How much to you handle cards?

[Randomwrath]

I'm going to try and keep this brief, and summarize my thoughts on this topic as to the point as I can.

For a long time, magicians and mentalists have argued about the place for flourishing in card magic. Should it be used, and if so, to what extent?

Flourishing
Now one one end of the scale, you clearly get the magicians that flourish a lot in magic. Look at Dan and Dave, for example. This is a very aesthetic, visual form of magic, that is clearly going to leave a layman impressed. A lot of skill goes into the perfection of this type of magic, and an audience can see that and appreciate it. However the common argument against this is that once an audience knows how skilled you are with a deck, they will never be able to treat your magic as magic, but only as sleight of hand, especially if you intertwine your magic and flourishing together, as Dan and Dave do.

Dumbed down card handling
The polar opposite. This is the card handling advocated by many mentalists, Tony Corinda included. Also, to a certain extent, Lennart Green, although I think he intentionally takes this too far; a lay audience is supposed to know that he is putting on an act. But anyway, this consists of doing nothing more than a simple overhand shuffle and handle cards in a relatively inelegant manner, suggesting that you possess no real skill and that therefore anything takes place must be genuine magic. Now this is great in theory, however I feel it also has it's flaws. I handle cards every day, and it would be ridiculous for me to expect to convince an audience otherwise. In fact it would be more, it would be insulting. An audience has payed to see a well polished act, and if I try to suggest that it is anything less, the audience would feel cheated and let down. Furthermore, (in my experience) when handing a deck out to be shuffled, a good 40% of laymen pull off a riffle shuffle, with many of them following it up with a cascade. If they can do it, why should the magician/mentalist that uses cards in part or all of their act on a regular basis not be able to do the same or better? As you can probably see, I am quite strongly opposed to the idea of displaying no skill whatsoever.
EDIT: I suggest you read the next few posts to clear up some points about this section.

These are clearly the extremes. Now for some more practical examples for the average magician.

For flourishing
My repertoire has contained, at one point in the past, a rather nice two card location and transposition. The basic effect consists of two cards being lost in the deck. The deck is shuffled. The performer then does some fancy two handed packet cuts and displays, resulting in Card no.1 being brought to the top of the pack. The spectator then tries to find Card no.2 by inserting Card no.1 into the pack at a random point. It is revealed that the card the spectator has just found is Card no.1, the one the spectator was supposedly holding, which is revealed to be Card no.2, the two selections having swapped places. This is not a particularly original trick, but was very fun to do. You're welcome to it if you want, I've finished with it.

The one thing that particularly stood out about this trick is that it seemed to get good reactions. Very good reactions, when compared to my other transpos, most of which were fairer, easier to follow and had better presentation scripted for them. This puzzled me for a long time, until eventually I came to the conclusion that it was actually the flourishing that did it, which seemed to go against everything I'd learned about flourishing suggesting pure sleight of hand. Finally, I honed in on one line. After cutting to the first card and revealing it, I would say: "Now that was pretty damn impressive, I think you can agree, but it wasn't really magic, it was just fancy cutting. As a magician, I'd be letting you down if I didn't show you some real magic." and go straight into the second phase. This is quite clearly just a fancy way of saying "I've shown off for a bit, now the real magic is going to start." I might be wrong in this, but I feel that by separating the magic and the flourishing into two different moments, and by acknowledging the flourishing as skill, the audience was left with the impression that what followed must have been the real deal. Counter intuitive, but it seemed to work.

Against flourishing
This is a purely theoretical example, but I will simply refer you to ACAAN - Any card at any number. The spectator names a card and a number. The named card is at that position in the deck. There are many variations on it, some are more complicated, some happen in the spectator's hands, but there's the basic effect. Now this is a very amazing and very magical trick when done properly, but imagine how less effective it would be if the magician then flourished after the card and the number were named. I doubt anyone could deny the magic would be completely lost there. Now even without this ridiculous example, flourishing could be dangerous. The power of the ACAAN lies in the minimalistic handling of the deck by the magician. Some variations call for no handling whatsoever, but even in the ones that do, it should be understated and subsequently forgotten about. Flourishing, however, is very aesthetic and visual, and screams to be noticed and remembered. Flourishing before, or after, or even in the same routine as an ACAAN could cause the spectator to remember the two and dampen the effect of the magic.

Conclusion
Quite simply, I haven't reached a conclusion yet. I'm not telling you to flourish, or to not flourish. Furthermore, everything I've just typed might be completely ridiculous and foolish, as it is all based upon my experiences and opinions. However hopefully you will go away and, regardless of whether you flourish in your magic or not, you will think about where and when you do it, and place it in your routine just like any other trick or subtlety; in an attempt to improve the overall effect and not just for the sake of it. I personally don't flourish any more, as I want my magic to be about me and not the cards, but I still try and keep my handling elegant. But yeah. I've just noticed that I failed a bit at keeping it brief, so I'm going to stop babbling on now.

 

[praetoritevong]

You've made some very good points and observations. For now, as a mentalist, I'd like to address and correct some of things you've mentioned in the section on "dumbing down card handling", by which I mean this passage here:

Dumbed down card handling
The polar opposite. This is the card handling advocated by many mentalists, Tony Corinda included. Also, to a certain extent, Lennart Green, although I think he intentionally takes this too far; a lay audience is supposed to know that he is putting on an act. But anyway, this consists of doing nothing more than a simple overhand shuffle and handle cards in a relatively inelegant manner, suggesting that you possess no real skill and that therefore anything takes place must be genuine magic. Now this is great in theory, however I feel it also has it's flaws. I handle cards every day, and it would be ridiculous for me to expect to convince an audience otherwise. In fact it would be more, it would be insulting. An audience has payed to see a well polished act, and if I try to suggest that it is anything less, the audience would feel cheated and let down. Furthermore, (in my experience) when handing a deck out to be shuffled, a good 40% of laymen pull off a riffle shuffle, with many of them following it up with a cascade. If they can do it, why should the magician/mentalist that uses cards in part or all of their act on a regular basis not be able to do the same or better? As you can probably see, I am quite strongly opposed to the idea of displaying no skill whatsoever.

Ok. I think you've made a few errors in describing this perspective which misrepresent what it's actually about. I'll show you what I mean by going through your post a bit at a time.

Dumbed down card handling
The polar opposite. This is the card handling advocated by many mentalists, Tony Corinda included. Also, to a certain extent, Lennart Green, although I think he intentionally takes this too far; a lay audience is supposed to know that he is putting on an act.

Yes - clearly, Lennart Green portrays someone who is apparently very clumsy at cards - obviously this is an exaggeration for the purposes of theatre.

Also, yes - this is what is required of many mentalists, myself included. But it's not as simple as that. See below...

But anyway, this consists of doing nothing more than a simple overhand shuffle and handle cards in a relatively inelegant manner, suggesting that you possess no real skill and that therefore anything takes place must be genuine magic. Now this is great in theory, however I feel it also has it's flaws.

Well, sort of. I think this is a very simplified and half correct way to put it. I would rephrase it thus: it consists of handling the cards in a manner that is consistent with the persona that you portray. Simple as that.

Usually, this will be in a relatively inelegant manner - but not always! Some time ago, I was discussing with the extraordinary mentalist Alain Nu a portion of his act, in which he actually performed card manipulation live on stage during his mentalism act. He did this whilst blindfolded, as a demonstration.

Clearly, this demonstration suited his purposes, and was consistent with his act. So I think "relatively inelegant manner" is the wrong phrase to use. Relatively inelegant implies that the card handling is necessarily clumsy, which is not the case. Plenty of people know how to riffle shuffle cards, and even do a bridge cascade. Card handling does not need to be inelegant - it merely needs to be at a level consistent with your persona, which for many people is merely "Common" - rather than "sloppy" or "inelegant" as implied by your post. You are definitely not limited to an overhand shuffle! I personally walk a fine line - a key element of my persona is elegance, so I allow myself to indulge in a limited range of things.

Also, I feel that you have misrepresented the reason for doing all this. It is not so much to imply that what has happened is real magic. In my opinion, this is not quite true. The suggestion that you have no real skill is also a misleading way to phrase it.

Instead, I would simply say this: handling the cards in a way that is consistent with your persona has the effect of removing the idea of sleight of hand. Basically, you want to disassociate yourself with any form of sleight of hand, trickery, magic, etc. In doing so, your persona gains credibility. Mentalism's strength is that it is perhaps the last realm of magic which could actually be real. By gaining credibility, you are not so much suggesting the presence of real magic - but rather, the reality of what you are performing (which, in mentalism, is rarely 'real magic', but more likely to be various forms of psychology and/or parapsychology - body language, spiritualism, shamanistic rituals, etc.).

I handle cards every day, and it would be ridiculous for me to expect to convince an audience otherwise. In fact it would be more, it would be insulting.

Yes - but as you have acknowledged, this sort of attitude, with the exception of a deliberately exaggerated exception like Lennart Green, is reserved almost exclusively for the realm of the mentalist. There is no magical reason, I feel, for adopting this specific attitude outside of being a mentalist. I do feel that there are arguments for and against flourishing in magic in general - and you've pointed out some great ones - but this "extreme", as you've called it, is a mentalism specific perspective, and you, I would point out, are not, to the best of my knowledge, a mentalist (I want to mention at this point that I'm sorry if any of this appears harshly written. This is in no way a derisive reference to you or your opinions, and I think you've put some great thoughts in this topic and in your other posts in the past - just that this particular section is a bit off in my opinion).

So, continuing on, think of it from a mentalist's perspective. I think that for the majority of serious mentalists, it would be ridiculous to convince an audience that they do handle cards every day. I do in real life, card magic being my first magical passion, but I would certainly not admit to such. It would be insulting to perform mentalism with cards, furthermore, whilst flourishing, exhibiting sleight of hand ability, and simultaneously crediting to "mind reading", "Satanism" (if you're Eric Mead) or "psychology". Indeed, such an offering would not be mentalism at all.

An audience has payed to see a well polished act, and if I try to suggest that it is anything less, the audience would feel cheated and let down.

I won't say much on this, but again, I think you have misunderstood the gist of this perspective. You seem to believe that this attitude entails feigning not being able to handle cards at all, and adopting a clumsy approach when touching, shuffling, or otherwise performing with cards.

This is not at all the case. Again, the point is not to appear unskilled, unprofessional, or unpolished. The point is to firstly be consistent with one's performing persona, and secondly, to avoid the perception of sleight of hand. This does not mean that you have to be clumsy! Avoiding the perception of skilled manipulation does not necessarily mean that you have to appear unskilled! It just means that you have to avoid appearing skilled in that way - this is not a dichotomy, a black or white question! As you yourself point out later in this section - many laymen can riffle shuffle cards. Does one instantly suspect them of performing bottom deals when they play poker? Of course not! Avoiding the perception of sleight of hand is the most important thing. But sticking to overhand shuffles, whilst often a useful sleight of hand technique, is not necessary presentation wise. One is free to use whatever techniques they like, as long as this perception is avoided, and as long as it is consistent with one's persona. You are not disappointing an audience by avoiding card manipulation - because you are not doing a show based on card manipulation, but rather on mind reading, or some similar topic, which does not involve card manipulation. Nor are you suggesting that you are clumsy or incompetent (note that portraying clumsiness does not necessarily imply a clumsy performance either - merely a clumsy character), rather than you are not performing sleight of hand.

Furthermore, (in my experience) when handing a deck out to be shuffled, a good 40% of laymen pull off a riffle shuffle, with many of them following it up with a cascade. If they can do it, why should the magician/mentalist that uses cards in part or all of their act on a regular basis not be able to do the same or better? As you can probably see, I am quite strongly opposed to the idea of displaying no skill whatsoever.

As I mentioned earlier - this is precisely why your reasoning is flawed - because you have comprehensively, with good intentions and solid thinking, but nonetheless comprehensively, in my opinion, misrepresented and/or misunderstood what this perspective entails, and the reasoning behind it. The perception seems to be that a mentalist adopting this approach can only shuffle cards overhand, and appear sloppy with card handling. Whilst there are certainly some performers to do this, I think that to judge this attitude based on this one image is incorrect, because one is certainly not limited for these things, and not for those reasons!

Again, I want to repeat that I apologise that this post is so negative towards your original post. I do think there are some good ideas in there, and I think your line of thinking is, in general a good one - just that this particular point is a little misguided.

 

[Randomwrath]

Good call out Prae. First of all, you're correct in assuming that I am a magician rather than a mentalist.

Instead, I would simply say this: handling the cards in a way that is consistent with your persona has the effect of removing the idea of sleight of hand. Basically, you want to disassociate yourself with any form of sleight of hand, trickery, magic, etc. In doing so, your persona gains credibility. Mentalism's strength is that it is perhaps the last realm of magic which could actually be real. By gaining credibility, you are not so much suggesting the presence of real magic - but rather, the reality of what you are performing (which, in mentalism, is rarely 'real magic', but more likely to be various forms of psychology and/or parapsychology - body language, spiritualism, shamanistic rituals, etc.).

When I said 'real magic', this is basically what I was alluding to. The phrasing might have been wrong on my part, as I am thinking from a magician's perspective as opposed to that of a mentalist (and therefore assuming the overall aim to be to convince the spectator that you are doing magic), but I was suggesting that what you are doing is not accomplished by dexterity and sleights, and is real in the sense of what you are telling them it is you are doing.

Usually, this will be in a relatively inelegant manner - but not always! Some time ago, I was discussing with the extraordinary mentalist Alain Nu a portion of his act, in which he actually performed card manipulation live on stage during his mentalism act. He did this whilst blindfolded, as a demonstration.

Clearly, this demonstration suited his purposes, and was consistent with his act. So I think "relatively inelegant manner" is the wrong phrase to use. Relatively inelegant implies that the card handling is necessarily clumsy, which is not the case. Plenty of people know how to riffle shuffle cards, and even do a bridge cascade. Card handling does not need to be inelegant - it merely needs to be at a level consistent with your persona, which for many people is merely "Common" - rather than "sloppy" or "inelegant" as implied by your post. You are definitely not limited to an overhand shuffle! I personally walk a fine line - a key element of my persona is elegance, so I allow myself to indulge in a limited range of things.

This is where the mis-assumption took place on my part. Thanks for correcting me here, that line of thinking seems a lot more valid to me now I see that.

So, continuing on, think of it from a mentalist's perspective. I think that for the majority of serious mentalists, it would be ridiculous to convince an audience that they do handle cards every day. I do in real life, card magic being my first magical passion, but I would certainly not admit to such. It would be insulting to perform mentalism with cards, furthermore, whilst flourishing, exhibiting sleight of hand ability, and simultaneously crediting to "mind reading", "Satanism" (if you're Eric Mead) or "psychology". Indeed, such an offering would not be mentalism at all.

I agree with you when you say that it would be insulting to flourish whilst simultaneously trying to pass off your effects as mentalism, psychology or what have you, however I'm not sure I agree with you in regards to convincing an audience you handle cards every day. Whilst I am aware that the vast majority of a mentalism set is or should not be made up of card work, that does not mean that there can be no card tricks whatsoever. It's to the times when there are cards in play that I'm referring, regardless of whether it's just one trick in a routine or not (of course if you're a mentalist that doesn't use cards at all, that's completely fine, but clearly the flourishing/non flourishing debate doesn't apply in this situation). A lay audience must know that professional magicians practice and perform the same routines a lot, and surely therefore would realise that, if there is any card work in your set at all, you handle these cards with a good deal of regularity.

I won't say much on this, but again, I think you have misunderstood the gist of this perspective. You seem to believe that this attitude entails feigning not being able to handle cards at all, and adopting a clumsy approach when touching, shuffling, or otherwise performing with cards.

This is not at all the case. Again, the point is not to appear unskilled, unprofessional, or unpolished. The point is to firstly be consistent with one's performing persona, and secondly, to avoid the perception of sleight of hand. This does not mean that you have to be clumsy! Avoiding the perception of skilled manipulation does not necessarily mean that you have to appear unskilled! It just means that you have to avoid appearing skilled in that way - this is not a dichotomy, a black or white question! As you yourself point out later in this section - many laymen can riffle shuffle cards. Does one instantly suspect them of performing bottom deals when they play poker? Of course not! Avoiding the perception of sleight of hand is the most important thing. But sticking to overhand shuffles, whilst often a useful sleight of hand technique, is not necessary presentation wise. One is free to use whatever techniques they like, as long as this perception is avoided, and as long as it is consistent with one's persona. You are not disappointing an audience by avoiding card manipulation - because you are not doing a show based on card manipulation, but rather on mind reading, or some similar topic, which does not involve card manipulation. Nor are you suggesting that you are clumsy or incompetent (note that portraying clumsiness does not necessarily imply a clumsy performance either - merely a clumsy character), rather than you are not performing sleight of hand.



As I mentioned earlier - this is precisely why your reasoning is flawed - because you have comprehensively, with good intentions and solid thinking, but nonetheless comprehensively, in my opinion, misrepresented and/or misunderstood what this perspective entails, and the reasoning behind it. The perception seems to be that a mentalist adopting this approach can only shuffle cards overhand, and appear sloppy with card handling. Whilst there are certainly some performers to do this, I think that to judge this attitude based on this one image is incorrect, because one is certainly not limited for these things, and not for those reasons!

This was, again, based on my aforementioned misunderstanding, which has now been cleared up.

Again, I want to repeat that I apologise that this post is so negative towards your original post. I do think there are some good ideas in there, and I think your line of thinking is, in general a good one - just that this particular point is a little misguided.

No problem at all. I'd rather you pointed out my mistakes than let me go on making them. Thanks again for the correction, and overall improvement of the topic at hand

 

[Sinful07]

Arguing whether magic is better with flourishing or just simple 'shuffling' can probably never be resolved. There is no absoloute answer.

saying that, i think i might have to steal that idea, and incorporate it on my own. who knows, maybe ill get good reactions too.

Thanks

-Sin

 

[Randomwrath]

Arguing whether magic is better with flourishing or just simple 'shuffling' can probably never be resolved. There is no absoloute answer.

saying that, i think i might have to steal that idea, and incorporate it on my own. who knows, maybe ill get good reactions too.

Thanks

-Sin

This isn't really intended to end the whole 'is magic better with flourishing' debate though, it's merely intended to make people think about what flourishing they do and to use it to compliment their performance rather than just for the sake of flourishing.

 

[praetoritevong]

Thanks for understanding where my post came from, it's appreciated

I agree with you when you say that it would be insulting to flourish whilst simultaneously trying to pass off your effects as mentalism, psychology or what have you, however I'm not sure I agree with you in regards to convincing an audience you handle cards every day. Whilst I am aware that the vast majority of a mentalism set is or should not be made up of card work, that does not mean that there can be no card tricks whatsoever. It's to the times when there are cards in play that I'm referring, regardless of whether it's just one trick in a routine or not (of course if you're a mentalist that doesn't use cards at all, that's completely fine, but clearly the flourishing/non flourishing debate doesn't apply in this situation). A lay audience must know that professional magicians practice and perform the same routines a lot, and surely therefore would realise that, if there is any card work in your set at all, you handle these cards with a good deal of regularity.

Hmm, sure, I see your point here. I do want to distinguish something though. I mean, Dunninger, one of the most famous mentalists pretty much in history, performed a full normal magic act along with his mentalism. He mixed magic and mentalism quite freely, as do some numerous others. In this context, I think that what you're saying is absolutely right - if the card effects we're talking about are magic tricks, as opposed to mentalism tricks.

I think it gets more complex when we talk about mentalism, though. You're not wrong, but it does get complex. For example, I mentioned above that I allow myself some liberties in my card handling. A key part of my character that I aim for is elegance, both in magic/mentalism and in life too when I meet someone. I chose my performing deck, the D&D S&M deck, for exactly this reason. Therefore, I allow myself a few elegancies, to completely make up a word, in my handling. As you say, I think it's fine to show that you're a polished performer. Nonetheless, there is a fine line that does need to be drawn, and I try to avoid the perception of manipulation. It may well, to use another brief example, make sense for a tarot reader to demonstrate a certain familiarity with cards, as well.

That said, the other side of this would be that what we are performing is not a card trick. After all, why use cards? Well, one would use cards only as a handy prop to demonstrate psychological or parapsychological phenomena. So really - yes, of course one would practice - but if for example one is demonstrating a mastery of psychological manipulation, then yes, they would practice it - but would your image of the practice of psychological manipulation involve sitting with a deck of cards for a few hours? I mean, it could, I suppose, but if that is the image portrayed, then I think the performer is veering dangerously close to the perception of sleight of hand.

Rather, in my opinion a demonstration should simply coincidentally and handily use cards. Maybe not with the explicit suggestion that it could be done with absolutely anything - but the place of the cards should not be emphasised. When they see a card trick, if it is intended to be performed as mentalism, I think the focus needs to be on the effect, and the cards should be incidental.

As far as literally being sloppy goes, I haven't really mentioned that much so I'll be brief (I hope ) here... I think there's merit in it, depending, again, ultimately, on the persona you portray. I mean, sure, if you go to a magic show, then you expect to see something that is polished.

But what if you go to a private party featuring an entertainer? Or even visit the house of a medium in order to attend a seance? Outside of the clearly magical setting, I think there is some merit for being sloppy, for some characters. I will add a condition here though that being sloppy does not necessarily mean being clumsy - most performers will instead refer to basically the idea that they could not manipulate cards if they wanted to. But again, as you've said, many laymen can riffle shuffle cards, and some can even cascade - but obviously the question of sleight of hand trickery is not involved there.

The most extreme I've heard of is simply occasionally dropping a card or two during an overhand shuffle - which is not altogether uncommon for a layman. As far as a performer goes, well, again, I think it just depends on character - seeing a balding 50 year old professor of psychology drop cards in my mind wouldn't take away from the impact of the thing if done right, and I can see how it might increase the believability and so forth.

In any case, I do think it's worth noting here that "being sloppy" doesn't necessarily constitute being as clumsy as it may suggest either.

EDIT: You know, funny thing, actually. I just "got" a sleight today - I was practicing a rather difficult and somewhat angle sensitive sleight today and realised while watching TV that I just "got" the feel of it. I'll probably never use the thing, I have very little use for controls of that sort, but it was nice to get the finger flinging part down anyway.

 

[Randomwrath]

Yeah, okay, I can see where you're coming from there. I'll concede that it depends upon what you're trying to portray through your character. I also, incidentally, quite strongly agree with the idea that the cards should merely be the medium for whatever happens, and not the focus, for both magicians and mentalists alike.

Good work on getting your sleight down by the way, it's a great feeling when you finally nail something, however impractical or unusable.