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Why did you became a magician why of everything you can be??

Thats a good question and im looking forward to reading the answers you recieve. As a child i was never really into (or very good at) sports or anything like that. There were episodes of the Doug Henning shows on at 11am on a Saturday morning, and the Paul Daniels Magic Show at 7pm on a friday. While the other kids were playing football and climbing trees i was glued to the tv, totally amazed. On one Henning special he made a signed silk hanky vanish and reappear inside an apple that was being held several feet away. I picked my dads brain that entire weekend till he eventually told me how it was done (he knew because my grandfather was an amature magician). I used my pocket money to buy the prop, which looked ridiculous on my small hands, however that was it, i was hooked and magic became my passion.

Magic is a constantly surprising and remarkably fertile arena for applications springing from my understanding of psychology, statistics and electronics.

And if you think that sounds w@nky, you should try being the idiot typing it!

Because watching magic has given me so much pleasure, wonderment, bewilderment and awe over the years and I love being able to give other people some of the same pleasure.

I actually wanted to be a sex fiend, but I failed the medical.

I wanna be James Bond at first (especially for the Bond Girls and the cool gadgets), so I imagined that I needed to learn cheating to win money in casinos.
Then I discovered Indiana Jones and became obsessed by collecting magical objects. Later, I discovered the X-Men...

Now I know that the ultimate magical item is the card duck.

For me, I was hooked on Paul Daniels as a kid, I had a load of his packet tricks, magic set a well as a few other books. It all just took off from there really.

I wanted to be Doctor Strange so I messed around with tarot cards, seances, and all those other things that your mother warned you about.

I was another Paul Daniels fan and got a magic set for christmas one year. I lost interest in magic when I was about 13 but got back into it again when I was about 20 and did a few shows as a magicians assistant. The magician I was working with pointed me in the direction of a few books and that's all where it started.

For the riddle.

There is something quite breathtaking about the apparent complexities of an effect when in reality it is very simplistic.

I like the neatness and efficiency of it. It's like a physical form of maths.

I do not think that necessarily makes sense but it does to me.

the Curator wrote:I wanna be James Bond at first (especially for the Bond Girls and the cool gadgets), so I imagined that I needed to learn cheating to win money in casinos.
Then I discovered Indiana Jones and became obsessed by collecting magical objects. Later, I discovered the X-Men...

Now I know that the ultimate magical item is the card duck.

You haven't been around William Wizard have you? (da Duck was a big part of his act)

I have to blame Mark Wilson and even told him so to his face, blaming him of being just as cruel as any drug dealer by teasing us with those old Tv shows and stirring out curiosity... now my mother is still wondering when, if ever, I'll actually grow up.

I hate to admit it, but I got into magic because I'm a spawn of Blaine. I'd long since put away my Paul Daniels magic set and forgot about my fleeting childhood interest in magic (I think we all had one of those sets didn't we?) I saw one on ebay once, and you could tell how long ago the set must have came out - on the box Daniels still had hair!

Anyway, I saw Blaines first TV special ('Street Magic' I believe he rather crassly called it), and after that I was hooked. I was equally amazed at the reactions he got from spectators as I was just watching his material, and decided then and there - that I want to make people that amazed too!

Sadly, the more I learnt his stuff, and the more Blaine went a bit weird with his 'stunts', the more I started to hate the reason why I got into magic in the first place.....but then, like a breath of fresh air.....along came Derren Brown, and the world of mentalism opened my eyes to the possiblities and intrigue of the art.

Thankfully the sleights I'd learnt trying to emulate Blaine haven't gone to waste, as I now use a subtle blend of sleights and mentalism in most of my close-up routines. I am tempted to confess to another aspect of learning magic which I imagine not many 'guys' in here will own up to....(I'll quote a line from 'Scrubs' here)

"I got into this for the same 4 reasons as eveyone else did.....Chicks, Money, Power, and Chicks!" (The wise words of Dr Cox)

Since neither are here to defend themselves, I guess you can blame my father, who bought me my first kiddie props, and then after that Harry Blackstone Jr.

I stopped for a long time due to interests in music and a good 20 years playing in bands, until I realized that returning to magic allowed me to do things that were near-impossible in music, like actually entertaining people.

I still have interests in music, and some other areas. However, after you've entertained 3 generations of people in the same room, or you do a revelation for a routine that no one saw coming and take in that "just got kicked in the stomach" look on their faces, I don't know what else compares.

Also, I was practicing hypnosis and NLP before I got back into magic, and these seemed like a perfect fit, especially when thrown into the same bed as mentalism. Then you consider readings, which allow you to provide an alternate form of entertainment - and the possibilities here, while not infinite, really open up for you if you're willing to put the time in. I haven't been able to say this about anything else I've done in the past.

Back in 74 when my father sold his business and opened a magic shop, dinner went something like this.

"Kids, your mother and I are opening up a magic shop in the basement. If you wish to continue to eat you had all better learn to sell this stuff"

And that was that.

I love science, and always have. I always have been fascinated with understanding things. Science / Reality is magic itself. Reality can seem magic when you find out what is actually going on.

My parents subscribed me to science magazines, and I couldn't get enough. A lot of things went over my head as a young boy, but a lot of things sunk in too. I continued and continued until I undertood enough about the difficult stuff.

Anyway, at one point, the magazines had topics on magic and misdirection. That's when I fell in love with Magic too.

When I saw Neil Armstrong land on the moon (at the tender age of three years two months) I was hooked. I read nothing but science, got a degree in physics, then realised I did not have what it took to be a great scientist. I would always be one of the foot soldiers. So I took a job in a newspaper, as it was a lazy way of making money.
But I got fed up and decided to change. So I trained as a masseuse, but broke my shoulder kick-boxing the week I qualified. By the time the shoulder healed I was getting enough gigs to leave the newspaper and not bother with the massages. So now I am a magician, at least for the moment.
But seriously, since the age of seven I have been fascinated with magic, so it is no surprise that magic was what I drifted into. At twelve I saw Paul Daniels doing the magic square, and I had to know how he did it. By the time I had found out I was hooked on magic.
If I was twenty years younger I could just as easily have drifted into UFC fighting (but it wasn't around when I was in fighting shape). In twenty years time I could be doing something completely different. I hope so. Life is too short to stick to one career.