Mailbag #167

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Is there any chance this trick is real? It’s an open prediction with apparently no metho procedure. It’s being released in a couple of months if it sells enough copies at $100. What do you think?—AM

I think it's 100% bullshit, and obviously so. If you got taken in by this, please have your grandchildren screen your text messages in the future because you are clearly susceptible to some pretty blatant frauds.

And when I say it's bullshit, I mean there is no trick like this that uses a borrowed deck, no process, and would actually work one-on-one as implied by this "demo."

Isn't it awfully convenient that the trick might not get released if not enough people buy it? I guarantee you… not enough people are going to buy it. Because that would mean releasing it.

It sounds like this guy needs a quick influx of cash and he can't take out a bank loan so he's taking out a "Dupes on the Magic Cafe" loan instead.

If you had cracked the code on this "holy grail" of an effect, would you maybe put a touch of effort into a demo for it? Multiple performances for different adults to show how impressive the trick is? Here, we have multiple performances for the same bored ten-year-old (and apparently a busy open-air street market outside the window).

Why? Because it's hard to get actual adults to play along with your fake trick.

Andy, you're going to feel pretty stupid if this is real.

I'm not, because it's not real. But if against all odds it turns out to be real, I'll be delighted.

In fact, I'm going to provide a service to the person releasing this effect: send me the explanation.

If this is a real effect with a real method that will actually fool the spectator taking part in it, I will come on here and let everyone know. I have 10+ years of credibility built up. It would be a huge endorsement for your product and you would have many times the preorders.

In addition, I will guarantee 200 sales ($20,000) that I will cover up front.

You have absolutely nothing to lose. (If this were real. (Which it's not.))

You asked for tips for nervousness in your post today. The best advice I ever got was to contextualize your nervousness and give them a reason for it. I sometimes tell them I’m nervous because I need to get this trick right for some future big event. Or I’m nervous because I’m worried whatever we’re doing actually MIGHT work which I frame as being unsettling. This seems to completely negate any actual nervousness I’m feeling.

By the way, I got this advice from YOU in a post a while back. —DE

I got a few different emails from people on this subject which referenced this post on nerves and fear that I forgot I wrote back in 2023. Reading it now, I can see some seeds of the Carefree philosophy idea beginning to sprout here.

This isn't a specific email I want to reply to, but a sort of general response to a type of email I get a lot. People will ask:

"Why do a big card revelation? People will know it's a force."
"Why use a peek? People will know you somehow saw the information."
"Why do a levitation? People will know it's somehow suspended from something."

And on and on.

I understand this kind of thinking, but honestly it feels like armchair theorizing that comes from thinking about magic instead of performing it. I don’t find this to be an actual issue in performance.

For example, I once had an issue with forces and reveals because people were saying to themselves, “It must be a force.” So I started developing the techniques I've written about on this site to eliminate that potential explanation, and now I rarely have anyone suggest that the card was forced. I saw the issues and I addressed them.

Yes, you might be thinking, but if the card shows up frosted on a sheet cake, they're going to know it's not real magic. So even if you seemingly eliminate the idea of a force, they'll still know it must have been a force.

Don't think so hard you get your head stuck up your own ass. Spectators aren't doing some sort of deep Aristotelian logical analysis of the tricks. They're not like:

This trick would traditionally use a card force.
From everything I can tell, no force was used.
But epistemologically we know a force must have been used.
Ergo, a force was used.
Q.E.D.—I'm not impressed.

They don't go that deep with it.

When spectators watch something impossible, they reach for an Easy Answer for it.

The card was forced.
He peeked at what I wrote down.
It's hanging from a string.

If you address that Easy Answer in your handling or presentation of the effect, then you've done what you need to do and you've laid the groundwork for feelings of astonishment, wonder, mystery, etc. (The issue with many magicians is that they never attempt to address the Easy Answers in the first place.)

"He must have seen what I wrote down… but how could he have? I put it in that envelope and it's completely opaque. But he must have."

That feeling—I know what he must have done, but I have no idea how he could have done it—is still the feeling of magic. They can only conceive of one potential explanation, but they don't know how that could be the case. That's a success. You've done what you set out to do.

You don’t need to get ahead of the philosophical underpinnings of what it means to be fooled. You just need to leave them with a mystery.