Whoo.

Why the lecture on that?

Quite simply, because as magicians our audiences know when we are lying. They may not know it consciously, or worse they know it consciously and do not voice it to you, but they know it. And unless you really did lose their card (even if you forgot it only for a second), or you really did not know where it could be (because you forgot if it was before or after the key card), they'll know that you really don't NOT KNOW what it is. They know that you know. Unless you REALLY DON'T know.

The very first thing I performed for strangers was a card divination. I used the presentation of Hellstromism, and used a card stack to accomplish the effect—Three Kings I started with, then made my own. But because in those first days I was still not fully comfortable with the stack, I had to think hard and remember the arrangement. And as I held my spectator by the wrist, and shut silent in order to focus on their card, they really thought I was feeling their body. They really thought I could know their card by their pulse. Because I REALLY WAS focusing on what their card could be. In a way that was different from what they believed, but focusing in the way they expected nonetheless. And that made me believable. It made me seem genuine and honest.

I miss those days of blissful ignorance. Now, when I became proficient in the stack I would know what their card was immediately and it wouldn't be believable anymore, but at the time it worked well. In fact, the times when I genuinely panicked and didn't know the expected outcomes were the most believable. I'm not saying to be underprepared and incompetent, but to forget the outcome. When you expect what's coming next and focus on that, so do your spectators. And that way you both miss out on what's happening now in the current action. And that loses a lot the build-up and ideas needed for the climax of an effect.

There is an idea in theatre of forgetting your lines. This doesn't mean to not learn them, or to learn them and then forget them. Rather, it means to not anticipate your lines, to let it come naturally because you know the motivation behind them. You do not focus on the outcome, or the words that you know need to be said. That makes it mechanical and unpleasant. You instead let what the other actors genuinely affect you and then react. You don't wait for the cue to trigger your lines; you let their words and the meaning behind those words sink in and affect you. Then and only then do you react—and that way it is true, honest, genuine, and believable.

So how about it?

Self-deception.

Bless,
–Badger

This is important to the topic in hand because far too many people—and yes, I use the term people here indicating not the magician aspect of their personality but their human aspect—negate the magical effect by making the performance too intimate or too combative. You become either a friend and storyteller or a fiend and show-off. I've repeated myself many times now because I want to hammer in the distinction. A magician is a guide. You lead the way to your world of magic. Got it?

To do that, not only do we have to posses a thoughtful grasp of what we believe to be that world of magic in order to know where we want to go, but also to have a competent handling of our tools and materials in order to get their safely. First we have to know where we want to go—this is your personal theory of magic—then we have to know how to get there—this is your handling of your cards, coins, spongeballs, tablesaw, mirrors, fans, rabbits, and whatever else you use. You don't want to lose any of your spectators along the way. And any unskillful handling will definitely lose spectators.

As human beings, our natural environment is other human beings. Think about that for a second. We can live anywhere in this world, from an island built on magma, to a desert of scorching heat, to an arctic wilderness, to a mysterious forest, to a modern city. The location is not the environment. It's those other human beings around us. The ones that keep us alive; the ones that are our greatest natural resource, and as such our greatest natural predator. We can't survive alone for too long—the mind goes awry, and even if we were able to survive on a deserted island as a single organism, we would still be an evolutionary dead end without a reproductive partner.

As such, human beings have innate mechanisms tuned in to other human beings. We know when someone is happy, someone is sad, someone is angry, someone is ecstatic, someone is to be comforted, someone is to be left alone. And most importantly, we have evolved the ability to know when someone is to be trusted and when someone is to be distrusted. We had to—otherwise we would get killed by someone planning to backstab us. Our ability to distinguish whether or not to someone is genuine or manipulative is a precise and unique ability. As such, we always, ALWAYS, intuitively know whether or not someone is lying. We sometimes disregard that intuition based on emotions, presented information, or past experiences, bu hat intuition should not be so easily discarded. We also have a system designed to bypass that mechanism of intuition. It's called self-deception. When you belief what you are doing with absolute certainty, well, that intuition believes it also. This is where your critical thinking and rational mind needs to analyse the presented information and make a decision based on given facts. No matter how right someone feels about the existence of God, regardless of your beliefs you have to examine their belief and why you should belief them based on evidence and why they belief it.

First off, allow me to address the idea of normal handling. You are a magician, and as such people expect a proficiency in what you do. I strongly disagree with anyone that purposely tries to make their handling of cards clumsy. You do not see Yo-Yo Ma treat his cello disgracefully, nor Bobby Fischer (R.I.P.) knock over chess pieces. It is only right of you to have a graceful handling of the cards. What this means to you may be different from another magician. Dai Vernon does not flourish the same way that Dave Buck does. However, no matter how flashy or bright a move is, so long as it is done comfortably and expertly, you take it as normal. It simply is how that person handles the cards. Do not judge yourself by how others handle their tools. Rather, allow your preferences and tendencies to express themselves in your flourishing–and your sleights. Otherwise, you are simply a second hand performer copying the mould set by others before you. Your flourishes, your sleights, and every part of your performance is an extension of you–whether it is the part that you have copied or the part that is yours.

Very recently I had the experience of seeing a magician as a spectator. Not only that, as a spectator watching a sub par parade of tricks and patter. Instead of presenting himself, this magician relied on the brilliance of the trick creators to carry him through. I can hold the magician guilty for nothing, perhaps other than the fault of ignorance–but you do not scream at a child that knows no better. For one, I hid my knowledge of magic as best as my ego would dare. And secondly, I was in a magic store, and he was undoubtedly trying to entice me to make several purchases. Regardless, I am thankful to him for showing me what my audience sees when I am not performing well; when I perform to the audience, not for the audience, or even worse, masturbate under limelight while forcing people to watch–and expect them to enjoy it. Perhaps in another discipline, but not this.

Specifically, though I wasn't aware exactly of what sleights he used or what methods accomplished his means, I knew something had gone on. Instead of being directed to believe the presentation, I found myself in my head analysing where he was telling the truth and where he had lied. There was no effective theatrical suspension of disbelief. It was like watching "The Haunting of Molly Hartley" all over again, though I didn't consciously know it at the time. Incidentally, I recommend that movie if you for whatever reason decide to waste two precious hours of your life. I could sense where something had gone on. And though my senses were deceived, my intellect knew that something was wrong.

Our magic relies very much on how well our audience trusts us. This is something that Tony has brought up before, actually, that we should not be performing against our spectators. It's not magician versus spectator. Or at the very least, that's not where you want the performance to end with. Instead of battling the spectators about whether or not something can be done, and whether or not I was doing a move here or using patter there, I think magic is both you and your audience walking together to Wonderland. I may be wrong, and that may be yet another far fetched and underdeveloped analogy, but this is how I view my magic. I want me and the audience to be witnesses to the magical phenomenon—not gladiators showing off our knowledge and skills against each other. If anyone has any thoughts on this, to the contrary or in accord, please speak up.

It isn't about the sleight itself. Magicians are so caught up about the revelation of the card that they forgot to make the trick seem impossible by loosing their card.

The whole debate of if a Fan or cascade looks "natural" is a stupid one. The way you spread the cards, the way you perform a double lift is way different than any laymen. Do they suspect that you are doing something weird? Hope not. Why? Because it has become you. That's what a SKILLED person with cards does.

However, different controls are for different people – the more you do the waterfall just while talking or flourishing, the more convincing your cascade control becomes. The same goes for the cherry control- if people have seen you fanning the cards before, they have no reason to suspect why this fan controlled their card to the top, especially when your patter is "the card was lost somewhere here, right?" as you point to the center of the fan.

But bleh, your control is to damn smooth.