The Miracle Model: By Jason Messina

The Miracle Model By Jason Messina

Copyright © 2017

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What is The Miracle Model? The Miracle Model is a set of rules that can be applied to Magic to amplify its impact. It is inspired by the performing philosophy of Ormond McGill with additional thoughts and techniques from modern day psychology. Why do you need The Miracle Model? From the minute you learn your first magic trick to possibly right about now, you have likely been indoctrinated into an archaic way of thinking about how to perform magic. The emphasis has historically been placed on all the wrong things, as you will soon learn. Much of this thinking has not changed. Unfortunately, the world has. And that is why there is such a rift in how the general public perceives magic. What are the benefits of The Miracle Model? There are several benefits to The Miracle Model

1. You will now have a framework to create miracles out of any magic trick. 2. By applying some or the entire framework, you can be confident that you’ll always have a good foundation for creating powerful magic. 3. By using The Miracle Model, you will instantly set yourself apart from other performers. Most people will continue to perform magic as it’s always been performed. What happens if I don't read The Miracle Model? If you don't read The Miracle Model nothing bad will come of it. But nothing good can come of it either! Where did The Miracle Model come from? The Miracle Model is a synthesis between my study of magic for the last 25 years and a 70 year old text by Ormond McGill. Ormond really understood what made things magical and recorded these thoughts about 70 years ago. I have updated, revised, added to and preserved his original thoughts for your reading pleasure and benefit.

The Miracle Model There are a few things that we will pretend are true for this book, but really have no way of knowing 100%. That’s Ok, that’s why we call it The Miracle Model and not The Miracle Truth.

If you get nothing else from this book, the most important thing I am going to teach you to pretend is this: You measure your success in performance by the effect it has on the audience.

Easy enough, right? No. “Effect on audience” is a kind of fuzzy word. Let’s quantify it a bit for our purposes. Remember, it’s just pretend.

First thing I would include in the incredibly vague “Effect on audience” phrase is Initial Reaction. What is the initial reaction? This is important. And this is not always obvious. Sometimes stunned silence is better than audible gasps. Part of your job in measuring the effect on audience is being able to identify this particular reaction. Being able to see and interpret how someone is feeling through their reaction is an important skill to have. But it is not what this book is about.

This book is focused on making your performances legendary. Key word is “performances.” Not you. This is not about you. This is about creating an event that will last in your audience’s memory for a lifetime. Pretty cool, right?

Creating a memorable performance in this way is our metric. If you’re following The Miracle Model, then this is your sole metric. Sure, the stunned silences or the audible gasps are great too. But we don’t care nearly as much about the Initial Reaction as how long the Initial Reaction lasts.

The good news is that Ormond McGill literally figured all of this out for you. His formula will give you your best odds for creating this situation time and again.

I am a fan of The Miracle Model. But just a word on what it is and what it isn’t. It isn't the only model of performance. You should never have one model of performance. And maybe due to the nature of your work, you only ever use The Miracle Model once in your lifetime. Some people only ever have to use it once to keep cashing dividends on the legend it creates. Others may use this for every performance they have for the rest of their lives. And still others might only use it in 50% of their performances.

You, on the other hand, might take bits and pieces from the model and apply it in different parts to your performance at certain times. This is a model, a strong one that works consistently. How you use it and how often are completely up to you.

To truly feel the power of The Miracle Model, try it out once before you come to any conclusions.

For instance, the restaurant worker may at first scoff at some of the ideas. But with a little ingenuity, even the table hopping wizard can learn how to adapt his process and setting to further facilitate the making of miracles.

Beyond that, The Miracle Model solves a lot of the problems of Magic. Some of these problems are specific to close-up magic especially. One is the magician, although in close proximity to his or her audience, goes into character and starts speaking patter. In such an intimate setting, it’s weird to act like someone you’re not (unless you’re a good actor and learning a double lift doesn’t make you one) and saying words to another human being that you call “patter.” For crying out loud. Knock it off. It’s weird. Hopefully, by following The Miracle Model, we will kill off the scourge of patter speaking magicians everywhere.

Also, an interesting little tidbit to keep in mind here. When you’re considering Initial Reaction, you may get gasps of astonishment from your audience for the magic trick, but they might still think you talk funny or act kind of strange. It’s always hard to know, because no one is going to say you do great card tricks for a creep.

Another issue I’ve always had with close-up magic as an adult might just be particular to me, but it always feels weird. That is the issue of lying. It feels really weird to be an adult in a situation where I’m lying to everyone. Typically, to be a magician, you have to say things that are just not true. I’ve heard lots of arguments against this issue. People comparing the situation to an actor in a movie or on stage. But that is different. If I’m an actor on stage, everyone knows this is make-believe. I’m not trying to trick anyone. But in close-up magic, especially, part of the goal is to trick someone. If you’re not successful in tricking someone then the performance is usually not successful. But isn’t it weird to be an adult playing make-believe and trying to convince other adults that you’re make-believe is true? Come on, I know you know what I’m talking about. If you’ve ever felt slightly weird about this then we will discuss. And if you haven’t felt weird about it, isn’t it time you started?

The Miracle Model also has a delightfully built-in mechanism that takes the emphasis off the performer. The focus is on creating a memorable effect. People may not like this aspect of it initially, but in the long run this makes a substantial difference. It helps to create a better performance because you are not the focus. The focus is on creating an event. The focus is on the audience. Another side effect of this is it takes a lot of heat off the

performer. Since you’re not the focus, since fooling the audience isn’t the goal, you have a lot more freedom. More on this later.

Your performance should always go beyond the secret. It should transcend the means. I will give you a valuable tip in creating memorable performances that don't rely on keeping secrets. It’s stupid in its simplicity. This secret tip has transcended the performances of the few I've shared it with.

At first, you may find yourself resisting many of the ideas in The Miracle Model. This is to be expected. This is a natural phenomena and the last thing you want to do is resist your resistance. Embrace it. Keep reading. Please don't take my word for any of the notions contained in The Miracle Model. Take bits and pieces, apply them to your performances and see what happens. Use what is useful and toss away stuff you don't need in the end.

Try The Miracle Model out in the real world. Try on the ideas like a pair of shoes. If they don't fit then try something else. Or come back later. The text won't change but you will. The words on these pages aren't true until you experience them. Remember, The Miracle Model only exists in the real

world. This is only the recipe and it's your job to assemble the ingredients and cook the cake.

This book is broken up into two parts. The first part explores the rules Ormond McGill set forth for creating miracles. The second part is an expansion on these ideas and how to effectively use them in the real world.

We measure a performance by the effect it has on you. In the same way, this book’s success is measured by how long the ideas stay with you. How they impact your work. And my hope is that they will stay with you for a lifetime.

May you, too, be such a Worker of Miracles…

Jason Messina Berkeley Heights, NJ 2017

The Rules What follows are Ormond McGill's 13 rules for presenting a miracle. We will explore every rule in detail and examine how to apply it to your work.

1. Miracle never accomplishes a pleasure response. It must instead incite awe.

2. Miracle never meets the demands of the performing occasion...the occasion being always made to meet the demands of the effect.

3. Miracle is never volunteered...it always occurs naturally as an objective illustration of a point raised in speculation.

4. Miracle is always presented seriously.

5. Miracle never shows an exhibition of the performer's skill...the performer's relationship to the effect being purely that of the instrument through which the effect is made manifest.

6. Miracle calls for peak audience attention...the effect being in direct ratio to the expectation of that attention.

7. Miracle is always presented intellectually.

8. Miracle is never the result of personal power or the result of challenge...but is aimed directly to amplify discussion.

9. Miracle must always seem impromptu and incidental to the subject matter.

10. Miracle is an isolated effect...the one example of being the sole period of its survival.

11. Miracle is offered in only one phase of miracle foci on any specific occasion.

12. Miracle is never repeated.

13. Miracle is never discussed by the performer after the presentation of the effect.

1. Miracle never accomplishes a pleasure response. It must instead incite awe. This is one of the most difficult rules to understand and follow. Let’s start with the difference between the pleasure response and awe? According to the Oxford American Dictionary here are two definitions:

Pleasure: a feeling of happy satisfaction and enjoyment Awe: a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder

Ok, now we're on to something. According to Ormond McGill's rules, the miracle should incite awe. Words like respect and fear and wonder are associated with awe. Happy and satisfaction and enjoyment are related to pleasure. So what is the difference when it comes to magic?

Well, the sponge balls (a fantastic trick, in the right hands) would seem to elicit a pure pleasure response as it is currently performed. The multiplying, vanishing and appearing of those happy little balls elicit the pleasure response. It is both the nature of the props and the effect itself. And in some cases this is the most appropriate thing to do. There is nothing wrong with eliciting a pleasure response. It is however, not a miracle.

If we're to use the effect on the spectators as our guide (and what else is there?), then we have a cute visual trick. The reactions are "ahhs" and "oohs" over the vanishing and multiplying. It’s cute. To pile on top of that, sponges are rather innocuous objects. Not much cultural respect for the species of sponge.

Now this speaks a great deal about magic. Magic often goes for the pleasure response over inciting awe. The effect is created from both the props and the actions. Another interesting thing here is that we don’t put much thought into the response as much as the trick. We sometimes refer to “tricks” as “effects” but how much thought is really put into the effect. Miracles, on the other hand, are things that make someone stop and reconsider what they’ve just seen. That is the effect, but they are not mere tricks.

Props are important. What you use has an effect on the audience. Compare a red sponge ball with a dusty and rusted key. The appearance of what you use and the suggestions and associations it brings to mind are an important aspect of creating a miracle.

Most of the sponge ball performances I've seen; they revolve around the reproduction and vanishes. It’s done with a smile and for kids. When you tell someone the balls are replicating, you're taking for granted that they "know" this isn't really what's happening. To be in awe of someone who is clearly tricking you is a difficult task. In a close-up situation, where most miracles will occur, you don’t have the benefit of people abandoning logical thought to go along for a ride. This is the setting portion of the equation. In close-up setting, what you’re presenting is real life. If it obviously violates real life then the audience will not come along for the ride.

Perhaps this is why sponge bunnies and balls are such a great trick for children. They can actually go along with it as their beliefs about the world aren't fully developed. Maybe sponge bunnies can have little sponge bunny babies. They don't have enough experience to tell them any different. In children, this can incite awe. But it doesn't carry over to adults. The adults know they’re seeing an illusion. There is no question.

Does this mean that you abandon the Sponge Balls? It may very well mean that is what you choose to do. Or you can use the principles of The Miracle Model to create a more powerful experience of this or any other effect you do. Or maybe you choose to use The Miracle Model where it is

appropriate to you. There is nothing wrong with a mixture of pleasure and awe. As a challenge to yourself, you may want to take the trick in your repertoire which is least applicable to The Miracle Model and use the rules to transform it. You and your audiences can't help but benefit from the exercise.

Remember, by reading this book, we are assuming you want to be more than fleeting entertainment. You want to create an experience that people will remember, question and think about for years to come. You may decide to be one of the people on the razor's edge, pushing it forward.

How can we change the effect the Sponge Balls have on your audience? Since the routine generally relies on the sponge like nature of the balls, we are confined to still using them.

The effect is fear and wonder. What would happen if there was a conversation about sponges before the effect? This incorporates some later rules. But what if you led the conversation to the reproduction habits of sponges? If you described that sponges are something called sequential hermaphrodites. They can produce eggs and sperm just not at

the same time. In other words they are not self-fertile. Then you can simply say something like, "It's kind of like this," and go into your sponge ball routine.

This may seem like a simple and trite change. You wouldn't want to use this presentation with children because usually the sponge balls are enough. But with adults, this may cause a question as to whether what they are seeing is real or not.

Several things are going on at once here:

1. You instantly place yourself as an authority by using facts. Your words aren't hollow and false. By giving them facts instead of silly hyperbole, you're making the subtle statement that what you say is of importance, it's true. You've positioned yourself as an authority. You are pacing them to your reality, which you will eventually explode when you lead them down the path of a miracle.

2. By doing magic to explain your point you have now created an extra layer to the performance. They have heard the facts, now you're giving them something to see and touch which illustrates what you’ve just said.

3. Nature is a beautiful context to give magic. Nature is so full of wonder and mystery that it is often awe inciting. But beyond even nature, you’re creating a context to see the trick within. You are alluding to it, not being heavy-handed about it. You don’t want to overtly connect the statements and the effect. You have to let the audience do this themselves. Often, magicians will explain too much, connect too many dots. This is like explaining a joke before you tell it. You lose that moment where the audience “gets it” within their own head. Which, like it or not, will always be more powerful then you explaining something.

4. This is going beyond a magic trick now. Even if they know how you're doing the trick they will still benefit from you illustrating a point. This gives the magic a more powerful foundation to stand on. You have just given your trick meaning beyond the surface.

5. Eugene Burger in one of his DVDs talks about the previous point. That the difference between magic and a stunt is the underlying meaning. This doesn't mean that every trick has to be about something deep like death or love or the wonders of nature. It can be, as described above, about sponges fucking. But it will be better than 90% of the magic that other people are doing.

Don't get the wrong idea about any of this. You can and should be very subtle about all of this. You want to casually illustrate a point without looking like you want to illustrate a point.

People are much smarter than magicians give them credit for being. A layperson is just an untrained magician. You are a layperson who has figured out how or learned how to do something that most people don’t know how to do. But never forget that the person who figured out how to do the trick you’re doing is more similar to the person you’re doing the trick for than different. Do not take your audience’s intelligence for granted. Ever. We will deal with this using a very specific strategy later on that will make your performances bulletproof.

Use this to your advantage and create smart magic. Your internal motto should always be that you’re creating magic for smart people. Bring your personal bar up to this level and you will shine.

Consider the show The Carbonaro Effect. Michael Carbonaro is using The Miracle Model for most of his segments. He’s giving a little bit of backstory that the person listening to will soon link to the incredible thing that happens. Michael has it much easier than most of us because the people he’s “performing” for don’t know he’s a magician. So they often believe

they are seeing something completely real happening. They don’t even consider that they are seeing a trick. If you can ever place yourself in this position, all the better.

Another note on The Carbonaro Effect, something you can use in your own performances. I saw an interview with him where he said that whenever someone asks How something happened, he explains Why. He’s using an element of persuasion that links two ideas together with the word “because.” The word “because” can become a powerful tool for you, allowing you to link your backstory or presentation to the effect itself.

In the hypothetical case of the sponge trick, where you have explained how sponges behaved before the trick, simply repeating what you have said before – “sequential hermaphrodites” might be enough to keep the audience off the question of how a trick is done and subtly refocus them to why it is happening.

But this is only the first step....

2. Miracle never meets the demands of the performing occasion...the occasion being always made to meet the demands of the effect. This is counter to everything we've ever been taught as magicians. Questions are always posed about new effects. Things like how fast is the reset, what are the angles, setup, etc. We have been so conditioned to want to adapt to situations instead of making the situations adapt to us. This quality doesn't scream of mastery. It speaks of being a victim of the world. We want to be the master and creator of our situation, we need to be less adaptable and make the world adapt to us more.

When you begin to make the performing situation bow down before you, you demand respect for yourself and the magic. To do anything else is lowers your value which lowers the value of the magic and leads to a lack of respect for what we do.

Why does this happen? As performers we become trained to please others. Notice the relationship of the word please to pleasure. It gets locked into our heads that doing magic will please others. So of course we aim for the pleasure response at the expense of the magic. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

It is maybe harder to realize with magic then it is with other disciplines. There are no table-hopping painters. You have to go to the museum to see that. There are no movie directors going table to table to show you their new movie. You have to go to the movie theater to see that. The audience has to come to you.

Ormond McGill said it best when he said: "Having set the serious and intellectual background for the actual "Miracle," now prepare the conditions. In this regard, build up the atmosphere of the presentation room to the maximum of sensible taste in keeping with the effect offered, i.e., dim the lights, draw the curtains, request silence, have the group seated in a circle or at the end of the room, or whatever the occasion and the effect warrant. In fact, the more conditions you impose for the accomplishing of the effect, the better-but such must always follow perfect logic toward the accomplishment of that effect. Never overwork this atmospheric build-up, but generally speaking, so long as you objectify your presentation thus, by centering the focus of the group's attention from you, and direct it upon the miracle-effect to be attempted, you are building toward the correct presentation of Miracle."

As we have discussed in the previous rule, you begin to set the scene by bringing up a topic or steering the topic towards something that will relate

to the miracle you intend on displaying. Then, following Ormond’s suggestions above, you set the scene and build up the atmosphere. It doesn't always have to require a drastic scene change or dimming the lights. It can mean making everyone stand in a circle and hold hands. Or you can re-arrange people to be sitting near a window. You can guide people in taking deep breaths or recalling a happy memory from childhood.

Remember, don't go overboard. And don't explain exactly what you're doing or why you're doing it. Let them try to piece together what is going on. There is a beauty to being artfully vague. But we as magicians tend to over-narrate with things like, "Ok, we're sitting down now, Suzy has the deck of cards in her hands and is cutting it, while she's cuttin it I'm going to..." There is no need to explain everything you do. In fact, it’s better to leave certain elements purposely vague. You are creating a mystery and you don’t want to tip your hand. Silence can allow an audience to build up tension in their own head, create expectation and make the effect more powerful.

The other thing this does, which Ormond points out, is to take the attention off of you. Now it is on the scene and the setting. The participant’s actions matter. Their cooperation is integral to the success of the miracle. Not only

does it take the attention off of you, it also makes them more interested and invested in the effect. By helping to set the scene, they are committed to the success of the performance which is ultimately your success.

Again, it is harder to do too little and far too easy to do too much. With a little experimentation you will find the balance. In the beginning you may feel you have to compensate and do too much scene setting. A little goes a long way.

The next time you are asked to perform casually, before you do anything, make sure you set the scene and you may be surprised at the powerful effect this has on your audience's experience.

3. Miracle is never volunteered...it always occurs naturally as an objective illustration of a point raised in speculation. The Miracle, just like anything else, is meaningless, until we give it meaning. The meaning is usually taken from the context under which the magic is performed. For instance, a card trick can be something boring (in the context of your uncle doing a boring counting card trick), it can be a scam (3 card monte on the streets) or it can be a miracle (our singular goal in this book).

In different contexts, 3 Card Monte can be quite an entertaining bit. In the right hands a counting card trick can be very powerful. And in the wrong hands, a miracle can be reduced to a trick.

By volunteering a miracle, you bring it down to the level of showing off, proving yourself, trying to get approval from the group, being the center of attention.

The question to ask yourself is, "Am I making myself the center of the attention, am I making myself seem special or am I creating a special moment?" In a way, you almost become a part of the audience.

Miracles don't happen everyday and they don't happen on command. They happen organically and unexpectedly. They should not appear to be happening at will. When this happens, it all goes back to you being the special thing which is to be avoided.

If you let it occur naturally, as Ormond suggests, as an objective illustration of a point raised in speculation, then you're adding to the conversation. Just throwing a magic trick out there doesn't often contribute to the conversation. If, as part of the process, you become a part of the audience, then you can join in the awe afterwards with the participants. You can build more of a shared experience then a one-sided conversation or a look-at-me kind of moment.

One of the later rules is to not talk about the miracle after it's been performed. Don't use magic to create a new conversation, use it to add to the existing one. Or, use magic to enhance the existing conversation.

4. Miracle is always presented seriously. This is not to say you cannot have any humor during the presentation. You can and should add in as much texture to the performance. Humor, tension, suspense, emotion are all garnishes for the effect. But when you get down to actually doing the effect, you must be serious. Don’t selfdepreciate, don’t use hacky jokes. Do the thing.

I prefer to restate this Rule as, "Miracle is always presented with care."

Care is a simple thing to cultivate. It's a relationship with whatever you're doing. You treat your props and your words and your effects with the same care you would give to a newborn baby. Treat it gently with the utmost attention. Like a life depends on it.

The Miracle is always presented with full attention. Right thought produces right action.

Breathe. Give the moment space. Take your time. Choose your words wisely. Don't talk over the experience. Acknowledge the people who are giving you their attention. Listen.

What begins to happen is you lead by example. By treating the things you do with care and respect, the people in your presence will learn to treat you and the things you do with respect.

Have patience. Be simple. Cultivate compassion.

This is what is meant by, "Miracle is always presented seriously."

5. Miracle never shows an exhibition of the performer's skill...the performer's relationship to the effect being purely that of the instrument through which the effect is made manifest. This is undoubtedly the toughest Rule to adhere to. Ormond McGill was trying to teach us the ancient art of non-attachment with this rule.

When we do magic, it is fair to assume people know we possess secret knowledge and skills that the audience isn't aware of. This is almost always true. So isn’t it counterintuitive to not display it and take credit for this skill?

First, you must understand that the primary focus of people at all times is to survive. And they will do everything in their power to do this. Often though, the need to be right is tied in with survival. We all know people who demonstrate this in obvious ways. They'd rather argue and feel like they're right then be wrong. We are all guilty of this.

In a sense, when you become the focus of the trick, when you actively fool people, you turn on their survival mode. You all know the people who just have to know what you did. Can you blame them? Or they think they know what you did even when they're way off. We've all experienced these kinds of people. This tends to happen a lot when you're performing

and a guy is with his girlfriend or wife. He just has to prove he knows what's going on in front of her so that he can prove he will survive.

This is the most basic of psychology. Everything else springs from this desire to be right or survive. When you fool someone with magic, you make them wrong. That's about all that needs to be said or understood on the topic. If you think about it, it explains a lot of negative experiences in magic.

Now if you become another participant in the show, while still secretly controlling the event, you take all the heat off of you. It’s happening to the audience and you. It takes a lot of the heat off and will lessen the audiences need to survive because you are not an overt threat. You’re all experiencing a miraculous event, you just happen to be gently guiding them through.

I know what you’re thinking. Don’t take for granted that the audience knows you are somehow manipulating events. Sure, if they know you are a magician, then they will somehow suspect you are in control of what is happening. But by changing the context of performer vs. audience to someone who is guiding the audience during this event, you completely change the dynamic of the event.

Of course, a very powerful idea would be to show up as just another audience member and control events in that way. When no one really knows who is in control, then you are in the best position for a miracle. It’s rare that this can happen, but should the opportunity present itself to you then take advantage of it.

Paul Harris had an interesting idea about how to present an effect and take the focus off the performer. It begins with acknowledging the actual creator of the effect. This instantly becomes less an exhibition of skill and more of a demonstration. When a scientist does a scientific experiment, we're always in awe of the outcome; the scientist is just the conduit. This might not work all the time, but it’s an interesting presentational angle that works well in conjunction with some of the rules.

This will feel very uncomfortable for a lot of you who like to use magic to gain attention and feel good or powerful. Don't fight the feeling. It will take some getting used to. You're going to have to change how you present your magic to accord with some of these rules. Remember, it's only when we start to feel uncomfortable that we can grow.

A beautiful side effect of this Rule is that when you stop becoming the focus, you can actually lose your ego in the process of performing. This is

the moment when you do become the instrument through which the effect is made manifest and your performances come from a state of flow. You’ll know this is really happening when you move from being completely in the moment to actually being the moment. It’s a subtle shift and completely exhilarating when it happens.

Practicing a card trick becomes a form of meditation. Performing miracles becomes a doorway into astonishment for all involved.

Secrets of Mindfulness For Magicians is a great guide we’ve put together for reaching this state in practice, performance and everyday life.

Now on with the countdown…

6. Miracle calls for peak audience attention...the effect being in direct ratio to the expectation of that attention. Courting peak attention is the job of all the arts, not just magic. In this rule, Ormond is again asking that we respect the thing we’re doing and engage the audience as a participant. So not only do we need peak attention, but the strength of the effect is dependent on how much attention the audience is providing.

You never say this is this case, but you imply it. When you set the scene and ask for the audience to engage in the process, you are courting this attention and suggesting that without this attention the event will not happen.

When I perform The Accidental Coin Vanish from Method Impossible, I do something to utilize this principle. The effect is a simple coin vanish, but I never treat is as such. I will have a small group form a circle around me. Then I will place the coin on my palm and make slow passes over it with my other hand. I will ask for silence. I will keep making passes over the coin. Then I might stop, as if the conditions aren’t quite right. I might move someone a bit over or ask people to come in closer. Then I’ll start making passes again. It’s only when conditions are perfect and at this point when I have the group’s full attention will the coin vanish.

Applying just this one rule to the appropriate effect will add an extra layer of importance to it.

It isn't always easy to establish peak attention. You have to allow your audience to naturally build up to it. Attention is something you get naturally when you go first. So you must be in a state of absolute focus on what you're doing without distraction. There has to be a process. A set of rituals or actions that appear to have meaning. This ritual has importance because you give it your attention and focus.

As attention builds, focus strengthens and the experience reaches a peak. This is where the miracle happens.

While this is a great way to get the audience involved and invested in the effect, you must strive not to overdo the process or the courting of attention. To avoid turning this into a formula, it might be appropriate to have an effect not work because the audience has not built up peak attention, like in the first phase of the Accidental Coin Vanish. It may be more powerful to not do the trick the first time and wait till another encounter to have it work, when attention has finally reached peak.

This, of course, only continues to take the focus off you and spreads it out to everyone involved. We’re in this together. Let’s focus and make it happen.

In the performance of magic, we are in this together. If they don't pay attention, if they don't see the miracle occur, then it really hasn't. Without them, without outside awareness of what you're doing, there is no miracle.

You can have them focus on their breathing, softly saying certain words over and over, clasping hands, imagining something, picturing things happening. You don’t want it to be arbitrary. It should have something to do with what you say before the effect and have a connection to the effect.

Consider the following as an interesting Miracle type effect. You gather everyone around a table. Have them all hold hands and start breathing. On the center of the table is an Ouija Board. You've been talking about different people's experiences with the Ouija Board.

You tell them that they need to focus and breathe before beginning. Tell them to close their eyes and visualize a bright light around the board. There is silence. The lights are dim.

Once everyone is focused and the attention has been built up it appears as if you're about to start. Then out of nowhere, the light in the lamp across the room explodes, leaving the room in darkness.

Peak attention is built, a process was followed and something very strange and memorable happens. “You” have nothing to do with it. It's just a side effect of everyone's attention. You quickly clear the table of the Ouija Board and refuse to speak of what just happened.

Is there any doubt in your mind that by following the above directions you would have created an event that will be talked about for years to come?

Compare this to how the light bulb exploding trick is normally done. A magician sets up the light bulb and focuses on it. Then it explodes. It's a trick. There must be some kind of mechanical thing going on. The magician meant for it to happen. The spectators are visibly separate from the happening with no investment.

I mention this as a possibility because of a story my grandfather told me when I was growing up. He told me he had gathered with some family members at a house that had been rumored by family members to be

haunted. They had an Ouija Board setup on a glass table. They had just begun to contact someone when the glass table cracked completely down the middle!

This is a story that stuck with him for years. I have no idea what really happened to make the glass table crack, but if you could replicate the effect then you could create an amazing story that people will talk about for the rest of their lives.

So for this one, just remember, if you want to perform peak effects, you must build peak attention.

7. Miracle is always presented intellectually. I also refer to this as The Socrates Rule.

Please pretend that your audiences are smart. Usually they are. Don't take this for granted.

By presenting a Miracle intellectually, you fall out of the silly patter about unbelievable things. It's strange and unnatural. It's lying. And it makes people think that you assume they're stupid. If they don't trust you then your work will be less than successful. In other words, stop reaching into your pocket for pixie dust.

If you refuse this Rule, what happens is that you fail to create a "yes set" in your audience. A "yes set" means when you ask questions the audience responds with a yes. It gets them to accept what will happen next and after enough yes answers, they will assume the things you say next are true too.

Socrates, when involved in an argument or debate, would ask questions that he knew would get a yes response. We always want our actions and words to create a yes response. The opposite of yes is resistance.

Elicit a "yes set," by telling the truth. By getting people to say yes to things that they know are true for sure. Many times you'll say something like, "The coin is in my right hand?" and they will say yes but deep down inside they know they're not sure. They may say yes but they don't really believe it. Get people to be congruent with things they are certain of before you begin to build in illusion.

Another part of this rule is to please, talk like a normal person. Don't ask stupid obvious questions? It's obvious that you're asking them because that's what you want them to believe, not because it's the reality of the situation. If you do the Ambitious Card Routine and you ask them if you're putting their card in the middle of the deck but somehow it keeps coming to the top, you're creating an internal "no set." Eventually, they will stop believing what you say. This is not a useful situation.

If it's an obvious statement, you don't have to ask it. Just do it. If the trick needs you to confirm their reality with a statement, it may be time to find another trick. There is more than enough magic on the market. Find something that is simpler, has a better technology.

Evolve into a more efficient miracle worker.

If the trick is really good (why would you do anything else?), then you don't have to say anything. Just do the trick and get out of the way. Don't dumb it down by presenting it in a less than intellectual way. When the trick is good, you can almost always say too much. It’s rare that you can say too little.

Telling stories that are obviously false or unbelievable doesn't help anyone. Abandon patter for just being yourself. When developing your "act" it may be important to lose your "act." By that it's meant, be yourself, be your best self and let the magic speak for itself.

People are smarter than you think. Maybe not, but if you pretend they are, you will become a more sophisticated performer.

8. Miracle is never the result of personal power or the result of challenge...but is aimed directly to amplify discussion. The problem with presenting magic as a result of your personal power, is that it's a lie. It has nothing to do with your personal power. Someone else created the move or routine that you're doing. This delicate house of cards falls apart when they find young kids exposing the effect on YouTube. Why put yourself in that position. The best defense is not even showing up for the fight.

By using miracles to amplify the discussion, you get out of the personal power game and back into the creating compelling experiences game. Try them both out and see which one is really more satisfying.

When what you do is based on a lie, you always have to worry about the secret being found out. When you say you're doing something and you're really doing something else then you put your personal power at risk. Not to mention your reputation. Once you're found out, people will be leery of believing what you say in the future. It’s the opposite of a yes set.

We talked about having a brief discussion before the effect that alludes to the effect. That gives some kind of explanation to think about without directly stating this is how it’s done. Now, your effect, presented

intellectually serves less as a thing that you are going to trick them with and more of a thing you are using to illustrate your point. So the secret becomes irrelevant. Someone could expose the trick afterwards and they wouldn’t care because it wasn’t about getting fooled by the trick, it was about what the trick illustrated.

As with everything else in The Miracle Model, if it works for you keep it. If it doesn't, then junk it.

9. Miracle must always seem impromptu and incidental to the subject matter. If there is any hint of trying to impress or being prepared to perform, you're back into the trick monkey business and this is to be avoided. It goes back to the idea of having the situation adapt to you, not you to the situation. This one is one of the harder rules to conform to, but it is so impactful if you can pull it off.

The performance of a miracle should seem like an afterthought.

There's almost a hint of unpreparedness. You don't know if you'll be able to pull it off because you weren't prepared to do it. This is subtext and is never fully spoken but merely hinted at.

This builds tension which creates excitement for the miracle. There is the element of risk. What they're experiencing is a rare moment. It may or may not come off.

It takes some practice at making something prepared look unprepared. The key is to be in the moment and give up your act. Be yourself, talk normal and do the thing. If you lose yourself in the process, all of this becomes quite natural.

If you perform a lot, especially for the same groups of people, be careful not to over use this idea. Then it will become clichéd and false. I've seen a lot of magicians who use the "I don't know if this is going to work," line and it's clear that everyone involved doesn't believe them. Especially when they say it before every trick. This is lazy presentation. This idea should be used sparingly in service to the miracle.

Remember, true miracles, things that happen outside our belief systems, are never planned. If they were, then they wouldn't be miracles.

10. Miracle is an isolated effect...the one example of being the sole period of its survival. Depending on how you want to play this, you can get into dangerous waters here. If you pretend that you're the only one who can do this or who knows this secret and then someone stumbles upon a YouTube video with a 12 year old kid explaining the trick, you may not come across in the best light.

Since the time that Ormond wrote this, over 70 years ago, a lot has changed. The ease of access to information and media is at the world's fingertips. So this must be taken into consideration when discussing Rule 10.

Almost any trick you do can be found either for sale or being explained somewhere in the far corners of the internet. Most people won’t look, but some will.

How do we maintain the integrity of this rule in our current times?

Thelonius Monk once said, "Everyone is a genius being themselves." This is where the uniqueness comes in. Not so much in your unique presentation, but in the unique event you create.

The isolated effect is the experience that is had by everyone. Not the trick itself. If you focus on that, eventually it will fall in on itself. The secrets are out there and easier to find then ever.

So what you put your emphasis on, is being present, being in the moment and the effect of the experience. Each time you perform, for different people, in different places, different times of days, these all contribute to the moment being special.

Concentrate on the uniqueness of the fleeting moment and everything becomes a unique isolated effect. The secret is only one little element of the whole.

I promised before that we would talk about a way to almost eliminate this problem. We discussed how using the effect as a way to illustrate a point, albeit subtly, is a great way to eliminate the audience need to find out the secret or even care. There is a larger overarching principle at work here. When coming up with your presentations, if you make them so interesting that the audience would be entertained even if they knew the secret, then you will never have to worry about secrets again. So yes, imagine you are performing for magicians and you already know you

aren’t going to fool them. Now you can focus on the actual entertainment value of the trick.

11. Miracle is offered in only one phase of miracle foci on any specific occasion. Build it up, do it and then it's done. Don't follow it up with another "miracle" later in the evening.

So, if you're at a party, you'd dim the lights, sit in a circle and begin the miracles. Once the lights come up and the circle is broken, the miracles are over for that occasion.

It's a simple rule that will require self control on your part. Once the peak attention is broken, the performance is over.

12. Miracle is never repeated. Some ideas are so true that they become clichés. This is one of them. Ironically, the magic that you repeat can become in danger of being a cliché as well.

Obviously, if something is a miracle, it is a rare event. Airplanes flying in the sky were at one time completely unbelievable. To see that happened must have appeared to be a miracle. Now, because it happens everyday, it is no longer a miracle.

The same is true for magic. If you perform the same effect over and over again, no matter how great it is, it is like the airplane in the sky. It becomes expected. It loses impact. It no longer creates awe. It’s too commonplace.

Miracles, or things that happen outside our belief systems, don't happen everyday. If they did, they would stop being miracles and just become a part of normal life. They would eventually become a part of our beliefs about what is possible.

When you repeat it, you cheapen it. It loses the freshness of a first-time experience. It starts to become a static thing in their head. They know

what's coming. Wanting to see something a second time is an attempt to conceptualize the experience, to make sense of it. This is exactly the opposite of what we want to happen with our magic. We want miracles.

I'd like to also talk about your style. If you are a professional magician you have undoubtedly developed a bit of a personal style. Style that is repeated is also in danger of becoming cliché. We become comfortable repeating the same kinds of jokes, tricks and patter.

Ideally, you would lose your style. You wouldn’t have patter so much as an outline of things to talk about. You would be yourself and constantly trying new ways of being. Because even performance style should be rare. If you act like everyone else, this tends to suggest that you are like every other magician.

The beautiful thing is this – you are special and unique without anything added. Sure, you have flaws and things you need to work on, but so does everyone. The thing that sets you apart from all the rest is YOU. So don’t work too hard on style. Work more on being authentic. Honest. Talking about what interests you and sharing your passion. I’m reminded of an interview with Woody Allen. Regardless of what you think of him, this is very interesting. People definitely would say Woody

Allen has a very distinct style whether he’s performing standup or even in his movies. You almost always know when you’re watching a Woody Allen movie without being told. In the interview I saw, he said that he never gave any thought to his “style.” He just did what he thought was interesting or funny and people started to put together a picture in their heads of what they thought was his “style.”

This is a reminder that no matter what you do, people will always create pictures and thoughts in their heads about what you’re doing. You cannot control what they think. Since you cannot control it, you might as well not worry about it. Be authentic by talking about your life experiences and about what gets you excited and the rest will automatically fall in place.

The flipside to this is not only are you incredibly unique but you also share a lot with others. We all are born and find jobs and search for love and eventually die. These are broad strokes about how we are alike.

So in finding your uniqueness, it’s always good to root it in shared experiences. Ultimately, what resonates in your performance is what people can relate to. Unless they are a magician, people cannot relate to being a magician. So to come from that place you will accidentally

alienate your audience. Better to drop the magician vs. laymen dichotomy and come from a place of this is what it’s like to be human, specifically this particular human.

One other tip, you don’t really find common ground with your audience. You create it. Out of nothing. In comedy, the people you like the most usually trick you into this by setting up a premise you can relate too. Then they bring you down shocking little paths that surprise you and make you laugh. But if they didn’t get you on board with the premise, then you would be completely lost. In your magic, seek to create a premise that people can relate to, then present them with your unique miracle. It works for all the best comedians and it will work for you.

To breathe life into your magic, it’s always good to balance your skills with challenges. This will always keep you on your toes and give your performances an aliveness. It will also help to keep you in the flow.

How do you start to do this? Do something you would never do. If you're a comedy magician, do a very serious bit of magic. If you're a sleight of hand guy, do something that is chock full of gimmicks. If you're a serious mentalist, work on a kid's show. Keep challenging yourself; make the last thing not only better than the last, but different. When you reach a level of

success in any endeavor, the mind will try to keep doing that same thing to get success. Consciously changing things up will help to escape from the life of cookie-cutter magic.

If you find yourself talking a lot while performing, try to do your whole act without words. Challenge yourself. Don't be afraid to fail and you'll be amazed at the worlds that open up. When you start doing things you'd never imagine trying, a whole new depth of experience opens up. You stop going through the motions.

If you can, another thing to be avoided is performing too often. It's good to have a close knit group of magicians and friends to try out your new material on, just for the sake of experimentation. That's now what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is performing every chance you get out in the real world. If you can avoid it, or minimize the occurrence of your performances, they will gain a certain kind of legend status. People will talk, request it and otherwise lust after your performances if you hold it back from them on occasion. This allows you to stay in control of where and what you perform (only doing so only when peak attention and circumstances permit). This gives you a respect that would otherwise diminish when you perform often and uncontrollably.

So this Rule is really 3 fold.

1. Don't repeat a Miracle.

2. Be careful not to get stuck repeating your style. You become in danger of being a cliché. Trying new things keeps you fresh and interested and provides an added dimension to you and your performances.

3. Pick your spots when it comes to performing magic. Don't feel that you have to perform at every opportunity. Make the events where you perform special.

Nothing can be gained from repeating miracles.

13. Miracle is never discussed by the performer after the presentation of the effect. It has been often said that people don't fall in love with you while they're in your presence. They fall in love when they're alone, thinking about you. A person’s imagination is often more powerful than reality. This is why a movie rarely matches up to the book version. The movie isn’t happening in your head, like the book does.

So it is true with magic. The best magic happens in people's heads, just like falling in love. So try to present people with the book version of you magic instead of the movie version. It doesn’t matter how many special effects are in the movie, if it doesn’t resonate inside someone like a book does, you have lost the game.

Building a premise people can relate to, as mentioned in the previous rule, can help you with this. Also see the 2+2 Theory discussed later on. This will help you accomplish things most magicians only dream of.

Ormond McGill understood this. You don't discuss the miracle after the performance. Let their imagination take over and the magic trick you've done goes deep into miracle territory in their head.

The intimate experience of experiencing magic up close is very rare for most people. As a result, they have very little reference point for the experience. Immediately after the effect, especially if they didn't know what was coming, their memory tends to get embellished. Suddenly cards were thought of instead of manually selected; you never touched the coin and so on. When you don't know where you're going, it's hard to follow the path.

By refusing to talk about it immediately afterwards, you'll find that some of the psychological oomph is diminished. The miracle should be thought of as a seed planted in their minds. You allow it to breathe and grow. Watering it too much with conversation tends to hinder growth.

Remember this, you can only ever say too much. Say less than is necessary. Your talking can only take away from the effect. You can never say too little. Only ever too much.

When following this rule, the best idea is to perform your miracle just before leaving. This insures that people will talk about you long after you're gone. If you can't do this, carefully steer the conversation away from the miracle itself. But really, there should be nothing you can do to top the miracle, so it’s best to get off stage after.

PART 2 The Essays

Conversational Tone These thoughts have to do with miracles performed close-up. The same advice can also be given to stage performers but the advice would be to exaggerate a bit because you're playing to a much bigger audience.

In a close-up setting, you should strive for a conversational tone. This is difficult and it is easy to fall into old habits and behaviors. But you will come across as more authentic and people will relate to you and your performance better. The irony of the situation is you have to practice to be natural. Why is that?

The major reason why being natural is so hard is fear. We fear what people will think of us, the real us. So we try to cover it up with a personality. Because if they don’t like the personality it’s ok, that’s not really us.

If you really take this on, what you’ll find is in the act of working on your miracles, you’ll also be working on yourself.

You can actually still use all the theatrical tools other arts use. Story, theme, metaphor and even character. But you use them in a conversational style.

It is awkward and strange to start going into an "act" or “character” when talking to someone in intimate close-up setting. People can smell that you're not being authentic. The truth is, you can be yourself while performing magic up close. You can talk like you'd normally talk and people will appreciate you being authentic much more than clever patter. My god, isn’t it time we retired the idea of “patter?” Even the word itself reeks of being inauthentic.

If you’re aiming for creative expression, work on being natural. And you work on being natural by removing fear and any other blocks you may have to expressing yourself creatively.

There are many ways of accomplishing this. One way that seems to work across the board is the practice of morning pages popularized by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way. Basically, you write 3 pages longhand every morning. You write everything that is on your mind without stopping to filter it. If you have nothing to write, you write “I have nothing to write.” Over and over, just keep the hand moving.

What the morning pages do over time is to bring to light everything that’s going on in your head. You will see on paper your thoughts. This is a very illuminating experience. It helps you to build some self-awareness,

because a lot of time these thoughts just run in the background. But the biggest benefit of this practice is that it helps condition your mind to create without editing. Doing this over and over can help you become creative simply by giving you practice creating without a filter or editor.

The editor has a place in the creative process – usually after the raw creative part is down on paper. You may find raw ideas, images, premises, even ideas for tricks in these morning pages. But they will likely need to be massaged and edited to make them really shine.

Another benefit of the morning pages is that they allow you to fail. You are going to write a lot of crap, especially in the beginning. Getting used to producing material without any worry helps you to be more natural in conversation. The editor voice starts to go down in volume. This will not make you blurt out things that are inappropriate or idiotic; it will just uncover more of what’s been hiding.

The common wisdom is that you need to do them for at least 90 days to see a noticeable shift. If I haven’t doe them in a while, I’ve found that even after a week everything I write or say during the rest of the day comes out easier, with less interference from the editor. The results may surprise you.

Back to conversational tone in performance. In my opinion, the biggest trap to fall into is the ongoing narrative about what’s happening kind of talk that magicians often engage in. You all know what I’m talking about. “Ok, we’re going to put the card back in the deck, now I’m going to shuffle the cards. Where’s Henry, Ok Henry take the cards. Henry is shuffling the cards. Now we’re going to put the cards back in the case. I’m going to put the cards in my pocket. Ok, now we’re going to find the card you selected by blah blah blah.”

You know how we said that you can only ever say too much. This is the perfect example. If you need to explain everything you’re doing, then you have way too complicated a premise or effect. With powerful magic you almost never have to narrate. You just have to do it.

This does not mean that I’m advocating magicians all become David Blaine clones. That works for Blaine because it’s authentic to him. You can still talk. You can insert humor. Or you can be serious. But you don’t have to talk the trick or the audience to death. It’s annoying and will rarely add anything to the miracle.

Don’t be so hard on yourself – every magician everywhere has fallen into this trap. I sometimes still catch myself. At the end of the day, no one is

going to be hurt if you fall back and do this – except yourself. When you find yourself doing this, gently slow down and breathe. Forgive yourself, laugh that you fell back into an old pattern and course correct.

Let’s talk about stories. If you're going to tell a story while performing, it should probably be a story that would be interesting without the magic. Less is more here. Your words should always move the plot forward. Silence can be your friend. Cut down to the bare minimum you can get away with and once you've done that, cut it some more.

As far as talking goes, speak in your normal tone of voice. Use the same inflections and intonations. Use simple words that you normally use. Don’t get wordy. Try not to explain the action happening unless you’re providing instruction to a spectator.

Be natural. Be confident. Be yourself.

When speaking to a group of people you're about to perform for, come into the conversation with slightly more energy then they have. You want to bring them up in energy level, not drop them down and suck their energy away. This takes a little bit of calibration. Look at the people you'll perform for and adjust your own energy level to match theirs and raise it

ever so slightly. If you go in with too much energy they'll think you're a nut. If you don't go in with enough, they may mistake you for being tired or sad.

Match them and slightly rise above. It's there that they'll be happy to meet you.

Side Effects If you go with the notion that your performance is measured by the effect it has on your audience, you now have a measurable phenomenon to gauge your success. You can now alter and modify parts of your effects to move toward greater effect. This causes one to live outside their head and in the real world.

This gives you something to move towards. What is the effect you have on people? How do they react? What happens if you don't say anything during the effect? Does that make it stronger or weaker? Take different elements of your miracles and change them to see how that changes the reaction.

If you act like a scientist testing out different theories, you'll find that you grow much quicker than if you sit around and hypothesis all day. You will always learn more from experience then from study. In this sense, you should try to expand the amount performance time and limit the amount of study time. There are so many cool tricks and books always coming out. And I bet you’ve bought a lot of stuff that is just sitting around. It’s only because you’ve given more attention to study and theory then you have to experience. But flight time is where you learn everything. Study is the scaffolding to hold up the structure of what you do, but eventually you

need to create the building by yourself.

Aim to change the ratio of study to performance to be at least 1 to 4. If you are already at that level – and I mean performing/practicing 4 times as much as studying, buying and reading/watching instruction – then you should consider upping the ratio to 1 to 10. You will grow much more through doing then through study. You can only know the effect you will have by testing in the real world.

When you’re performing, you always need to be looking for feedback. Your work is never done. By accepting that and realizing that it never ends, each performance becomes an opportunity to grow and learn. Your practice never becomes static but rather a living thing that is always evolving.

Ego and the Death of Magic The ego is the source of all problems, in magic and elsewhere in this world. Thankfully, we will only be dealing with magic for right now. Basically, ego refers to attaching yourself to things. It tends to feed on itself and needs recognition and attention at every turn. Most of us likely have at least a little bit of ego lurking around. And the ones that think they don't have an ego lurking around, well that's just your ego talking.

Eventually, with enough success and recognition, the ego will take over the whole show. What happens at this point is that you stop seeing things how they really are. Everything you do becomes a meal to feed your ego. Since everyone has one, they can see it in you with more clarity than you can see it in yourself. Eventually, when it fully consumes you, most people will have run the other way.

So what does this have to do with magic? Applying the principles of The Miracle Model is a great way to start. By taking all the focus off yourself, you're refusing to feed your ego. Without that attention it begins to wither away even just a little bit. You are free to act appropriately instead of doing things that only make you look good or feel special. You're special already, there's no need for a magic trick to give you that feeling.

When you start to ignore the wants of your ego, especially in performing situations, you become a much more powerful performer. You allow yourself to go deeply into the moment. The ego can never be present, it likes to stay inside your head and live on the past. Becoming present is a powerful tool for performance and for life.

We’ve talked about this before, but it needs repeating. The ego is often created from fear. You either have fear of what people think of you, or what you think of yourself or you have fear of the past or the future. All these things knock you out of the present moment.

So how do you become present? The best way is to notice that you're not present. That's the first step in the process. Sometimes this means sitting back and taking a deep breath. Notice your surroundings. Become aware of the clothes on your body. The smells in the room. The taste in your mouth. Go back to the root of experience, your senses.

For a more formal exercise, sit down in a chair and give yourself a few moments. This is the best way I know of to start a performance. It clears you out of the past and gets you right up to speed with the now. Take a deep breath and start to become aware of the feeling in your right foot. It may start to tingle from increased circulation. This is good. Slowly keep

that feeling and become aware of your other foot. Then gradually work your way up your legs, into your torso. Go up your arms, feeling each part of your body completely before moving on. Go all the way to the top of your head.

Once you've accomplished that, take a deep breath and wallow in feeling your entire body. This is a great way to anchor your mind to the present. If your mind starts talking (and it will), just take note of what it is saying but don't give it too much credence. The thoughts, if you only observe them, will drift away. If you really want to master this then look up a book on meditation or check out Inner Secrets of Mindfulness for Magicians for a master class in mindfulness meditation.

If you can, do this a few times during the day or when you start to get stressed out or overwhelmed. You may even find that the mind will start to do this all by itself because it feels so much better than being hooked on your thoughts.

When you know you're going to perform, do the body meditation just before. What will happen is that you'll be able to be more spontaneous, relaxed and energized during your performances. By getting your mind out of the way from the onset, you can escape from old patterns of

performing and start applying principles of The Miracle Model much easier. Think of this as cleaning the slate so that you can create something new.

Be careful though, if you don't install new behaviors, such as The Miracle Model and anything else you want to do or be, all the old stuff will return. It always does.

To bring this all back to magic, we know people who are very into themselves. They may have achieved success quickly and now they think they're the greatest thing since sliced bread. This may work for a little bit, but eventually it causes problems and keeps them from seeing how they can improve. No one is good forever. It takes hard work and perseverance. It takes patience. It takes the ability to say, "I don't know," and then finding out what you need to know to get better.

Underneath your ego is something very peculiar. It is the notion that you want to make a difference in this world. Maybe it's through performing magic. Giving someone a glimmer of hope. Underneath all that mind stuff is the simple and clear notion that you've made it, you've survived and now you want to contribute to other people's lives. Once this happens, you will stop worrying about people finding out the secret (ironically so will

they) and you will engage people in a way that is so different from trying to build yourself and your ego, that you will wonder why no none told you about this before. Its ok, they didn't know. Have compassion for them too.

After the ego has been diminished and you perform your magic as a contribution to the world, you will experience a feeling of satisfaction that the ego can only dream about.

Truth in Art One of the biggest problems with magic is that it's all based on lies. If we are good at magic we have become really good liars. In a close-up scenario this means lying to people's faces. People expect us to tell the truth. They want us to tell the truth. This causes a social rift.

It has been argued that you don't have to present truth in art. I agree with this. Where I adamantly disagree is presenting art as truth. Which is what the whole of the magic culture is built upon. We aren't really making things levitate or disappear. It's art. But in a close-up setting, where people are likely to believe what they're experiencing, we are presenting art as the truth. When we're found out all respect is lost. We're exposed for being the phonies that we are.

I get asked, more than any other question, “Did David Blaine really levitate?” At first I was taken aback by the question. I mean, do people really think he's figured out a way to levitate? Do they really think he's performing real magic? The answer is a resounding yes. Even though they know he’s a magician. Now I think there's a great danger there. If people search out and find that he's not really levitating then they feel duped.

The truth of the matter is, people don't care if it's real or not. They want to

be entertained. It doesn't take away from their enjoyment of the thing. As a matter of fact, if you can briefly educate them on the lineage of the trick and the art, they will enjoy it even more. We come closer to presenting the magic as art, not as a trick or something to be fooled by.

Sometimes telling them up front is the best course of action. "Here's this thing someone taught me," Or, "Dai Vernon created this in 1953." Now there is some history and some real background. You're an authority in your field and you're sharing knowledge. This is much more valuable than giving them an unbelievable story about where the magic or the props came from. Acting is not as easy as it looks and most cannot convincingly pull off theatrical lies well.

In my humble opinion, it's just rude to lie to someone, even under the guise of magic, right in front of their face. When they go to the movies, they're accepting the fact that what they're about to see on the screen is fiction. When they go to a museum, they know that the artwork, the paintings on the wall are not meant to be accurate representations of reality. It's art. When you listen to a song on the radio, it's a piece of art (depending on which station you listen to), culturally we know this. It is unacceptable to go up to someone and in the course of the conversation start lying to them for the sake of doing a magic trick. It's now culturally accepted

that's what's happening. If it was, nobody would be asking me if David Blaine can really levitate. They'd know that it's just art.

I've heard every argument in the book against this and none of them hold up. Magicians hallucinate that by telling the truth about what they're doing, you take away from the effect. It's just the opposite. They're just too afraid to try it out. I've seen performers tell their audiences that what they're about to do is pure illusion and a lovely scam and then go on to amaze and astound. People will still suspend their disbelief but the great thing is they're not going to walk away from the performance creating new beliefs about reality based on what you did. That is intolerable. It's a lie. And eventually you will be caught out and exposed. Why even go down that path?

Also to be aware of is the trend in mentalism where mentalists call themselves psychological illusionists. Fair enough, there is definitely some psychology involved but we all know that most mentalists are still using tricks. Trading one lie for another is still a lie. It's false. It's untrustworthy. I find it ironic that the same ones who go on to expose psychics and mediums are the same ones who have traded one lie for another in their own performance. To say you’re using something that you're not is still a lie. When you do a center tear, what difference does it make if you say you

psychically got the information or were able to read the spectator psychologically?

Some people have very strong beliefs about this stuff and won't change their mind no matter what you say. Some will believe you're real regardless of what you say. And some will always think you're bogus no matter how good the magic is. These aren't the people we're concerned with. I'm concerned when educated people come up to me and ask me if a simple magic trick is real. That's irresponsible of the magician. Of magicians as a society. If we are to gain respect from the rest of the world as artists, it's about time we fessed up to the truth of the matter.

I'm not advocating giving secrets away. Of course that is part of the effect you're going for. What I'm advocating is that you're (as Derren says) honest about your dishonesty. That's Derren Brown's line and please don't take it. Come up with a way of explaining the same idea in your own words.

As a side note, it makes for an interesting experiment to create presentations that are so entertaining that the audience will enjoy the effect even if they knew the secret. When you can perform at this level, you have created a presentation that doesn't rely on dishonesty for its

power. Most people will never make it this far because they’d rather hide lazily behind the secret and lies. Which type of performer do you want to be?

Ritual and Process The first time I became aware of this principle consciously, was after reading Absolute Magic. It's worth every cent if you can get your hands on it.

Around the same time I was reading Absolute Magic, I was also playing with some stacked deck effects. I was bored with just having someone pick a card and me revealing the card. With a stacked deck or a memorized deck, it's a fooler but never really elevates to anything else. As Eugene Burger would say, it's at the level of a stunt. I wanted more.

I began experimenting with holding someone's wrist, and calling off letters of the alphabet. Totally unrelated to the trick. But the odd thing was, it gave the trick a process. There was something for their mind to latch onto. It wasn't just, how did he do it. I gave them a ritual to attach importance to. Of course, I never claimed I was muscle reading. As a matter of fact, I never said what I was doing. It’s this artful vagueness that we spoke about earlier.

With a process to hang on to, they became less interested in the “secret” and more focused on the process. They thought they knew how it was done. I was getting some kind of impulse from them. Of course this was

untrue. If they asked me point blank I would deny it. I would tell them it was a trick. But that's all they needed to know. If you use a ritual or a process, don't be afraid to leave it unexplained.

I began to experiment more. I would have them take a card out behind their back. Then, while my own back was turned, they would reverse it in the deck without looking. I would have them spread the cards out quickly in front of themselves and direct them to quickly scan all the cards. They squared up the cards and held them face up. Of course I would know what card was reversed (although they still didn't) from seeing the bottom card. Then I would go on to hold their wrist and call out red or black a few times. Then I'd go through the suits. And then finally I'd go one or two passes through the values of the cards. Eventually I'd name the card.

The response was much stronger than just naming the card. I had attached significance to my actions. This added an extra layer of theater to the effect. It wasn't a simple I tell you what card you're thinking of. The process was the interesting part of the trick. It built up to something. The secret to a lot of good entertainment is building up tension and releasing it.

Any successful TV show builds up tension not just in the course of one

episode, but over the course of the several episodes and even seasons. It's because of this buildup of tension that viewers keep on tuning in. They want the tension to be released. Of course the writers and producers are careful to not release so much tension that they won't show up the next week. So, when one question is answered, 3 more are asked. This causes an almost obsessive compulsion to keep watching.

We can use this principle in magic. By adding process and ritual, you increase the tension. In my example, if I didn't add in the process of holding their wrist and calling out the alphabet or the values of the cards, there would be much less tension. Pick a card and then I tell you what it is after a few seconds of thought has no dramatic build up. It's too easy.

In Absolute Magic, Teller starts the book out by talking about how magic can sometimes be the act of a God performing supernatural feats. Where is the drama or excitement in that? You know what the outcome is going to be. There is no mystery or tension. This is usually because a process is missing. This is evident in a lot of stage magic. The performer will put a pretty girl in a box and then perform an illusion. They go straight for the pleasure response. It's boring. He doesn't give you a place to suspend your disbelief. He just does the miracle without any obstacle or process or ritual. Dancing around a box is hardly a tension builder.

If you can give the audience a process and get them involved in the action you can create a shared experience.

The Art of Presentation Start off finding strong material. The strongest magic doesn't need much presentation. Maybe a simple setup, a quick bit about what they can expect and then just do the thing. Start with the strongest material and then go from there.

For each trick you select to practice and perform, use this criteria. "If I only had one trick to do, would this be the one?" If it doesn't pass that litmus test then toss it and find one that does. There is an ever growing mound of good magic with strong methods waiting to be used. Find the strongest material and start from there.

Louis C.K. has said when he’s building a new hour of standup, once he has a strong bit, he will lead with it. Instead of saving it for the end, if he leads with it he then has to find even stronger material to follow. Start with excellence and you can only go higher. Start with mediocre or throwaway effects and you may never get to excellence. Push yourself and keep high standards.

Once you find a good effect and you want to add something to it, look to your own experience. If you want to tell a story, tell a true story. If the magic you perform is serious it makes a good contrast to find a story of

contrasting emotion to build depth to the performance. You have more notes to play. Start from there.

You could look to the world and the strange developments in science. Funny news stories. Urban legends. Tell the truth about it; make a subtle connection to what you're about to do and then just do it.

Use your normal speaking voice, raise your energy slightly above that of the audience and you're off.

In writing, they teach you that there are two ways to start a piece. You establish authority in one of two ways. Head or Heart. Head refers to speaking as an authority on a subject. In magic, you can talk about an event in history or give some little known trivia. Give facts. Hook them into hearing more. Ask questions. Tease them. Then do the thing.

Heart is the trickier method to pull off in magic because it's been used in such a hackneyed way in the past. Heart is hooking them in emotionally. Telling a story that makes them feel something. Avoid nostalgia or sentiment. The emotion should be true and heartfelt. Not contrived. This is difficult to do. You don't want people to feel sorry for you. The desired effect is to create a premise that starts on shared territory and brings up

feelings they’ve had in their life. Then you can go off and bring them on a ride full of twist and turns.

The idea is to make sure they’re strapped into the coaster before you start the ride.

Select which one you want to use (if you decide on using one) and then develop a presentation from that. Make each thing you say have a purpose. Either you're listing facts and educating (Head) or telling a story that evokes emotion (Heart). Then do the thing. Of course, you should only be doing magic that is strong enough to do on it's own to begin with so if you ditched the presentation you'd still have a rocking experience for the audience. Alternately, if you ditched the magic, you would still have an entertaining or interesting story.

Remember, everyone is a genius at being themselves. Work on being the best person you can be and your magic will naturally improve. It's much better to be a good person in this world then to be a good magician. Good magic can come directly from being a good person.

Setting Here's what Ormond has to say about setting the scene:

Having set the serious and intellectual background for the actual "Miracle," now prepare the conditions. In this regard, build up the atmosphere of the presentation room to the maximum of sensible taste in keeping with the effect offered, i.e., dim the lights, draw the curtains, request silence, have the group seated in a circle or at the end of the room, or whatever the occasion and the effect warrant. In fact, the more conditions you impose for the accomplishing of the effect, the better-but such must always follow perfect logic toward the accomplishment of that effect. Never overwork this atmospheric build-up, but generally speaking, so long as you objectify your presentation thus, by centering the focus of the group's attention from you, and direct it upon the miracle-effect to be attempted, you are building toward the correct presentaion of Miracle.

So often we just do magic. We don't setup any of the conditions or clear the space for something memorable to happen.

If you aim to create a setting by manipulating the area, closing the blinds, dimming the lights, having people sit in a certain way or stand in a certain place, you give more power to the actual display. You give it respect.

Don't go overboard with conditions. They should all lead up to the Miracle. Do not explain why you’re doing these things. You should leave a mystery, for reasons we’ve already spoke about. Another great reason for this is you can use the setting of the scene as a red herring for the method. Go back and look at my example with the memorized deck and the alphabet. The process or in this case the scene becomes the focus and distracts from the real method.

For instance, if the Miracle is moving an object on the table and you are using some kind of magnet, by lowering the lights you can lead them to believe that it could only happen in low lighting. This may lead them to believe that you're using some kind of thread work. During the course of the demonstration you prove to them that there isn't any thread work going on. Now they're confused. Why would the lights need to be lowered?

Usually in magic, we only present them with conditions that are necessary to the effect. This sometimes makes the method rather easy to reverse engineer. By giving the performance extra conditions you can cover the method up further.

In addition, you make one effect very special by giving the setting extra attention. This becomes less a magic trick and more a happening or an event.

With extra conditions and scene setting, you are using the principle of Process and Ritual. These add extra layers of meaning to an otherwise typical magic trick. It creates the expectation of seeing something special.

Even the simplest of effects can be enhanced by introducing special conditions to the performance of the effect. Remember, make the scene adapt to you, not the other way around.

2 + 2 principle We’ve talked about a lot of good actionable advice you can start taking immediately. The 2+2 Principle is something that I think sums up a good majority of the advice in this book. The principle is something I learned from Andrew Stanton of Pixar. Search out his TED Talk, you will love it.

The principle can help you when crafting any kind of talk, story or performance. It’s super simple.

Basically, the idea is that you give the audience 2 + 2 in your performance. But you never ever give the 4. You let them come up with 4 all by themselves.

This means never spelling out your message. Never telling them too much. You want to give them just enough pieces to put things together on their own.

This is the equivalence of not explaining a joke to someone. What makes people laugh is putting it together in their own heads. You know when you tell a joke and it takes a second for them to process the meaning. And then they laugh. If you interrupted that process and told them what the

meaning was (4) then you would destroy that experience and they wouldn’t laugh.

You want to do this as much as possible when performing magic. You want to leave a little bit out. This goes back to the importance of saying less than necessary. Don’t spell it out. Let them figure out what you’re trying to say.

One other small piece of advice that will help you with this. If you want to add an extra layer to all your performances, you should give some thought to subtext. This is the meaning underneath the exterior. To go back to comedy – the best comedy isn’t just a reversal of expectations. It also has some hidden meaning. It’s a point of view, an attitude about something. Subtext is not preaching. It’s not about right or wrong. It’s simply an opinion you hide underneath. It has to be hidden. If you say it out loud then you are back to giving the audience 4.

Last thing about this – it’s so important. Your audience does not want to be told 4. They desperately want you to give them the pieces to come up with it. It’s like playing fair in mystery. Give them just enough, but not too much.

The great thing about this is you can hide any kind of opinion you want and get people to see things from your perspective without hitting them over the head. This doesn’t mean they’ll agree with you or change their mind, but you will be able to present your point of view with a lot more finesse then if you just come out and say it.

This gives a slightly different context to the advice – “Always leave them wanting more.”

Method In Action You now have everything you need to become a Worker of Miracles. There is a lot of information in this book that you can use right away. What follows are some ideas to take this advice out into the world. It isn’t enough to just know these principles; we must put them into action.

A useful first step would be to select a trick you want to turn into a miracle. Use our advice about starting at the top with the best material. Take one trick and apply The Miracle Method.

When you’re just starting out, you may try adding a miracle to the end of your normal performance. Yes, in a way this counters the one miracle at a time rule. But only in a way. You could view your normal act as a kind of buildup to the miracle. Maybe you save it for an encore. You come back out after ending the normal performance and you show them something really special before you disappear back into the shadows for the night.

Try to change the way you approach venues. Keep in mind setting and process. Make them adapt to you. Even in just small ways in the beginning.

Practice the art of being vague when speaking before a trick. Avoid narrative talk about the trick. Let the audience put 2 and 2 together.

Remember, the effect on the audience is the thing. Do they feel awe?

Are you able to transition into the miracle organically from a story?

Work to build a starting premise that everyone can relate to. Then get more personal. Are there any places where you lose the audience along the way? How can you fix that?

Although you can certainly add humor to anything, are you presenting the miracle seriously? Are you congruent in action and speech when presenting the miracle? You should believe in what you’re doing 100%.

Drop any unnatural speech or phrases. Try the morning pages exercise to unleash your authentic self and find raw material for use in performance.

Start with your best stuff and build from there.

Is the focus on the audience? Are you creating a shared experience?

Where is the audience’s attention? It should be on the effect and you need to build it as much as you can before showing the miracle.

Have you built in process and ritual?

Does your performance have a theme? Is there subtext?

How much of your talking can you cut without losing effect?

Are you present when performing or stuck in your head?

Can you frame the performance as a contribution to the world?

Does the performance leave the audience with questions about what they just saw? About life, about reality, about themselves? If not then you need to work harder.

You should always seem prepared but the miracle should seem impromptu. Give people the feeling they are engaging in a once in a lifetime event.

Never repeat a miracle for the same group of people. Ever.

Challenge your audience, challenge yourself. Create the kind of performance you would love to see.

Do not repeat someone else’s patter or performance or lines. Shine a light on your glorious imperfect one of a kind self. The audience will thank you later.

Create a performance you’re proud of. Create a performance worthy of who you are. Create Miracles. Miracles to last a lifetime.

Use The Miracle Model as a checklist and review the principles until they become second nature.

You have all you need. But before we go, a few closing pieces of wisdom from the Master Miracle Worker.

Final Words from Ormond Ormond McGill offers some final advice to keep in mind when putting together your Miracles. The rest is in your hands.

Always undersell the Miracle The less you say, the less you build up exactly what you're going to do the better. Keep it vague and never use superlatives like greatest or best. If you must describe it, better to use words like interesting or strange. Without expectations about what is going to happen, they won't be disappointed.

Create a powerful presentation that can be enjoyed regardless of the subject Again, when creating a presentation that is truly entertaining, imagine that the audience knows the secret to the trick. In this way, your presentation has to sparkle and the magic or the secret is just the icing on the cake.

Leading There is a distinction to be made between leading and persuasion. You want to gently guide their thoughts, not push your presentation on them. I talked about doing card tricks with a stack and how I held someone's wrist while calling out different suits and values. I led them to make

associations. But I never said I was reading pulses. I gently led them to wonder if that's what was happening. Leading is the art of not being obvious.

Wait till interest is at its peak We've talked a lot about this. The higher the interest of the audience, the more powerful the Miracle.

Use the style of a Scientist If you distance yourself from the Miracle in the kind of objective style of a scientist, you'll find that people react much stronger to the effect. Nobody really wants to be fooled but they do want to see incredible things. The more you can remove yourself from the equation, the farther you can be from the actual workings of the trick, the better. You become the guide on a strange journey rather than a magician doing tricks to an audience.

Do not attempt to hold audience attention by personal dramatics or what is commonly known as showmanship At one time this kind of showmanship may have worked. Now it is cliché. Be yourself and get as far away from having an act as possible. Lose the dramatics. If you need them to make the magic entertaining, then you're doing the wrong magic. Find stronger magic, better methods. Al Pacino

gave great advice when it comes to acting. He said, "When the urge to act overcomes you, go take a nap for an hour and hope that it passes." Heed his advice in the performance of Miracles.

Less personality the better Again, if the magic is strong, you don't need to put a whole lot of yourself into the performance. The work, or the creation of the effect has already been done. We can see from the stunning success of David Blaine that you don't have to create complicated presentations. You can just do the thing and then get out of there. Any personality that is injected into the effect had better be your own and not some made up persona. You are perfect just the way you are underneath your act. I promise.

Showmanship surrounds the performance This seems to contradict one of the earlier bits of advice. But actually it doesn't. The showmanship that surrounds the performance is natural showmanship. The waiting of peak attention, process, setting the scene, steering the conversation towards the effect. All these things take the place of what has historically been known as showmanship. Now just being yourself is much more original than any showmanship you can put on.

As hands off as possible Select tricks that have as limited contact with you as possible. This really helps you to adhere to the other principles. The farther away you are from the trick the more you will appear to be a part of the audience. Strive to become the tour guide in the museum, not the main attraction. There are lots of effects and methods that allow you to take a back seat to the magic. I have a friend that does an entire card in lemon routine while sitting in the audience. He becomes part of the audience and everyone has a great time because the feeling is they’re all in it together. This is a great example of being hands off. What effects could you do that would keep you as far away from the action as possible?

Let it build in their minds If given the choice between extremely visual magic and something less visual, which would you choose? As an example, let's take a coin vanishing in your closed fist as opposed to vanishing in full view at your fingertips. For me, the choice would be to make it vanish in my closed fist. The immediate visual impact may not be as strong, but when they think about it later their imagination takes over and it builds in their mind. After all, the coin never really vanishes; it's not there to begin with. So the magic itself happens in their mind. This is a more powerful experience for the

audience. The magic is actually happening in their heads. What could be more intimate?

Don’t forget, we want to avoid talking about the miracle after the fact. This lack of conceptualizing will only encourage the mind to embellish what it has just seen.

Leave them hungry Always leave them begging for more. In The Miracle Model, we want to do as little as possible to achieve our desired effect. Ideally, you would only present one miracle at a sitting. Leave them looking forward to a new miracle in the future and you will always be in high demand.

May you, too, be such a Worker of Miracles...