How often are you fooled?

Josh Burch

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Aug 11, 2011
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We've all given up quite a bit of the magical experience given the nature of our hobby. I hear magicians claim that they are not fooled by magic often, and I find that I am fooled almost daily.

I just watched a few episodes of Magic for Humans season 2 and Justin Flom's Magic Mixtape and I was fooled many times by both magicians.

So, here's my question, how often are you fooled? What was the last thing that fooled you?
 

WitchDocIsIn

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Sep 13, 2008
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I assume "fooled" means "can't figure out the method".

It really depends. When it comes to cards or mentalism I usually have at least a decent idea of how it's done, but those are the genres I know most about. With coins it often comes down to the performer - palming and transferring coins is often super obvious to me, but if the performer's skilled I often don't know how they do it because I don't know much about coin magic.

I recently saw some finger ring magic that didn't even seem physically possible. It was a good feeling.
 
Apr 26, 2013
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If we’re talking about feeling that joy of amazement and wonder in the experience, that would be less frequently than when I don’t know what’s going on but see something interesting (which happens about once a week).

About a year ago I saw Paul Draper perform in SLC; it was a birthday gift from my wife. Paul’s show was great but, I was familiar with a lot of what he was performing. While it was exciting to watch someone as great as Paul perform, there wasn’t this amazement like I was witnessing the unexplainable from the experience.

Except, there’s an effect where the participant selects a card and pushes a little toy car (I guess it could be anything really) and the car always stops moving (like won’t budge physically) past the spectator’s card. I love that effect. It’s the first real memory I have of watching a magic effect on television when I was much younger. To this day, I have no idea how it is done. At Paul’s show I got to be that volunteer and it was absolutely magical; that car stopped and I - don’t know how to explain it really. It went beyond wow, I am fooled. I got to authentically connect to the moment the car stopped. I knew - I had seen it before going back to a television special where it was performed - that the car stopped at my card. But that moment between the car locking and the card turning over just felt about as real as I imagine true magic being.
 

WitchDocIsIn

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Sep 13, 2008
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Except, there’s an effect where the participant selects a card and pushes a little toy car (I guess it could be anything really) and the car always stops moving (like won’t budge physically) past the spectator’s card. I love that effect. It’s the first real memory I have of watching a magic effect on television when I was much younger. To this day, I have no idea how it is done. At Paul’s show I got to be that volunteer and it was absolutely magical; that car stopped and I - don’t know how to explain it really. It went beyond wow, I am fooled. I got to authentically connect to the moment the car stopped. I knew - I had seen it before going back to a television special where it was performed - that the car stopped at my card. But that moment between the car locking and the card turning over just felt about as real as I imagine true magic being.

My advice? Never learn that one. Keep it special.

There's a few tricks I've seen that, to this day, I don't know how they're done but more importantly watching them still gives me at least a little of that feeling. The more we learn, the more valuable that feeling is in my opinion.
 

DavidL11229

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Jul 25, 2015
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Seattle
I am mostly into cards and have a large library of card magic books and videos and therefore I am only occasionally fooled by card effects, but it can happen. Coin magic and mentalism have a much higher fool rate for me and that's one reason I enjoy watching that kind of material even though it's not really what I'm into. But yes, I can still be fooled!
 
Jun 18, 2019
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West Bengal, India
We've all given up quite a bit of the magical experience given the nature of our hobby. I hear magicians claim that they are not fooled by magic often, and I find that I am fooled almost daily.

I just watched a few episodes of Magic for Humans season 2 and Justin Flom's Magic Mixtape and I was fooled many times by both magicians.

So, here's my question, how often are you fooled? What was the last thing that fooled you?
I'm still fooled by magicians.

Well, as a magician I understand WHAT is happening. If the sleights or principles are basic, I am able to identify them, and I notice immediately when camera angles switch. That's about it.

Learning magic myself has not taken away even a bit of the wonderful experinece of seeing magic from me. If anything, now I'm entertained and intrigued by the effect AND the method. Frankly, I'm able to appreciate magic for the art it is now that I have a better understanding of what's happening behind the scenes.

However, given enough chances to rewatch a magic trick, I'm sure anybody (or most) can figure out how it's done...(?)
 
Mar 22, 2019
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I have not read the thread, but Magic for humans...so many much much photo tricks. Yes, they can be done by sleight, but stooges of note.
 
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Luis Vega

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Mar 19, 2008
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Pretty much when I watch magic... especially card tricks... I am more focused on my material and creating a corporate magic bussines that I haven´t bought new magic in sometime and I get fooled easily and I always accept when I have no idea how its done...
 
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CoreyHarris

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May 5, 2018
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I have been involved in magic for over 30 years and still get fooled, and I love it. I am fortunate to have some amazing friends in magic that I can count on to stump me and bring back that amazement from when I was a child. I know a lot of card and coin magic, but I refuse to learn any stage illusions as I love the wonderment that big illusions can bring to me.
 
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RickEverhart

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Sep 14, 2008
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I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE being fooled nowadays. Being 20 years into magic, conventions, IBM ring, etc. it exposes you to so much; however, there is such a plethora of magic out in the world that it is still quite possible to go back to being a young child and get that goosebump feeling and sense of wonder. I don't always even want to know the method. I just like to walkway and smile...and hang on to that feeling.
 

Josh Burch

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Aug 11, 2011
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I assume "fooled" means "can't figure out the method".

Yes, I think personally Eric Mead's 90/10 rule applies much of the time. When a layperson or beginner in magic sees a trick and 90% of it fools them but they catch on to about 10% of the trick they will say they are not fooled. Magicians tend to be the opposite. When they understand 90% of the trick but do not understand a small sliver then they will consider themselves fooled.

I don't know when the change happens but I remember leaving a magic show about 15 years ago feeling like I knew every trick. I now know much more about magic than I ever have (my current job requires it) but when I look back at that same magic show, I think I would say that I was fooled on some level by just about everything.

I have been involved in magic for over 30 years and still get fooled, and I love it. I am fortunate to have some amazing friends in magic that I can count on to stump me and bring back that amazement from when I was a child. I know a lot of card and coin magic, but I refuse to learn any stage illusions as I love the wonderment that big illusions can bring to me.

I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE being fooled nowadays. Being 20 years into magic, conventions, IBM ring, etc. it exposes you to so much; however, there is such a plethora of magic out in the world that it is still quite possible to go back to being a young child and get that goosebump feeling and sense of wonder. I don't always even want to know the method. I just like to walkway and smile...and hang on to that feeling.

Pretty much when I watch magic... especially card tricks... I am more focused on my material and creating a corporate magic bussines that I haven´t bought new magic in sometime and I get fooled easily and I always accept when I have no idea how its done...

Yeah, I feel the same! I've racked up 25ish years of magic knowledge and right now I feel like I am fooled as much as I ever have. I go to more magic shows, conventions, lectures than most magicians and I feel like I am constantly fooled.

I think a few things come into play here.

I think live magic plays much different than magic on video. If you haven't seen a solid live performance of magic then it's hard to imagine what the difference between magic on TV and live can be. I am fooled in a live setting all the time, by stuff that I am familiar with. Most of the time this stuff wouldn't fool me at all if I watched it on camera.

An example of this comes to mind from Magic Live this last year. A magician did a trick with the Psychomatic deck to me. He fooled me. Then he explained how it worked. I kicked myself because I had just spent some time jamming on this deck with Nathan Kranzo, the expert of all experts with the Psychomatic pack. In the live performance, my senses were easily overwhelmed and the sleight change of handling threw me off.

And, there is a lot of magic that just CAN'T be captured on video.

Another thing that comes to mind is that I feel like I see more magic than I ever have before and I see it on a daily basis. I find myself learning a ton, but when I have to research an Arnel Rengado or Mickael Chatelain their magic fools me all the time.

As I research and learn more I find that there are constantly new things to learn. About 10 years ago I discovered that there was a ton of mentalism that I knew nothing about. The same thing has happened with rubber band magic, escapes, or stage magic. In fact it gets more specific. Every once in a while I'll realize I'm missing a portion of magic knowledge. I'll see something like a rubber band link and realize, I know 4 ways to do this but I have no idea there were a 120!

The more I learn and search for magic the more I see my limitations and the more I see these limitations the more comfortable I am with these limitations.
 
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