So to really take advantage of this method, it would need to be in a context where “you just copied my signature” isn’t a viable other explanation.

But let’s get to the method. First I’ll explain it with pictures, then I’ll give you Mihcal’s written explanation.

Here it is…

“The thing that is used to cover the back of the Tally Ho card is a peel off face mask gel that dries down and, apart from creating a slightly more reflective surface than the regular card has, is practically invisible. It's a pretty weird thing to work with, as you can handle the card like it's nothing special.

After moving the layer with the signature, the outer side is not tacky at all, and you can work on the edges to blend everything nicely (the gel layer dissolves if you use, for example, a slightly damp sponge. Or just use a finger to "model" it). Again, the surface is just a tiny bit shinier than a regular card.

(If you'd stick that card into a clear block of ice, that minimal distortion would make it totally invisible, for example.)”

So yeah, I think it’s a method in search of an ideal application at this point.

You may also want to consider it as a way to duplicate a signature as opposed to just transfer one. For example, if someone signs a card (a normal card) at some point, you could later cover it with the face mask material. Then duplicate their signature on top of the face mask. Peel it off and apply it to a duplicate card. Now you have two identical signed cards which could be useful for a burned and regenerated type of card, or anything along those lines.

But again, my imagination is failing me at coming up with a situation where this would be the best option. If you think of something, let me know.

Here are the ingredients in the face mask Michal uses. If you want to experiment with it and try something similar.

---

Some days I like to sit alone in a room for hours and meditate on this page from an old issue of Penguin Magic Monthly.

This is a “gag” according to the magazine. Here is the entirety of what they tell you to do.

That’s it. That’s the end of this entry in the magazine. Place an eyeball on a pad. I imagine you’re then supposed to say, “It’s an iPad,” or something “funny” like that, but they don’t really delve into what you’re supposed to do after you’ve placed the eye on the pad. I guess you just wait for the hysterical laughter and cries of “This is the funniest magician I’ve ever seen!” to end so you can move on with your show.

I particularly like this part…

Mmm… yes, yes. So true. If there’s one thing you can say about the act of putting an eyeball on a drawing pad it’s that you are invoking the rich artistic history of using “iconic words and images that people can relate to.”

---

Great to see Michael Feldman on Fool Us last week wearing his GLOMM membership shirt.

Didn’t see anyone else on the show wearing a GLOMM shirt—the GLOMM of course being the one magic organization you’re not allowed to be in if you’re a sex offender—so yeah, that kind of made me wonder. 🤔

---

This is kind of interesting.

Some early depictions of Jesus show him using a magic wand. pic.twitter.com/vBI1U1GM2E

— Museum Archive (@ArtifactsHub) April 11, 2021

And then there’s this…

Alphablocks and Mind Reading Dice

A little while ago I posted a trick called Ascrabbological Sign. It was a “proof of concept” idea where you would be able to tell what astrological sign someone was thinking of based on having them concentrate on “random” scrabble letters picked from a bag, without you ever actually seeing the letters.

I never did anything with it, I just presented the concept. Well, Warwick H. has created an online tool that is kind of amazing (to me, at least). You can dump any list of (up to 16) words into it and it will shit out letter groupings you can use to do the same Ascrabbological effect with any words you want.

So, for instance, you could play a game of Scrabble with someone and take a picture of the board when you’re done. Later in the evening you could have them look at the picture and think of one of the words there, and then you could determine what they’re thinking just by having them concentrate on some randomly selected tiles.

Or ditch the scrabble tiles altogether and use the tool with slips of paper that you’ve written letters on or alphabet cards or something like that.

I’ve only played with this a little bit, but I have a feeling people are going to come up with some good uses for it. It’s sort of got a progressive anagram feel to it, but they never tell you the letters you got right. You just need to know how many you got right. So the key to creating a trick with this method is:

1. Having them think of some subset of words

2. Have some way of delivering them two “random” groupings of letters.

3. Have some way of determining how many letters in those groupings are in their words.

So, here’s an example.

1. They think of one of these cereals

2. You have a small, clear switch bag filled with Alpha-Bits cereal. You shake it up and dump a few random pieces into their cupped hands while you look away.

3. You tell them to eat any letters that appear in their cereal’s name and put the other ones aside. You do a second round of this as well. Then you have them spit in your mouth and you tell them the cereal they’re thinking of. (I didn’t say it was a good idea.)

So, to do that you would just plug the cereal name into Warwick’s tool. And you’d get this result…

Then you’d have your gimmicked bag set up to deliver them H-A-N the first round and E-L-G (or any other un-used letter) in the second round. And you’d need some sort of crib that tells you:

0 - 0 = Trix
0 - 1 = Reese’s Puffs

And so on.

---

I wanted to take advantage of the ability of using the tool in real time to do a trick over the phone with someone. So I called a friend of mine and I spun a story about going to a little magic gathering the previous week. “It’s almost like a magic farmer’s market. People come with tricks they’ve created and set up little folding tables and demonstrate them and sell them.”

I tell her how there’s this one guy who’s really well known for his interesting creations, but he won’t demonstrate them, and they’re really expensive and he only makes a couple of each trick. Usually he’s sold out by the time I get to his table. But this year I got there very early and they limited the number of people because of covid, so I was able to snag one of his tricks.

“I have a feeling I was totally scammed, though. The trick is called ‘Mind Reading Dice’ and it was $180 and it came in just a small paper lunch bag that was stapled closed. And when I got it home and opened it, it wasn’t some hand-crafted artisan magic trick. I swear to god, I think he just sold me some Boggle dice for $180.”

I tell her that before I make a big stink about getting my money back I want to try it out. I say that I have the instructions but it requires a somewhat long process to “calibrate” the dice and I ask if she has a little while to help me test it out. [Note: The trick doesn’t really take that long, but I wanted to set that expectation.]

I start by asking her to list some of her favorite words. Words she likes the sound of, or likes the meaning of, or just words she likes for whatever reason. Her list of words is:

SPARK
AROUSE
MEANDER
VANILLA
THIGHS
COAX
CARESS
ESPIONAGE
SERENDIPITY
PLEASE
LOVERS
PINGPONG
COCKSUCKER

As she is giving me the words, I’m silently typing them into the tool.

When she is done I tell her to think of any word and change her mind a few times before settling on a final word.

“Okay,” I say, “So now I have to remove a random number of dice and roll them. I’ll read to you the letters that come up and you just keep in mind how many of those letters are in the word you’re thinking of. We’re going to have to do this a bunch of times. Maybe 15-20. So try to stay with me.”

She hears me dump a bunch of dice on the table.

“Okay, Round 1. The letters are: I… N…O…U…Y. How many did we get?”

“I-N-O-U-Y? Uhm, just one.”

Shake. Roll.

“Round 2. The letters are C-E-L-R. How many this time?”

“None.”

“Ha. We’re getting worse. Great. These are clearly just Boggle dice. I can’t believe this. Whatever. Here we go. Round 3.”

Shake. Roll.

“Okay… so we’ve got a… holy shit! Was this?… This was one of your words! [quietly] You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. [normal voice] If this is what you’re thinking of I’m going to lose my shit. Hold on. Let me take a picture.”

I take a picture of the dice I just rolled (wink-wink) and text it to her. “Wait,” I say. “Before you look at the picture. What word were you thinking of?”

“Thighs,” she says.

“What the fuuuuccccckkkkk,” she hears my voice slowly fade away as I run away from my phone, like a Blaine spectator.

On her end, she looks at the picture and I can hear her scream coming out of my phone from across the room.

I wasn’t expecting a huge reaction to this, but it went over surprisingly well. Here are, I think, some of the elements that made it work so well.

• It used her own words that she came up with.

• I said that we were in for a long process. I didn’t say what that process was, but the implication was that whatever was going to happen was going to be some time down the road. So the fact that the dice “read her mind” so quickly made it extra surprising. The idea that you could find some pattern in the letters of the words over many rounds of this game, isn’t very far-fetched. But with just two rounds, and their words, I think it becomes much more impossible.

• I pinned the magic on someone else. It wasn’t me reading their mind. It was a trick that we were experiencing together.

• The sound of dice hitting the table—even over the phone—is very distinctive. It’s very easy to “see” what you’re hearing. A lot of things look random and haphazard, but dice hitting the table sounds random and haphazard. So I think that helped paint the picture that I’m calling out random letters.

I did, in fact, use a set of Boggle dice for this. I had a small handful of dice that I was rolling for the sound, then I had the rest of the dice with common letters on top in alphabetical order off to the side. That was to help me quickly assemble her word once I knew what it was. Sort of the way a typesetter would have the letters in front of them ready to go.

I was prepared to stall after round 2 and bitch about how much money I wasted as I assembled her word on the table. But in this case, she thought of one of the shorter words and it didn’t take me long to find the letters so I was ready to go pretty quickly.

This was fun to perform. The story of maybe getting suckered at some weird magic flea market is a pretty good one. And the process of having them name their favorite words is rich territory for interaction. And the unexpectedly early conclusion is strong.

If you have any ideas using this technique and Warwick’s tool, feel free to pass them along.

For now I’m calling this technique Alphablocking (because it uses blocks of letters… clever, Andy!). What I’m wondering, however, is does this already have a name? Did I make up this technique? I doubt it, because it doesn’t seem like the sort of thing I’d be the first to come up with. But while I can see a relation to other techniques used in magic/mentalism, I don’t think I know of something that’s exactly the same. If you have some credits/history for this, let me know.

And finally, thanks to Warwick H. for creating this online tool. Unlike you and I, Warwick is one of those smart guys. If you have an idea in mind that your dumb ass can’t really take any further, Warwick made this kind offer in an email to me….

“Since I enjoy working on solving these kinds of problems/puzzles so much, I'd like to make an open invitation to your readers to get in touch if they need any similar problems solved for their magic (I'm mostly thinking of the kind of thing where a computer chugging through combinations in a smart way might be expected to have an advantage over a human, but all enquiries welcome). Contact details are on the website.”

Monday Mailbag #40

I’m trying to picture this: You’re sitting in a coffee shop and someone you don’t know is sitting next to you. Do you really just turn to them and ask them if they want to see a magic trick or ask them to “help you with something you’re working on”? You’ve inspired me to perform more and I’ve had a lot of success using your ideas with my friends. But how do you start something with a stranger in public? —HH

I’m sure it has happened, but it is very, very rare that my first words spoken to a stranger would be asking them if they want to see a magic trick.

A lot of the issues magicians have with the concept of “social magic” are really just an extension of their issues with social interaction in general. So let’s forget the “magic” aspect for a moment and just talk about how to initiate an interaction with someone you don’t know.

Since you brought up a coffee shop, I’ll talk about that environment. If I want to try out something with a stranger, this would be my approach. I’d go sit in their general vicinity. When they look up—as people generally do when someone enters their surroundings—I’d make eye contact. Smile or nod my head in acknowledgement. And then say, “How’s it going?”

When I break it down, it sounds stupid. And I don’t really think of it in these steps. This is just normal human interaction.

Now, asking how someone is doing can either be just a casual greeting or it can be an opening for a conversation, depending on how they take it.

So if they say, “Good. Thanks.” Then that gives me some idea of their openness for engagement.

If they say, “I’m good. Finally getting a chance to enjoy some sunshine. I thought it was going to be cloudy all week. How about you? Did you get outside today?” That would obviously indicate that they are much more open for a conversation. Then, at some point after we’ve been talking a while, it’s not too difficult to transition into a trick. “Hey, I was reading about something,” or, “Hey, my friend just taught me this weird thing that I’ve been wanting to try out. It’s like a magic trick, sort of.” I don’t try to be too clever about it.

And even if the other person does just give you a sort of cursory, “Hey, I’m good. Thanks.” response to your initial hello, you’ve at least cracked the conversational seal a little bit so it’s less awkward if you turn to them later on and ask them a question.

In a coffee shop you need to take notice of what the person is doing. If they have their headphones on and they’re banging on the laptop, then I’m not going to bother them. But if they’re sitting at the counter just enjoying their coffee, then I find, more often than not, they’re looking for some kind of interaction.

You should also make it a point to get to know the baristas (assuming you’re not somewhere that is just a constant stream of customers). Very often my conversations with new people start as conversations between me and the barista, then some stranger joins in, and then I break off and continue with the stranger.

I could go on, but I’m getting away from my original point which is: Don’t think of it as, “How do I get into a magic trick with a stranger?” Think of it as, “How do I start a conversation with a stranger?” And you do that simply by putting out a welcoming vibe and saying hello.

Once the conversation is in full swing, a good way to get into a trick is to build off something they say about themselves. This is something I use a lot. If they tell me they’re an artist, then I’ll ask some questions about the type of art they do, and look at some examples on their phone or whatever. After that—almost as an afterthought—I’ll say, “Oh, wait. Can I try something with you? You’d be perfect for this. I’ve been wanting to try this with someone with your type of artistic skills.” And now I’m pulling out a business card for them to draw on. Of course I could do something similar if they said they were studying math, an athlete, a writer, or whatever.

Tying something they say or something they’re interested in into a trick you want to perform is a skill in and of itself, but it’s a pretty easy one, in my opinion. The big moment of friction is to get that conversational ball rolling. Once you do that you’ll be fine.

---

[Referring to this post about online exposure.]

I think you’re underestimating the harm that the exposure of tricks on facebook/tiktok/instagram etc is going to have on magic. I realize that you’re coming at this from an amateur’s perspective, but as someone who makes his living performing tableside and bar magic, it’s terrifying to see classic magic tricks and methods exposed so casually. —CF

I understand where you’re coming from, but I don’t think I’m underestimating it. I think the traditional magician-centric manner of magic performance is more or less doomed, if it’s not already dead. And it’s death is due to the internet which makes it:

• Easy for people to see magic whenever they want

• Easy for non-magicians to track down the secret of a trick (or at least track down that it is something with a secret that can be learned—and not some unknowable mystery)

• Easy for non-magicians to be exposed to secrets unintentionally

These things are all very bad for magic as it was traditionally performed, in a manner that usually stressed the magician’s power and the secret. So yeah, I’m not underestimating the destructive power of the the internet on that style of magic. In fact, a lot of the ideas on this site and my entire last book was about alternative presentational techniques to give your magic performances some elements that can’t be undermined by something the spectator sees online.

Yes, there’s a lot more you need to navigate these days if you want to create a long-lasting, powerful experience for people. It’s not just a matter of having access to a book that 99.999% of the world don’t have access to, as it was 30 years ago.

But I will give you two positive points you may want to take with you:

#1 - Regarding magic exposure on Facebook et al., I think there’s a good chance that people don’t remember this stuff as much as we would think they would. I’m specifically referring to the type of casual exposure you stumble across in a facebook video (not something the person specifically searched out). Have you watched any cooking hack or life hack videos with their clever solutions to common problems? I’ve probably watched 556 hours of them. And I don’t remember anything I saw in them. I would not be surprised if—for people who don’t care that much about magic—any particular magic method they stumble across doesn’t fall into this same sort of “clever solution” memory hole. It probably just doesn’t mean enough to those people to remember. Admittedly this is more of a personal theory than a fact I can prove.

#2 - You are performing for people live and in person. You should be able to find limitless opportunities to do things that just cant be replicated online. Things that should feel more personal, and vital, and relevant to the spectators. If the experience of seeing you live table-side is the same thing that they’re getting watching facebook videos of magic, then you’re material needs a complete overhaul.

---

Fantastic trick idea today Andy. I’ve been thinking about it and I’m curious about something.

Would you class the overall effect as being able to produce a ‘randomly’ selected loved one? Or something weirder?

The way in which you seem to change into Cousin Greg means it could work as a transposition instead, where you swap places with him and the pay off is phoning Greg’s wife and you’re there in his house. —JS

Yeah, I gave that some thought. I think it’s all going to depend on who the person is that you’re “producing.”

The question you would need to ask yourself is: What is the bigger surprise? Is the bigger surprise that you changed into this other person? Or is the bigger surprise that this person is here at all?

If you’re just changing into a random buddy from your bowling league—someone who lives in town and who your target audience sees frequently—then go ahead and build up the trick aspect. Make it more of a transposition. Climb out the window and leave. Have your friend act confused like they were literally just transported to your house from theirs. Is there a way to play a pre-recorded video over a video call as if it’s happening in real time? If so you could record something at your friend's house at an earlier point and then make it seem like you’re calling from your friend’s place moments after you disappeared.

Maybe have your friend’s wife call and be furious because you transposed with the person when they were in mid-sexual intercourse. And you ended up busting a nut in her.

(That’s just one way you could go with it.)

My point being, if your spectator’s focus is going to be on the trick, then feel free to extend that as long as you want.

But, if the spectator’s focus is going to be on the person—if you’re doing this as a way to surprise them with someone they care about who they haven’t seen in a while—then just do the change and be done with it. The trick isn’t the important thing after that.

Dustings #34

I mentioned this in passing before, but given the number of emails I’ve received, I didn’t put a fine enough point on it. The first newsletter for this year’s supporters will be going out later this month. Probably around the 20th give or take a few days.

---

Magician’s Timing

The term “big dick energy” gained prominence about three years ago as we can see on this Google Trends graph where the searches shoot up right at the end.

Guess at what point some magicians put out a show called “Big Trick Energy”?

Timely!

You might think that’s a terrible name for a show, but I’m sure the executives at TruTV (where it’s airing) were just like, “Name it whatever the fuck you want. As long as it’s not as convoluted a name as ‘The Carbonaro Effect,’ then we’re good.”

And the guys behind the show were like, “It’s called Big Trick Energy! You know, like big dick energy. But we substituted ‘trick’ for ‘dick’ because we do magic tricks. (And because our penises are just adequate at best, if we’re being 100% honest.)”

TruTV Exec: Sure. Whatever. Fine. Call the show Abracadouchebags if you want. As long as we don’t have to spend 45 minutes explaining it every time it comes up, we cool.

Here’s an ad for the show…

BUCKET LIST: Using RUN DMC on my TV show promo!! @truTV #bigtrickenergy pic.twitter.com/enqybaep7i

— Chris Ramsay (@chrisramsay52) March 24, 2021

I wish them the best of luck. I’ll be curious to see how the show does. A prank show with four magicians where they “mess with each other” may sound like a great idea, but it seems like it would be really difficult in execution. I think what people love about prank shows, or things like the Carbonaro Effect, or even just a David Blaine special is that they have this fake thing—the prank or the magic trick—but we get to see people’s genuine reactions to that fake thing. If the reactions to Blaine’s tricks didn’t feel legitimate, he never would have had a special in the first place.

But from the clips I’ve seen, when it comes to this show, everything seems fake. The tricks, the reactions, even their reactions to the reactions. And, of course, they would have to be fake. If we’re a bunch of magicians on a show together and you “crush my car with the power of your mind” then my real reaction is going to be, “Huh. Would ya look at that.” I’m not going to be freaking out, because I know we’re magicians on a tv show.

So it’s this weird situation where you have a phony reaction to a phony scenario. My gut tells me that’s going to make it difficult for people to connect to the show in any real way. But what the hell do I know? You have that same situation with fake reactions to fake situations all over facebook and the videos have millions of views. I’m just not sure how well that will translate to tv. For their sake, I hope it’s a hit.

---

I have to say, watching that commercial reminded me of how much more powerful magic is when it’s not in front of an audience or someone holding a tv camera. I really think magic for just a small group (ideally 1-on-1) in a casual/social situation is the most powerful magic there is, everything else being equal. There’s a moment in that commercial above where a woman breaks a plate-glass window with her mind and her reaction is about 20% of the reaction I get when I have someone knock a pen off the table with their mind in my apartment.

That’s not a reflection on me as a performer. That’s just the difference of someone experiencing something in an intimate interaction as opposed to one that’s meant to be broadcast to the world.

---

Andy’s Bible Updates

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I’ve started reading the bible. And now it’s time for my bible update.

But this is supposed to be a magic blog!

Beat it. This is my blog. My magic and bible blog now. If you don’t like it, hit the bricks.

The particular bible I’m using is this one, where the bible is broken up into a reading program that lasts the course of a year. Each day you read some of the old testament, some of the new testament, some of psalms and proverbs.

The entry for April 3rd was a particularly bonkers day in this bible. We’re in Deuteronomy and Moses is wrapping up with the Israelites and letting them know some of the rules they need to follow. (If you thought the 10 commandments were the only rules to follow, you’re incredibly mistaken.)

Here are some highlights from the April 3rd entry…

Honestly, that would feel like the least of my problems at that moment.

Ok, fair enough, Moses. But actually, if the concern is about me being “defiled,” I think I’d feel much more defiled walking around all day in the desert sun with the dried jiz flaking off my stomach. Any chance I can take that bath in the morning?

And finally, here is one of my favorite excerpts of the bible so far. It’s a longer one, so I won’t use a photo, but it’s worth the read…

Deuteronomy 25:5-10

“If two brothers are living together on the same property and one of them dies without a son, his widow may not be married to anyone from outside the family. Instead, her husband’s brother should marry her and have intercourse with her to fulfill the duties of a brother-in-law. The first son she bears to him will be considered the son of the dead brother, so that his name will not be forgotten in Israel.

“But if the man refuses to marry his brother’s widow, she must go to the town gate and say to the elders assembled there, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to preserve his brother’s name in Israel—he refuses to fulfill the duties of a brother-in-law by marrying me.’ The elders of the town will then summon him and talk with him. If he still refuses and says, ‘I don’t want to marry her,’ the widow must walk over to him in the presence of the elders, pull his sandal from his foot, and spit in his face. Then she must declare, ‘This is what happens to a man who refuses to provide his brother with children.’ Ever afterward in Israel his family will be referred to as ‘the family of the man whose sandal was pulled off’!

Okay guys, you hear that? Is it clear to you? Hey… look…you’re not being pressured into anything. You have a choice. You either fulfill your brother-in-law “duties,” and bang your brother’s widow or this business about the sandal is going to come out. And buddy, let me tell you, it’s going to be all over Israel. Everybody is going to hear about it. So if you’re thinking, “Oh, well, gee, it probably won’t be that bad. It will blow over soon enough.” No. Don’t get it twisted. We’re going to be talking about that sandal thing ever afterward.

---

Usually when a magician becomes famous there are numerous copycats that come out of the woodwork Blaine created a number of street-magic clones. Derren Brown spawned a bunch of “psychological illusionists.” David Copperfield had his followers, complete with the wind-swept hair and the Peter Gabriel soundtrack.

Yet, for some reason, nobody that I know (other than myself) has run with this style of performance and presentation which—in my opinion—is the finest in the history of magic.

For those of you who are curious what it’s like to see me perform, it’s pretty much this. I look like a total creep, but I sing the catchiest song you’ve ever heard. And my audiences are primarily composed of pre-pubescent future serial killers.

Also, I’m not too proud to admit I was fooled by the balloon trick. This commercial is a mix of real magic and fake bullshit, so I don’t really know if it’s possible. Is there some sort of tubing system allowing this to happen? Is it just a clip run in reverse with him lip-syncing backwards? I admit, the Marvelous Magical Burger King has fooled me with that one.