- although I didn’t come to magic until I was about 22 (about 10 years ago) I can look back at my childhood and see that there were many thinks being put in place. For example: I grew up on a holiday park surrounded by entertainers. They used to get the brass of the day as well, so it wasn’t the red coat brigade!
As well as that general influence, I was also a devious little gig! Nothing insidious you understand, just mischievous. At the age of 5 I used to wait in the on site supermarket for a large harrassed family, drop an ice cream into their basket, and pick it up when they had paid! I also used to stand and shiver next to the hotdog stand till someone took pity on me and bought me one!
After school (I got into loads of trouble but that’s another story) I followed in my mums footsteps and studied nursing.
At about 22 I saw David Blaines first TV special and was hooked. I bought a pack of cards and started to work out what he was doing. I think what made it different for me was that I had a good understanding of psychology and coimmunication. I understood WHY magic worked! The HOW could wait a bit. I joined the local magic society for a short time (Wessex Magical Society) but felt their direction wasn’t right for me. My big learning curve came when I got a residency in a fairly rough bar. I did Thurs Fri & Sat nights and really cut my teeth.
The awards were won because I was the right person at the right time. I don’t think magic ability can be judged by comp acts!

What books and videos (besides your own excellent ones which you can plug at this point if you want) would you recommend?

Doc Eason was a great inspiration during my time at the bar. Tommy Wonder for his incredible understanding of performance. Gary Kurtz for leading me with his head! And Greg Wilson for his naturalness in performance.

My dvd & lecture notes will give you an understanding of my attitude towards misdirection (not always conformist). Please buy them. This way I will have enough money to maybe do some more!

Recently you seem to be leaning heavily towards blending magic with hypnosis, can you tell us more about this?

I have always been interested in Psychology, NLP and hypnosis. I have used aspects in all my work but specifically the misdirection and state management. Recently I began to experiment with full inductions and the impact they have with magic and found I can blend hypnosis, magic and pick pocketing to enormous effect.

Do you not feel that some effects such as reverse mind reading or a hypnotic card force are almost too damn powerful?

Like any magic, it is up to you to pace the audience and then ‘tell’ them how to repond. This is done ideally on an unconscious level without them being aware. Saying that though, everyone responds differently to different things so it is as much about feeling the moment as it is about anything else.

Now you’re entirely self taught in hypnosis, what books and/or DVD’s would you recommend?

Reality is Plastic by Anthony Jacquin and Deeper and Deeper by Jon Chase.

It is also worth looking at youtube but not until you know enough to sift through the crap!

Rumour has it that you actually got punched at Blackpool over some hypnosis.

Not strictly true. After a good hypnosis session this young lad went back to his ‘friends’ who convinced him I had mistreated him in some way. Add lots of alcohol. He came over shouting and hit me on the back of the neck. Once he calmed down we had a quick chat and by the end of the evening he was buying me drinks and all was fine. No hard feels. I did learn from the experience though!

Would you mind giving us your side of the story and what, if anything, you learnt from it?

Be in control. Think about the effect the hypnosis COULD have and build in safety features! All experience is there to be learnt from!

Right we’ll bring it back towards magic more. You seem to really favour some sleights, the side steal and cull mainly. Do you deliberately focus on them or is it just an accident that they feature so much in your work?

Just the most efficient tools for the job I found, that’s all!

In your Lecture DVD you talk about just not caring if a spectator catches a move, how long did it take you to get to this point?

As I said earlier, my life experience lead me to this. It is just a state of mind born from an understanding that, quite frankly, its not that important! If you get caught, so what. Brush it away as irrelevent and get on to something good. The less you focus on it the less they will. If its important to you its important to them!

Who has influenced you most in your work?

Everyone I meet is an influence. I model people. Its a really good way to develope.

How do you feel exposure and file sharing is affecting the art as a whole?

I realise why many magicians are passioonate about all this, but the truth is it makes no difference to a working pro. So what if they know what a thumb tip is! Fool them with it anyway. The more magicians go on about it the more interest they create. I bet the masked magician is watched by more magicians than anyone else!

Is there a question you’d like to have been asked? What is it and what’s the answer?

Are you available for lectures and conventions?

Yes!

Jack Wise is a top notch Corporate Magician based in Dublin, Ireland who specialises in blending sophisticated humour with jaw dropping magic. Jack’s unrivalled experience and sure fire delivery allows him to offer you something unheard of in the entertainment business. Jack’s website can be found at www.jack.ie and he has also kindly provided us with his showreel

Jack, can you give us a bit of a Magic bio – tell us how you got started in magic, and how you ended up going from hobbyist to pro.

I just bored of the getting up early nine to five crap so one day I just decided not to bother going into work and started telling everyone I was a professional magician…and they believed me.
I learnt my first magic trick from my Granddad. He taught me the 3 shell game. He knew the coolest stuff and he didn’t give a damn how dangerous it was, he’d show it to me. For example he taught me how to make gunpowder. He also used to also distill poitin in his shed. I remember falling in the door locked after he’d dilute a shot in ribena. His justification was I helped make it so I should get my share!!
I was ten at ten at the time.

He used to say it was important to know how to do all this stuff in case the Nazis ever came back. He was mad in the most wonderful way. My happiest memories as a child were spent in his company.

“Never let your schooling interfere with your education”
Mark Twain once said “Never let your schooling interfere with your education” which summed up my approach to school .I had my own magic curriculum and school was in the way. I’d been suspended numerous times but the best of all was for blowing up Hugh Kelly’s school bag (you guessed it …with the gunpowder).The cops were called and everything!

Entering the work force
So when I finally finished my sentence in school I decided to enter the work force by pitching svengali’s in a toy shop called “It’s Magic “while working for a P.I. Company by night installing pinhole cameras and bugs on phone lines .Having Private Investigator business cards with was great knicker dropping material but it was hard work.

Customers high and how to all almost die!

My first paid performance lasted three years. It was in the VIP suite of The PoD and Spy nightclub. I’d perform every Saturday night from 12 – 2am .Loads of Celebs rolled in – Robbie Williams, Kylie, spice girls to name a few .It was great but very tough -a true baptism of fire cause the punters were stoned, drunk or high – E was rampant at the time!

I’ve always be interested in the carnie stuff so during that time I learnt sword swallowing which I performed at the launch of the Subaru Impreza .I also used to perform it behind the bar occasionally in POD until 1 night this guy who was off his head tried to push me. It would have been very messy if he’d succeeded. That was the last time I sword swallowed .I had learnt a valuable lesson – you can trust yourself but never trust Joe public!
While working in “Its Magic” I was fortunate enough to have met Quentin Reynolds. He’s taught me a lot about Magic including my kids show . The great thing about kid’s shows is they teach you something that I think most Magicians never master and that’s timing. Thank you Quentin for being such a generous friend!

Comedy – it’s almost all uphill!

About four years ago I started working comedy clubs. They’re probably the toughest audiences of all because if you’re not funny the audience will tell you. A lot of comedians don’t like Magicians so it’s an uphill battle but I’ve got to say I get a real kick out of the challenge especially when you win them over in a 400 – 500 seater like the Laughter Lounge.

If you could provide one piece of advice to a magician who was just starting off, what would it be?

Put the little plastic things back in the box, tape back up the wrapping paper and give the crappy magic set back to you Auntie.

But if you insist on keeping it –
Decide where you want to perform and pick your material accordingly.

If it’s in the pub for your mates (and if you’re fifteen performing in a pub you’re pretty cool) then NFW is a great trick but if you want to perform at corporate functions then doing elmsleys in front of your nut sack for tables of ten just isn’t acceptable. They can’t see your face and they can’t see the cards.

So choose your material carefully – in the real world it’s got to be visible and simple to follow -
Chop cup is good, reverse matrix (unfortunately) is not!

Make sure there’s absolutely no dead time.

Know what you’re going to say at every point in the trick. Fully script all your routines. If you’ve got to get the four aces out of the pack know what you’re going to say while you’re doing it. Make it funny or at least interesting rather taking the retarded Magician’s approach of trying to learn to cull faster!

Maybe don’t be yourself.
The old adage “be yourself on stage” is bullshit! And when your Mum told you “you’re perfect the way you are” that was bullshit too and she knows it!
I could sugar coat it but the truth is when you step in front of the audience they’ve decided whether they like you or not in about twenty seconds, particularly in Close up because they haven’t paid to see you which means that, until proven otherwise you are an interruption!

So if you’re trying to figure out what your character/style should be than it might be helpful to give the following some thought -
You can break down how the world perceives you into the following categories:
The things you know about yourself and everybody else does.
The things you know about yourself and nobody else does.
And the things you DON’T know about yourself and everybody else does.
The last one is the one to focus on if you’re trying to figure out a performing persona for yourself.

There are things about you and me that other people probably don’t like. The big question is, are you going to look at your personality as Eugene Burger says, “with a ruthless honesty” to figure out what they are.
I’m not necessarily suggesting changing these negative traits (being anything that turns an audience off you) but you should be aware of them as they may be “invisibly tripping you up” while you’re performing.
You could also take a lateral approach to the whole thing and try and use what the harsh eyes of the audience see as a “flaw “to your advantage. For example, if you’re a big fat guy of 6’7” trying to perform an elegant Channing Pollock dove act the chances are the audience will struggle to hold back the laughter at the incongruous “Walter Mitty” scenario.
If, on the other hand you were to acknowledge the situation and use it to your advantage you could have really strong comedy act where the audience would laugh with you and give you the applause you deserve for what is very fine magic.

The message is you’ve got to be aware of what your audience really thinks.

These are just a couple of thoughts to consider. They are my thoughts so if they are too hard hitting and I have offended anyone my apologies. If on the other hand you have found them interesting let Ian know and I’ll gladly put up put up a few more ideas /concepts which may be of some use.

Who are your biggest influences in the magic community?

Well, if I was having some sort of big crazy magic party…

Bill Malone would entertain during the champagne & truffle reception.
Billy McComb would MC and I’d bring him a bowl of rice pudding on stage just in case he was thinking about heading back to the home early (I miss Billy!).
Opening act -Jeff Hobson 10 mins max (and not too much of the faggy stuff either – it offends some people!)
Finney would be up next with his rope routine but none of his life story/pep talk trying to make everybody cry and mashing the buzz.
Followed by Wayne Dobson to do his vent improv with Frank Bruno like on his DVD. Frank’s a riot!!
Then Tom Mullica to do his cigarette act. I know he’s given it up but I don’t give a damn- I like it and I’d make him do it with cigars or maybe pipes.
Then I’d let Billy vanish the cage to close the show.

Daryl and Jeff McBride would be collecting the glasses and cleaning the ashtrays (please don’t tip them).

Man, that would be some party. After that, everybody in the SIM would like me. I’d rock!

Do you find that exposure today, be it the likes of the Masked Magician, or more recently, youtube, file sharing etc is having an adverse effect on the art?

I’ve had a few muggles tell me they Youtubed some of my heavy hitters I’m well known for – like the dynamic coins and the pencil through Perspex . I don’t let it bother me, I just nail em with my killer gemstick routine and that shuts them up real quick!

And asking people not to file share is the equivalent to putting Mary Harney behind the counter in Butler’s Chocolates… the inevitable is going to happen. It’s as ridiculous as demanding that no one lend each other magic books in the 80’s. Please some serious questions..

How important do you feel membership of an organization (IBM, Magic Circle etc) is to the career of a magician?

I said please, some serious questions!!
Magic societies can be either negative or positive experience depending on your mind set.

Let’s get the negatives out of the way –
As in all performing arts there is a natural competiveness which will lead to bitching and occasional unpleasantness .From my experience Magicians who are negative towards another member usually fall into one of the following categories – Envy, jealousy or resentment.

Here’s the difference as I see it :
Envy – you see your neighbour has a new car and wish you had it( a natural enough reaction).
Jealousy – you see you neighour’s new car and illogically think you should have it and are angry at him for having it (not a good place to be).
Resentment – You climb over the wall and scratch the car knowing you’ll never have it because you haven’t their skills, charm or talent (bad – get help).
On the other hand…if everybody is bitching about you then maybe there’s some truth in it. It’s time for some of Eugene’s ruthless honesty.

And the positives
But despite all of this societies are a great place to learn. They are also a great place to make friendships that will probably last you a lifetime.
One of the best things you can do is chat with the old farts. Introduce yourself, find out about the magic they like and perform. They have a depth of knowledge and wealth of experience that if you’re lucky, they may share with you .I’ve been fortunate enough to make friends with some of the most knowledgeable minds in magic and the amazing thing is they are in my society.

Have you ever had someone call you on your guarantee?

Yea.. They call me on it all the time but I’m usually in the car and gone by then.

But seriously,
When you offer a guarantee you better be able to deliver .One complaint or unhappy table and the client are fully (and fairly) entitled not to pay.
I started offering my money back guarantee about 18 months ago.Since then I’ve had a three people try and call me on it. One was legitimately testing the guarantee, one was my fault and the other was just trying to rip me off…

The Rip off…
I was booked to do a 25 minute Stand up spot for a Christmas party of 250 roofing contractors. They were serious drinkers so I was nervous going on stage.
I remember half way through looking off stage to the guy who had booked me who was standing behind a kind of partition. He was (what I thought was) putting my pay into an envelope as it turned out he was taking it out!!
Fortunately the show went really well and I finished on a strong round of applause so I went straight to the booker to thank him and collect my money because I had another gig to go to.
Well the guy sneered at me as he said “Yea Jack it was good and everything but I didn’t like it that much”. I knew what was coming and I was raging so I turned around and walked right back on stage. I grabbed the mike and asked the crowd if they enjoyed the show, they gave me another good strong round of applause. I looked off stage, the guy wasn’t sneering anymore. He was panicking trying to put my money back into the envelope. He knew I was about to explain the situation to the audience and ask their opinion. He literally ran on stage and thanked me as he handed me the opened envelope.
I later found that he’d been stealing from the social committee. I was one of his attempts to rip them off. It was an awful situation to be in.

An expensive lesson
The other occasion was when I was booked to do 25 minutes of stand up at a fortieth birthday. After a long drive I turned up only to discover that my amp wasn’t working. It was my fault because I hadn’t tested it before leaving. I did close up for about 1 ½ hours which the guests really enjoyed but the guy was so disappointed about the Stand Up that I didn’t ask him for anything. An expensive lesson!
The Audience was forced to be a jury!

The last was when a head bridesmaid had booked me to perform close up over the meal for her friend’s wedding. It was her wedding gift to the Bride.
They were a fun group and it went down really well. They were very drunk by the end of the meal .When I approached the bridesmaid to be paid she said she just had to check something first. She then picked up the wireless mike which was still on the table from the speeches and proceeded to walk/stumble around the twenty or so tables and asked them over the PA did they enjoy Magician. It was both hilarious and really unnerving!! All of the reviews were very positive except for 1 table that was really pissed because I didn’t do anything for them!!
I’d missed their table (gulp) by complete accident. The bridesmaid shouted over the mike “you’d better get down here fast if you want your bleedin money”. Twenty minutes later I got paid and the Bride tipped me a fifty cause because as she said herself, she was “scarlet” over the whole thing.
In the end of the day they were very happy but you know what, even though it was very unusual I thought it was fair enough .She was paying, it was for her best friend and she was making sure she got her money’s worth. But believe me if I hadn’t delivered there was no way I was going to get a penny.

Do you have an agent ? How important do you think having an agent is to a professional magician? (For someone who is starting out and wants more paying gigs).

I think every professional Magician should have an Asian. They can be expensive but if you get a good Asian they’re great!

(Editors note – since receiving this we’ve actually discovered that all of the above is true !!!)

David Knight is a 33 year old Bristol Born professional magician who has been based in Dublin for the last three years. He is a psychological illusionist and specializes in very natural feeling mental entertainment. He has just launched an international tour and will leave for the UK and beyond at the start of May. David will be premiering the new show “Mind Man” in Dublin before he leaves, this will be happening at Sin nightclub in Dublin on the 25th of April at 7.30pm, tickets are €10 and will be available at the door, or in advance from the venue.

David, if you could provide any piece of advice to an aspiring magician, what would it be?

Try and be original, don’t try and be Keith or Derren. Take from them but deliver in your own style. It is far more important to have an original persona that clever tricks. Magicians forget that they are entertainers first and foremost and I hate to say it but, NO ONE BELIEVES IN MAGIC so you have to offer something more than a well rehearsed trick. The presentation and you yourself are everything.

When you were first getting into magic, and as your own career was developing, what magicians influenced you?

David Copperfield above all, then later Derren Brown who introduced me to the field I now work in and the like of Theo Annemann

Is there any commercially available effects, be it a book, a DVD or a single effect that you rate very highly? Why?

The last one I purchased was a doozy – so I’m not promoting it! Overall I think Menny Lindenfeld’s ‘Hollow’ card effect is wonderful and dreadful businessman though he is, theres much to be said for Jay Sankey. my friend Owen Lean – whom is represented on the site has some great tips and effects in his e-books too and shouldn’t be overlooked.

Do you find that exposure today, be it the likes of the Masked Magician, or more recently, youtube, file sharing etc is having an adverse effect on the art?

I think the behind the scenes clips of Copperfield’s big end effects on youtube have hammered home the final nails into the coffin of stage illusion. It is dying out and on the whole thats a good thing as everyone is doing the same stuff. Unless you have Copperfield’s budget and time, leave it alone. There are too many acts built around second rate box effects – I should know, I was one of them! On the whole I think the masked magician did a great job in not revealing anything of practical stage use and exposing those who were performing poor standards of predictable rubbish.

How important do you feel membership of an orginization (IBM, Magic Circle etc) is to the career of a magician?

To their career – not at all. To the starting magician, they’re a great resource. remember that they are predominantly social clubs and you should seek many avenues of research to further you art. Areas outside of magic are great for providing original ideas and presentation techniques as other magician’s won’t have stumbled onto them in such vast numbers. Hard to be different if we all learn from the same magic shop or club.

What ‘type’ of magic do you feel most drawn to? What do you
associate yourself with the most? (Mentalism, Grand Illusion, Close-up etc)

I am in the mentalist category but I work regularly in bars and functions as a close up magician. Close up mentalism is the new budding area I am into and with my almost prop-less approach, it is really starting people getting excited about seeing magic again. They’ll never accept it as real and I am going against the grain by offering real world explanations including science and psychology which, although they still don’t understand and are thrilled by, at least they don’t feel that I’m insulting their intelligence.

I think that the subject of this interview requires no introduction. Keith Barry, probably the most well known performer of magic in Ireland today has kindly agreed to take some time out of his busy schedule to answer some questions for us. Keith has been a major inspiration for so many young Irish magicians, including myself.

Hi Keith, first off, thanks for taking the time to answer these for us. What have you got coming up? Any new TV specials or new tours?

I’m currently on tour at the moment – having great fun. it’s called ‘Keith Barry, Direct from Vegas’ and is the same show which I performed there in Nov last year. This Fri and Sat I’m in Tipperary, all other dates can be found on Keithbarry.com

What advice would you give to any aspiring young magician?

Read as many books as you can and perform for as many people as possible. Also perform as many different varieties of magic as you can – stage, kids, close-up, platform, etc – it will help you become a more rounded performer. Too many young magicians concentrate just on close-up these days – by doing other styles of magic they will become better entertainers.

What magicians have inspired your career the most? Why?

In the beginning Paul Daniels, David Copperfield and Lance Burton were the ones who really inspired me. I watched all of their specials religiously over and over again. In later years it would have to be the great Doc Shiels and Billy McComb. Doc for his insight into mentalism and all things bizarre, and Billy for his insight into being a professional entertainer.

What commercially available effects (books dvds or single effects) do you rate most highly?

I’m a big fan of Sankeys material – especially paperclipped – it never fails to fry an audience. Branded by Tim Trono is also excellent.

How do you think the level of exposure in magic today (youtube, files sharing etc) is affecting magic?

Magic is more accessible now than ever before. I don’t think it will hurt magic at all because it’s really only budding magicians who bother to search youtube for the methodology to a trick. Most humans will never go to the bother of trying to find out how a trick is done. Blatant exposure however is not good for magic.

How important do you feel membership of an orginization (IBM, Magic Circle etc) is to the career of a magician?

It really depends on what your expectations are. I can only speak from personal experience. I remember fondly the days when I was a member of the Munster Society – I would travel from Galway with Pat Meaney to many of the meetings and lectures. John Bowden and Pat Meaney were very helpful and took me under their wing. I was also a member of the SIM – Pat Fallon was very helpful to me in those days. I enjoyed being a member of the SIM for quite a few years but then I started travelling abroad for 6-8 months a year so I wasn’t really an active member any more. I did go the odd time when i was back but I found the dynamics had changed and to be quite honest found the whole thing very negative. Even just 3 days ago a member told me of some of the ‘Keith barry bitching’ that goes on – this is one of many occasions i have heard of this. It’s unfortunate but I no longer have any interest in any of the societies – too much negativity and back biting by people who I thought were friends and should know better. I’d rather be at home working or spending time with my family than get involved in that stuff. Enough said.

You recently launched your €10,000 psychic challenge. Has anyone been stupid enough to respond? Do you feel that Irish ‘Psychics’ are in general shut-eye (deluded enough to actually think they are psychic) or open-eye (deliberately lying about it for fun and profit).

No-one has taken up the challenge. I believe we have a mixture of both open and shut eye ‘psychics’ here in Ireland. I think it’s very dangerous for vulnerable people to live their lives by what these so-called psychic advisors tell them. Look at the following Popoff had until Randi exposed him – it really was frightening. I will do my best to educate people on the art of the psychic but at the end of the day most believers will still believe no matter how much information you give them!!!!

This tome of 398 pages explains how you can make your magic transform into miracles.
Paul shares with you some of his best kept secrets from the world of Psychology, so that you never have to have a lackluster response ever again.

Over 50 Psychological methods are discussed in full detail. As well as the powerful Psychology included in the first 250 pages, you also receive a number of strong effects.

What I Say

When I wrote my Top Ten Purchases I merely placed The Alchemical Tools by Paul Brook in the ‘Honourable Mention’ category, this was because I was only 200 pages into it but already felt it worthy of featuring on the list! As it is this book is brilliant and is just as good as my best purchase of all time, Reality is Plastic. In fact if I was asked to choose which is better I would be utterly incapable, that’s how good this book is!

Anyone who expects this to be a book of tricks will be sorely disappointed, in fact anyone who just wants a book of tricks probably isn’t worthy of this book and should just feck off now!!! The first 247 pages are filled with Paul’s practical psychological advice from his years as a psychologist. He covers everything from how you should sit or stand to what you should say. There is a full chapter on just the power of certain words such as ‘now’ and ‘and’. Everything is focussed on building rapport with your spectators, if they like you they’ll like your magic!!!

Paul also focuses on how to move your magic from being seen as ‘tricks’ to being seen as powerful miracles by your spectators. He uses an interesting mantra that he ‘borrowed’ from Gordon Ramsey (I lost a tiny bit of respect for him when I found out he watched Gordon Ramsey but anyway…). The mantra is, “Make love to it; don’t fuck it!” It’s very apt and is something everyone should consider when performing. If you are gentle and handle your magic with care it’s a much more beautiful thing than a quick ACR behind the bike shed!

When Paul finally gets to the effects, they are worth waiting for. While the effects could never live up to the pure genius of the opening psychology sections, they make a damn good attempt at it.

At The Doors of Perception takes a principle that will be known to almost anyone who reads this and takes it to an entirely new level. Effects like this one (and to stroke my own ego, my Lie Detector) that take a simple well known principle and just go nuts with it! Even someone familiar with the principle at use could well be fooled by this effect.

Deuterium is one of Paul’s babies and it is indeed a great effect. I played around with something similar for a while but Paul’s version is far superior. Essentially you have a 1 in 6.5 chance of hitting a total miracle. The other 5.5 times it’s merely a miracle. Once again Paul takes something that is known to all of us and devises a brilliant performance for it. In fact, I have seen so many piss poor performances of this something that Deuterium is a nice breath of fresh air.

Insightful Sequence is an enjoyable business card effect. Essentially you produce a series of mini climaxes using priming (see Naked Mentalism I & II and Psychological Subtleties 1 & 2) and then using the answers the spectator gives you predict the arrangement they will sort ten numbered business cards into (generally 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 but you could do it with words or any other sequence you want).

Killer Hertz (kHz) is my favourite effect in the book. Without using a marked deck and while never looking at the spectators hands you are able to say what ESP card each of the spectators has, why they chose it and reveal a sealed envelope prediction of the simple you are left with. I love it, unfortunately the method is not practical in certain situations but I am trying to work out how to overcome that (Beyond ESP 2 Cards are my current idea if anyone’s interested).

Thus Spoke Zarathustra is not really an effect. It is a collection of six of Paul’s favourite cold reading phrases. These are great, a nice step away from the usual Barnum Statements you see magicians throw around. I never do enough cold reading in my acts to properly road test these but I would take Paul’s word on their effectiveness.

The book ends with an interesting collection of essays by Paul ranging from the ethics of talking to the dead to spotting left handed spectators. They are all well worth reading.

Once again I ran low on superlatives towards the end of the review, all I can say is this book is seriously brilliant and is essential reading for anyone interested in mentalism. The Alchemical Tools will turn your leaden tricks into bright, shining, golden miracles.

Also once again I hate giving numerical values, anyone else would give it ten but I refuse to number something as complex as the value of a book.

The Alchemical Tools is available from Paul Brook’s website for £25 (postage is free) and all books are signed by the author.

This is the final of a series of three essays that Owen Lean has graciously allowed us to publish on the site. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have, please comment and tell me what you think. I would now like to formally thank Owen for allowing us to use his three essays, and hopefully we will be seeing more from him here in the future!

Hello! I have loads of money. Seriously I’m absolutely rolling in it, i have cash coming up to my eyeballs. I mean really, just the other day I dropped a 50 Euro note on the ground, I could have bent over and picked it up but i didn’t because I’M ABSOLUTLY LOADED! Yeah, that’s me, the guy who’s made of money, all self made of course, and my house is huge and I have seven cars, twenty gorgeous girlfriends and an Olympic sized swimming pool with a retractile sunroof and waterproof plasma screen at the bottom so i can watch David Blaine specials while I snorkel…

Not very convincing is it?
You see, when someone comes up to you and spends all his time trying to prove something to you, we tend to question it. In fact, the more he tries to prove it, the less we believe him. Let me give that example properly – from my limited 22 years of experience of life on this planet I’ve noticed that the people who constantly talk and boast about how much money they have are usually the people who have no money at all or are very insecure in their wealth and know full well they’re about to lose it all. The same with sex, I used to go to an all boys boarding school, where it was of course customary for the majority of the boys to boast constantly about their sexual conquests, despite the fact everyone knew these people were still sending valentines cards to their own right hand.
But those who really are wealthy? Or those rare cases who were were getting all the action these adolescent morons only dreamed of? They never talk about it, they never mention it, they just KNOW it. They know it and you can tell it about them as soon as you meet them – they don’t need to prove it because they know what they have and they know everyone else should know what they have and even if they don’t – they don’t care.
So where the bloody hell am I going with this? Allow me to elaborate with another example.
Hello. Would you like to see some magic? Here choose a card. You put it back in the deck. I shuffle them, i snap my fingers, and look it comes to the top. I put it back in the middle, snap my fingers and its back on top. Every time I do it your card comes to the top. Amazing isn’t it?

Allow me to translate this awful piece of bog-standard patter into the subtext behind it:
Hello! I can do magic! Look, I can do magic! See I can do magic! I really can do magic! Yes! Its magic! I can do magic!
Not very convincing is it?
You see, this is the impression that I get about a lot of magic, as magicians we spend almost all of our time trying to PROVE we can do magic. All of the focus of most of our tricks seem to be based around that, and there is nothing convincing about that, not only that but there is nothing even remotely INTERESTING about that either.
Now there are many different reasons we may perform magic, some of us do as part of a comedy show, and our aim is comedy – in my street show this is the case, the show is about the comedy and the magic plays a secondary role to it. Some of us do it in motivational speaking, where again the magic takes a secondary place to something else, in this case the “Look i can do magic” presentation may just work. However the reason I got into magic believe it or not, was because I wanted to do magic! And this is what I try and do when I perform magic close up. Anyone who’s seen me on the street or on the stage will know my show is mainly stand up comedy – but as the few who’ve seen my recent close up performances will know, I’m a different performer.  I’m relaxed, polite and most importantly, I DON’T DO TRICKS. I spent a long time considering this – if you really could do magic, just supposing you really could – you would not spent all your time showing off and trying to prove you could. So what would you do? For me the answer was that I would be someone who told stories, taught lessons and revealed hidden knowledge about the spectators life and the world around him and would be using magic to illustrate it.
The first routine I changed was the ambitious card that I already mentioned – now I no longer talk about the card, I tell them outright at the beginning a card is a meaningless thing, and ask them to make it meaningful by writing there name about it. The routine from then on is no longer about the card, or my ability but about them, I’m not telling them about what I’m doing or what’s happening (after all they have eyes, they can see that) and suddenly i started getting more gasps and reactions then ever before. I will post of video of this some time so you can see what I mean.
A lot of “bizzare” magic tends to lean this way I know, its an area that far too few magicians study, but again there can be a little of the “look I can do magic” flaw in bizzare magic performances. The less you state, the more you imply, and the more powerful it is. The less emphasis you put on the magic, the far more powerful it is, it should look like you are performing something only trivial, something that’s only a glimpse of ones ‘true power’ to use a very pretentious phrase – a brief glimmer, but one that is so powerful, like a gnostic only needs a brief glimpse of the divine spark within him to break free from the Demiurge’s prison, so too a spectator only needs a brief glimpse of magic to break free from the mundane reality that society confines them too.
Isn’t it strange? The way we set our sights so low? I don’t want to be just another magician I don’t want to be Dai Vernon, or Slydini or Ed Marlo. I want to be Simon Magus, Merlin, Mephistopheles and Cthulhu. I want to change the world, raise the dead to life and bring war on the Demiurge one mind at a time. Yes, its an impossible target, one I probably will never obtain, but if I aim that high and miss, what I hit, surely can’t be a bad thing? But then, that’s just the impression that I get.

Joe Daly is the mastermind behind the recent show, Magick Macabre, that ran in the Olympia, Dublin in October and November last year. Joe has kindly agreed to answer some questions…

Hey Joe, let’s kick this shit off! How long have you been involved in magic as a hobby and as a professional?
I have been interested in magic from the age of 6 and turned professional when I left college at 21 so professional now for 11 years.

How did you get started in magic?
I’m afraid to say it was Paul Daniels’ fault! I was on a family holiday in England and he brought me up on stage – I was bitten by the bug ever since.

Now for anyone who hasn’t seen the show can you briefly describe the premise?
The character I play Daemon Cordell was once a very accomplished and successful illusionist. However it was later found out that in order to achieve the perfect illusion he used to kill his assistants. He was sent to an asylum…the show takes over from there.

Are you mad?
Joe Daly is perfectly sane! Daemon eh… not so much…

The show is currently undergoing a rewrite, can you tell us what sort of changes we can expect?
Yes, we will be telling the back story on stage as opposed to in the programme and it will be a lot clearer with tons more magic in it

There’s some seriously heavy names involved in this project, can you tell us a bit more about that and how they were brought on board? (Wes Craven, A Big Magic Name Who Is Currently Secret, John McColgan, etc.
It’s not as complicated as it sounds. Anyone we approached just really loved the premise and the possibilities it afforded. It’s a fun project and very different and that just really attracted them

Magick Macabre’s a bit of a step away from Riverdance, what attracted Riverdream to the show?
I approached John McColgan, the producer of Riverdance. At that stage I had staged my own version of the show and toured it to venues around the country. He saw the video and the presentation pack I sent him. He was just taken by the mixture of horror, magic and comedy that existed in the show and knew it had huge potential. Also I think he was attracted to the fact that I did the whole thing myself and took a considerable financial gamble at 25 years of age.

What was your favorite illusion in the show?
The Death Drill!!!

And of all time?
Haha the Death Drill!!! (be careful what you wish for eh!)

What advice would you give to any aspiring young magicians?
Develop your own style. There is so much magic out there now on the internet and dvd’s that im am often amazed when I see young guys doing some really cool stuff…the problem is that there are loads of guys doing it…you have to be different. Then ask yourself what do you want out of magic and whatever that is follow it with a vengeance and literally let nothing deter you from it.

Anyone who’s seen your show would agree you have massive charisma and stage prescence when you perform, is this something you’re born with or can it be learned and if so how?
Why thanks you! To be honest it’s a bit of both. Either you have it or you don’t. if you do, no matter how small it might be you can develop it. I was lucky enough to have acting classes, movement classes and even fencing classes to develop to my full potential.

Who would you consider your heroes, both magical and non-magical?
It has to be David Copperfield. 500 shows a year and a living legend. In the non magical world it has to be Michael J Fox. Only after reading his autobiography will you understand.

What commercially available material do you rate most highly?
Love Lossander’s stuff. A gentleman to deal with too.

Any horror stories of gigs?
Of course! I was a kids magician for 15 years! I once arrived at a kids Christmas party, went in to meet the organiser to see where they wanted me and what the set up was…went back to mar car to get my props from the boot…guess what it was empty!!! But I could tell you exactly where in my house they were!!! I had them all set up ready to be loaded in the car from the previous night…went out to the gig the next day and walked right by them!! It was for Statoil who were then in the IFSC. Unbelievably I was able to drive home, get the gear and do the show an hour later. Oh dear!.

How do you feel exposure on youtube and TV is affecting magic today?
Of course I think its terrible. You can find out how anything is done on youtube, it’s so sad. Wanna see how Copperfield made the statue of liberty vanish…look it up. However, this awareness has caused me never to show any newly developed stuff on TV for fear it will be on youtube and some nerd will try and explain how its done and end up being copied badly by some teenager in his garage in Utah!

If you weren’t a magician what would you be doing?
Hmm, I honestly haven’t a clue. I have NEVER had a ‘real’ job.

Can I have a job?
hmmmmmmmmm…

Please?
I’ll have my people call your people!!!

This is the second of a series of three essays that Owen Lean has graciously allowed us to publish on the site. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have, please comment and tell me what you think

“These metaphysics of magicians and necromantic books are heavenly… a sound magician is a mighty god!” – Christopher Marlow: Dr Faustus

According to legends, Doctor Faustus, a professor at Wittenburg university in the late seventeenth century, having achieved the pinnacle of scholastic achievement made a diabolic contract with Mephistopheles, the servant of the devil. In exchange for his soul Faustus was granted twenty four years of almighty power upon the earth which he used to pass away the time and briefly satisfy hisinsatiable lust for knowledge until finally he was taken unto eternal damnation for his sins. Rather sad really.

The myth of Doctor Faustus is one which truly fascinated me as a magician. For I believe there is a Faustian pact we make when we become magicians.

When we learn magic we gain the power to perform miracles beyond belief, break the rules of reality and show people something that is potentially life changing. However in exchange we feel as if Mephistopheles has indeed taken part of our soul. We lose the ability to be amazed, we find ourselves unable to appreciate miracles and find ourselves turning into sceptical and cynical old men, tattered and withered like Dorian Gray’s picture decomposing in his attic. It is a trade off, an unholy trade off. But one I wouldn’t want to reverse even if I could. I’ve made my diabolic contract and now I want to make the most of it. What makes me despair is seeing magic used for such pathetically meaningless purposes as it is most commonly used for.

What are these people using their infernal trade off for? To make a silk handkerchief disappear and maybe, just maybe raise the briefest of briefest smiles as they interrupt someone’s conversation for the sake of ’showing someone a trick’. Even that word goes against everything I want my magic to be. Its degrading isn’t it? A ‘trick’. How can a ‘trick’ ever be meaningful? How can a ‘trick’ ever be art? How can a ‘trick’ ever be more than a trumped up schoolboy prank with no more purpose than to fool some one and put us one tiny mental notch up the ladder above that person? Even the word ‘illusion’ which has become very popular doesn’t cut it for me. By its definition an ‘illusion’ is something that isn’t real, and after all what is reality except what we perceive with our minds and senses. If my eyes and brain tell me that the object in front of me is floating or the man I’m talking to is levitating then it doesn’t matter whether there is some device holding that man or object up – it is now part of my reality. When a card metamorphs in my hands and someone watching truly believes it’s happened. Then as far as ‘reality’ is concerned has it just not happened?

This is the power of magic for me. We live in a world where we find ourselves lost without imagination, without direction, without hope allowing ourselves to drift aimlessly in a sea of nine to five existence’s and alcoholic binges as our only ‘release’ as the people manipulating our lives continue to pull the strings and make us dance to their command. Magic has the power to change that. Magic can shake peoples world up to the foundation, grab there soul screaming from there body for a brief second and scream at them that there is so much more to the world than what they have been indoctrinated to believe. No other art form has the power of doing this in the way that close-up magic can. The painter may be able to conjure up images that inspire us, and the musician maybe be able to whisk aural metaphors that communicate beyond language but only the magician has the power of the miracle at his disposal.

In the same way the hieroglyphics call primal truths to us from thousands of years in the past and an aboriginal talking drum carries the ‘dreamings’ of tribes across the Australian outback so can our magic call across the deserts of our spectators minds into the billowing oceans of their subconscious. And that is power. The sort of phenomenal power Faustus relinquished his place in eternal paradise for, but now we have that power are we to waste it by using it for the same pointless amusements as himself? Or do we seize that power, like Lady Macbeth tempted by the wyrd sisters. Let us sign the contract, bite the forbidden fruit and show some sympathy for the devil or whatever tempted us in the first place.

I know I may not always be successful in my attempts to wake people up from the ‘reality’ they’ve got so used to but if it happens only once and I can use my art to in some way create something more meaningful then just fooling my audience. Then I’ll know my Faustian pact was worth it.

Owen Lean
Authors note: Please note I’m speaking metaphorically. Don’t really sell your soul to satan, thats a really really daft thing to do folks.

This is the first of a series of three essays that Owen Lean has graciously allowed us to publish on the site. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have, please comment and tell me what you think

What is it you first think of when you think of magic?

Got an answer? OK now imagine that you’d read the question before you became a magician. What would you have thought of? Would it have had anything to do with cards, silks, coins, doves or whatever it is we tend to associate magic with now we’ve been initiated.

Its a question I used to ask some of my friends who weren’t magicians – they would usually bring up images of a supreme power able to command the elements bring fear across the lands. When I asked them what they thought of when they heard the word “magician” – the response was to do with some form of funny little man in a tuxedo and top hat with a gaggle of scantily dressed assistants – generally the images aren’t too positive.

Why have we created such a divide between these two images? Surely doesn’t the magic we can do have the potential to be just as frightening and have the same ability to shake people’s worlds the way the magic does in fantasy novels and role playing games? Robert-Houdin is often quoted as having said “A magician is an actor playing the part of a magician.”, but do we do that? Honestly when we look at our acts can we say “Yes, If I met somebody who could really do magic that’s exactly what I think he would do!”. Honestly if you really had magical powers would you stand on a stage and produce fans of cards, make billiard balls multiply and pull a signed and freely selected rabbit out of your assistants sponge bra? I wouldn’t.

Because magic is something much more then that. Granted if we want to call ourselves illusionists then this is unimportant as all these things could be classed as “illusions” – but I for one never learned magic because I wanted to create illusions – I wanted to do magic. This is why I like walking down the street use floating a banknote over my hand. I believe that in the moment some people see that banknote float something extremely powerful happens – up until that moment the person currently staring at you knew that the world was simple, logical and could be explained – suddenly in a single moment all that certainty has been broken and destroyed – after a few seconds, their brain kicks back in and realizes there has to be some kind of logical explanation like magnets or something but still the fact remains that they have had that moment – that moment that grabs them out of themselves and screams at them “there is more to life then what you think is real” and throws them back – in that moment their are taken back to the primitive, a state of mind where the laws, restrictions and limits that society imposes on us cease to matter, because the society and world we knew ceases to exist – I don’t think the phrase “childlike wonder” encompasses enough -

its something pure yes, but at the same time it is something pure in that was a Japanese mythical daemon posses “yu-gen” in being so pure it is both sublimely beautiful and completely terrifying. That is what I mean by taking magic back to the primitive – returning both the art itself and its spectators to a pure state that is free from restrictions and limitations.

Where to the limits come in magic? Only from ourselves. Why do we only levitate? Why not fly? Why do we catch bullets with out teeth, why not stop them in midair before they come towards us? Why do we turn the twenty pound note back into a fiver again? If I could really turn a five pound note into a twenty – I’d give it away, after all I can just create another one can’t I?
Expensive perhaps. But perhaps it is the distinction that removes a magician from a man in a silly hat.

What They Say

Reality is Plastic: The Art of Impromptu Hypnosis

Is it possible to walk into a shop and leave with any goods you choose without paying?

Is it possible to become ‘invisible’?

Is it possible to pay people with blank paper rather than cash?

Is it possible to make people collapse with laughter on your command?

Can you get free drinks by convincing bar staff you are a superstar?

The answer to all of these questions and many more is YES. The techniques in this book will show you how.

What I Say

It’s true, buy it now!

Reality is Plastic by Anthony Jacquin is one of maybe three magic related products I have bought that the blurb isn’t either lying, lying by omission or just plain old making shit up. Everything Anthony claims is perfectly achievable, I have done three of the five and only haven’t done the other two cause I haven’t had the chance!

I will also add a couple of my favorite things to the list:
-Make someone do the funky chicken, for your entertainment.
-Make someone do the YMCA and then forget about it entirely, for your entertainment.
-Make someone do the funky chicken, so funny I mentioned it twice.

The teaching in the book is also excellent. Anthony explains everything concisely with all the relevant suggestions suitably phrased and highlighted. Obviously it’s better to adapt it to you rather than repeat it verbatim but it’s handy to have what a guideline to base your speech on.

The two largest focuses of ‘Reality is Plastic’ are Set Pieces and Inductions.

A Set Piece is a preliminary routine that is designed to convince people of your hypnotic power, they often have an underlying physiological cause which you assist with psychological suggestions. Set Pieces are done on fully conscious subjects and work on 90+% of people, in fact I’ve never had one fail. Ant spends a good deal of time emphasising the importance of set pieces, a utility device dismissed by many for their simplicity and high success with everyone and their grandmother. As a convincer they are excellent and can easily be used as an effect in their own right!

The chapter on inductions is also excellent listing a large number of inductions including the increasingly popular handshake induction (people no longer shake my hand or look my in the eye in my local). There really is a host of other inductions to suit all eventualities.

The, for lack of a better word, routines section of the book matches up to all the previous chapters genius and teaches you the blurb material. It’s all excellent.

While I have been focusing on the purely hypnosis side of things up to this point, I’ll now turn my attention to the two PDFs Anthony sends you if you coyly hint you are a magician.

Ant is also a magician and has written the two outstanding accompanying documents that deal with using hypnosis as a mentalism tool, both are excellent and each one contains an incredibly strong routine as well as a vast number of points and suggestions. All the info is being worked into my act at the moment!!!

And now, I have unfortunately run out of superlatives so I can’t say much more. Of all my purchases ever, this book is the best value for money, the best for content, the most useful and the book that has paid and will continue to pay for itself so many times over. I hate giving anything a numerical score as I feel a single integer value between one and ten is inadequate for explaining the intricacies of a products value, however ‘Reality is Plastic’ is as close to perfection as it comes and any less anal reviewer would give it a ten out of ten without hesitation. And while I’ve still got your attention, I’d like to publically thank Anthony for this awesomely insanely aggravatingly perfect book.

‘Reality is Plastic’ is currently available from Anthony Jacquin’s website for £22.50 + postage (£3.50 will get it here to Ireland)