I can remember very clearly the first time I ever encountered another close-up magician. I’d been working professionally for around 6 months, I had a couple of residencies in local pub/restaurants, and was mainly being booked for wedding receptions at the weekend. Things were going along quite nicely. The thing was, I’d never met another magician in my life, I’d not been a member of any clubs or societies, and I was, pretty much, making it up as I went along.
Freaking people out!
The very mention of the phrase “Would anyone like their palm reading?” would always illicit a table full of hands being thrust in my direction, and the bookers were always delighted with the service I provided.
So in my innocence I saw nothing wrong with approaching a table at a wedding, combining card magic with palm reading, and then offering a tarot card reading to any hardy souls brave enough to have their future divined! To me, it was all ‘magic’. And I knew from experience that people loved it. They were fascinated by it. The very mention of the phrase “Would anyone like their palm reading?” would always illicit a table full of hands being thrust in my direction, and the bookers were always delighted with the service I provided.
First time a worked along side a close-up magician.
Fast forward to the first time I worked alongside another close-up magician. This was a large black tie medical student ball, far too large for one guy to work alone, and so they’d booked the two of us. Hanging around in the bar before the guests were seated, the other magician came over and introduced himself to me. “So,” he asked, “what kind of stuff do you do?” “Oh,” I replied innocently, “I do some card stuff, and I read palms, and I’ve got my tarot cards with me in case anyone wants a reading.”
The poor guy must have thought he’d come to face-to-face with the Antichrist! He went a very pale colour, looked visibly shocked, and managed to stutter, “Really??”
I thought his reaction was a little extreme, but I thought no more of it. The guests were seated, and my co-worker (recovered slightly from his previous shock – poor thing) and I decided to split the room into two. I would work from right to left, and he would work from left to right. We’d meet in the middle and it would be mission accomplished.
10 or so minutes later, having worked my first table, I decided to have a quick spy on the other magician, just to see what routines he was doing. I looked over and saw him, to my horror, doing rope routines, linking ring routines, and sponge ball routines. Things I had absolutely no knowledge of. “Oh my God!” I thought. “That’s what I’m supposed to be doing! Not messing around with palm reading and tarot cards! What he’s doing is proper close-up magic!”
I approached my next table almost apologetically. I fumbled through my routines, and moved on as quickly as I possibly could. At the next table I was introduced by the booker to the evening’s guest of honour – a very distinguished looking elderly gentlemen who was one of the senior lectures and was in his final year at the university before a well-deserved retirement. The whole evening had been planned in his honour, and he was to deliver his farewell speech after the meal. Could I, possibly, perform something extra special for him?
At that moment I had my first crisis of confidence. What the hell was I doing there? I wasn’t a magician! I couldn’t perform sleight-of-hand! I was a fraud!
There was no escape. There was no way I could point them in the direction of the ‘genuine’ magician at the other side of the room. I was like a cornered rat with nowhere to run. I swallowed hard, introduced myself to the gentleman, and performed a routine called ‘Hand of Destiny’ (it’s a palm reading to card revelation routine that is on my PALM READING DVD). Finishing the routine, still in a wobbly frame of mind, I expected hoots of derision and to be chased out of the room to cries of “You’ve ruined our evening, you fraud!” But that didn’t happen. What happened was that the whole table burst into spontaneous applause, the elderly gentleman clasped my hand and said it was the most amazing thing he’d ever experienced, and the people on the next table were waving to me and asking me to come to them next as they all wanted their palms reading too. I was so busy for the rest of the evening that I never saw the other close-up magician again, and when I packed up for the evening he’d already left.
I learned an important lesson that night. The first is never to doubt yourself, trust your audience’s reactions, and if they’re having a good time then you’re doing something right! Secondly, lay people have a very broad gauge when it comes to defining ‘magic’. Those of us in the business can sometimes get bogged down with labels and definitions – is it magic or mentalism or mind magic or readings, close-up or parlour??? The general public don’t care. They want to be entertained. If they’re having fun and you’re doing something that fits into their very broad definition of what ‘magic’ is, then they’re happy. I have never, in close to ten years of performing close-up at weddings, corporate events and in restaurants, had any booker say to me, “But we booked a magician and you’re doing palm readings?” To a lay audience, palm reading fits into their belief of what ‘magic’ is. “Magic and mind-reading? You know, it’s that stuff that those weird guys do on TV. You know, Derren Brown, Uri Geller, Dynamo, Derek Acorah. Those kind of guys.”
The third and final thing I learned is that a routine becomes so much more powerful if you can justify it to your spectators. If they can see a mechanism by which you achieve your miracle. So using a palm reading as a way of ‘divining’ a secretly chosen card adds extra weight to what would otherwise by a fairly standard mind-reading stunt. Rather than simply gazing into the spectator’s eyes and saying “Okay, think of your card, think of your card, it’s… it’s… the 7 of Hearts!”, by utilising something like palm reading or faux-hypnotism (“a relaxed state of mind makes it easier for me to pick up on images in your mind” etc) or even tarot cards (!), you are giving extra weight to the routine and also demonstrating that you are a very wise magi with many occult powers at his disposal!
So am I advocating the throwing away of ropes, sponge balls and linking rings? No, of course not. But what I am saying is that palm reading is a great little skill to add to your repertoire, and if you’ve never used it before or seen anyone else doing it in a close-up environment, you will be genuinely impressed by just how popular it is. My PALM READING DVD is a great place to start that journey of discovery!