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Theory
This is an idea that I've been kicking around my head for a number of years now.
It seems to me that the method of a trick should be like an unimagined color. Simply put a color that has yet to be seen or discovered but is viewable to the human eye. To imagine such a color is not simply difficult, it’s impossible. I concede that the very idea of an unimagined color is a bit ethereal and based in some sort of philosophical fiction but the concept when applied to magic yields an interesting thought.
The first strange and intriguing parallel occurs when you study Mike May’s experience with sight. Mike lost his vision at the age of three when a chemical explosion cost him his left eye and blinded his right. Now, due to medical advancements in the field of stem cells Mike has been granted the gift of sight. In fact physically Mike is now capable of 20/20 vision in the eye. However, he manages to pull at best 20/500 vision. You see unlike you or I, Mike’s visual development was halted and forced to remain dormant for over two decades. This visual atrophy made him unable to discern faces or common objects out of context once vision was restored. In fact in the first few months with his newly granted vision May couldn’t tell the difference between a cube and a sphere (A condition predicted by Irish thinker William Molyneux over 300 years ago). After a lot of time and hard work he now describes a cube as “a square with extra lines.” The University of California at San Diego ran several tests on May, "We once showed him two circles—a small one close to him and a larger one farther away. To you or me they would have appeared to be the same size. But when we asked, 'What's the apparent size?' he couldn't understand. He kept saying, `I know it's bigger because it's far away.'"
It turns out that visual recognition and understanding are learned in much the same as language and other skills. May doesn’t see like you or I do. He doesn’t know what everyday objects look like because he had no way of imagining them before. Even if you hold something as a blind man then are granted sight… you won’t know what it is until you hold it again. Slowly you can start to make connections that attach the feeling something has to what it looks like. However, if you have never held the object and have no reference for it at all, it becomes even more difficult. You must only rely on context. On his first plane flight home Mike pointed out the window and asked the woman next to him if that was a mountain. The woman told him that it was in actuality- haze. Indeed, most things Mr. May sees are only identifiable by context. If he sees an orange something on a basketball court he will assume it’s a basketball, but he won’t know it is until he picks it up. It’s not because of blurry vision or poor eyesight… just the fact that his brain has no way or knowing it’s a basketball until he holds it. That’s how his brain worked for decades and the gift of sight isn’t going to suddenly change that.
Over ten years ago I called my friend Denny Haney and told him about this brilliant idea I had for floating a dollar bill underneath a wine glass. Without a pause Denny said, “Are you going to put the thread down the stem?” I was quiet. Slowly I said “Well ya.” Denny, being as honest as always, told me flat out that it wasn’t a good idea. The reason being this… “If you were an audience member” Denny asked, “how would you make a bill float underneath a wine glass?” The point hit home and different method was contrived. The advice seems a bit obvious I suppose; nevertheless it seems like every day I see some “magician” doing bad magic. There excuse for the poor deception is that the spectators “don’t know” or they say “well what your forgetting is that you see magic like a magician but what they see is…” these self proclaimed magicians (I would not call them such) usually then like to lecture me about how spectators are like some breed of mentally challenged goat that will not only eat anything you feed it but will thank you for it. Perhaps they don’t express the idea in such a blunt and forward manner… but that IS what they are saying. What they and so many other “drugstore magicians” out there are forgetting is this…
Magic is difficult.
Just because you hear someone clap after your pathetic French drop doesn’t mean they are a fat ignorant cow. Nor does it mean you fooled them. The same is true on a stage in front of thousands of people. I once saw a stage performer really mess up on a famous prediction effect. It was so bad I actually confronted him in private about it later. He said, “What are you talking about? No one saw that.” Not only did they see it but they laughed at it. It was that glaring an error. Now, I get it… it hurts when you know you’ve messed up a trick. So “working” magicians create this list of excuses and rattle them off to younger magicians who then regurgitate them if ever they are confronted about their awful magic and on it goes. Generations of magicians that like to console themselves with a blanket of denial. Still, just because you feel better doesn’t make you a good magician. Just because you say you fool people… doesn’t mean you do.
“Throughout the presentation of every trick there are hundreds of factors that shape the course of the spectator’s thinking. These may range from the obvious and significant to the most intangible and trivial. All of these details, even the most minor, even the very order in which they occur, shape the spectators ultimate concept.”
(Fitzkee, Magic by Misdirection, p.85)
Magic is difficult. It requires that organization and fulfillment of hundreds of things that will shape how the trick is received. So what happens then if those moments are made up of things well within the understanding and imagination of the audience? Even if the moments are made up of techniques outside of the spectator’s realm of knowledge if those moments (or moves) are executed poorly what is to stop them from imagining what you are doing.
In the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, we learn about the “Blink” phenomenon shaping our lives. It is the correct knowledge or understanding that comes in the blink of an eye without any apparent conscious effort. Those snap decisions that we all make that turn out to not only be right- but dead on. He explores the success of psychologist that can predict with ninety percent accuracy if a married couple will still be together within fifteen years- after analyzing one fifteen minute conversation. Malcolm shows just how amazingly accurate people can be with only a very minimal amount of information. This is bad news for magicians… unless we learn how to use it to our advantage.
We see then that it is the magician’s job to deceive the spectator not only consciously but subconsciously as well. After all, one piece of magical advice that I whole heartedly prescribe to is that a spectator must not suspect let alone detect how a trick is done- wither that be a conscious suspicion or just a gut feeling.
So how does one accomplish this? Well like Mike May if they don’t know and can’t imagine it they can’t see it. There subconscious snap decision will return something invalid or incorrect. So we use a method that is outside the spectator’s base of knowledge. We use an unimagined color.
For the most part magic is already set up this way. When you first start magic you really have to see a folding coin to believe it. You need to be shown how the Statue of Liberty could disappear to grasp the full scope of it. You have to read dozens of magic books to learn the basic moves and intricacies card tricks have to offer. Personally, I’ll never forget the first time I saw a silver, copper, brass gimmick. The idea that all three coins could be held as one blew my mind (sometimes it still does… I mean really- the Chinese coin has a hole in it… a hole!). Then slowly but surely you start to get a good grasp of the magician’s pallet of colors. This is where the mistake is made. The conjurer assumes that the color, because it is unimagined, can never be understood or discovered by someone unfamiliar with it. Remember, Mike May never saw a mountain before and when he tried to point one out he was wrong, but in that same plane flight he pointed out sailboats on the water and was absolutely right. May simply deduced what they were based on context. Spectators can do the same thing. Some will do it in the blink of an eye and others will use logic but either way the essence of the illusion is killed.
It stands to reason then that measures must be taken to protect the unimagined color- to keep it alive and hidden... to keep it away from a proverbial context that will give it away. This is usually done with misdirection. If the unimagined is the body of method then misdirection is the soul. It keeps the method alive; it gives the method depth and power.
Here then we arrive at the heart of the matter. Misdirection while correctly recognized by most competent magicians as a misnomer is simultaneously miscast as a mere tool used in the direction of attention.
I have been criticized for my belief that there is no such thing as a “method” without both the mechanics of the illusion and the misdirection that hides those mechanics. Perhaps that comes from some misunderstanding of semantics. For me, however, it’s simple; after all, if the mechanics of an effect are already known, then no real sense of amazement can result from it. This is why magicians protect their secrets. You can “entertain” an audience without it, but you can’t astound them, and if you aren’t amazing them with your trick… then how is it a trick? Thus, in a magical context the only way to “create” magic is to use a method that not only provides the mechanics to the effect but hides those mechanics as well. So, I see no rift between method and misdirection because one is a part of the other. This makes debates about the advantages of mental misdirection over physical misdirection, and vice versa, a bit superfluous. One should instead consider what form of misdirection (usually a combination of the two) works most effectively when it is married with the mechanics.
If we continue with our example of the unimagined color, we see that if I were to show you a color you have never seen before you could look at it and deduce …. “Hey that’s a color I’ve never seen before.” You would now know exactly what it looks like and could do your best to describe it to others. Now if I were to hold up a black envelope (misdirection) and tell you that inside was a color that you have never seen (the mechanics of the trick), you could imagine every color of the rainbow and never guesses what it is. The unimagined color is hidden… and, therefore, is unimaginable.
So, after all has been said and done we arrive at an incredibly simple and obvious idea. Yet it is an idea that is taken for granted and abused- much to the detriment of the art. It is not upon the mechanics of a trick that we must rely but upon the things that hide them. Keep in mind that I am in no way advocating those simpletons that go around doing a bad pass by coughing at the moment the move is executed. I believe that proper rehearsal and masterful execution of a move is part of the misdirection that cloaks the mechanics. Furthermore, do not make the mistake of thinking that I am trying to belittle the importance of a deceptive method… after all if the color is not unimagined then none of this is important.
The point is that the proper combination of mechanics and misdirection will produce a method that is incredibly hard to discover. This is not to say that even after years of work one spectator in a million won’t happen upon your method. After all, everyone has lived a different life and some are bound to have coincidently had the very experiences that would lead them to guess your secret. In other words some people have seen the color you are trying to hide and, despite your misdirection, will be able to correctly guess what it is. That’s life. Let us not fool ourselves into thinking that we are so far above the intellect of the public that no one could ever happen upon our methods. Instead we must move on- striving to amaze the next million and one.
Finally, it might be that looking at magic in this way produces no other result than to pacify what at times feels like an unnatural divide between method and misdirection. On the other hand, it is my hope that the next time you are practicing an effect you will stop and think. You will remember the difficulty in creating the impossible, and after a deep breath, open your eyes to a world of unimagined colors.
Have something to say about this? Post it here.