by Winston Freer

The page of rules with which the early books of magic were always prefaced, warned us:

“Never repeat a trick;” “Never reveal how a trick is done;” “Never tell your audience what you are going to do”-and about 17 other good, though general, hints to know when starting out in magic. But since you have learned to mystify your friends successfully, and have acquired a number of fine effects to do it with, haven’t you often longed for another set of more advanced rules to follow?

-Something less evident to you now than, “In case something fails, don’t get baffled, bring your trick to as successful a conclusion as you can arrange at the moment!”? Even some “Inside Information,” perhaps, that you hope may exist, but have never heard of, that will assist you in setting your present show over in a more complete, more effective fashion? That “Inside Information” is the topic of this article.

It comes not from a magical, or even theatrical source, but from conferences of sales executives and advertising men whose job it’s to know what the people want, and how best to present it to them. They understand the basic topics in which the man on the street is instinctively interested, a well as the best physical, mechanical, and psychological methods of attracting his interest, and holding it. Applied to your program of magic, their knowledge becomes “Inside Information” that will enable you to work wonders.

RULE 1. Look after your audiences’ interests, rather than show off your own tastes and skills in magic.

To best understand the tremendous importance of this, it is essential that you have read Dale Carnegie’s “How To Win Friends and Influence People,” and studied the way of life that he outlines, with great care. The example of the average soprano, whose voice will often cause us to turn off the radio, will give you an idea of what not to do. She is the performer, you are the audience. She is demonstrating her ability to sing beautiful notes, which you cannot hope to do, and to reach the higher ones, and finally the very highest- at the expense of the words of the song itself, in which you might have had some interest. It is an effort to force yourself to listen to her, so you tune to another station. Take each effect you own, and examine its presentation in the light of this appropriate example. In an effort to adhere to some fanciful ideal of magical presentation, or to show off some apparent “power” of mind reading, magnetism, or invisibility (which your spectators know they could never possess, even if you do) are you boring instead of entertaining them? To find and understand the basic, instinctive interests in an audience toward which to direct the appeal of your trick, is to solve the problem of making that trick a pleasure to watch.

RULE 2. Appeal to the audience’s HANDLING instinct.

It is one of the few excuses that will permit us to “show off” our manipulative skill to public acclaim. Psychologists tell us that from our earliest days, when we grasped our toes, toys, and anything else that came to hand, our interest has been in anything that was new to us, and our desire to inspect it should be satisfied, if we are to remain contented. We are thus instinctively interested in the better way of handling familiar things, or deft, or “smooth”—as we term it–ways of managing the various unfamiliar items used in a technical laboratory, a sales demonstration, or a magical performance.

We desire to handle the empty box with the Chinese figures on it; we admire the juggler, or the man who “catches cigarettes” (which we handle with fair grace, ourselves, in our daily smoking) and we think highly of the finely carved bronze bowl which the conjuror so carefully polishes with that silk handkerchief, before offering it to us on a velvet pad or tray. So it is well to treat your equipment with some such respect, appropriate to the item, and the use you are to put it to.

RULE 3. Plan a good part of your program to please the children.

It is without doubt the children in our world for whom the magic show is engaged in the first place, provided that a party or social performance is involved. The folks tell you after the show what fun they had “watching the faces of those kiddies.” The adults, too, are transported back to their childhood days, and to stimulate this desirable, and most satisfying sensation in them it is effective to find sausages in boys’ coats, rabbits in hats, and to create those water-pumping, doil-growing, and magical game-playing situations so dear to the heart of the child. Then too, these children will grow up to fondly remember your entertaining ability, or even to engage your services in years to come.

RULE 4. Select tricks for the effect of which YOU, and not the visible apparatus, receive the credit.

This will eliminate many of the old-time practices in the use of suspicious, special equipment and settings, but it will boost your reputation as a performer, if you will follow it. The idea is to develop your work so that the possible explanation is either more unbelievable or intricate than the effect itself, or else it must depend on some power within yourself, even though you may mysteriously delegate the credit to the power of “woofle dust.” It brings up the growth of “technique magic,” exemplified in the visibly unknotting silk; the visible passing of a silk throughout stretched cord; the raising of a glass of water, merely by placing a knife blade in it-ah of those tricks that depend on ingenious, unseen aids, plus the handling skill necessary to perform them, with ordinary, everyday objects. This is the type of Magic for which you will be looked up to, and, combined with a logical, interesting story, will prove the most entertaining. Further, it is difficult to expose, and so is assured of a long life of secrecy.

RULE 5. Keep your method, or gimmick, far separated from the effect it causes.

It would be bad business to use a thumb tip to show how the flame of a match would not bum your “thumb.” The simple reasoning, “something must be protecting his thumb” would instantly reveal the presence of the device. Your effect should have its gimmick buried deeply under subterfuge, or misdirection, and have a series of possible explanations, one after another of which you can actually disprove, as fast as they would naturally occur to one onlooker, but before he mentions the various objections, himself. This procedure will appeal to the spectator’s fundamental and deep-seated instinct to HUNT, COMPETE, or SOLVE the mystery, and he will admire your ability to anticipate his objection, and will be amazed when no possible explanation seems to exist, after the last obvious one has been disproved. The use of “sucker tricks” has so far been about the only advantage taken of this principle, but you may apply it to almost every trick you know.

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