Was watching a recent episode of The Mentalist, the episode about the ghost in the manor.
Jane had a really good line that I immediately associated with us magicians. Paraphrased, If you believe in ghosts then they exist if you don't then they don't. Well first off ghosts are something very odd because there is no proof that ghosts do not and can not exists however there seems to only be evidence for the proof of ghosts, and yes there is much crappy evidence.
Anyways, I associated this line with magic and thought it was something pretty cool. If your spectators believe that something truly happened, with no sleight of hand, or gaff or gimmick then magic as they believe it truly does exist.
However, playing opposites, if they believe you use sleight of hand, gaff or gimmick then it does not exist.
Of course there are many threads explaining how this can be done so I won't regurgitate what was said before as a simple search can help you there. What I do want to talk about is what you believe in.
I think most people can agree here that Osterlind is a fairly good performer, better than most and has some great products on the market. Yet something that I came to realize and something D ICE R and I talked about was how he presented his act.
Not a fan of it, as he clearly states that he is there to entertain, and no reason to get caught up in the whole ghost stories or having the ability to truly move objects with his mind starting a cult because he apparently moved pages with his BRAINNNN.
Now some of you may be thinking about Derren Brown and he actually clearly states in his entire routine that he is not psychic, can not read f****** minds, nor can he float objects with his mind. However, his performance literally makes them forget such things as they are so astonished and intrigued by what is being performed for them.
If you don't believe in what you present to them, then why should they? If you perform like a move monkey then they see it as such and realize it's something to gander at like it's a skill not as what they were hoping.
Simply put, it exists if you believe so why and how can they prove you any different if you can back it up with simply your belief. Just ask the three crazies in the psych ward explaining to each other how they are actually Jesus the second coming. See what I mean.
Jane had a really good line that I immediately associated with us magicians. Paraphrased, If you believe in ghosts then they exist if you don't then they don't. Well first off ghosts are something very odd because there is no proof that ghosts do not and can not exists however there seems to only be evidence for the proof of ghosts, and yes there is much crappy evidence.
Anyways, I associated this line with magic and thought it was something pretty cool. If your spectators believe that something truly happened, with no sleight of hand, or gaff or gimmick then magic as they believe it truly does exist.
However, playing opposites, if they believe you use sleight of hand, gaff or gimmick then it does not exist.
Of course there are many threads explaining how this can be done so I won't regurgitate what was said before as a simple search can help you there. What I do want to talk about is what you believe in.
I think most people can agree here that Osterlind is a fairly good performer, better than most and has some great products on the market. Yet something that I came to realize and something D ICE R and I talked about was how he presented his act.
Not a fan of it, as he clearly states that he is there to entertain, and no reason to get caught up in the whole ghost stories or having the ability to truly move objects with his mind starting a cult because he apparently moved pages with his BRAINNNN.
Now some of you may be thinking about Derren Brown and he actually clearly states in his entire routine that he is not psychic, can not read f****** minds, nor can he float objects with his mind. However, his performance literally makes them forget such things as they are so astonished and intrigued by what is being performed for them.
If you don't believe in what you present to them, then why should they? If you perform like a move monkey then they see it as such and realize it's something to gander at like it's a skill not as what they were hoping.
Simply put, it exists if you believe so why and how can they prove you any different if you can back it up with simply your belief. Just ask the three crazies in the psych ward explaining to each other how they are actually Jesus the second coming. See what I mean.