Hauntiques - the Magic of Christian Chelman
The Effect
173-page hardcover book of bizarre magic through the concept of haunted antiques.
Cost
£40.00 from
www.mpmagic.co.uk
Difficulty
(1=easy to do, 2=No sleights, but not so easy, 3=Some sleights used,
4=Advanced sleights used, 5=Suitable for experienced magicians only)
NA
Review
Christian Chelman's book
Hauntiques has been singing to me like a siren ever since I stumbled across it online. On one hand, I'm massively keen to give my magic a context and encourage spectators to suspend their disbelief and just 'go with it' rather than trying to outwit a magician or unravel a puzzle. On the other hand, I'm a sucker for ghost stories and genuinely spooky stuff, and this book just seemed too good to pass up. It was only the £40.00 price tag that kept CUPS at bay - but I finally crumbled and the book arrived on my doorstep a couple of weeks ago (isn't it delightful how PayPal makes it all seem so painless?).
As the title suggests, the book presents readers with a selection of 'magickal' routines, centred around the theme of haunted antiques and bric-a-brac. They're generally well thought out, and delivered with nice subtlety to create an atmosphere of eeriness rather than the somewhat more blunt Lovecraft-style horror you might associate with, say, Docc Hilford. Don't get me wrong, I've spent a small fortune on Hilford's work lately and I absolutely love it, but Chelman's offerings exist in a very different universe altogether - possibly, as the introduction suggests, resulting from the author's European background.
What you get, on the whole, comes across (to me, anyway) as a quiet, reverential attitude, with lots of emotional scope, and the potential to be beautiful and frightening in equal measures.
The idea of haunted antiques isn't a new one to magic. The Book of Haunted Magick covers the same theme in parts, as do others, and when you consider the dominance of this theme in fiction - from classic works such as Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray, or the short stories of MR James, through to modern horror movies (Guillermo del Toro's
Cronos, for example) to TV potboilers like
Friday's Curse, it's not surprising that magicians have adopted the theme.
The book is divided into five 'journeys' and a conclusion. Each part represents a slight shift in attitude, but in most cases, subtlety prevails - no green glowing auras, ghostly moans or rattling chains here, we're talking about the odd behavious of odd 'things'.
What I love most about
Hauntiques is its presentation. The 'Effect' is delivered as the magician's presentation or script, while the 'Method' often looks like a footnote. In this case, I feel that's exactly how it should be - especially when you realise that many of the effects are done with traditional magician's gimmicks. What makes it all so different is the context in which it's presented. My only criticisms about the book's presentation are: The dominant typeface is too spidery for its own good and can be distracting. Also, many 'method' points are poorly explained or not explained at all. We're told, for example, that there are many ways in which a bell can be muted at will, and we should hunt some down. Fair enough, it's not the most arduous task in the world, but this kind of comment appears far too often for my liking - especially in a book with such a hefty price tag.
My other grumble is that a couple of the effects listed appear to be thoroughly off-topic, not to mention inappropriate for the parlour magic environment to which it is clearly pitched. In particular, I'm referring to 'Gumballs' in which the magician correctly predicts the colour of gumball that will drop from a randomly selected machine (and before you get all excited, this is a million miles away from impromptu street magic), and 'Experiment', which is essentially a stage-based, person-appears-in-box illusion, dressed up with a resurrection theme.
Aside from these annoyances, Hauntiques a charm, passion and intensity which I found highly infectious.
Overall
Hauntiques certainly won't be to everyone's taste. It'll be of no great help for table hopping or walk around routines, and I very much doubt that many of the effects would sit well on a large stage. For an intimate presentation of bizarre parlour magic, the contents hold an awful lot of potential. Also be aware that readers will be required to put in a lot of time and legwork before even practicing some of these routines - you can't just grab your deck of cards and start practicing. Much of this time will involve scouring car boot sales and junk shops for very specific knickknacks that appear old and errie but which are cheap enough for you to justify buying them as magic props. And if you can't find
exactly the item described by Chelman, you might have to change the theme of the script or even adapt the core effect. And that's all for the good, in my opinion.
9/10