IAIN wrote:joystick not got the guts to apologise then?
Sorry, had to work some time.
Lady of Mystery, I didnt attack you personally. I dont even know you, so how could I? I just meant that if a magician claimed he can achieve the trick by using supernatural powers that dont exist (that same time many people still believe), it would totally ruin the fun for me.
If the language offended someone, my apologies. Bitches! (just kidding)
It's the same that I would do magic and tell you that I can do this trick because Jesus the Lord is helping me, and I am the allmighty God's assistance.
It offends intelligence.
With NLP, psychology and hypnosis, the case is a bit different. Nobody is saying they have supernatural powers, but skills one could really have.
We could discuss ages about hypnosis for example, but it's a fact you can do very strange things with it as a tool. It has nothing to do with any supernatural / mystical powers, but with the way human's mind work, and what the people believe in.
At one point of my magician hobby, I did some tricks with cards on a bar to an older lady. She wanted to me to do a reading for her, and I said I dont do such things, and I dont believe that nonsense.
She insisted and insisted, and finally I went "okey, then, lets try it".
I did an 10 minute reading of her, using just my people skills, and found out alot of stuff, things that really were just clever guesses but hitted the spot. At the end she started to cry, and wanted me to give her advice on certain things, how she should proceed with them. At this point I totally got depressed out and never did the stuff again. And generally I despise people that have to use these supernatural-type of claims to do a magic trick.
There is way too much responsibilty for a magician to play with that stuff. Most of you think that its the audiences responsibity to think whatever they like of your so called gifts, but I think that its just stupid and bad thinking.
For example, Lady of Mystery, if you do your "aura"-tricks, some people could get the verification they need that auras exist. Then you are responsible to that.
I myself dont want anything to do with this kind of magic.
Magician aint the same as actor. If you talk to people or surf the net, you will easily find out that there actually are alot of people who thinks that for example Uri Geller posess real, supernatural magic-skills. Why on earth you wanna be a part of that? Why you wanna be Uri Geller?
I know there are few people around who thinks that Matlock really is Matlock, but that is minority. People will know that actors are just playing a part, doing a role, but many people dont undestand that a magician is just an actor playing macigian's role, like Robert Houdin stated.
Many superstitious people still believe in these things, like for example the aura-bullshit, and are encouraged by what you do. Unless, of course you are really straight-forward clowning with them, and all will get it that its just a play for fun. But I take it that you have some kind of seriousness with your routine.
And what comes to Derren, lady of mystery, an good example of this is his 4 white balls and 1 black ball, that he does in "Something wicked this way comes" -liveshow. If you know the technique behind it, you know that 99.9% of the trick is just acting.
Of course you can use psychological forces, for example, and I myself do that alot. But the methods in magic should be invisible, so it doesnt matters what method you use, but what matter is how you present it.
Apologies to offendend, and apologies of my bad english. Not my fault I was born to a non-english country!
