by theseer » Mar 28th, '09, 23:45
Magic is truly a journey, Tomo hit it.
"See everything overlook a great deal; correct a little." ~Pope John XXIII
Just as I saw the world with virgin eyes as a child. I see Magic, Mentalism and all its' Mysteries with those same Curious windows of the Soul. Thats what makes magic so beautiful, it captures that childlike amazement that resides in each of us. We take of the lens of the world and with quivering amazement watch the wondorus feats presented to us by Miracle Men.
I started magic just like any other young boy, with a Magic set, a magician as an Uncle, and a Medium as a Great-Grandmother. Learning intricate sleights, illusions, parlour tricks and such entertained both me and my family. I learned how to handle audiences and how to deal with varied audience reactions. Cards, wooden boxes, and plenty of live animals. Magic was about tricking the eye and the mind, and maybe even my onlookers into giving me a small tip. But a young man grows out of every interest I suppose. And soon my uncle handed his young trickster over to his Spiritualist sister. There I was educated not in the magic of illusion but in the magick of the unkown.
From the first seance I expierenced, were I sat patiently on my Great-Grandmother laps as mysterious orbs of light hovered over our head, tables shifted and rose in the air, and objects on desks and bookshelves fell off. To my first reading where I sat reading strange designs of small cards for a prominent businessmen in the area, who would come back every year on that same date to have a reading until his death.
No tricks whereever taught in my education of the Mysterious Arts and Occult. But it was the "expierences" and the approach that gave way to the next path I ventured down. My mind shifted from tricking people, to helping people, to enstilling them with powerful expierences that toyed with their emotions and not minds. I did not have anything to do with either the occult or magic after a certain point in my life around the age 18. I was off to university to learn and study and to have previous beliefs shattered.
I learned the science of psychology, and the sciences of the world and space. I learned proper theology, public speaking and english/literature. I was formly trained as an academic. And something as silly as magic did not appeal to me at all. I was busy studying kinesics, and something called Hypnotherapy. It wasn't till a chance trip to South America and a run in with a Native Shaman convinced me that I didn't hold all the answers to life. I reconnected with my family and found a new found passion for Life and Living it to the fullest. I became an Actor and studied Drama and Theatre Arts, I learned the in's and out's of theatre and how to deal and manage people, how to lie effectively and how to create "worlds" were people could slip into and forget the outside world of worry and strife.
Shortly after I was reintroduced to magic through a friend of mine, who was what he called himself, A Mentalist. He owned a small store with a collection of books titled with strange names and dealt with strange topics such as telepathy and sacred gemotery. He ran the equivalent of what we would call a "New Age" store. But he also gave me books such as "Corindas 13 steps" and various books by Annemann. It was strange to me because than in the begininning of my study I did not relate this mentalism to magic. I saw barely any correlation. What I saw were methods not tricks, that instead promoted creativity and growth not dealers showroom props. I began my career as a public psychic and reader than, performing feats of the mind, than onto feats of the spirit and extra-ordinary body miracles. Never in my years of my performing has any comparrsion of me and a magician ever come up. Its something of a mindset that seperates a mentalist from a magi.
When performing I do not think of myself sperate from the audience, whereas I magi might. I only think of the common bond that is created for our dealins our not exterior but interior. We are the heremits dealing with the soul not flowers in disappearing from a pot. I know that with a person there has to be meaning connected in order for it to have "effect" Do we not all strive to create this atmosphere. But it is very difficult when our motives are not in the right place.
"Never miss an opportunity to make others happy, even if you have to leave them alone in order to do it." ~Author Unknown
Its not about you the magician, Its about the audience if you understand my point. Do not let your ego come in the way. You must "leave" the audience with wonder and amazement not questions and confusion.
You must constantly be questioning yourself and your motives. Once you understand that you will be set on the path to perfection. You do not have to settle into a niche as some believe, You are your own person who lives his or own life making his/her own decisions. Cards and Sponge Balls will never be any more than Cards and Sponge Balls without that extra bit of magic. Don't let the object lessen the value of amazment.
There is nothing more or less in an art, as magic is an art. Just and Comedy and Drama serve different purposes in Theatre one is not superior to the other. For they are seperate yet serving the same good.
Don't look where you fall, but where you slipped. ~African Proverb[/b]
