There might be a time (hopefully) when a magician friend of yours fools you with something badly. You have no clue how it was done. In this scenario, I implore you to think about the method, instead of immediately giving up and asking how.
This post was inspired by a café meeting I had with one of my magician friends. We jam and talk shop often. During one of our meetings, I ended up performing a propless PIN divination on him.
It had fooled my friend, badly. I was not expecting it to fool any magician, let alone someone knowledgeable like him. He was shocked. I offered to give him a clue as to the name of the trick and author, but he politely refused: “I’m not done thinking about it,” he said with a smile. This struck me, because if it were me, I’d immediately and shamelessly hound the person for the method.
We said our goodbyes. Some weeks went by, and we arranged another meeting. He mentioned the PIN divination trick I performed for him, and offered up some theories. All of them were wrong. Again, he was shocked. I offered to tell him the name or at least mention the creator of the effect. He again denied and said he’d go back to the drawing board. I was quite surprised by this, as by that point I would have certainly caved in.
Things must’ve gotten busy for the both of us, as it was months before we were to talk again. We eventually met once more, and began jamming as we usually would. He said he came up with a version of the PIN divination trick I showed him. He performed it for me, and I thought it was an ingenious variation that simplified the method.
Then, finally, he wanted to know the name of the effect.
I realized the amount of enjoyment and thinking he got from that one “fooler” moment. Not only that, but the product of his thinking seemed to be more valuable than the secret itself. I was impressed by his patience and realized: We put laymen through this all the time.
Let’s assume the people we perform for actually care and think about our effects and ponder them like my friend did. Naturally, they’ll ask us how it was done. Sure, we keep the secret safe, but we nonchalantly brush this moment aside because we’re so used to being on the knowing side.
When we fool fellow magicians, it’s funny and ironic that they hit back with the all too common “how did you do that?” just like laymen do. They feel frustrated when the secret isn’t revealed (again, just like laymen do) because magicians feel they have a right to the secret. They’ve always been on the knowing side, after all.
Coming Wednesday, Part Two. See what happens with Drew after he adopts this “thinking through” philosophy head on!