Entertainment through subterfuge - Problem?

[Tookeyswindle]

Something here seems contradictory... today's post:



but rewind to February 2011



Maybe you should take your own advice.

Indeed, I remember posting this during which time I was into ACR and sandwich effects. It didn't mater that I was being sneaky and cheating, spectators knew that; their game was to catch me(which thankfully they very rarely did). When I changed from wanting to be performing sleight of hand magic and moved into 'psychological' magic things changed very quickly. Psychological magic is entirely about making someone believe something that isn't true, I can read your thoughts or some other such nonsense, that is at least if you want to be good at it. (Not saying their isn't a fair share of lying to be done in sleight of hand)

I am grateful for you checking through my other posts for contradictions between current thoughts and this thought from over a year and a half ago; as it turns out I was not always young and foolish. As stated in the original post I did stop performing for about a year, shortly after getting into this side of magic. At the time I was considering doing this as a means of a job and was working towards a solid routine. This is where the lying became really bad and people with potential spiritual beliefs started fuelling themselves from performances and being the son of a very spiritualistic mother and seeing the detrimental effects this has had on her life, I did not want this to happen. I didn't want to lie about psychology, I didn't want people to believe I was psychic, I did not want to be presenting misinformation.

So, as to take my own advice, I guess that would mean going back to doing Oil & Water, ACR and other effects that don't have presuppositions of clever psychology at play. Or, I am just going to inform people that everything I am about to do is a lie and ask them to keep that in mind at all times whilst I am demonstrating these tricks regardless if I then play it out like I'm reading their facial expressions or some other 'technique'.

The issue is lying and being ok with it. Its very simple. I don't like to lie. I only started taking magic seriously when magic started having serious affects on the people I was performing for. I have figured out different ways through several favourite tricks that require no lie to be told now. Maybe some information to be held back, but no single lie ever needing be told whilst still having a positive affect on the spectator in a therapeutic way. As I no longer hold any interest in pursuing the art professionally(as in for money) and I don't want to be seen as anyone with any special 'powers' I have encountered a certain freedom of being able to mix and match various tricks from different worlds of magic without having to worry about, 'does it suit my character?', 'if I perform sleight of hand, psychological magic won't go over as well...' and other worries of the like.

I'm going to try out some tricks tonight and see how I feel about all of this. I will try and post here tomorrow with how my experience of how performing honest magic went... I will try my best to not take anything seriously.

(Please excuse any potential sarcasm that may be read from this post. I am genuinely grateful for any and all advice given and the fact you have taken time to read and reply is truly flattering)

 

[RealityOne]

To be clear, the reason I stumbled across that post is that I was looking at you prior posts to understand where you are in your experience and education. I think the juxtaposition of the two posts and your response to it have in many ways clarified what you are saying... essentially that you don't like giving "lies" as an explanation to how you do what you are doing.

I find it interesting that you viewed sleight of hand magic as a challenge - that the game was to catch you. When you performed with pseudo-psychological patter you saw a change in people's reaction. It became more real than trick. I would say that you problem is less about lying than about creating a false belief in your ability. It is not the "I'm putting your card (wink, wink) in the middle of the deck" but the "I can by looking at your eyes read what you are thinking."

Part of the problem is that you are performing for people you know. If you were performing for strangers, the idea of playing the character of the psychological wonder would be more applicable.

So what is the solution?

The first option is the disclaimer. I have worked with a number of performers in developing pseudo-disclaimers. Essentially, everything you are about to see is an illusion (in the general sense of the word, not the big box with scantily clad assistant sense) but my job is to make you believe it is real. I'm not a big fan of it because that does nothing for the audience and really is there to ease the magician's conscience. The other approach, which I prefer, is the subtle approach. Essentially saying that you've merely developed skills that we all have. We all have some sense of intuition, we've all had some sense of what others are thinking or feeling. That type of message is more empowering to your audience and typically more believable for most performers.

The second option is to present your magic with a greater meaning. You started with say-do-see patter focused on what the props were doing and then went to a para-psychological patter. You saw how the audience reacted when the presentation wasn't about what you are doing with the props. Let me give you a couple of examples of patter with a greater meaning: I present Eric's Ross's Election as a compatibility test for couples, beginning the presentation by asking "is it better for a couple to be more alike or different?" My sponge ball routine uses the sponge balls to represent "ideas" as I talk about where ideas come from. My haunted key routines is about an armoire in my grandfather's house. The presentation becomes so intertwined with the effect, it is very much like going to a move - what is seen and what is said blend seamlessly. Look into books by Eugene Burger, Robert Neal, Larry Haas, David Parr and Walt Anthony. I'd be glad to recommend several books.

 

[Tookeyswindle]

You seem to have struck a beautiful melody of wonderous chords in my mind. This may be partly due to the fact I've been awake all night stirring on this idea, but I'm assured its because you have actually understood my situation. My problem is what I want to believe to make it as real as possible for a spectator, not necessarily what the spectator believes.
Excuse my language but; ****. If this doesn't beat all...

Ok, my mind is a bit of a whirlwind at the moment. I shall try my best to get some sleep and ponder upon this astoundingly astute revelation with at least a few hours sleep under my belt.

Thank you for this. You have no idea how elated I am to actually understand the problem, maybe now I can begin to deal with it.

Any recommended reading would be a tremendous benefit. But now I shall sleep a little more comfortable knowing there is at least a starting point to this.