A month or two ago, I had a party with a group of magician friends. One of things that came up in the early hours of the morning was a conversation between myself and a good friend of mine who primarily performs card magic and flourishes (I'm a mentalist, incidentally) about failing in magic. And I realised as I was talking to him that he did not at all understand the reason why anyone might intentionally fail.
I don't know whether it was the amount of alcohol we had consumed, or whether it was magician mentality, compared to that of a mentalist - but I do distinctly remember that I didn't do a very good job explaining it. So I wanted to rectify that here, and put forward a bunch of (hopefully) cohesive thoughts about failing in magic and mentalism. This may well be common knowledge to some of the more experienced guys around here, so excuse these thoughts if they appear commonsensical, obvious, or self-explanatory to you already. To those who haven't encountered or considered this before, though, especially to budding mentalists, I would suggest that you consider this in your performances.
So, why fail? I speak here of course about intentional failures, and unavoidable misses. For the first category, an example would be predicting the number 364 when the spectator had written down 346. For the second category, an example would be missing a psychological force. Expressly excluded is f***ing up a classic pass, either due to lack of practice, or because a flying pig hit you in the face as you were executing the sleight.
So, again, why fail? I think there are three good reasons for failing or missing - or at least assuming the risk of doing so.
1) Reinforcing the reality of your performance
2) Creating a logical disconnect with the method
3) The reward outweighs the risk
1) Reinforcing the reality of your performance
I won't go too much into this point because it is primarily for the mentalist. Essentially, the line of thinking goes that an occasional miss, coupled with some sure hits, increases the believability of the premise of your effects and of your character. No psychologist reading body language could tell 100% for sure. A medium may be sick, and therefore feeling slightly off. It distinguishes mentalism, the "real" stuff, from magic, because reality is imperfect.
2) Creating a logical disconnect with the method
Here, we can traverse further into the field of more traditional magic. Specifically, I am talking of prediction effects, for example (not necessarily premonition or mind-reading based effects - just prediction effects). Of course, all of these points are based in my (limited and certainly fallible) experience in mentalism, and especially apply there, but in magic too.
The idea behind this thought is this: If you peek a card containing a chosen number, then you would know the number. Since you know the number, you can't possibly get it wrong. Therefore, by saying 741 instead of 714 creates a logical disconnect with the method. Logically, if you had used a peek, you would know the number. The fact that you got the number slightly wrong hides the method behind an extra layer of deception, and makes the mystery stronger. Therefore, the thinking goes, you can't have used a peek, because if you did, you'd know the number perfectly.
This is the most common example - logical disconnects involving peeks, but of course the concept is a powerful one - not just in the context of failing/missing, or in the context of peeks.
3) The reward outweighs the risk
There are many many effects that fall into this category. Two examples would be psychological forces, and an overhand shuffle whilst using key cards (a card magic example - yay!).
There are of course two elements here, as the title suggests - first, how great is the reward? If you hit this, will it be a reputation maker? Some effects are like that. Several I perform are like that - to name but one, Derren Brown's Invisible Deal Force, which I currently have a 90-95% hit rate with. With such effects - this is one thing my friend could not get his head around - if you fail, or miss... So what? He mentioned that audiences do not want to watch you fail... Well, of course not, but it's not like you're failing time after time. As for that one fail... So what? Perhaps they will be disappointed - but there's a lot more to it than that, and if one failure would completely ruin the mood of the rest of your performance, then the problem isn't failing. But if it hits, as it is (hopefully) likely to - it is the stuff legends are made of, that an hour of your best tricks could never replicate. That, to me, is worth it.
That leads onto the second element, which is risk. What is the chance of failing? Also, what are the consequences of failing? If you have a card in your pocket, and ask them to name a card casually, well, there's no risk of failure. For the Invisible Deal Force, you spend a minute building it up. Other effects put even more into it. If it messes up - it really messes up quite heavily. You have to decide whether the potential reward is worth it, given the risk of messing up involved, and how steep the price of missing is.
Let me illustrate this with an example. Earlier this evening, I performed a three phase effect to a friend. Each phase uses the same method, and has a significant risk of failing (to give you an idea, I failed the first eight times in a row I practiced this). Essentially, I just performed the same thing, an idea, three times. Phase one hit. Phase two hit. He then shuffled the cards for three entire minutes. And then phase three hit in an even more spectacular way. And he proceeded to swear loudly for the next two minutes - literally. Each time, I was worried sick - I was happy to hit once, I thought I was pushing it hitting it twice, though the odds are still in my favour, and I should have stopped there, but I did it a third time - definitely worth the risk.
Sometimes, an effect is so strong that you can tolerate even an expensive miss. Sometimes, not. But definitely consider the risk involved - don't discard anything simply because of it.
I finally want to add here a thought on outs.
Many people are tempted to go for outs when the risk of missing arises.
Well... Yes and no. Some outs and good. Some outs are not good. The important thing is - don't fall in love with outs. You don't want that sort of thinking. Learn to like risk - it makes you more aware.
If you can use an out, then do it. An example for an out for psychological card forcing is Marc Oberon's Bang On. That's a good out.
Use good outs, if you wish (I prefer not to, but that's a personal choice). But don't ever use bad outs - just for the sake of having something to save face. Don't ever push it - if the effect is weakened by having the out, or in other words, if the effect strength does not match that of the primary effect, or does not match the build up that you have given the effect, then don't use it. I would venture that a poor out is weaker than a miss.
So there you go. I hope that this articulates, better than I did that night, the reasons one might consider failing in a controlled and deliberate manner.
Good times!
I don't know whether it was the amount of alcohol we had consumed, or whether it was magician mentality, compared to that of a mentalist - but I do distinctly remember that I didn't do a very good job explaining it. So I wanted to rectify that here, and put forward a bunch of (hopefully) cohesive thoughts about failing in magic and mentalism. This may well be common knowledge to some of the more experienced guys around here, so excuse these thoughts if they appear commonsensical, obvious, or self-explanatory to you already. To those who haven't encountered or considered this before, though, especially to budding mentalists, I would suggest that you consider this in your performances.
So, why fail? I speak here of course about intentional failures, and unavoidable misses. For the first category, an example would be predicting the number 364 when the spectator had written down 346. For the second category, an example would be missing a psychological force. Expressly excluded is f***ing up a classic pass, either due to lack of practice, or because a flying pig hit you in the face as you were executing the sleight.
So, again, why fail? I think there are three good reasons for failing or missing - or at least assuming the risk of doing so.
1) Reinforcing the reality of your performance
2) Creating a logical disconnect with the method
3) The reward outweighs the risk
1) Reinforcing the reality of your performance
I won't go too much into this point because it is primarily for the mentalist. Essentially, the line of thinking goes that an occasional miss, coupled with some sure hits, increases the believability of the premise of your effects and of your character. No psychologist reading body language could tell 100% for sure. A medium may be sick, and therefore feeling slightly off. It distinguishes mentalism, the "real" stuff, from magic, because reality is imperfect.
2) Creating a logical disconnect with the method
Here, we can traverse further into the field of more traditional magic. Specifically, I am talking of prediction effects, for example (not necessarily premonition or mind-reading based effects - just prediction effects). Of course, all of these points are based in my (limited and certainly fallible) experience in mentalism, and especially apply there, but in magic too.
The idea behind this thought is this: If you peek a card containing a chosen number, then you would know the number. Since you know the number, you can't possibly get it wrong. Therefore, by saying 741 instead of 714 creates a logical disconnect with the method. Logically, if you had used a peek, you would know the number. The fact that you got the number slightly wrong hides the method behind an extra layer of deception, and makes the mystery stronger. Therefore, the thinking goes, you can't have used a peek, because if you did, you'd know the number perfectly.
This is the most common example - logical disconnects involving peeks, but of course the concept is a powerful one - not just in the context of failing/missing, or in the context of peeks.
3) The reward outweighs the risk
There are many many effects that fall into this category. Two examples would be psychological forces, and an overhand shuffle whilst using key cards (a card magic example - yay!).
There are of course two elements here, as the title suggests - first, how great is the reward? If you hit this, will it be a reputation maker? Some effects are like that. Several I perform are like that - to name but one, Derren Brown's Invisible Deal Force, which I currently have a 90-95% hit rate with. With such effects - this is one thing my friend could not get his head around - if you fail, or miss... So what? He mentioned that audiences do not want to watch you fail... Well, of course not, but it's not like you're failing time after time. As for that one fail... So what? Perhaps they will be disappointed - but there's a lot more to it than that, and if one failure would completely ruin the mood of the rest of your performance, then the problem isn't failing. But if it hits, as it is (hopefully) likely to - it is the stuff legends are made of, that an hour of your best tricks could never replicate. That, to me, is worth it.
That leads onto the second element, which is risk. What is the chance of failing? Also, what are the consequences of failing? If you have a card in your pocket, and ask them to name a card casually, well, there's no risk of failure. For the Invisible Deal Force, you spend a minute building it up. Other effects put even more into it. If it messes up - it really messes up quite heavily. You have to decide whether the potential reward is worth it, given the risk of messing up involved, and how steep the price of missing is.
Let me illustrate this with an example. Earlier this evening, I performed a three phase effect to a friend. Each phase uses the same method, and has a significant risk of failing (to give you an idea, I failed the first eight times in a row I practiced this). Essentially, I just performed the same thing, an idea, three times. Phase one hit. Phase two hit. He then shuffled the cards for three entire minutes. And then phase three hit in an even more spectacular way. And he proceeded to swear loudly for the next two minutes - literally. Each time, I was worried sick - I was happy to hit once, I thought I was pushing it hitting it twice, though the odds are still in my favour, and I should have stopped there, but I did it a third time - definitely worth the risk.
Sometimes, an effect is so strong that you can tolerate even an expensive miss. Sometimes, not. But definitely consider the risk involved - don't discard anything simply because of it.
I finally want to add here a thought on outs.
Many people are tempted to go for outs when the risk of missing arises.
Well... Yes and no. Some outs and good. Some outs are not good. The important thing is - don't fall in love with outs. You don't want that sort of thinking. Learn to like risk - it makes you more aware.
If you can use an out, then do it. An example for an out for psychological card forcing is Marc Oberon's Bang On. That's a good out.
Use good outs, if you wish (I prefer not to, but that's a personal choice). But don't ever use bad outs - just for the sake of having something to save face. Don't ever push it - if the effect is weakened by having the out, or in other words, if the effect strength does not match that of the primary effect, or does not match the build up that you have given the effect, then don't use it. I would venture that a poor out is weaker than a miss.
So there you go. I hope that this articulates, better than I did that night, the reasons one might consider failing in a controlled and deliberate manner.
Good times!