Why I Love Magic, And Why You Should Too ♠️
♠️ ♥️ ♣️ ♦️
Most people know me as a musician, so they’re usually surprised to find out that I’ve also spent years studying and performing magic. I love magic, and I believe it is seriously underrated and under-appreciated. Most people tend to think of magic as a kind of hobby or quirky profession; a cheesy form of entertainment for a child’s birthday party. But in truth, magic is an ancient and sacred art form that has existed for thousands of years, across many different cultures. Magic plays an especially important role in many of the various traditions of places like Haiti, Brazil, Indonesia, Japan…and nearly every religion on Earth has at some point had some element of magic that is integral to its practice. Magic has existed for an incredibly long time, and it plays a terribly underestimated part in shaping the culture and society that we live in today, as well as countless others in the past.
Today, we live in a society of great scientific and technological advances, where much of what used to be “magic” can now be explained as natural phenomena once not understood. Magicians really took a beating once the scientific revolution came around, and you can see this reflected in how our culture views magicians, who are probably taken less seriously in today’s culture than in virtually any other time in history. Why is that? Is it simply because we know all their tricks now? Are we no longer interested in what we cannot explain? Is it because magicians became too cheesy and contrived in the age of television, in a world heavily driven by profits and advertising? Maybe there is simply no longer any need for childish magic tricks in such an incredibly well-functioning, forward-thinking society, built just oh so steadily on nothing but facts and reason…
Or maybe we need magic in our culture now more than ever before…
First, let’s go back in time a bit. When we think of a magician today, most of us will have a few ideas come to mind. In fact, we might see something a bit like this:
But if you lived in Haiti in 1791, you would probably have a very different idea of what a magician was. Instead, you might imagine someone like this:
Dutty Boukman was a Jamaican-born slave in the former French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti). He was completely self-educated, and he was actually given the degrading nickname “Dirty Bookman” by plantation owners after he was caught trying to teach fellow slaves how to read. He was also said to be a Vodou Houngan (which essentially means magician, but remember, a very different magician from the one you might normally imagine). In August of 1791, Boukman held a large ceremony in which he and a woman named Cécile Fatiman performed vodou rituals and managed to unite a slave revolt that most historians say ignited the entire Haitian Revolution. Boukman was brutally killed in the revolt, and the French authorities at the time were so intimidated by the effect he had on the Haitian people that they actually displayed his severed head in public, for the express purpose of proving his mortality.
This isn’t the only time in history when magic and mysticism moved far beyond the shallow clichés of our time to demonstrate the potential to inspire profound unity, start revolutions, and change the world. Not to mention shaking dominant paradigms to their very foundations.
Why?
What even is magic, really? It’s a surprisingly difficult question that I can’t answer. What I can tell you is that I think the reason magic has played such a powerful role in the history of our species for so long might be because it serves as the bridge between two worlds: the world that we know and understand, and the world that is beyond our understanding; the world which consists of all that we do not know. It is a window to the undiscovered and beyond. Across the millennia and across the globe, magic has wielded the power to challenge people’s beliefs about what is possible and what isn’t, and has served as a reminder for people of all walks of life that the impossible can become possible, that unbreakable rules can be broken, and that many of our supposed limitations are imagined and able to be surpassed. This is partially how people like Dutty Boukman can help start national revolutions and change the world. It is a profoundly powerful psychological phenomenon, and I think it is also an extremely healthy medicine for the human condition that is sorely missed in much of today’s world.
You see, truly great magic is actually a kind of spiritual gift to the viewer. Truly great magic is not a “trick” or a “prank,” and even though it is technically an “illusion,” it is more so the art of dispelling another illusion, and that is the illusion of certainty and conviction that so many of us march around with. Today, more than ever before, people are convinced they know the truth about virtually everything. This happens with politics, with art, with history and facts in general, and also with our beliefs about ourselves and the people around us. In 2018, it is easier than ever to find an all-encompassing worldview that is “100% accurate and 100% complete”, and to never question it. Thus we end up condemning ourselves to a tragically limited existence where growth is very difficult, and life can be incredibly repetitive and frustrating. In today’s infamous “echo-chambers” of social media and filtered, biased news sources, you can see why it’s become so easy to say “the solution to everything is so obvious, why can’t everyone else just figure it out!” Well, what if the solution was not obvious, and no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t “just figure it out”? What if everything you thought you knew was wrong? These are important questions that are being asked far too rarely in today’s society.
To illustrate how this relates to magic more clearly, let’s examine the difference between mediocre magic and truly great, powerful magic. For the first example, imagine a magician takes a coin, makes it disappear, and then reappear inside your pocket. You might say “where did it go?” or “how did you get it in my pocket?” You might even say “do it again!” Notice the psychological implications of these reactions.
Where is it? What did you do? Do it again. I want to watch you do it again so I can see the part that I missed. You must have tricked me somehow. Maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention.
Now, for the second example, imagine a magician shows you a coin in their hand and says “see”? Yep. Then, a second later, the magician opens their hand, and the coin is gone. Then, imagine the magician asks “did you see where it went?” No. “Did you feel anything, or did I go anywhere near you?” Nope. “Reach into your back pocket.”
When you find that coin suddenly in your back pocket, you might say “how did you do that?” or “that’s impossible.” Or you might even feel a little shocked or uncomfortable. Notice the psychological implications of these reactions.
That’s impossible. How did you do it? I was watching you the entire time, and you never even touched me. I understand the world and I know the rules, and everyone and everything has followed those rules until now. What does it mean?
If you’re starting to pick up what I’m putting down, you’ll recognize that the second reaction is far more desirable than the first. You’ll also likely notice that both examples use the same trick; it all hinges on the presentation done by the magician. Instead of appearing to merely sneak something by the audience, leaving them feeling like they got an incomplete picture of what happened, the magician made a very deliberate and thorough effort to explicitly show every single step from start to finish. The magician also made a point of using the viewer’s own observations to confirm each step, by asking questions and forcing them to acknowledge everything they were seeing. Many of my favorite magicians consistently demand their audiences gather as closely as possible, remind them over and over again to watch very carefully, and incessantly ask the audience seemingly obvious questions such as “did you see the coin in my hand?” If you ever watch David Blaine perform, you’ll start to notice him doing this with a focus and persistence that seems almost ridiculous, until you understand why.
There is method to the madness; magicians want everyone to see and understand what’s happening as plainly and undeniably as possible. When there is no room for doubt in the audience about what they saw or what happened, they are forced to confront a deep internal dilemma, in which some of their most basic convictions about the world around them are completely destabilized by something in the moment, right in front of their face. No matter who you are or how much you think you’ve got figured out, an experience such as this can and should momentarily break down all the things you believe, all the wisdom you’ve gained, and any knowledge you’ve ever acquired, reducing you to a mere fool all over again. It is no accident that magicians refer to having successfully performed for an audience as having “fooled” them.
This brings us to what is perhaps the most mysterious and thrilling aspect of all of this. Based on the description I just gave, you’d be well-reasoned to wonder if getting “fooled” like this could be an enjoyable or enriching experience for anybody. We all have egos, and nobody wants to be proved wrong, especially about things we’ve spent most of our lives taking for granted. If you’d never seen magic before, you might even think it sounded mean-spirited, even a bit cruel.
It is a uniquely exhilarating surprise to discover that somehow, for some mysterious reason, almost everybody smiles when they are fooled by powerful magic. It inspires a strange kind of joy and excitement that transcends culture, class, age, and even language. In my experience, when you take a coin, make it disappear, then reappear in someone’s pocket and temporarily destroy every foundation they thought they had on reality… they love it! They can’t get enough of it! They’ll laugh hysterically! They’ll scream! They’ll get a sudden burst of energy and jump up and down, or run halfway down the street and back. Why?! What is that? What’s going on? What is happening to these people? As an amateur magician, I’ve spent years now wondering: why, only in this specific arena and no other, does being wrong, ignorant, clueless and in the dark suddenly become so much fun?
I’m not sure. Perhaps this is truly the greatest magic trick of all. But I can tell you one thing that I am sure about: magic is a lot more than a cheesy Las Vegas schtick. It’s a lot more than a nerdy adolescent hobby (though I had a few of those, and I actually like nerds). As I mentioned earlier, I view magic as a kind of sacred, ancient medicine: medicine for the human condition. It is a medicine that frees you from the chains of your own mind, and allows you to escape from your life of complete certainty about everyone and everything. It frees you from your beliefs, your doubts, your fears, and everything you’ve come to believe you are incapable of. For one brief moment, the door is open and the possibilities are endless.
“I am a great admirer of mystery and magic. Look at this life — all mystery and magic.” -Harry Houdini
