Visual vs Cerebral

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The most common question I get in my email is, “How would you present [insert some new trick that recently came out].”

Today, I’m going to talk about one of my first considerations when thinking about coming up with a presentation. My approach, generally, is to start by asking myself if a trick is visual or cerebral.

Visual - Coins disappear, cards change color, billiard balls multiply

Cerebral - The card they named is at the number they named, the Rubik’s cube they mixed matches mine, I predicted the word they merely thought of.

Of course, to a certain extent, most tricks are on a spectrum. The Rubik’s cube trick certainly has a visual element to it. It’s a trick where you are appreciating the effect with your eyes. But the impossibility of it is really something that takes place in your brain. Metal bending is mostly visual, but not completely so. An implied penetration (where you don’t see the object going through the object) may be right down the middle.

The best way to identify if a trick is purely visual is to ask, “Would this fool a monkey?”

If yes, then you have a primarily visual magic trick.

You don’t often have a monkey who is like…

Often, when people are getting into the style of magic I write about here, the mistake I see them make is they take a highly visual piece of magic, and they try to add a cerebral presentation to it. In my experience, it’s hard to make this work.

Visual magic is appealing to a very primitive aspect of our brain. Putting a cerebral presentation on top of it—which is appreciated by a more advanced part of our thinking—doesn’t really go together. It’s like getting a blow job while someone reads you a really good short story. It’s hard to appreciate both simultaneously. And you’re probably just going to be able to concentrate on the more instinctual pleasure.

For the most part, if I have a quick visual trick, I will not burden it with a “deep” presentation. That’s sort of the idea behind the Distracted Artist style. To eliminate the pretense of presentation entirely.

That said, if I do want to add some substance to a quick visual moment, I will do that by “front-loading” the presentation, so I can get it out of the way and the visual moment of magic can be undisturbed. For example, if we were going for a trail walk I might say, “Do you mind if we take a little detour. There’s supposedly an area a little ways off where some weird gravitational anomalies occur.” I get that part out of the way early, so later we can just walk a couple of minutes off the path and when I get there and a pinecone floats between my hands, I don’t need to give a big introductory presentation. This is also a better way to extend the magic of that quick visual moment, by setting it up hours or days earlier. This gives some more meaning to the trick but without dragging down the magic in the moment.

To be clear, I still think a presentation or context is absolutely necessary for cerebral tricks if you want them to be memorable. Visual magic is so primal in its impossibility that you don’t need to add too much for it to be memorable. But if you deal four aces into a square on the table and cover each ace with three indifferent cards and the aces go from each packet to gather at a central packet… that’s not something that’s going to be meaningful and memorable to people long-term unless you make it conceptually interesting by giving it a context they can relate it to. Otherwise, while they may enjoy it in the moment, the only thing they’re likely to remember about it a couple of weeks down the road is, “I saw a card trick.”

(One thing this post doesn’t address is a long-form, visual trick. Like a multi-phase coin trick where coins are appearing, disappearing and changing into different coins. I don’t have a ton of thoughts on these types of tricks because I just don’t like them that much. I think they diminish the impact of the visual magic by repeating it over and over. And I don’t think they work well with more immersive presentations either. Most of these tricks (not all) are in a kind of no-man’s-land for me where they don’t align with either the targeted visual tricks that I like or the intriguing cerebral ones.)

Mailbag #101

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I began practicing magic only at the age of 20 when I met a magician in a bar. In that moment, I realized how incredibly powerful close-up magic is, and this started my journey to becoming a magician. Now, I have been supporting myself and my family as a mentalist for over 15 years. In retrospect, the tricks the magician performed weren't very remarkable, but they left a deep impression (invisible deck, thumbtip, ambitious card). However, I remember one trick stood out for its mediocrity. It was the "Haunted key". I wondered why the magician first told some ghost story and then showed how the key moved in his hand by just turning it. Since then, I've always been puzzled by how some magicians can deceive themselves so thoroughly. —JA

Last week’s mailbag brought out a few Haunted Key defenders and detractors to my email.

“No one ever questions the Haunted Key” was the defender’s position.

I’ve already broken down this “defense” in this post, so I won’t go deep into it again. But I’ll post this brief clip from a podcast I listened to last week.

You have to understand, this is the position of most people who watch magic. They “look and smile” and watch the performance. I have had to plead with people to tell me when they see through something I thought was deceptive. If you haven’t done that, don’t assume you have an accurate feel for how fooling a technique is. Those people who shout out, “I know how you’re doing it!” are like cockroaches. For every one you see, there are 100 you don’t. 100 people nodding along politely.

Sure, if you are profoundly unlikable, you might get a lot of people stopping your tricks to call you out. But most people above the age of 12 won’t do that. They’ll have some idea how it’s done, but they’re not going to stop the show to say it. Just like they don’t stand up in the middle of a production of Peter Pan and say, “He’s on wires! And he’s a she!”

You can’t take the absence of being called out as the absence of them having those thoughts and suspicions. Magicians think, “That woman didn’t call me unattractive… therefore… she must think I’m beautiful!” That’s not how it works.

The Haunted Keep is at best a spooky visual. But it’s not something that fools most people (as traditionally performed).

Loved the IPMT technique.

To me, the biggest benefit of this is that it makes the story of the performance much more interesting and memorable. Not the magic-trick part of the story, the spectator’s-experience part of it. I would bet that if you did the non-ipmt method (using the DFB to force the right name, for example), a week later the spectator might remember the trick, but they are much less likely to remember the names of the celebs, for example. I think it produces much better engagement on the spectator’s part.

But I don’t think you can throw the baseball into the lake because it will float, and still be visible from shore. Throw it in a river and watch until it is gone downstream. —PM

Yes, there is a “richness” to the IPMT that makes the whole thing more memorable. And that’s true regardless of how the spectator ends up perceiving the final effect. For example, whether they see the effect as the bill really reappearing in their wallet, or whether they see that as a sort of “faux-trick” presentation for a mind-reading effect (in other words they know it’s two bills… but how did you predict the celebrity they’d select?) it doesn’t really matter. Either way, there’s more substance to the effect.

As for your second point about my hypothetical baseball trick mentioned in that post, I sometimes forget the athletic ability of the audience I’m writing for

When you’re a physical stud like myself, capable of anything athletically, the concept of throwing a baseball far enough out into a body of water that it won’t be seen by anyone except almighty Poseidon isn’t difficult to fathom. But you make a good point that it might not be possible for the typical magician.

In all seriousness, though, a baseball will float for about 30-60 minutes before it gets water-logged enough to sink. All the better. Kick back, have a few drinks, tell a couple of stories and watch the ball slowly “vanish” before you make it reappear.

Dustings #96

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In this post, I responded to a question about referring to a cum-stiffened sock in the premise for a trick. I said it was too far removed from the actual trick to really make sense. The humor of that premise is just laid on top of a trick it really doesn’t have anything to do with.

I know what you’re thinking…

But Andy, the holidays are coming up, and I really wanted to do a cum-stiffened sock trick for my Christmas party shows!

Okay, okay, settle down. Don’t worry. I have a trick for you.

You come out and say…

Anyone who was once a teenage boy or who raised a teenage boy will know what this is…

That’s right… the good ol’ cum sock

[Hold for applause.]

For any of you women in the audience who don’t know, the cum sock is what a young man entering adulthood pumps his hot loads into so as not to make a mess of his sheets or the house cat.

Now, I actually got into magic because of the cum sock.

[If you can cry on command, now would be a good time.]

My mom used to get furious at me because I never had any socks to wear because they were all filled with pints of my warm man-milk.

So I learned a magic spell that solved the problem and transferred the semen out of the sock…

Inside the sock you will have something like a breakaway wand apparatus, so it can jut out, but on your cue you can make it fall limp.

You time this so it happens as you talk about making the jizz disappear from the sock.

To conclude the trick, you should give some explanation as to where it all went. If you’re a real charmer, like a Channing Pollock type, you can imply it’s gone out to the vaginas of the ladies in the audience. “In 9 months, many of you will be having a magical delivery that looks…a bit like me.” *wink*

I would probably rig something up in my pants so it looked like my balls suddenly grew as the spunk went back inside, and I’d double over in pain.

Or you could say something like, “The bad part is, you never know where it’s going to go.” And then a couple of seconds later you’re like…

Is anyone going on the The Retreat to Egypt? The Retreat is something Vanishing Inc puts on where they get a bunch of magicians together and visit different parts of the globe.

It looks like the Egypt Retreat is sold out, but waiting list spots are available. For just $10,000 you can explore Egypt—see the Pyramids, ride a camel, and take a cruise down the Nile—with Joshua Jay and Andi Gladwin.

I was lucky enough to land one of the premium “deluxe” packages for $15,000. It’s all the same stuff, but you don’t have to do it with Josh and Andi.

Am I dumb? Is this really how it’s done?

Bill to Unpossible Location featuring The Incorrect Prediction Marking Technique

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Imagine

Last weekend, I was staying with my friend Tim in Maryland.

On Saturday, when we went out for lunch, I said…

“Do you have a dollar? I’ll show you something.”

He takes a dollar from his wallet and gives it to me, and I say, "Hold on," and I proceed to draw something on the front of the bill, shielding it from his vision. Then I turn the bill over and place it in the middle of the table between us.

"I've made a prediction. I have a list of famous people on my phone. You're going to choose one at random, and it will be the person I predict. If I'm right, I get to keep your dollar. If I'm wrong, you keep your dollar and... you get a prize."

"What's the prize?" he asks.

"Oh boy, it's something...," I look around as if scanning for what his prize might be. "It's something really great. I don't want to get you too hyped about it because you're not going to win. Go ahead, name a number between 1 and 100."

He names 16.

I furrow my brow a little. "I think that's right," I say. I turn on my phone and have him open the notes list and go to my list of famous people. "Who's at that number?"

"Ronald McDonald," he says.

"Are you sure that's 16?" I ask, turning my head to get a better look at the list. “It’s not Spock from Star Trek?”

He points out the number to me, so I can see it clearly.

“Oh… okay. Yeah. Let me clarify my prediction,” I say.

I turn the bill over. It’s clearly Spock. It’s labelled Spock.

“Just need to add a couple more details here so it’s really clear.”

I scribble out “Spock,” and add some clown details to the pictures.

“Bam!” I say, turning the bill towards him. “Ronald McDonald.”

“No, okay. I fucked up. It worked yesterday, and I really thought I had that down. I will think of a good prize for you.”

A couple of minutes later, I say, “Oh, I know. I’ve got your prize. I’m going to show you something amazing.”

I take the bill and ball it up and hold it in my fist [false transfer]. A moment later, I open my hand and it’s gone.

“I’ve sent the bill back in time. It is now in your wallet again, unmarked, and completely unwrinkled.”

Considering that would make the bill completely indistinguishable from any other bill in his wallet, this doesn’t seem like much of a trick

I acknowledge the look he gives me because of this fact and say, “Oh, right, that wouldn’t be much of a trick. Okay… it’s just back in your wallet.”

Unconvinced, he pulls his wallet out of his pocket and opens it. In amongst his bills is the uncrumpled (but still very wrinkled) and marked up bill. “Okay… that one actually is really messing with my mind,” he says. Which is just about as good as a reaction as I’ve ever been able to squeeze out of this guy.”

Method

This is not a method for bill to wallet, necessarily. It’s a method for bill to impossible location. I was able to do bill to wallet because I was staying with my friend and had access to his wallet the night before, and he happened to have enough bills in there that I could pre-load a dupe in the middle of them without it being noticeable.

I included this technique in another trick I’ve posted here in the past, but I think the concept deserved a little more attention than I originally gave it.

It’s an interesting concept because we’re using magic to get something wrong.

Let’s start with a bad Bill to Impossible Location effect.

You give me a bill, I make it vanish. It reappears taped under your seat.

You say, “It’s a different bill.”

A little better

You give me a bill, I sign it, I make it vanish. It reappears taped under your seat.

Maybe a brief moment of surprise, but you soon think: “Surely, that’s a different bill he signed.” If the purpose of “signing” it was to make it unique, then I would have had you do it, you realize.

A little better

You give me a bill. I write the date and time on it to mark when this event happens. I make it vanish. It reappears taped under your seat.

This is getting stronger. Now I’m not signing it “to make it unique.” I’m writing on it for another purpose, and the byproduct of that purpose is that it’s now a more distinct bill. But still, after a moment you’ll likely consider I may have timed it out and this is just a duplicate bill.

A little better

You give me a bill. I write the date and time on it to mark when this event happens. Oops, you inform me I got the date wrong. Let me cross that out and correct it. Now I make it vanish. It reappears taped under your seat.

You can see how this is getting more and more convincing of it being the same dollar. But despite that, a spectator can still work out that I’m the one who controlled everything that was written on the dollar. And while a duplicate bill with the same markings might not be the solution they come to as immediately, it’s still the one they’re likely to come to.

Another method people use as a way to distinguish a bill other than a signature is to write a prediction down on it. I feel like maybe this is something I’ve seen from David Acer or Richard Sanders or someone else equally Canadian. [Update: It was Richard Sanders. Bill Anywhere from The Richard Sanders Show, Vol 2 (great DVD set, btw).]

So, for example, first I predict the card you’re going to pick on this bill. Later I make the bill disappear, and it reappears with that same written prediction on it, suggesting it’s the same bill.

While this adds another piece to the puzzle, if you could accurately know what card they would pick in advance, then it’s not so difficult to imagine you could write that down on a different bill.

When you predict their card, the question in their mind is, “How could he know what card I’d pick?” If they suspect a duplicate bill, then it’s still the same question in their head, “But how could he know what card I’d pick?” The impossibility of the situation hasn’t really strengthened. It’s still just predicated on you somehow knowing the card.

The Incorrect Prediction Marking Technique

Here, we’re going to force the outcome (in the example above, using the Digital Force Bag App) but we’re going to get the prediction wrong.

We then correct the prediction in a humorous way.

This leaves us with a seemingly uniquely marked object, that you (the magician) could not have anticipated.

What makes this so psychologically disarming is that it just doesn’t occur to people that a magician would use trickery to be wrong. This is so far from their conception of how magicians work and what motivates them. Here we’re actually using the negative stereotype of magicians—that we use trickery to make ourselves look smarter or better than other people—as a way to fool people.

You might say, “Just use a torn corner on the bill if you need a dupe that can’t be signed by the spectator.”

I would say: Use Both. The torn corner will make the Incorrect Prediction Marking Technique stronger. And the IPMT has a benefit the torn-corner doesn’t. (See if you can figure out what that benefit is before the end of this post.)

To be clear, this is not a Dollar Bill/Digital Force Bag/Bill to Impossible Location trick.

This is an Any Object/Any Force/Any Effect where you need a duplicate object technique.

For example, you show someone your book of baseball players autographs. You make a prediction on a baseball of the person whose autograph they’ll choose. They pick Mickey Mantle (via a Svengali pad autograph book). You wrote down Derek Jeter.


Refusing to admit defeat, you jank it up so it looks like Mickey Mantle. “See, I got it right!” you say.

In mock defeat, you throw the baseball into the lake.

“I’ll show you a better trick,” you say. And you mime grabbing some energy from the lake and projecting it to your lake cabin.

You go inside, and on a bookshelf, in a glass display case, is the baseball wrapped in seaweed.

The beauty of this technique? The added benefit of the IPMT that I mentioned above? Here’s what it is. This technique very strongly suggests a unique object. BUT… if it all falls apart—if they say, “No way… that’s a different baseball (or bill or whatever)”—then what you have is… a strong prediction trick that plays out in an entertaining way. There’s no downside.

Finding Your Style - What's a Great Trick You Wouldn't Perform?

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A Quick Note On Yesterday’s Post: I got a number of people telling me they were going to pick up Deep X after my post yesterday. After seeing the instructions for Deep X, I myself won’t be getting it. I prefer Deep Clear. If you already have Deep Clear, I would wait for a full performance video of Deep X before you decide to “upgrade.”

✿✿✿

One of the hardest things for magicians, especially younger magicians to do is to find their niche and their performing style.

Personally, I don’t think you should overspecialize. You’ll often hear someone say something like, “I only do mentalism. Doing regular magic takes away from the power of my mentalism and makes those demonstrations feel like just tricks.”

If you think this way, I have some hard truths for you. When your friends mention your interests when you’re not around, they don’t say stuff like, “Oh yeah, my friend Paul is a genuine psychic savant. A bonafide clairvoyant who impossibly plunges the depths of the human psyche in ways both beautiful and terrifying.”

What they say is, “Oh yeah, my friend Paul does magic tricks.”

At the same time, though, I do think it’s helpful to focus your performances in some way. Not necessarily in the type of material, but in the feeling you’re going for.

And one of the ways to help you understand the vibe you’re going for, if you haven’t determined it yet, is to identify a trick you think is great, but that you don’t see yourself performing.

What’s a great trick you wouldn’t perform?

I’m not looking for an answer like, “I wouldn’t perform David Copperfield’s Flying. Because I’m too poor to buy it, and no one would pay to see me in a stage show.”

I’m suggesting you identify a trick that fits your performing situations, and that you think is really good, but that you wouldn’t perform. When you examine why you wouldn’t perform it, you’ll get some greater insight into the style of performance you do want to pursue.

For example, MiniBook Pro by Noel Qualter and Roddy McGhie is a great trick.

The little computer is cute, the way it gets plucked out of the screen is a cool visual, and the ending—where it transforms into their card—is a total surprise. Not to mention, it leaves them with a legitimately fun souvenir that will instantly remind them of the effect.

If I was performing professionally, I’d get this in an instant.

But I just don’t see myself performing this for my friends casually.

Why?

For my purposes, it’s almost too perfectly formed. And it announces itself as a trick too early on.

When I show someone something, I generally want it to not be framed as a trick. Or, if it is framed as a trick, I want it to feel very “rough” around the edges, as if there’s some uncertainty of how it will play out.

For me, magic’s greatest weakness is that it’s very far removed from the fabric of people’s everyday life. Music is seamlessly integrated into our everyday activities—it entertains us on our commute, it enhances social gatherings, it can pump us up or console us. Movies and TV are usually reflecting emotions and situations we can identify with on some level. But a two-minute demonstration of magical powers is a very artificial and contrived experience, exhibiting powers that people can’t relate to. So when I look at a trick, I’m often thinking, “How do I unravel this a little? How do I make it sloppier? How can I make it seem less performative? How do I make a MAGIC moment also feel more relatable and real?’

You wouldn’t have these concerns table-hopping. In fact, you’d probably be looking to do the exact opposite thing.

But that’s the style I go for. And part of identifying that style was looking at great tricks and realizing what it was about them that wasn’t for me.

You might look at this trick and think, “It’s a good trick, but I don’t like that it uses a little computer and a phone. I think I prefer when magic eschews all technology and feels more natural and elemental.” And that thought might give you a style to pursue with your magic.

Or you might look at this trick and say, “That’s dope. I want to do that.” Which makes complete sense. I only have good things to say about this trick. I only was using it as an example of the idea that by identifying what it is about a good trick that doesn’t work for you, you will be able to pinpoint areas you do want to focus on and develop your personal style.

Going Deep

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The Anything Deck, by Paul Harris, is an effect he has been working on for decades. The original description of the effect, from his Art of Astonishment series, goes like this:

For reasons unknown you remove a secret packet of cards from your wallet and secure them under the card case. You then get a seeker to dig deep into her soul and come up with a personal, meaningful magic word. Let’s say her magic word is “ROSE.” You use “ROSE” to help you locate a selected card, then reveal that the name of the card is also written on the card case. You’re a mighty fine card guesser. But what about the secret packet? You SLOWLY, CLEANLY AND OPENLY spread the packet to display large bold letters inked onto the back of the cards…spelling out a single word: ROSE.

Basically, you’re using the deck as an index of letters, and you’re sneaking out the letters (cards) you need and then swapping that packet for the packet of cards you displayed at the start.

Paul has released a number of variations on this trick over the years, with the focus primarily being on creating a separation between the initial packet of cards and the deck you use during the preliminary portion of the effect.

That preliminary part of the trick has always been the big issue with the Anything Deck/Deep Astonishment tricks. If your trick is “this packet of cards has your thought of word on the back,” then it would make much more sense to remove a packet, have them name a word, and then spread the cards to show them. Of course, that’s not very doable. So you’ve pretty much been stuck with that first phase, which is relatively weak, and involves looking at the back of the cards.

Paul has a new version of the effect out called Deep X.

In this version, that first phase is handled in a kind of interesting way. I don’t believe a full performance has been released yet, but here’s my understanding of how it goes. You show a small ID wallet with some cards in it. The spectator thinks of a 4-letter word. They plug their thought of word into a website and the website gives them their “lucky cards” based on that word (?). You go through a deck of cards and find those cards. Then you show that the cards in your ID wallet match the cards the website gave them. And finally you show that on the back of the cards in your wallet are the letters that make the word the spectator thought of.

You know, I’m not certain how I feel about that approach. I think I’d have to try it out to see how it goes over with people. My initial instinct is that it feels like a mistake to have a presentation that suggests: “This specific card relates to this letter.” And then you start going through the deck and finding those cards. That seems weirdly close to the method itself. But I’m willing to give it a shot and see how it goes.

I’ll definitely be purchasing this. I have been using the last version of this effect called Deep Clear and killing with it.

My presentation/handling for Deep Clear is pretty much perfect for casual situations as far as I’m concerned. And I’ve heard very positive things from a number of other people as well. For example, Madison Hagler wrote me about it a few years ago:

“I absolutely LOVE your handling and presentation for deep clear. Gave it the wife test and it fried her hard. The time delay the explanation gives you makes it virtually impossible to back track.”

I’ll include a pdf with my handling (taken from an old newsletter) at the end of this post, but I’ll mention the benefits of my version first…

  • The first phase feels both more necessary and also more removed from the second phase.

  • The fact that the first phase isn’t a very good trick is a feature of the presentation, rather than just being a not-great trick that’s arbitrarily tacked on to a good one

  • The rationale of why they’re picking a word is fleshed out in a more interesting way.

  • There is better misdirection (both physical misdirection and time misdirection) for the load move.

  • You never have to look at the back of the cards.

That last factor was always one of the primary weaknesses of the Anything Deck/Deep Astonishment methodology. Perhaps it flew by most laymen, but I’m sure there were some who correlated the part of the trick where you’re looking at the backs of cards with the finale. Regardless, in my write-up I offer something called The Alphabet Stack. A random-looking stack of 26 cards that you can associate with the letters of the alphabet with just a couple of minutes familiarizing yourself with the stack. You don’t even have to learn the whole thing if you don’t want to. Many of the card/letter combos are very obvious and as long as you know where those are you can figure out any other ones as well just by reciting the alphabet in your head.

Here is the pdf. Skip the section marked “Handling” (as that will only really make sense if you have Deep Clear in your hands). I’m sure you can take the other elements of this presentation and find ways to incorporate them into Deep X or other versions of the effect.

Mailbag #100

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I really enjoyed [a review I gave in my last newsletter]. When I was reading it I realized you’re one of the only magic reviewers who I actually believe is giving his genuine opinion. And it made me wonder if you had any go-to magic reviewers these days? And who is your GOAT magic reviewer?—JA

For me, the GOAT magic reviewer has got to be Leigh Pendleton.

Wait… sorry… I got that confused.

Leigh Pendleton is not the GOAT magic reviewer. Leigh Pendleton is a reviewer of The Magical Goat.

When I was younger, growing up, flipping to the review section in MAGIC or Genii was one of the first things I did when I got the magazine. I loved getting informed opinions on new releases. This was especially valuable because without the internet, there was no easy way to see what a trick looked like. You needed the reviewers to know if it was even close to the product description.

For me, and probably for many, Michael Close is the Greatest Of All Time magic reviewer. (And I recommend you buy his 1300-page e-book of all his magic reviews for just $6.) David Regal is another favorite.

These days, there aren’t really any online magic reviewers who are a “must watch” for me. I usually just find a trick I like, get the general consensus about it on the Magic Café, and see if there are any third-party performances of it on YouTube (Craig Petty is often good for this as he tends to perform the things he reviews).

Here’s the thing, a lot of these people reviewing products on YouTube aren’t anyone I’ve ever heard of. I have no sense of who they are or what they bring to the table. That doesn’t mean their opinion is invalid. But if I want a bunch of nobodies opinions, I can scan the Café for that in a fraction of the time.

On top of that, a lot of YouTube reviewers seem to be courting free products (leading to abnormally positive reviews) or they’re looking for more viewers (often leading to needless controversy).

I think the truth about magic products is that 10% are undeniably great, 10% are undeniably shit, and 80% are anywhere from bad to good depending on the performer’s abilities, performing environment, and goals. That’s the reason my review newsletter went from standard reviews of new releases to just talking about whatever tricks I’ve been getting the most out of the previous month. This way, I’m not forced to write about something I have no thoughts or opinions about.

I’m putting together some spooky magic for the halloween season and wanted to know if you have a version of the haunted key that you would recommend. —IL

I do not have a haunted key I would recommend.

In fact, I have bad news for anyone who is a fan of the haunted key…

A cylindrical object rolling on your hand is not a magic trick.

A cylindrical object rolling on a table might be a magic trick.

A cuboid object rolling on your hand might be a magic trick.

A cylindrical object rolling on your hand is not a magic trick. Because it’s cylindrical… and because it’s your hand.

“Yes, but the hand doesn’t seem to move.”

Okay, give your friend a pen, have them place it on their palm and see how little they have to move to make it roll, and report back to me.

How did they respond? We’re they like, “Oh fuck no! Help! There’s a ghost in this pen!!!”

I understand that the Haunted Key—in context—can be a somewhat spooky looking visual. But I don’t consider it a magic trick. I don’t consider it a magic trick because no matter how slow it rolls, or how invisible your movements are, people will come to the conclusion that it’s slowly rolling along on your palm.

If they don’t come to this conclusion, they’re actually not smart enough to be fooled by a magic trick. To be fooled, you have to have the capacity of some level of questioning.

Okay, so let me get this straight, Andy. You’re saying this trick that’s been around for decades and used by thousands of magicians isn’t actually deceptive? That we’re… what, exactly? Just deluding ourselves by being too scared to question what fools people, and instead blindly just assuming we’re smarter than our audience?

If you want to use the Haunted Key in performance, I would use it symbolically as a lead in to another trick with a ghostly theme—spirit slates, or the haunted deck or something.

You call on the spirits to arrive, and the key turning in your hand is the “sign” that they’re there.

This way, whether your friend finds it to be mysterious or not, it doesn’t matter. If they think, “Surely, that just rolled along his hand.” Then you’ve nicely lowered their expectations and can now hit them hard with something they can’t explain.