The Notes

A note from the Editor: This post is unrelated to The Zen of Magic: Avoiding Method Overloading.

A note from Drew regarding when and how this post was written: I first had this idea during my final year at university. I was taking a mysticism and occult class (religious studies) and we were required to write about a life experience involving a great coincidence or a “miracle”. I decided to write about the time I pulled off the Berglas Effect with pure luck. (Okay, my life isn’t that mundane, but I figured it’d be a good setup to perform for the professor at some point. I digress.) During the assignment we were asked to attempt to explain the cause of that occurrence. I came up with the theory you’re about to read in this post.

This post was greatly inspired by David Berglas, and was written while he was alive with the exception of “The Examples”. It has taken a while to work its way through the queue, and the International Man of Mystery has passed away since.

The Post

This is inspired by a little chapter inside The Berglas Effects. You won’t have to empty your bank account to understand this post, don’t worry. However, if you’ve read the book, you’ll know that Mr. Berglas talks about “zen” in performance. 

He has some interesting thoughts on the subject that are worth looking into. I am someone that is by no means heavily religious nor spiritual, but through many performances I’ve come up with an observation.

That theory is this: the more calm or “zen” you are in performance, the more successful you will be in said performance. By successful, I mostly mean in the technical sense whether it be a memory system, sleight or gimmick. 

We are under the working assumption that if one is zen, they are not worried or anxious in performance. The element of zen eliminates all unnecessary negative energy in performance. This elimination of nervous energy gives the opportunity for other energy, such as luck, intuition, or fatefulness to interject itself into the performance.

Look, you might not necessarily believe in energies but you can think of it as emotion. Within a dynamic social situation there is a certain amount of emotion. That emotion could be, for example, awkwardness or excitement. It is impossible for there to be no emotion inside of any given social situation. Equally, it is impossible for every emotion to be present in said given situation.

If we agree on that, then we both agree that there is limited room for emotion.

Naturally, if you are completely zen in performance then you open yourself up for other types of emotions to enter in the performance. It might not be something as esoteric as luck perhaps, but it can certainly be something like the feeling of mystery.  

While it sounds easy in theory to just be zen, I found this zen occurs when you’re in a comfortable environment with familiar people and have done great amounts of practice. This is something I imagine only social magicians can really take advantage of.

Out of my limited experience on stage, I can agree with the professionals who say the nerves don’t go away. Unless you’re a performer who can stand in front of thousands of people completely calm, this won’t apply to the stage. You can imagine being zen in performance if you’re performing in your friend’s living room, sitting at his coffee table.  We all have those tricks we can do without thinking. This is the type of material you want to use to experiment with this theory.

Don’t take me for my word, go out and experiment. Take a routine that has an element of chance (but with a safety net/definitive outcome every time) and perform it with a sense of absolute calm (obviously find one of those routines you’ve done thousands of times that fit this criteria). You’ll be surprised how often the person goes for the “favorable” outcome, or that one psy-force.  There isn’t anything to lose by attempting this.

The Examples

When I was first doing psychological forces, I would sometimes miss, sometimes hit. Now I very rarely miss, and I think it’s because of the lack of tension in my consciousness. To best illustrate the zen concept in practice, I wanted to share two semi-recent performances of mine.

Recently, I had a blind friend date at a local cafe. I had just moved to a new area, and was looking to make some new friends. A good friend mentioned she knew someone in the area, and she kindly set up a blind friend date for us. I brought a deck of cards, because I knew the topic of hobbies would eventually arise. I told him I was interested in sleight of hand and psychology, and asked him if he could help me practice something I was working on.

I decided I’d show him a trick I had fallen in love with as of late, Ben Earl’s “No Motion Aces”. It’s an excellent rendition of an ace assembly.

The routine involves a psychological force of a packet. They choose a packet, and that’s the packet all the aces teleport to. Despite it being my first time performing the effect, and my first trick for this person, I had zero apprehension. I was in a zen-like state, because I knew it didn’t fucking matter if he picked another pile of cards.

He picked the pile I wanted him to. He completely freaked out, and spoke well of that trick in our later interactions.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. It being a 1 in 4, you might not be all that impressed. Here’s another example of a trick where the chances I miss are much greater.

During a jam session with Jerry, I decided to perform a version of ACAAN I learnt some years ago from Peter Turner. I shuffled Jerry’s selection into a specific position, and placed the deck on the table. I simply asked Jerry to name a number from 1 to 52. I had zero concern as to what number he’d name. Jerry is someone I’ve performed for many times, so I didn’t really care if I wound up with egg on my face. He said the wrong number. I told him calmly that it was the wrong number. I asked him to try again, but this time, hover his hand over the deck and feel a number.

He then said the exact number the card was positioned at.

He counted to his number and found his selection.

With a laugh, he said “Was that the best out?”

“Yup,” I said.

“Okay, I thought so… But how?”

We continued the jam session, and Jerry was left wondering how that ACAAN worked. I’m not identifying the number he named because it’s a specific hit, this is a psychological force of a number between 1 and 52 and for more information you can check out Peter Turner’s Jinxed 2.

What do those two examples mean?

I think the various elements of the psychological forces in both tricks were successfully used because there was zero anxious energy in my delivery. It was the zen state that allowed the force to flow smoothly. I postulate that if I performed the exact same forces with the exact same wording, but did it while being nervous, the chances of it hitting would be lower.

I found that for me, Zen is more likely to occur if you strike a balance between the trick and the person you’re performing for. In one example I did a psychologically demanding trick for Jerry (someone I’m comfortable performing for), and in the other I did a very simple trick for someone I’ve never performed for before. The stronger you are as a performer (and the more you’ve rehearsed your material), the more those criteria will blend and blur with one another.

If you aim to achieve zen in your performance, ask yourself:
“Can I perform this trick competently?”
“Are there any stakes in this performance?” (What happens if you fail?)
“Am I comfortable performing for the person I plan to perform for?” (Are they a stranger you want to impress?)

After you answer those questions, you can craft your little zen bubble. If you perform with a calm mind, you might start finding yourself getting lucky more often.