1st thing first, I realised that if u tell someone u will be doing a trick..
first thing in their mind will be how to dispel the magic by trying to figure out how it was done...

That will cause all misdirection to Not work, coz their eyes will be fixed on your cards/gadget/hands etc...

I did some read up about psychology and realised it is best to screw their mind first...

ie without any magic.


Too most of us here... our friends/family/friends would have been already tired of us performing..

everytime we tell them we wanna show them something.... they will say : Here he goes again, some new trick he wanna show off..

I'd usually try to spin some story, such as visiting some countries and learning some mystic forces from the folks over there...

To the new audience, perhaps after showing one trick, I'd try to stop their mind from trying to figure out by injecting some misguided truths..

One of my favourite lines to throw them off their thinking is by asking them if they knew how Magic originated...

My answer will be , ' Magic actually originated to stop the Churches from burning heretics, witches, etc during the middle ages, and it spun off to become a way of entertaining the royal family via court jesters'

Proceed to tell them a few believeable truths and inject a lie.. They will believe the lie to be true also..

eg

"Stainless steel is one of the hardest metal on earth."
"Most common kitchen silverwares are made of stainless steel nowadays."
"The reason why they use stainless steel is because it is less likely to be deformed as compared to real silver."

show them the stainless steel imprint on a normal fork.
And then u proceed with a spoon/fork bending routine..
Afterwhich, when u try to restore the shape, try to fake the great amount of effort required to restore the original bend..

Trust me, they would not try to check if the fork/spoon is bendable coz of your pre-mental work that was already imprinted onto them....

Rather Good entry. It is good to have a story leading into a magic performance. A routine definitely needs a story or patter. Unless if you are just doing a levitation and boom walk off after that leaving them to form their own story.

Once I did an impromptu levitation trick in my office for a colleague. I did it and walk back to my desk and continue doing work. That left my colleague wondering and puzzled.

We do often face the " oh thats they guy who is trying to show his tricks again " sceneario. We cant change the way they think so we work with that mind set and build on better effects that will leave them hanging. Slowly they will start to form their mystical view of you.

I once did some simple tricks to my friends. But followed up in another occsaion with flawless presentation of a two card monte or maybe a ring flight. That left them hanging wild. Not only they forgot that i do like to show tricks they start to form the impression that i am in fact magical.

:) have a nice new yer ahead.

Balducci , I presume?


hehe,,

I led a group of friends on for a year..... telling them I need to prepare a lot for the illusion, before actually showing them...

Balducci it was. Well i think sometimes if we dun use patter or story line it works fine as well. For example if you just perform something " in a "as a matter of fact" mode. Just do and walk off. Those may just leave them hanging even further. Because their imagination will run wilder without words.

Regards

I do not agree with the above. Though a third of magic is the part where you're keeping some knowledge back from the audience, I wouldn't actually use an outright lie.

i think it also depend on who your audience is...if he's going to be your friend or someone who is going to live with you for a long oeriod of time, why do u want to make him believe that you are a psychic?

only make the stranger whom you are ont going to meet for the rest of your life believe that u have magic power...

I think its a bit misleading. Hmm for a magic to occur, you can tell a lie, but it shouldnt be a superitious lie because it is how that lead people to believe in miracles and get cheated by people out there, for money of course.

I will perfer magicians to use a created real story, like, from sherman's effect, he manage of the great jail that no one can escape, (It exist, alot of ppl knows that), and how a prisoner (Chosen Card) Manage to escape from the jail and the 2 guards that are guarding the jail. So in fact, This story might not be true, but it is realistic, it means that it could happen, and u are using magic to describe the storyline.

Ya, of course, when people says that "Wow, You got this kind of power" It makes you looks like wonder to them, and it booast your ego. But bare in mind that you as a magician, should be humble also, telling that the fact that magic are all illusions, it is their eyes that deceive them, not you, and in turn, they will not believe that its their eye, its you that create the miracle that happens, but they will know that you are a normal human with special skills, not power.

Well, then you came about asking me, then how about psychic? For psychic, like say, Magical Pam, he present magic in the upmost FAIREST situation that you can think of, and when he done the effect, there is no way you could thought how he did it, but he will tell you, its simple magic, but its you to find out how i manage to do it. In the end, he did what he should do, create a wonder and makes you wonder. I respect Magical Pam's magic because its simple, yet deliver such impact on people including magicians, yet it doesnt say that magicians are all about satan or spirits. You can also mention that I read a book about Mind Reading many years ago (If you are young, just say a few years ago), It brings the audience that ya, you read a book. and then you do a mind reading effect, or predication effect, and they will think its magic, with a solid background, then "oh shit, i should ask him for 4D" which is wrong, because you cant produce a predication of the 4D. In short, the mindset delivered should be correct, to let people respect magic and you.

As about friends, it is because they been with you, for so long, they know that its impossible for you to learn some great power and then become a "god". So i explain how you should handle this situations, First, you can choose not to do to your friends, not anymore, or only do to friends that give you critisms of your effect and help you improve. Second, tell them, its a skill you learnt in books or from someone. Lets talk about Farid then, i seem many of his effects, and its all about handling, and of course, the way he deliver it, he show a rope effect to his friends, and using simple term and logical thinking, he lead them to a joke, or comedy that tells his friends that, what happen is what you see. And in the end, his friend enjoys the effect, because its logical, in their eyes of course. Farid dun go about telling them, in a magic click, i take out the knot in the rope, once you say that to your friend, they will go, "Ya right". Doing to friend, you can only do things that are logical, like "you see the coin is on this side of the table, and lets a sweep, it transport to the other side, to them, its logical, because its possible to move the coin from one side to the other, but how the hell you did it, they dun know. That should be ending for friend's effect.

Hmm, Maybe i am wrong, but thats my concept on magic making. I create miracles, but i make people believe that the miracles are possible to them also. :)

Larry

For me, I do tell certain things that make no sense, and that sort of makes it a lie. But somehow, I would make it seem logical.

I prefer to say that I blur the line between logical and illogical "phenomenas".

A very simple example would be in an ACR, you say the card come to the top because the deck goes back in time 10 secs, just when it is still on top of the deck. Now it SEEMS logical as to why the card is at the top, but at the VERY same time, the audeince is going "WAIT A SECOND TIME TRAVEL IS IMPOSSIBLE".

You told a lie about cards travelling through time. The audience knows it, but they follow it as they cannot use anything else to explain it.

You are practically making a "lie" or something logical seem like its logical, or even common sense.

Yea it's true, you will have to tell some stuff that isn't exactly true. I still use stories like how I went to Las Vegas to gamble and how I met such a person on the street playing a game with 3 or 4 cards and how voodoo works through fire and... whatever.

It may be fake. But play around with their imagination. Make them believe in unbelievable stuff. In the end, they may never believe in what they see again.

Either that or they still know it's all rubbish, but they have no explanation for it. Thus they still partly believe your presentation.

By the way, it's wrong to lie. Didn't your mom tell you so? hahaha. :lol:

HOHO
in my opinion
use a correct method of approaching your spectator,by categorized them into differenty groups:
a ) someone you are not going to meet for th rest of your life
b ) someone who's close to you (best friend,girl friend or gay partner whatever)
c ) someone you are going to depend on(teachers and friends)

for group A ppl, you can use any way to present your trick,make them impressed, make them believe that u have psychic or you are a godlike gambler or whatsoever..since you are not going to see them again anyway

for group B ppl, IMO do less effects to them coz they'll ask for the secret and trust me..no matter how good you are, they are not going to believe that you possessed seceret abilities and they are still going o think that david blaine is better than you(even when both of you are doing two card monte)...let the others tell them about your magic

for group C ppl, dont imaged yourself as a psychic...when they found out it's magic, it'll be all screwed-up


in conclusion: I'm just an entertainer except for group A spectator i'll never tell the others that i'm a psychic...NEVER(i'm not derren brown)

i totaly agree with i_neverregret!!

outsiders wont bug you that much as people you know.... and they will try sweet talk you into spilling the beans...