Next I move on to examine the thought process behind the illusions we create. Imagine the first time you saw some old uncle at a family reunion try to show you a card trick. Poorly rehearsed, sloppily performed, and all in all not very magical. This uncle claims that you just saw magic. What do you believe? First thing, your mind goes to the un-natural movements me made with his hands as he attempted each and every sleight. You think about the look on his face that just screams “Ha! I tricked you!” You think of what he said. “It’s magic.” You know better. There is no such thing as magic. He had to have tricked you. Unfortunately for your uncle, reverse psychology kicks in the door and casts doubts on his trick.
We claim magic and miracles. We do things that are impossible. When someone asks how we did something, we often respond with one word, “magic.” The only thing that we use to convince our spectators that we really are able to do the impossible is the actual appearance of the illusion. All of our performance and speech plays the reverse-psychology game against our work. What a wonder it would be to be able to turn the tables on this phenomenon and let reverse-psychology work FOR us instead of against us.
I recently stumbled across a sudden burst of success as a sleight of hand artist. Looking back, I think I have discovered the secret to my sudden popularity among the people in my small town. I tell the truth. At my first paid gig, right after my first trick, I told everyone something like this. “I am a magician, but more specifically a sleight of hand artist. The things you see me do seem impossible, but in reality all I am doing is fooling you. With my card tricks I do things in the background that you don’t know or see that allow for these impossible feats to become possible. If you want to know how magic is done, I dare you to catch me.” I carried into a Vegas Card Cheat routine. I showed them how a dodgy dealer will control any card however he wants. I told them I was cheating. But a funny thing happened. The tricks I performed were ones I have had loads of practice with and can do extremely smoothly and naturally. They also were tricks that were bafflingly impossible. People watched an ACR, and could not for their lives figure out how I got the card from the middle of the deck to the top. I would do next to nothing, yet the card found its way to the top. I began to subliminally cause my spectators to give up on catching me in my sleights. To them, there were no sleights. They knew that sleights were impossible. They watched everything I did with my hands. It was impossible. They gave up. Their brains gave up. They lost the desire to catch me, and began to find nothing other than enjoyment from seeing impossible things happen in impossible circumstances. They BELIEVED.
Let’s carry on with this idea. People will always be looking for an explanation. They thirst for it in all things in life. A magician is just a person who tries to fool people. Smoke and mirrors, invisible thread, trick cards, and tricks up the magician’s sleeves. This is what they expect. If you go into a gig and show the faintest bit of a lack of practice, people will see it. The convincing factor of your illusion, though you didn’t flash or blow the trick, just went down exponentially. People are looking for weakness. Now think of the most mystifying performer you have ever seen. How solid was their routine? Did you see weakness? Did you see a lack of practice? Of course not, that is exactly what sets them apart from us. They give the audience nothing to feed their thirst for answers with. When the spectators can’t find something to quench their thirst, they look harder in other places for answers. Soon, they have nothing left to go on. Now here is the small idea that I have been working with. When people have no idea how you are cheating them, when they are just starting to open up to the possibility that you really can do the impossible, you can do something very unconventional. Tell them that you are cheating them. Tell them that they are not seeing the impossible. Tell them it is all an illusion. They do not take statements like this the way they ought to. They don’t believe it. Your statement seems to be a statement to distract them from the truth. Maybe you really can do this, and you are just saying you have to cheat. The opposite seed of doubt is planted. This idea does not sit well with the spectator, it tears them apart inside. The specs get flustered. They become their own hecklers.
This idea is good in theory, but in practice, it is much different. You have to take A plus B to get C. If you want the result, there are two very specific things that you have to work into your routine. If you lack any part of this, the psychological effect is blown. You must be very thorough in your preparations.
Firstly, you have to have flawless routines. Once again, I do not say that you have to simply not flash. You have to understand the inner workings of your illusions. You have to understand the patter and showmanship. You have to have great confidence. You have to be smooth. You have to practice hundreds of times over to get to the point where you no longer put gas on a spectator’s fire of suspicion. Let’s analyze a simple sleight – The Double Lift. Where in the double lift does the real illusion happen? At the lift? When you set the double down? When you are being careful not to flash the second card while holding up the double? No. The illusion happens in the offbeat of turning the face of the double away from the spectator. They see the front. That really is the card that they think. The illusion is that moment when they first see the back of the double. They know that the back of that card is the back of the card they saw; hence it has to still be their card. Knowing this little tidbit about a double lift allows you to place more power into the real illusion. Everything else regarding a double lift is a mere technicality. Just tools to make the illusion more convincing. But to understand exactly what each illusion is allows you to modify your performance to play heavier on the parts of your illusions are the most important. Learn EVERYTHING about every illusion you perform and you will begin to become far greater of a performer.
Secondly, you must understand the idea of reverse-reverse-psychology. The spectators already know not to trust you and have that idea burned into their heads. Give them little reason to trust you. Cheat them. Let them know they have been had. Then, when trust is at an all time low, tell them the truth. You can’t do the impossible. Their brain doesn’t know what to do with this information, but it has to be a trick. The spectator will fool themselves into becoming a part of your grandest illusion, the psychological web of “knowledge” that the spectator believes that they have been weaving. Imagine a fly getting caught in a spider web, and thinking that they (the fly) spun the web. Poor fly. This is what we are trying to accomplish. Let the spectator come up with their own ideas, which are really yours.
This is our goal. Let’s look at the grandest illusion. The illusion that the magician is just a modest guy who doesn’t want to take full credit for all the cool things he does, the illusion that the spectator came to every conclusion on their own, the illusion that impossible things are happening in front of everyone’s eyes.
We claim magic and miracles. We do things that are impossible. When someone asks how we did something, we often respond with one word, “magic.” The only thing that we use to convince our spectators that we really are able to do the impossible is the actual appearance of the illusion. All of our performance and speech plays the reverse-psychology game against our work. What a wonder it would be to be able to turn the tables on this phenomenon and let reverse-psychology work FOR us instead of against us.
I recently stumbled across a sudden burst of success as a sleight of hand artist. Looking back, I think I have discovered the secret to my sudden popularity among the people in my small town. I tell the truth. At my first paid gig, right after my first trick, I told everyone something like this. “I am a magician, but more specifically a sleight of hand artist. The things you see me do seem impossible, but in reality all I am doing is fooling you. With my card tricks I do things in the background that you don’t know or see that allow for these impossible feats to become possible. If you want to know how magic is done, I dare you to catch me.” I carried into a Vegas Card Cheat routine. I showed them how a dodgy dealer will control any card however he wants. I told them I was cheating. But a funny thing happened. The tricks I performed were ones I have had loads of practice with and can do extremely smoothly and naturally. They also were tricks that were bafflingly impossible. People watched an ACR, and could not for their lives figure out how I got the card from the middle of the deck to the top. I would do next to nothing, yet the card found its way to the top. I began to subliminally cause my spectators to give up on catching me in my sleights. To them, there were no sleights. They knew that sleights were impossible. They watched everything I did with my hands. It was impossible. They gave up. Their brains gave up. They lost the desire to catch me, and began to find nothing other than enjoyment from seeing impossible things happen in impossible circumstances. They BELIEVED.
Let’s carry on with this idea. People will always be looking for an explanation. They thirst for it in all things in life. A magician is just a person who tries to fool people. Smoke and mirrors, invisible thread, trick cards, and tricks up the magician’s sleeves. This is what they expect. If you go into a gig and show the faintest bit of a lack of practice, people will see it. The convincing factor of your illusion, though you didn’t flash or blow the trick, just went down exponentially. People are looking for weakness. Now think of the most mystifying performer you have ever seen. How solid was their routine? Did you see weakness? Did you see a lack of practice? Of course not, that is exactly what sets them apart from us. They give the audience nothing to feed their thirst for answers with. When the spectators can’t find something to quench their thirst, they look harder in other places for answers. Soon, they have nothing left to go on. Now here is the small idea that I have been working with. When people have no idea how you are cheating them, when they are just starting to open up to the possibility that you really can do the impossible, you can do something very unconventional. Tell them that you are cheating them. Tell them that they are not seeing the impossible. Tell them it is all an illusion. They do not take statements like this the way they ought to. They don’t believe it. Your statement seems to be a statement to distract them from the truth. Maybe you really can do this, and you are just saying you have to cheat. The opposite seed of doubt is planted. This idea does not sit well with the spectator, it tears them apart inside. The specs get flustered. They become their own hecklers.
This idea is good in theory, but in practice, it is much different. You have to take A plus B to get C. If you want the result, there are two very specific things that you have to work into your routine. If you lack any part of this, the psychological effect is blown. You must be very thorough in your preparations.
Firstly, you have to have flawless routines. Once again, I do not say that you have to simply not flash. You have to understand the inner workings of your illusions. You have to understand the patter and showmanship. You have to have great confidence. You have to be smooth. You have to practice hundreds of times over to get to the point where you no longer put gas on a spectator’s fire of suspicion. Let’s analyze a simple sleight – The Double Lift. Where in the double lift does the real illusion happen? At the lift? When you set the double down? When you are being careful not to flash the second card while holding up the double? No. The illusion happens in the offbeat of turning the face of the double away from the spectator. They see the front. That really is the card that they think. The illusion is that moment when they first see the back of the double. They know that the back of that card is the back of the card they saw; hence it has to still be their card. Knowing this little tidbit about a double lift allows you to place more power into the real illusion. Everything else regarding a double lift is a mere technicality. Just tools to make the illusion more convincing. But to understand exactly what each illusion is allows you to modify your performance to play heavier on the parts of your illusions are the most important. Learn EVERYTHING about every illusion you perform and you will begin to become far greater of a performer.
Secondly, you must understand the idea of reverse-reverse-psychology. The spectators already know not to trust you and have that idea burned into their heads. Give them little reason to trust you. Cheat them. Let them know they have been had. Then, when trust is at an all time low, tell them the truth. You can’t do the impossible. Their brain doesn’t know what to do with this information, but it has to be a trick. The spectator will fool themselves into becoming a part of your grandest illusion, the psychological web of “knowledge” that the spectator believes that they have been weaving. Imagine a fly getting caught in a spider web, and thinking that they (the fly) spun the web. Poor fly. This is what we are trying to accomplish. Let the spectator come up with their own ideas, which are really yours.
This is our goal. Let’s look at the grandest illusion. The illusion that the magician is just a modest guy who doesn’t want to take full credit for all the cool things he does, the illusion that the spectator came to every conclusion on their own, the illusion that impossible things are happening in front of everyone’s eyes.
