Awaken your inner magician! This is a well rounded Magic Tutorial that teaches strong, easy to do magic with pictures and descriptions, the presentation also touches on the history of magic, the Magician's Code, creating scripts and presentations for your magic.
6. How could Egyptian magicians turn a freely examined staff into a slithering serpent? What caused the craft of magic to be taken out of the realm of the ancient sacred mystery schools and lowered to the ranks of ‘trivial tricks’?
7. Modern Magic Robert Houdin is generally regarded as the father of modern Magic. He lived between1805-1871. He was a watch maker before he was a magician which allowed him to engineer many amazing effects including an orange tree that blossomed and bore fruit. As early as 1737 Jacques de Vaucanson invented the first self-operating automation called the mechanical duck which was capable of eating and “digesting”. Three years after Robert Houdin died, Harry Houdini was born Erich Weiss. At age 12 he ran away and changed his name to Houdini in homage to Robert Houdin. Modern magic continues to evolve as visionaries in the field keep asking new questions and raising the bar in the many different genres of magic.
8. What is real magic? Abracadabra has its origin in Aramaic Language in which ‘ Abra ’ means “to create” and ‘ Cadabra’ means “as I say” . “ That which I speak I create”. This was the central idea of he film “The Secret”. Quantum science has proven that just focused attention does alter matter. So in speaking your intention for something you are enlisting your power to create it. Simply put, Real Magic is the skillful use of one’s own power to affect change in the world. Whether it is a mother lifting up a large car to free her child, or going to the polls on election day. The documented case of Padre Pio during WW II: When American planes were sent to bomb the city of San Giovanni and they saw a monk, 10,000 feet in the air, motioning them to turn back. All attempts to release the bombs failed. They turned back. In the military records, their official stated reason for turning back was because they saw a monk in the sky waving back. Is Real Real?
9.
10.
11.
12. Crying Coin To prepare, cut a piece of napkin to measure about 3” x 3” inches. Then fold it into a small square. Dip it in water. This is called the “gimmick” because it it the secret device used in execution of the effect. To perform, hold the soaking wet gimmick behind the coin, and squeeze them both. The water will drip down from the back. After the magical moment you can hand the wet coin to spectators to examine by placing the coin in your other hand to give to hand off while retaining the wet gimmick in the original hand. You can ditch the gimmick in your pocket at the moment when you reach in to get a cloth to dry your hands and the coin. The most important part of this effect is the PRESENTATION you craft around the magic to give it impact.
13. Palming a Coin When first learning the Classic Palm , just place the coin in the palm of your hand between the muscle extending from the thumb the Flevor brevis pollicis and the muscle that extends from the pinky finger the Flevor brevis minimi digiti. Hold your hand in a natural position, versus trying to extend the fingers to ‘prove there is nothing in your hand. It’s really good to just keep a coin palmed in your hand throughout regular daily activities so that you can get accustomed to it and build the muscles in your hand up.
14. Coin Production While palming a coin, open the other hand palm-up. Starting near the elbow the hand holding the palmed coin slides down the forearm passes the open hand and on its way back it drops the coin in the palm and the fingers close around the coin undercover of the moving hand. The moving hand continues back up to the elbow. Make a magical gesture to indicate the moment of magic and the slowly open the fingers to revel the appearance of the coin.
15. Multiple Coin Production A version of the “Miser’s Dream”, this is a simple and self-working multiple coin production that’s very convincing. You’ll need a coin, a paper bag and tape. Take a piece of tape about 3 inches long and make a tab on the coin as shown in the pictures. You’ll place the tab of tape between your fingers and hold the bag in the other hand. You are concealing the coin from the audience just by letting it hang, resting on your fingers. To produce the coin , just place your thumb under it and push up in a quick motion. Act as if you’re pulling it out of the air, by slightly pulling back when you push it up with the thumb. Seemingly drop the coin in the bag by placing it in the bag and making a snap sound with the thumb and forefinger of the ‘bag hand’ to reinforce the illusion (see photo). Let the coin drop by releasing the thumb. Take “empty” hand out of the bag and continue to produce coins in mid air.
16. Multiple Coin Production Make each coin production different. Produce it from different locations in the air, behind a pant leg behind your arm, from your hair, etc. It’s critical that your eyes follow where the magic is happening and your facial expression emphasis the magical moment. Keep your movements crisp and precise, but slow and steady. Practice the timing and mime of ‘dropping’ the coin in the bag while flicking your thumb and index finger to indicate the sound. (You’ll need to beholding the bag with your pinky, ring and index fingers to free up the other fingers to ‘flick’ against the bag.) Then release thumb so the coin is not visible.
17. Toss Vanish You can make an object seem to vanish in mid air by creating the illusion that you are tossing it up while retaining the object in finger palm. To perform: display the coin between your thumb and index finger. Then distract the audience by making a comment while using your other hand to push the coin into your palm. You can ask, “ Have you seen an object vanish in mid air? I get a lot of frequent flyer miles this way.” Then toss both hands up and a broad sweeping motion. The middle illustration shows both hands apparently empty and the coin having vanished. You can also do this same illusion with bottle caps, poker chips, wine corks, grapes or any coin sized object... making this a very impromptu effect.
18. Signed Coin in a Dinner Roll Here is an interesting way to produce the coin that you just vanished. You’ll just need a dinner roll. After having just done the Toss Vanish, use the hand that is still palming the coin to point to a near by dinner roll as you pick it up with your free hand. While doing this you can say to the audience, “Speaking of dough. Have you ever seen ME make dough?” Still pointing, casually show the top and bottom of the dinner roll while bringing both hands together. Under the cover of the dinner roll, move the coin from palmed position to the tips of your fingers as shown in the middle illustration. Pause for dramatic impact and then say, “It’s one of my favorite things to do. I find it very enriching.” Use the fingers to push the coin up through the roll while pulling it a part slightly with the thumbs to create the effect that the coin is emerging from the center of the roll. You can also do this with a coin that has been signed by a spectator, so they can keep it as a souvenir.
19. Cut and Restored Napkin To prepare this effect you will need a pair of scissors and 2 napkins - one regular napkin and a cut piece of the gathered central corner of another napkin which will appear to be the tip. In magic this is referred to as the “gimmick”. To perform, display the napkins in your hand (matching picture illustration but keep the fingers closed). With a pair of scissors cut the tip of the napkin and then casually cut two more snips as you use the scissors to draw the rest of the tip out of your hand, letting the whole gimmick fall to the floor. Rub hands together and pull the ‘restored’ napkin out of your palm and open it completely to reveal the restoration. Cutting and restoring an object is a very powerful act, especially if your presentation draws upon the larger theme of wholeness that affects everyone’s life, like recovering from sickness, reuniting relationships, healing broken dreams, & finding that which has been lost.
20. Mind Reading With Crayons To prepare you’ll need a box of crayons. To perform you can say: “Sometimes I can read people’s mind just by blindly feeling an object they have touched. Here, I’ll turn around, my eyes are closed, pick any crayon from this box, and then place it in my hand.” While the crayon is behind you, secretly rub it against your thumb nail while shifting your back slightly away from view and saying, “Notice my eyes are completely shut.” Turn so that back is in full view and gesture for them to take the crayon. Say, “Put it away, I don’t want to see it!” Then point to the person while glancing at your thumb. Now you can use any creative presentation to really give the sense you are reading their mind before revealing the color.
21. Coin Puzzle Can you make this arrow face the opposite direction by moving only 3 coins and never lifting them off the table ?
22. Coin Puzzle You can use this mental puzzle as a wager, a teaching tool, a metaphor or even as a means to tell a story that you’ve crafted around how it is solved. Start by laying out 10 coins in a pyramid shape on a flat surface. Then challenge your spectator to “Make the arrow face the opposite direction by moving only 3 coins and never lifting them off the table .” The solution is to slide 2 bottom-outer coins up and place them on both sides of the two coins near the tip of the pyramid. Then slide the top, single coin where the bottom was. Now the pyramid is inverted.
23.
24. If you have any questions or would like to watch videos of my Stage & Close-up Magic feel free to visit HeatherMagic.com Thank you for joining us. Keep practicing your magic!