This post begins above.
Ottozhen, let's look at your last post for a moment. You wrote:
"I've heard stories on here before of people performing tricks that made dropped the jaws of the most stubborn spectators."
Ok, so we have some stubborn spectators here. We have some stubborn but impressed spectators. To be honest, that's not the difficult part. Stubborn spectators are like magicians - laymen with bunny rabbits on their business cards. If you want to fool magicians, you just do a sleight well. There's no secret. Just do it well. Vernon wasn't secretly holding back thousands upon thousands of secret tricks which gave him power over life and death. He just did the tricks damn well.
"In some of those stories, the poster says that they were told later that what they just did changed their mindset and made them believe in magic."
Here's the important part. What they just did changed their mindset and made them believe in magic. First, it made them believe in magic. This is, as I mentioned above, emotional belief. Not logical belief, but emotional belief.
But I've already talked about that. What do they mean when they say "What you just did changed my mindset"?
What does this mean? What is it that they just did? What was so special about what they just did?
I don't think so, and I'll tell you why.
"What you just did" - not "The card rising to the top just changed my mindset" - not "The cards separating just changed my mindset" - not "The coin appearing in your hand just changed my mindset".
No. "What you just did changed my mindset." What does that mean? It means, that it wasn't the trick. It wasn't the trick. That's the bottom line of what I'm trying to say here in this post. It's not the trick. If it was the trick, they would talk about how something that happened in that trick changed their mindset. They would talk about it. It's the difference between "The Great Gatsby changed my life" and "Reading changed my life". Do you see the difference? We are talking about the latter here. If it was the trick (or the book, in my analogy), they would talk about the effect, something that happened (or the specific book). But what I'm saying is that it's not the book, it's not the trick, it's the whole performance (or reading - the entire act of reading).
That's one thing that suggests that it's not the trick. The other thing that suggests that it's not the trick that is important is what I said very early on. If it was the trick, then irrespective of who performed it, in what situation, and who it was performed to, the trick would make people believe in magic. I know that sounds exaggerated and silly - but that is what it means. To say that it is the trick that makes them believe is to say that silly and exaggerated line. If it was the trick - then believe me, no-one would ever tell anyone else the secret. A trick that makes people believe in magic 100% of the time? Very few people are that good. Such a trick doesn't exist. Again, I'm aware how silly it sounds. But if it was the trick, well, the trick doesn't change. The trick is there, it's in writing, or on a DVD somewhere, or in an ebook - the trick is there. What changes is the performance of the trick - the context in which the performance takes place. And since the trick doesn't get the same results 100% of the time, then we can imply from this that logically, it's not the trick that's doing the work!
That's a roundabout way of saying something that many advanced magicians know instinctively: It is not the trick which is powerful. A trick in and of itself is just a trick. It's not meaningful, it's not powerful, it's not entertaining, it's not funny, it's not interesting in any way shape or form. If you need proof, then watch a YouTube performance of an ACR (normally not meaningful), watch someone fumble through a trick (it's not powerful), watch a dull person present in a monotone (it's not entertaining), watch a boring person attempt to make a joke (it's not funny), watch a bad performer performing magic - it's not interesting.
This is a point on which I could write extensively about in and of itself, but that's not the point of this post, so I'll stop there. It's an important point, though, and a key one in this topic - that a trick is not inherently anything. It's the performer than makes magic powerful, interesting, funny, entertaining, engaging, meaningful, etc. It's the performer. Not the trick, the performer.
That is essentially what I was getting at. You now have all the pieces of the puzzle that I was hinting at in my first post - the solution to your question.
1) We're talking about emotional belief, not logical belief.
2) Magic is not inherently anything; it all lies with the performer.
So if we join those two up, we get your question: how does someone floor a nonbeliever, exactly? Well, it follows from what I've said above that the key to instilling emotional belief is with the performer.
It's an annoying answer, because the truth is, if there was just a single trick that we could perform that would impress anyone instantly - that would be a lot easier. But it doesn't work like that. To illustrate my point briefly, Draven mentioned Out of this World. A wonderful trick, and considered by many to be the strongest trick I do (or so I've been told). I once taught a fellow magician how to perform the trick - exactly as I perform it.
Never again.
He did it... And he butchered it. It was horrible, watching my beautiful pet effect being butchered. What normally gets dead silence, followed by uproarious laughter, followed by silence again, got a polite smattering of applause and cheers. I was devastated watching it.
What went wrong? The magician I taught it to was a good magician. But it just wasn't him. The presentation wasn't him. It was created by me, for me, and a product of about two years of work on my behalf, to turn that trick into what it was. But he's not me.
So if the key lies with the performer, what can the performer do? Well, I talked about non believers as an attitude. It's an attitude towards magic. But magic is strong because of the performer. So what you need to do is to engage with the audience. Through your magic, but not with your magic. Through your magic, YOU need to engage with the spectator. Not your tricks, YOU. Magic is your medium, tricks are your medium, what makes magic wonderful and powerful is the PERFORMER.
If you can engage with your spectators, then they cease to focus on logical thinking. Human interaction is very much emotionally based (this is a debatable point, but I think that in this context, this assertion in the general sense holds). Tricks are about method. Logic. Human interaction, well, you either like someone or you don't. You get along with someone, or you don't. Engage with your spectators. Once you do this, once they are interested in you - not only do they forget about the logical part (it's almost impossible to engage both the logical and emotional areas of your brain simultaneously), but you can use your relationship with your audience to guide them.
In this way, you change their attitude. You shape their attitudes, their thinking, their beliefs, through the connection that you develop with them.
I can think of no better person as an example than Eric Mead. If you've never seen it, watch his performance on YouTube (search Eric Mead ForaTV). His performance is not only amazing, but his presentation is extraordinary. It is based on an appreciation of mystery, and is designed to engage highly educated and logical thinkers, and allow them to appreciate the wonderful feeling of mystery. It is a perfect example.
Presentation is one tool to do this. Character is another.
I'm sure you've heard about suggestible people. Although it is a fallacy that hypnosis only works on the gullible, it is definitely true that some people are easier to hypnotise than others. This is another rough analogy for what I'm saying. By developing a connection with someone, you make them malleable. You make them open to new ideas. Engage them, and when they are engaged, shape them through meaning.
So here's another tool: create rapport between you and your audience. Study human communication. Engage with people. Even if you're not performing, engage with the people around you. Smile, and shine.
Finally (finally!), create meaning. Give your magic meaning. This is what takes magic out of the realm of tricks, and method (recall that this is the hurdle I mentioned so long ago). It makes magic less about tricks, and more about life. Meaning is a wonderful trigger for emotional belief.
The key to performing successful magic, to anyone, lies within the performer. Make magic meaningful. Engage with your audience. Transcend tricks - you're better than that. Magic is more important than tricks. Magic is meaning, magic is wonder.
Sorry for the long post. I'm aware that some people may not bother reading this. That's alright. Some people don't have the time, some already know this stuff. But true magic is not an easy path to take. Some, who do not care to put in the effort, are condemned to mediocrity.
For everyone else, hope this helps.