Mirrors of the Magician's Soul.

Magic, like most performance arts, relies on communication with an audience. Apart from voice and gestures, perhaps the most important communication tool of the magician is...the eyes. This is true even more so for closeup magic then it is for stage, and I've always felt that television performances of magic are marred by the inability of the performer to make direct eye contact with the audience.

Possibly the best treatise on the use of eyes in magic that I've ever come across is by none other than Juan Tamariz in his "The Five Points in Magic" (Eyes are the very first point he writes about). He speaks of the importance of that visual connection to the audience, and suggests that the magician should imagine that his eyes are connected to the audiences by threads which should never be broken. That eye contact should be maintained. He isn't saying that you should stare at them until they become uncomfortable, or that you cannot look away, just that that visual conection to and from the audience must be maintained.

The eyes can communicate, and Tamariz suggested looking at just your eyes in the mirror with the rest of the face blocked off to see just what kind of expressions and emotions can be shown by just the eyes. Eyes can express all sorts of emotions, whether soft, kind, angry, sinister, threatening, welcoming, confused, sad, friendly and so on. Eyes are how you can express your humanity.

Likewise, observing your audience's eyes can give you clues to how they are responding to the magic. You can see how attentive they are, whether their gaze is where you want it to be, their emotional state, and what their level of interest is. People might try to fake reactions, but the eyes generally give things away.

Now that idea of watching where an audience's gaze is is very important. It's not so much about misdirecting. It's more about, as the late Tommy Wonder used to say, attention direction, making sure that the audience is not only looking where you want them to, but also controlling their level of focus on that point. One of the ways you do this is by the use of your own eyes. Generally, where you look is where the audience will look (assuming that they are engaged in the performance), and how intensely you look is a cue to how mush the audience should focus their attention.

Here's another point, this time courtesy of Bob Fitch (as spoken of by Eugene Burger in the Chicago Visions booklet). You should finish a thought before moving your eyes. Finish a sentence while maintaining a focus on somebody, and then move your eyes. This is how you can convey sincerity. Constantly moving your eyes while doing things or speaking to someone will create an effect of shiftyness.

Here's another tip about eyes. Generally pupils become wider due to two different stimulii. One, low light (due to the need to capture more of the available light). Two, high interest. Interest level of your audiences can be partially gauged by how large their pupils are. This is why dinner by candlelight is so effective for lovers - the low light enhances the appearance of interest in their counterpart by widening the pupil.

Mentalists these days seem to be using NLP more and more these days. NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) also teaches about eye accessing cues. They are worth a look, and certainly they feel intuitively right, but their actual veracity is still under dispute in academic circles.

So what are eye accessing cues? Basically the NLP people argue that your eye movements reflect how you are accessing memories. By observing what kind of directions the eyes go, you can infer what sensory modality they are accessing, and whether or not the memory is being recalled or constructed. Theoretically, you can also detect deception.

So here is how it works. If the eyes go up, they are in a visual modality. If they are in the middle plane, then they are accessing an auditory modality. If they look down, then they are in a kinesthetic modality, thinking or re-experiencing feelings. If, as you look at them, their eyes are to the left, then they are engaging their imagination to construct a 'memory' in whatever modality the vertical direction indicates. If they look to the right, then they are attempting to recall actual memories. This is where claims of deception detection come in, If you ask someone where they have been, and their eyes go up and to the right, then they are trying to recall an actual remembered image of where they have been. If their eyes go up and to the left, then they are attempting to construct an image of someplace that they haven't actually been.

So that's the basics of NLP eye accessing cues, but there is a great deal more about eyes in the NLP literature.

In any case, I see that that is enough for one post, so with a glint in my eye, I'll sign off.
Be seeing you,
Escherwolf

Update on site - New Blogs added.

Just a quick entry today - but I will have a new topic soon.

I've added some new blog links to the list - If you like the Surrealist work of Rene Magritte, I recommend you check out "Tricks and Optical Illusions".

I also decided to try a new template - The green was making me go ...well, green. Not a good colour on me.

I've decided that occassionally I'll throw in some blog entries on things that matter to me on a personal level. A little bit of self-revelation if you will. Don't worry though, Magic will still be the main topic of the blog.

Let me know if you like the new look, and also if you like or hate the idea of me straying from magic every now again to discuss things in my personal background. If you'd rather I kept behind the screen as it were, let me know.

Be seeing you...

Magic Clubs - The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.

Magic Clubs. At some point most magicians will consider joining one or more of them. It might be a local ring of the IBM, it might be an arm of a national club such as SAM, the Magic Circle, or the ASM. It might simply be a local club with no other affiliations. In any case, a club has much to offer, as well as traps for the unwary. Before I get started, let me point out that I have no desire to single out any one club, nor do I think that any specific club will have all the positives or negatives that I will list below. This is not meant to be an endorsement, nor a condemnation. It is simply my attempt to give a balanced view of the club experience, both good and bad.



Clubs can be overwhelmingly positive, offering many benefits to members. There will be club events, perhaps a magic library, competitions, and general camaradery. Being in a club gives a sense of belonging within the magical community, and fraternity with other magicians. It is a place for healthy competition, learning, exchange of ideas, support for trying out new tricks and routines, networking, listening to the grapevine, and perhaps even gaining a mentor or two. Through club membership one may become part of the wider world of magic, becoming more aware of events, competitions, conventions, dealers and upcoming lecturer visits. It also has to be pointed out that clubs provide a lecture circuit for those same lecturers. Older magicians may see the club as a way to stay involved in magic after retirement, or even to pass on their lifetime experiences in magic. It is also (though not always) clubs that generally do the hard work behind the scenes for events such as lectures and conventions.

Plenty of good there then. Surely there isn't anything bad that can be said about them?

Well, sometimes I think that magic clubs can lose focus on the magic. They may introduce activities that may have little relevance to improving your magic (though they may have a phatic utility to the club itself). These activities may include such things as initiations, inductions, and games that fill time but do not keep attention focussed on the magic itself.

The safe environment for performing in, where everybody is also a magician and is trying to be supportive and/or tolerant may allow performers to remain at levels of skill far below what they should be at. Clubs are often too forgiving, allowing performers to get away with stuff that would not be acceptable at an actual gig. Encouragement is good, but so is a realistic assessment of where someone is at, and what they need to do to improve (One day I'll write about Toastmasters, an organisation that does exactly this for public speaking).

It is great to hang out with peers, but that should not affect your study of magic. Some members are more interested in spending their time learning new moves to impress their peers at clubs than in perfecting their old routines for laypeople. The regularity of the meetings with the same people push them to constantly be trying to learn something new to show at the meetings rather than developing their performing repertoire. There is also a tendency for magicians to react to tricks differently than lay people do - magic clubs are not the best places to assess how something will work for a lay audience.

When lectures happen at the club, or something great is shown, don't be surprised when many of the club members will suddenly start doing any easy effects that went down well, or repeating lines that got a laugh. Certainly a magic club seems to be the best place for copying, if not outright theft by the unimaginative.

And here's where we get to the ugly: Cliques, politics, clashing egoes, damaging gossip, jealousy, envy and undue influence can all occur within the context of a club, magic or otherwise.

Now remember, any given club may not have any of these faults, and many clubs are excellent. I wouldn't want to discourage anybody from joining a club - you can make friendships that can last a lifetime. I do think, however, that it is worthwhile to be aware of potential pitfalls, and guard yourself against them.

One last thing - if you decide to serve on a commitee, don't (a) become the workhorse for a lot of members that don't want to help out, (b) get so involved in politics that the magic begins to suffer, or (c) get so nailed down on club obligations that you have to miss gigs to attend a meeting.

The Political Magician

Agent: I need another magician to do strollaround with you at the opening.
Me: How about D*** ****?
Agent: No, not him. He's too political....
Me: !

The magician referred to in the above story was one of those idealistic types that wanted to have a positive impact on the world - Can't have that can we. Though he didn't push his views in his shows, he didn't hide his views either, and he had strong views on many issues. He was a vegetarian, pro-animal rights, pro the environment, and so on. He was also a terribly nice guy, yet the agent didn't like him.

So what's it all about. We aren't just magicians, are we? We are also citizens of our worlds, with a stake in what goes on in it. We are all political animals, and if we aren't interested in who has the power and how they're using it, then we are abdicating our right to complain when it all goes wrong. So why would an agent have a problem with booking a political magician? Shouldn't we all be free to be politically active magicians?

Well, frankly, in most cases I think not. I think there has to be a separation of magician and political activist for magicians in most cases (and I'll talk about exceptions below). Why would I say such a thing? Am I calling for self-censorship? Well, yes, to a certain extent. Let me explain why.

The average professional or semi-pro does not work in their own service - they work in the service of their audiences, their clients, and the reputations of the agents who got them the booking. A magician is first and foremost an entertainer, and their audiences have the right to be entertained without having a political message shoved down their throat, no matter how positive that message may be. The client who is paying for the performance has the right to expect that you are not pursuing your own political agenda on his or her dime, especially when they may not agree with it. Agents have the right to expect that you will not possibly lose them booking venues by pushing inappropriate messages in those venues.

Another reason to not push political messages is the possibility of a backlash that could have disastrous effects on your career. Linda Ronstadt was thrown out of a casino she was performing at when she offended her audience with then unpopular anti-Bush sentiment about the war in Iraq. The Dixie Chicks suffered all sorts of backlash over similar sentiments, affecting their income as entertainers and even provoking death threats.

Now let me point out that I am not speaking about political humour used for the purpose of being topical. I am speaking about the proselytising of a given political agenda.

I said there were exceptions. What might they be?

If you have been hired by a client to represent a certain political view, then you should, in theory be OK. You should follow trade show thinking here - if you are fanatically opposed to the product, say cigarettes, then you don't take a job promoting them. Likewise, if you have difficulties promoting an anti-stem cell research position and that's what the client wants you to do, then refuse the job. No-one says you have top promote a view you don't agree with. (Just out of interest, I am personally against the promotion of cigarettes, and I am for stem cell research).

If you are doing a school show, you might be OK to to pursue certain school approved political messages - say pro-environment or anti-drugs.

If your audience is of a certain political stripe that you know is receptive to your message, you should be OK - after all, you are effectively preaching to the choir. Therefore, if you are at a Greenpeace seminar peforming, then pushing your anti-whaling point of view is going to go over well.

If you promote yourself as a certain kind of character magician, and that character is promoted as political, then that is fine. The people that book you should know what to expect. By doing this, you will likely invite bookings from some types of people and lose bookings with other types. "Oscar the Tree Loving Magician" might not get booked by a Lumberjack's party, but might attract bookings from the Friends of the Earth. And certainly a Gospel magician would not be seen as inconsistent preaching a political message that follows Christian teachings.

If you are attending a certain kind of event, such as a rally, then preaching the message might go over well, but the public nature of the event might colour the way you are perceived as a magician. If it is not your usual style of performance, the inconsistancy might might cause confusion among potential bookers.

I'm not saying that you should't be political as a citizen. What I am saying is that mixing political messages with magic should be done with caution, if it is done at all.

Now all that I've said applies more to people to whom magic is a business. What about amateurs? I think you must still consider the purpose of your performance. Is it about entertaining the people with magic, or using magic as a way to push a message. What you do really depends on your answer to that question.

Be seeing You,

Escherwolf
Lest We Forget (Anzac Day).

Cultural Sensitivity & Magicians

Magicians need to be able to relate to audience members, clients, potential clients and anybody else that they might work with in a positive way. In multicultural communities, tourist destinations, cruise ships and overseas performing venues magicians should be able to find value in understanding cultural differences in attitudes, body language and sensibilities.

So say you are performing an effect and at some point you signal OK by making the traditional Western hand gesture of forming a circle between first finger and thumb. Here in Australia I have seen performers make such a gesture at audience volunteers to indicate that they have successfully completed a task. They might come undone if they were to make such a gesture at people who are German, Spanish, Brazilian or Greek. In those cultures the OK gesture is considered vulgar, if not outrightly obscene. Done to a Frenchman it indicates worthlessness, and a Japanese man might wonder why you are flashing a money sign at him.

The thumbs up sign is considered vulgar in arabic countries. and putting your hand on your hips in mexico is seen as a hostile challenging gesture. In England you had better be careful about which way you hold the victory sign. Beckoning gestures with a finger are considered rude and offensive in Japan, Latin America and the middle East. Pointing with the index finger is also considered rude in middle-Eastern countries.

Say that you are passing out a prop for examination. You had better not do so with the left hand if you are performing to an Arabic gentleman. He would be offended at being offered an item with the 'unclean' hand. If you are performing to a Japanese gentleman, he will be offended if you do not offer the item with both hands. Incidentally, if you are handing out a business card to the Japanese, be sure to proffer it using both hands, holding it with the index finger and thumb of each so that the writing is towards them. A slight bow is good form. They will accept it with two hands, and scrutinise it carefully. It is considered rude to put a business card away immediately, something that it is good to remember if they offer you their business card.

If you are tablehopping in Germany, a light tap on the table is a polite form of greeting.

You will find that different cultures have different zones of intimacy. Men in Latin American countries tend to stand closer than those in Northern America. You can generally stand closer to an urban person than a country person. Some countries are very uncomfortable with touching (such as a hug) or showing emotions. Italians can be very demonstrative, but westerners tend to be more uncomfortable with close proximity. These factors can change the way your performance is received.

It also pays to be aware of religious differences. In Bizarre magick there is a plotline using a nail reputed to be from the crucifixion of Christ. How would such a plotline fare with (a) a Fundamentalist Christian (b) a Jew, or (c) a Muslim? What does seasonal Christmas or Easter magic mean in a Jewish, Buddhist, or Muslim home? I've already mentioned the idea of the unclean hand, but does your show include dogs? In some countries, these too, are considered unclean. Would you pat a Buddhist child on the top of the head to thank him for participating in your children's show? In Buddhism the head is the seat of the soul, and touching it is problematic.

What does all this mean? Simply put, you should be aware and sensitive to your audience. It is no different from the caterer that needs to consider special diets - vegetarian, Kosher, Diabetic, or Gluten free.

Now you might be thinking that you just perform in your local area and never travel, so you don't need to consider this stuff. I believe that you should be aware of them. You might think that it is too much trouble to learn about such things - maybe, but ask a mortician how many different religious rituals about death he must be aware of to ensure that he can appropriately handle the dead. He can't say to himself that he doesn't need to know about Muslim funeral rites because there are no Muslims living in his local area - because a visiting Muslim may pass away in his area the next day, and he must know how to handle the deceased.

About a decade ago I was at a performance of magic - a full stage show by a comedy-magician that at the time lived in my city. I was sitting next to a war veteran. During the show, the performer had an oriental man come up on stage as a volunteer. He then proceeded to make fun of the man's language difficulties, and kept making comments such as "You Japanese, This is how you lost the War...". It was a cringeworthy and offensive way to treat a tourist. The war veteran next to me grew livid. But the real kicker of it all, the thing the magician didn't realise was that the man on stage was not even Japanese (not that that would excuse him), but was in fact Chinese (and incidentally, the Chinese were on our side during the war). It is bad enough to insult someone's culture, worse still to get their culture wrong. Don't do it. Be culturally aware and sensitive.

Be seeing you, Escherwolf.

Lay Audiences and Magician Audiences

So when you go to watch a magician perform, how do you watch him? As a magician - or as a layperson? This could be an important question, as both bring different mindsets to how a performance is decoded. More than one magic theorist has pointed to the difference - Wonder, Ortiz and Weber to name just a few.

In "Scientific American Mind" magazine Volume 18, #1, there is an article called "Jumping to Conclusions" by Deanna Kuhn. It's an article detailing her work in the area of human fallability when it comes to reasoning. Essentially she shows that when evaluating a situation, people cannot help but jump to conclusions based on their own knowledge. Therefore the specifics of the situation are disregarded in favour of what the person might know about those kinds of situations in general, leading to an erroneous conclusion. My own current thesis deals with how old age stereotypes may bias juror's thinking in evaluating the testimony of elders.

In any case, if we apply this to magic we find that... well, that magic theorists are already aware of it. It is one reason (but not the only reason) why an audience of magicians perceive a likely magic trick differently to lay audiences. This was most elegantly discussed in "Designing Miracles" by Darwin Ortiz, a book I highly recommend to all magicians.

Ortiz suggests that magician's will try to understand a magic trick using their technical knowledge where-as lay audiences just try to use commonsense. For magicians, their expertise prevents them from seeing the commonsense explanations that a layperson would leap to. He gives the example of Fred Kaps foiling an audience of magicians with a coin through handkerchief. The magicians couldn't figure it out despite all the technical knowledge they threw at it. The truth of the matter is that, as a joke, Kaps had simply cut a hole in the handkerchief and passed the coin through it, an explanation which would have immediately occurred to a layperson. Magicians on the other hand, wouldn't even consider an explanation so simple.

On "Penn & Teller's Magic and Mystery Tour" DVDs, there's a good example of using a magician's technical knowledge against him. In the Egypt episode, a local magician named Karam demonstrates the cups and balls for Teller. Teller watches Karam perform all the moves suggesting that the balls are no longer distributed one under each cup, but are actually under the centre cup. In fact, they were still one under each cup - Karam had used Teller's knowledge and expectations against him.

Anyway the point of this is not about showing how you can fool magicians. Rather, it is about the neccessity of assessing how a trick is perceived from a lay point of view. You may be a highly knowledgeable magician, but you must still try to cultivate a layperson's viewpoint in order to assess how a trick, whether yours or someone else's, appears to a layperson. Remember, the illusion occurs in the layperson's head, not yours.

Be seeing you, Escherwolf

Ethics, Magicians, and audience participants

So if I want to do a psychology experiment involving anything that lives, I have to clear it with an ethics panel, and show that I am not in violation of any ethical guidelines (which are laid out in a specific written form). I have to contend with informed consent, minimal use of deception, doing no harm to participants, and a whole heap of other things, all of which is designed to protect participants in research from any infringements on their rights to be treated with respect and dignity. Children and animals are also protected with specific ethical guidelines.

Magicians, on the other hand, grab audience members who are dragged into the spotlight with no idea what to expect. They may be insulted, humiliated, treated as little more than props and in some cases even put at risk. To the casual observer, they seem to have no particular concern for their interactions with audience members who are there to be entertained.

Magic to me is a wondrous thing, and I like for people to share in my joy of it. Hard to do if some people, smiling through gritted teeth in an effort to not be a bad sport, only regard magic as a source of humiliation and pain.

Now I don't want to overgeneralise here. Most professional magicians and experienced amateurs may well not do these things, but some do. In most professions that deal with people there are codes of ethics governing these kinds of interactions. Sometimes I think that it would be valuable to encode ethical standards on such matters in order to protect magicians and all they deal with.

So in dealing with audience participants what might such a code of ethics look like?

3.0 Audience participants
3.1 All participants to be treated with respect and dignity.

Seems simple doesn't it? Yet all too often I see performers treated like an object of fun. Learn names, treat them as you would like to be treated, be aware that being in the spotlight may make them anxious. And be courteous - thank them for their help.

3.2 Participants are not to be humiliated.

There are ways of presenting sucker tricks and gambling scams without making your participants feel like idiots. But think carefully about what kinds of tricks you do. I have seen a teenage girl, highly sensitive about her figure, subjected to the bra trick, along with numerous tasteless jokes. I also am not amused about peformers who yell into the ears of the elderly to make sport of their hearing. Also be very careful at using sexual innuendo - it can work in some contexts, but be aware that it is being taken in the right spirit.

3.3 Participants are not to be put at risk.

There is a video going round the internet that shows two magicians failing disastrously at the old spike under the paper cup trick. You know, the one where you flatten the two paper cups that do not conceal a spike. One of the magicians thought it fun to hold a participants hand under his while doing the spiking - sadly he screwed up, and the participant was spiked. In any trick where something of that nature could conceivably go wrong - Don't put the participant a risk. This also applies to any props that you expect a participant to handle - such as razor blades. Make every consideration to ensure that they will not get hurt.

3.4 Participants are not to be hurt.

A long time ago, way back when Derryn Hinch enjoyed a short run as a Midday Host on Channel Nine, he had as his guest a certain 'Amazing' comedy magician. This magician, messing around with a silver tray, thought it would be humorous to whack Derryn on the back of the head with it. Hard. He got a laugh. Derryn suffered headaches and possible concussion for the rest of the day. Please don't do things like that.

Ok, that's the basic idea. These are just to get the ball rolling As you may have guessed from my numbering system, I have other things to add to this on subjects other than audience participation, but that will have to wait for future posts.

Be seeing you, Escherwolf.