Mailbag - When They Believe: Part One
/I swear I’ve either seen you give a response to this or I may have emailed you about it before but I could not find it….so apologies
Any advice when maybe when they either believe your premise….or really think it’s a crazy coincidence.
To my recollection this has really only happened twice-
-Did Creepy Child, this was the first more immersive trick for this particular person. I got a strong sense they thought it truly was a weird coincidence (not really a psychic child).
-Spectator Cuts from JV1- different person, had seen me do a lot of magic... texted me after to make me swear I wasn’t involved or it wasn’t a trick because they were so freaked out
In both of these situations I didn’t want to
1. Ruin the immersion
2. Lie if they truly were unsettled
3. Make them feel dumb for getting caught up in the moment …if I either burst the bubble because they are asking or they realize later after seeing me do more magic that this was a fiction.
Most importantly I want them to feel like it’s okay to be caught up in it but not feel dumb later. —ZA
When it comes to “belief,” magicians usually fall into two camps
A small minority desperately want their audience to believe they have real powers (the sociopath route).
The majority will play everything off as “just a bit of fun” with their tongue in cheek, minimizing everything they do to the point that nothing could ever conceivably be believed (the safe route).
What I try to do is treat a performance like a horror movie. The person who makes the horror movie doesn’t expect you to “believe” it. But they present it to you in such a way that your mind can get swept away by it.
My friends know I’m into magic, and most have witnessed at least a few different tricks with premises that are all over the spectrum. So they have a decent understanding about the “believability” of everything.
And generally I don’t get too “immersive” when performing for someone who isn’t a friend and doesn’t know what’s going on.
So, 98% of the time, the “belief issue” isn’t a big deal.
But what if they believe a little too much?
Unfortunately, I don’t know of one clear rule regarding how to handle this. So I can only tell you how I’d hand specific examples.
It’s easier when the trick is strictly about me and something I’m apparently doing.
During the trick, I play everything fairly straight. The premise may be ridiculous (”I drink elephant cum and it gives me a super-powered memory,”) but I don’t try to find a bunch of jokes within that premise.
After the trick, if someone comes up and asks me about some fake skill I just exhibited. e.g. “Wait, did you really read that guy’s mind?” I’ll never say “no.” I’ll just say yes, in a way that should make it clear I’m not serious.
Only very rarely, maybe once or twice a year, do I think someone still doesn’t get it and I feel the need to make it abundantly clear. “No, of course, I can’t read minds. But it felt like it, yeah?” At that point, they get the game of these interactions going forward: I’m not trying to convince them I can really do something. I just want it to feel like that.
But let’s get to the writer’s specific examples, because these are different situations:
Did Creepy Child, this was the first more immersive trick for this particular person. I got a strong sense they thought it truly was a weird coincidence (not really a psychic child).
In this case, they believed it was “real.” But they believed it was a real coincidence, not a real psychic child.
If you present a fantastical premise, and they choose to believe it was some real everyday phenomenon (like “coincidence”), what I would do is agree with them, but then double-down on the premise in the future.
So in this case, I might be like, “Hmm… yeah, it’s probably just a coincidence.”
Then next time you see that person, you do something else with an even more unlikely (forced) outcome. Shuffle-Bored, for example. And you can be like, “Shit, I can’t believe this happened again….” And now the Shuffle-Bored prediction is in a new image or a letter you recently received from this creepy child.
Spectator Cuts Their Future from JV1- different person, had seen me do a lot of magic... texted me after to make me swear I wasn’t involved or it wasn’t a trick because they were so freaked out.
For those that don’t have the book, it’s a trick where the spectator cuts four packets to choose cards for a cartomancy reading and they “just happen” to match—at odds of 6.5 million to one—the illustration in the book you’re reading from that describes the “Transcendent Ideal Layout.” A pattern of cards that is supposed to represent the most idyllic future possible.
So, if I performed that for someone, and they asked me to swear it wasn’t a trick, what would I do?
…
That’s a hard one. Ethically, I don’t mind if a friend of mine goes forward in life thinking they won the cartomancy lottery and an amazing life is waiting for them. Maybe it’s a little boost in getting them to live such a life. Or maybe it sets them up for disappointment later. I’m not sure.
What I would likely do in this situation is say, “A trick? How do you mean? You shuffled the cards, right? [Yes] And you cut the packets yourself? [Yes] And you were the one who turned over the cards, yes? [Yes] Right.” Shrug as if that says everything. “How could that be a trick? I mean, look, I don’t really believe cards can tell your future, so I wouldn’t put too much stock into it. But who knows?”
I’d likely be noncommittal. Maybe that’s a cop-out on my part. I’d probably tell them something like, “Look, even if that fortune-telling stuff is real, it doesn’t mean you definitely end up with wealth and health and a perfect relationship and all of that. You can’t just stop working and live in the basement and achieve those things. The cards just tell you your capacity for success in those areas, given you put in the effort. It’s a path that’s open to you that not many people have available.”
As I said, noncommittal, and not too bad a message to give someone who is willing to think playing cards can predict their future.
I think the best way to handle the “belief” issue generally, is to not look at it like a light switch that’s either on or off. Belief or disbelief. Instead, think of it like a dimmer switch. If they believe too much, dim it down. If they dismiss everything too easily, turn it up.
I don’t turn the dimmer back on forth on each trick. I turn the dimmer back and forth for each friend that I perform for regularly. So if the last few tricks they’ve seen from me are sillier stuff with absurd premises, then I’ll bring them back with something very “real” seeming.
But if they’re super credulous and seem to be buying into things a little too much, that’s when I break out a wildly fantastical premise—childhood invisible friends returning, time travel, telepathic dogs—something that is beyond belief.
The death of enchantment is certainty. If people are convinced that everything you do is 100% real or 100% fake, then they are too committed in their mind to ever feel that magical state of “What exactly is happening right now?”
And finally, when I say I try to keep people on a dimmer switch, that doesn’t mean that I try to keep them half believing and half disbelieving. That’s not possible, I don’t think. My friends are primarily smart, savvy people. My goal is not to get them to believe, or even half-believe. My goal is just to keep them on their toes enough that they can’t ever completely disbelieve some of this might be real. I want to keep a tiny spark of possibility alive.