The Power of Magic

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What is the power ?

The first obvious thing about magicians is that they are liars. Said Sara Crasson, in Magic History and Magical Myths: "Magicians lie by the very nature of what they do". The essence of magic is to deceive people, thus, when they perform tricks, magicians cannot tell the truth on their manipulations. But even more than that, they are not totally clear when it comes to the tricks they actually performed. They tend to use their inventiveness to appropriate themselves tricks they never showed! Houdini, for example was a master in creating a myth of himself. He was supposed to have performed an escape from under frozen water, but investigations proved that the weather was too warm for the lake to be iced.

Sara Crasson also notifies that illusionists are seldom frank about their name, nationality, and origins: they generally use pseudonyms, (is Chung Ling Soo really Chinese or simply American?). They have a real need to create a character, transforming them into full-time magicians. Unlike actors, who draw a distinctive line between their stage character and the person they really are, magicians play a life-long role, both on and off-stage. As seen above, Houdin said: "A magician is an actor playing the part of a magician".

Nevertheless, it is not innocent. A magician has to be an unreal character, his image is the most important thing, because it is all the public is given to see, and it won't believe in tricks, if the performer looks like a normal person. The mystery is totally part of magic art. However, the success and the credibility of a magician are the result of what people want to believe about him.

Legend is reality, when it comes to magicians. For that reason, it won't ever be possible to be absolutely positive about their intentions. That makes the analysis of the power of magic quite subjective, and this point must be kept in mind.

Still, the magic art is not that cynical, and its primary goal of course to entertain. In ancient Egypt, slaves building the pyramids could forget the darkness of their condition for a while, thanks to illusionists, who also entertained Pharaoh, by the way. When asked why he practices magic, an amateur talks about the surprise, amazement, or pleasure that light up in people's eyes in the audience. And it can easily be assumed that famous magicians started with this aim too: pleasing the public. Anyway, they do not perform for themselves: without audience, magicians are just manual persons practicing sleights of hands.

As the famous coin tricks performer David Stone explained, the audience creates its own magic. He means that however technical the trick is, if people do not get it, it won't be magic for them. For that reason, he always waits 3 or 4 seconds before moving on to the next part of a trick, to let his audience catch the sense of what he just did. And still, people do not all see the same thing!

Actually, the magician is only a vector of his audience's imagination. He bases his performance on the audience's desire of wonder. And the pleasure is even greater when the spectator anticipates the trick, knows what is going to happen but still cannot believe it truly. At this point he becomes a co-actor of the illusion, and participates to the show.

On a social aspect, the magician is a catalyst of human relationships: he creates a friendly environment through the amazement and surprise. And the show becomes a moment of exchanges, sharing, and conviviality.

The importance of the audience as far as magic is concerned also appears when it comes to the evolution of the performances through the ages. The more the public asked, the more the artists gave! Did people want to be impressed by stunning sounds, lights, and effects; did they want big spectacular shows, they received Las Vegas magic shows. Did they ask for humor, did they want to laugh when going to the show, magicians became comic, and neglected virtuosity for funny acting.

To mention two examples, the duo Vik & Fabrini duo show easy tricks, melted in mime performance and comedy. As for Tomsoni, he used to make dead pigeon appear, and generally based classical tricks on filthy demonstration, which went against the usual smart image of magic.

In a lecture, Dominique Duvivier explains the point of this kind of performance. In fact, using humor helps to divert people's attention from manipulations. Moreover, the audience always tries to understand the tricks. It will give more rhythm to the show to play easy and foolish illusions, which will relax people. And following tricks get easier, since people are more receptive and less skeptical.

To please his spectators totally, the magician must also adapt to the category of people in front of him. To make sure his tricks will have the impact expected, he had better perform it for the most receptive kind of person.

For example, children won't understand an illusion the same way adults would. They have a different logic to perceive magic, and they seek more for the surprising part of the feat than the virtuosity of the magician. The French audience, as another category, is a very skeptical and suspicious audience. In France, most of the time, people will try to understand the hidden part, being reluctant to get simply carried away by the mystery. On the opposite, the American audience is a lot more credulous, without any complexes about losing the sense of reality during a show.

Composing with this kind of behavior, the illusionist performs different tricks to satisfy everyone. In this purpose, he will use humor or comedy, to destabilize skeptical spectators and perform following tricks in a more relax atmosphere.

However, tricks always evolve according to the audience's wish. And that clearly demonstrates that magicians first of all want to please their public.

When observed under this generous lighting, magicians can be considered as miracles makers (so says Sarah Crasson). Although their extra-powers vanish from people's mind when they get back to the reality outside the theater, during their shows, these artists allow grown-ups to believe for a second that a woman can effectively be cut in half and yet not die! Or that a man can fly in the air without any help other than a fake wind coming from a huge fan&ldots; For the time of a show, magicians have the power to make believe they have extraordinary power. Isn't that a dream every child had: be able to do impossible things? The first power of magic is to make dreams come true, and make possible what was impossible.

To quote Darwin Ortiz: "The unique strength of magic is that it gives the audience the experience of confronting the impossible". The confrontation comes from the clash between conscious or unconscious intellect unable to believe the impossible aspect of the effect, and the senses perceiving the opposite. From this clash, this paradox, arises the unique experience of magic.

Nevertheless, history showed that magicians are human beings, and can be tempted by the huge amount of possibilities offered by magic. It gives them all kind of powers, which they use either in a good or bad way.

The first sorcerer to abuse people's credulity was probably the first man who made believe he had the power to call a storm, when his only power was to know meteorology well enough to know one was coming up.

Babylonians and Egyptians priests resorted to magic or scientific effects to create mystery and assert their authority. For example, they had techniques to make believe they could open temple doors by calling them. They really used the principle of Archimede, with changes in warm and cold air pressure. They also used magic vases to turn water to wine, or made wine flow from statue mouths. One of their most impressive acts was rising people from the dead. Actually, they had fed the supposedly dead person with a drug giving him the appearance of a breathless corpse, allowing him to wake up at the appropriate moment.

The aim of all these terrifying demonstrations was, of course to chock people's mind and assure their obedience towards the religious power. Sorcerers had the power because they were skilled in subjects totally mysterious for common people. Not understanding what is going on makes people unable to fight or resist. Logic is necessary to discuss on the same bases and the use of illusion prevented people from being logical. The challenge is unbalanced, and sorcerers and priests had systematically the advantage. This proves once again, that religion is not always based on truth and freedom, but on convincing and deceiving by any means.

Unfortunately these means are not limited to the Ancient Times. Still, nowadays, sects partly use this phenomenon to condition their new followers and to manipulate them, with bad intentions. In Toulouse, a sectarian group use pentotal to make a new arriver speak about himself, and then make him believe that they can describe his personality. This is made in order to impress him and have him believe in a fake power.

After religion, illusion is also used with political aims. It is exactly the same way to proceed: pretend to know more than the others (for example, predicting the future).

An illustration of this could be the story of Catherine of Medecis' Regency. Her son Charles IX was in agony, and a decision on the throne succession had to be made. Catherine happened to deeply believe in magic and paranormal, and she had several illusionists under her protection. One of them set up a black magic demonstration in a church, in which the head of a decapitated child told the terrified king to give the regency to his mother after his death. Which he did.

The whole show was a very simple manipulation with a living child and a wax head. This kind of tricks is even used in Las Vegas shows, and it determined the destiny of France! The weird part is that the magician also abused Catherine, she was not the one who asked for the illusion. So who really had the power?...

Houdin, whom we spoke about previously, contributed to the political use of magic. Napoleon indeed sent him to Algeria, to prevent rebellions. He competed with marabous, to prove them that European magicians had greater power. He performed tricks using magnetic forces, and technologies they did not know. This competition was quite unfair, since they had no chance to discover what was displayed in the tricks. Once again, it was the utilization of an unknown technique that gave Houdin the power.

Eventually, in any field, it is possible to gain power using illusion. It has been done, and it certainly will be again. Results are generally amazingly huge, as regards the efforts required to achieve the tricks. The potential impact on people seems unlimited. It is quite worrying, by the way...

 

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