Removing the Ego from your magic.

[Jack]

Nobody has their **** together in high school. Nobody.

I love this! It made me look back and laugh! The funny thing is we all thought we did! HA! *sigh*

 

[Steerpike]

still reading, but not educated enough to catch your meaning... at least as it goes to jungian psychology and shadow selves

I'll try to give the Cliff's Notes version as this is kind of a complex topic.

Carl Jung theorized that the Shadow is the part of our unconscious mind that acts as the repository for all aspects of ourselves that we repress. In the darkness and alienation of the Shadow, these traits gradually become hostile to the Ego, which is the conscious mind. The Shadow, being unconscious, is not capable of moral constructs like good and evil. The Ego however projects the perception of evil onto the Shadow. This is where our inner demons come from.

Jung's assertion was that it is vital to observe our projections and mirrored behaviors in order to understand our Shadow, integrate with it, and thus become a whole person.

My own perception (and I may very well be full of **** on this one) is that pride and extreme confidence are considered negative and sent to the Shadow. That doesn't make them go away, it just means that they manifest in unconscious ways. The Ego calls these behaviors immoral, but continued to believe that it has banished them and instead projects those evils onto others. Magicians, who must be proud by nature as I said before, do not seek to reconcile their Shadows, but instead dress up their intentions and actions in pseudo-intellectual or pseudo-philanthropic surfaces. Because they have not integrated the Ego with the Shadow, they remain unaware of their own selfish actions and thoughts and rationalize away those doubts in the back of their mind with a thin veneer of excuses and affectations.

I love this! It made me look back and laugh! The funny thing is we all thought we did! HA! *sigh*

Tell me about it. You should have seen me in high school.

 

[Sir FansAlot]

I'll try to give the Cliff's Notes version as this is kind of a complex topic.

Carl Jung theorized that the Shadow is the part of our unconscious mind that acts as the repository for all aspects of ourselves that we repress. In the darkness and alienation of the Shadow, these traits gradually become hostile to the Ego, which is the conscious mind. The Shadow, being unconscious, is not capable of moral constructs like good and evil. The Ego however projects the perception of evil onto the Shadow. This is where our inner demons come from.

Jung's assertion was that it is vital to observe our projections and mirrored behaviors in order to understand our Shadow, integrate with it, and thus become a whole person.

My own perception (and I may very well be full of **** on this one) is that pride and extreme confidence are considered negative and sent to the Shadow. That doesn't make them go away, it just means that they manifest in unconscious ways. The Ego calls these behaviors immoral, but continued to believe that it has banished them and instead projects those evils onto others. Magicians, who must be proud by nature as I said before, do not seek to reconcile their Shadows, but instead dress up their intentions and actions in pseudo-intellectual or pseudo-philanthropic surfaces. Because they have not integrated the Ego with the Shadow, they remain unaware of their own selfish actions and thoughts and rationalize away those doubts in the back of their mind with a thin veneer of excuses and affectations.



Tell me about it. You should have seen me in high school.

It seems that Jung is correct in many ways. When it comes down to it, it is more important to realize these things for yourself. As I brought up before, many kung-fu artists as well as many others have struggled with the basic idea of releasing their Ego for hopes of a better life. Most of it is Karma driven. Does it apply to magic? Heck yes, because it applies to everything you do. Does it make sense??? That is truly up to the individual. My thoughts are that it is very rewarding to at least realize your Ego, getting rid of it is up to the beholder.

Peace.

 

[toyrobot]

I'm going to channel Steerpike, here.

I just have to say... theirs nothing wrong with just doing card magic, if it's just a hobby, if it's a profession, it a different story.

You also have to look further and expand in the opposite direction,of the new era learning ever new trick that comes out, and buying it with their parents money, only no never actually preform it for people other than friends, or family.

A good read though... thanks!
~Shades

The thing is, there IS so much more in modern magic than what I described. I know it's not ALL a bunch of faceless teenagers who never perform. But they are most certainly the representatives of modern magic - they're the most numerous, and the most loud.

Also, sure, you could entertain with just card magic. But are you doing card tricks because you have a solid reason for that being your entire performance, or because it's just easy to be doing card tricks now?

With all of the "knowledgeable" threads popping up since my post on the morality of the online members, one must question the ability, will, and reason that the author has to write such things.

This is one, amongst the few, that I decidedly acquiesce with.

What I figure is, nobody's going to take me to task for saying, "a lot of magicians take the easy way out," when others have been saying that for a long, long time. I'm just using more words to say it. This is hardly something I feel specialized or trained to analyze, but it is something I - like everyone else - had to struggle with and make a conscious decision to do.

Being an actor doesn't necessarily mean becoming some sort of character for the audience, but rather using the entire body to interact with the audience in a way that a card technician could not. As stated before, the only reason I practice as much as I do is so I won't have to think about moves while I perform. The important part of magic, to me at least, is using my body to create emotion for my audience. I have a big ego because I want the audience to remember Ben Long that awesome funny sexy witty dude and book him again so they can give him more money. I don't want them to remember that "magic tricks are cool--we should get a magician for our next party." That's the actor talking.

And there's nothing wrong with wanting the audience to remember you, to get high off that spark that's created. But, like Steerpike said, it's Why, and not How. You remember his essay on, Be you, but bigger? That's what we're working with. You need to be a bigger, more glamorous version of yourself just to survive in magic. The nature of the field demands it. It's when you say, "Screw the magic, I just want people to think I'm amazing!"

And I guess it depends on your train of thought for acting in regards to magic, because I can't fathom being myself when I do magic. I think the art demands theater, especially today. For me, magic is all about sharing the weird, and I like to emphasize that with a character. But I can totally concede that that's a personal thing.

The thing is, to be a performer requires a certain degree of selfishness. You have to get off on the applause to some extent. The problem is that I notice most people are still trying to find validation through it.

The nature of what we're doing, you could argue, is selfish. We're saying, Look at me! It's just, yeah, do you wave your arms and say, Look at me! because you need attention, or because you can't wait to share something with an excited crowd?

I don't know if we can say that making yourself a better performer will come from removing your "ego" from your magic. I do agree with a lot of what you said, especially the character part. But I think that the fact that there are a lot of crappy magicians today comes from the fact that there are a lot of magicians today, much more then yesteryear. There are also a lot of good magicians, though. Adhering to a specific character and mirroring your favorite performers is a part of finding your own character- we all go through it. We must be patient.

There's a difference between being influenced by someone, and just ripping them off completely out of laziness with no intention to transcend.

You remove the ego and keep the Showman, let's say that. Your Ego is the part of you saying, "Give me more! Feed me! This makes me special!", and the Showman is saying, "I need to be very charismatic, perhaps almost overbearing, in order to be memorable for these people." It's a different form of arrogance. Assume I'm talking about the bad kind.

Ive never thought of it the way you put it. but in a certain sense ego is kind o essential for magic, Im not saying its the only factor that matters but the reason we do magic is to get attention, but there is nothing wrong with that, it's human nature. also keep in mind i am not trying to contradict what you are saying at all, there is a lot of this thread i agree with completely, but i think it's a little much to assume that if we remove ego from our performance it will make it better, because with ego comes confidence, which in my opinion is the most important element in performing magic.

Again, the Ego I'm discussing is not confidence, playful arrogance, or the high you get from performing. All are good things, all very much necessary. The Ego here is arrogance that gets in the way of you bettering yourself, that makes you lazy and content. And if we get rid of that, we're getting rid of what made us not want to better our performance in the first place. We're getting rid of, "Judging by their reactions, this must be good enough."

I had a friend ask me to do a trick yesterday. She hasn't seen me do too much so I did my adaptation of Carlile Aces. Before I even started she said, "Normally I don't like magicians or magic really for that matter. But when you do it, you seem to enjoy it as much as the people watching. I don't feel like you're tricking me. I feel like you're astonished at what you do too and it makes me believe."
Don't forget that magic is a shared experience. You don't want to trick and audience you want to astonish them. Part of that starts with you!

That's really all I ask for from a magician. Get involved. Be amazed at what you do too. You can bend the laws of nature to your will, and you honestly can't see the beauty in that, in your moment of strange?

Tell me about it. You should have seen me in high school.

My image of you has been completely shattered. I originally imagined a dark and callous hermit, hunched over the keyboard due to the powerful swelling of hate stored in his back, much the way Bill Hicks described. I could see you sitting atop a throne made of your conquered foes, the posts of which adorned by skulls of their loved ones. Every edict you issued brought nations to ruin. Your soul consorted with demon and imp, and you had vivid dreams of violated dead swallowing the world in a withered, shameful apocalypse.

Every morning you would scald yourself, to bring forth the septic anger dwelling within your cold, black shell, and before making a post, you would devour a human heart.

And when you say to imagine you in high school, that - that - turns that image into something really scary.

 

[Steerpike]

Also, sure, you could entertain with just card magic. But are you doing card tricks because you have a solid reason for that being your entire performance, or because it's just easy to be doing card tricks now?

Consider also that doing card tricks is also a way to feed one's gluttony as there is no shortage of new card tricks to buy. Ever.

What I figure is, nobody's going to take me to task for saying, "a lot of magicians take the easy way out," when others have been saying that for a long, long time.

They'll find a way. Confronting these facts isn't easy on people. To return to my analysis of the Shadow, Robert Bly once said that when you look into the Shadow to get back in touch with a part of yourself you have repressed, it has become hostile to the Ego. Expect a fight. So much easier to just leave it in the darkness...

It's a different form of arrogance. Assume I'm talking about the bad kind.

Arrogance is much different from confidence, keep in mind. Arrogance is delivered from insecurity in one's perceived superiority. Confidence is surety and the lack of insecurity.

My image of you has been completely shattered. I originally imagined a dark and callous hermit, hunched over the keyboard due to the powerful swelling of hate stored in his back, much the way Bill Hicks described. I could see you sitting atop a throne made of your conquered foes, the posts of which adorned by skulls of their loved ones. Every edict you issued brought nations to ruin. Your soul consorted with demon and imp, and you had vivid dreams of violated dead swallowing the world in a withered, shameful apocalypse.

Every morning you would scald yourself, to bring forth the septic anger dwelling within your cold, black shell, and before making a post, you would devour a human heart.

And when you say to imagine you in high school, that - that - turns that image into something really scary.

None of which can do more than foreshadow the reality of the horror of my teenage existence. For example, I wore an 80's metal mullet back then. I'll leave you to get a change of pants now.

 

[Randy]

None of which can do more than foreshadow the reality of the horror of my teenage existence. For example, I wore an 80's metal mullet back then. I'll leave you to get a change of pants now.

Excuse me, while I laugh at a guy who had a mullet in the late 90's to 00's.




LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hopefully you realized you looked like a tool and that was why nobody wanted to hang out with you.

 

[SamRochon]

What!? But I love the Ego! Best colour change ever

That's what I thought when I saw the thread title too. I was lie "Why would I remove the ego?" lol.

Nice points though, lots to take in. I know I probably perform for my ego but that doesn't mean that the spectator doesn't enjoy it as well. A little ego (or big!) in a performance works for some people too.

 

[toyrobot]

That's what I thought when I saw the thread title too. I was lie "Why would I remove the ego?" lol.

Nice points though, lots to take in. I know I probably perform for my ego but that doesn't mean that the spectator doesn't enjoy it as well. A little ego (or big!) in a performance works for some people too.

Once again, we have to differentiate between "ego" and "confidence."

 

[Steerpike]

LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hopefully you realized you looked like a tool and that was why nobody wanted to hang out with you.

Let he who has never committed a sin of style cast the first stone.

Once again, we have to differentiate between "ego" and "confidence."

Which is a distinction most people don't think about.

 

[RikAllen]

Which is a distinction most people don't think about.

It's a distinction most people don't want to think about.

They associate confidence with their favorite performer.
Their ego creates a mirror of their favorite performer within themselves.
The reflected image tricks them into having confidence.
They like the feeling and refuse to admit it isn't because of who they truly are.

I remember reading something about this some time ago, in a non-magical context.

If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you.

-Don Marquis