The other day, I received a lovely and insightful email regarding the Halal Magic post from someone who shall be known as T. I wanted to share it, along with some thoughts on truthful patter for ACAANs, sponge balls, and one of the first tricks ever referenced on this blog.

Great essay. Just wanted to note that Garrett Thomas, Ben Earl, and Derek Delgaudio all also frame their magic similarly.

The way I like to think of it is this. If I do a double turnover and say “I take the top card” that is a verbal lie, but if instead I do a double and just announce the card on the face, the optical deception remains but no untruths were spoken.

Garrett speaks on this subject a lot. While there are a few instances where I believe he does break this rule and verbalizes certain deceptions, for the most part his presentations feel honest because they usually are.

Ben Earl is also someone who doesn’t necessarily lie in his presentations, and is skilled enough to pull it off.

If you watch Delgaudio’s In & Of Itself he says something along the lines of “as a magician you expect me to lie, which is why everything I say from here on out will be the truth”.

The thing that all of these magicians have beyond a strong taste in magic is a way of presenting magic in a way that is deeper than just narrating their actions as they do it. Each trick has a plot bigger than the effect itself, which makes for compelling storytelling that doesn’t need to rely on spoken lies. The use of metaphors and subtext can allow for a fantastical experience without lying to your audience.

-T

This is a wonderful email, and I thank T kindly for writing it. If only I could have had his input while writing my original post. It no doubt would have made the piece a great deal better. I’ll definitely be rewatching In & Of Itself now, and I’ve got some homework to do regarding Garrett Thomas and Ben Earl as well.

Because the post was of interest to more than a couple people, I thought I would write a little regarding how to take some common tricks and make them halal while trying to implement the thoughts in T’s last paragraph. That is, using the halal approach to add extra layers of deception to the presentation that a simple description of my overt actions would not entail. This won’t always be the case (for instance, the sponge ball patter doesn’t qualify), because I also just wanted to add some examples of how I approach magic without lies.

ACAAN

Firstly, an example of the principle applied to the effect of the moment. The ACAAN. Often when performing this effect magicians will claim that the odds are 1 in 2704. Without getting too much into mathematics here, suffice to say that that’s incorrect. It’s 1 in 52, always. But there are some ways to imply that the odds of success are 1 in 2704 without outright lying.

“If I were to just predict a card that you named, the chances would be one in 52, but I’m not going to attempt that. I’m going to attempt to predict not only your card, but the position you will choose for it to be at.”

Alternatively and more directly, especially if you’re doing a presentation where the spectator has the power (good idea!), you can truthfully say this: “The probability that you would name the three of clubs and position 45 is 1 in 2704.”

All entirely true, but leaving your spectator or participant with the distinct impression of something that isn’t true.

Sponge Balls

Ah, the time-honored sponge balls. I’ll keep this short and just address the basics, since this is a modular routine and I can’t account for everything that might be said. Rather than saying “Hold on to this one,” (when there’s two in your hand) you can say “Hold onto this sponge” (in a collective sense, encapsulating all the sponge that might happen to be in your hand). Rather than saying “I’ll put this one in my pocket,” (when your hand is actually empty) you can simply say “‘I’ll put this in my pocket,” strictly meaning your hand. Apply similar logic throughout.

Melting Point

Readers from the beginning or readers who have done an archive binge may or (more likely) may not remember when I recommended this trick back in one of the first posts, Camouflage Bands. It’s a great rubber band trick from Casshan Wallace and I still highly recommend it.

As for some (nearly) halal patter? How about this:

“Solid objects should not be able to pass through solid objects. If this side of the blue band is outside the orange one, it would be impossible for it to go through to the inside, right? But quantum mechanics tells us it’s not completely impossible, just extremely improbable. So maybe what you’re seeing is just incredible luck…”

Mayyybe. Probably not, but maybe!

Psychological or otherwise verbal number forces that involve limiting choices to fewer options than expected

Lastly… You know, those things. Like the 37 force, or the 68 force that goes with it, or 3CSC by Fraser Parker, or a lot of things.

“I want you to pick a random number mentally. Unfortunately, people are notoriously terrible at picking random numbers. For example, when asked to pick a number between 1 and 100, six times as many people pick 37 as would be expected if it were truly random. People are also notoriously bad at picking passwords, so websites set conditions like requiring capital letters and symbols to expand the range of choices beyond what people normally pick. I’m going to set some conditions to steer you away from common patterns…”