im thinking of guys like criss angel "mindfreak" and david blaine and the like.

having never seen this guys up close and personal doing their shows in public and knowing that you can ‘get away’ with alot on television (special lighting, editing, etc), i cant seem to help my wife understand that what these guys are doing isn’t ‘real’ though.

how can they make someone levitate in the middle of a crowded street in vegas or make a lightbulb turn ‘on’ without it being plugged in, etc?

your help would be appreciated.

Not sure ... all I would say is that you’re asking professional magicians to reveal their secrets ... I would doubt you’ll get many takers on that one, especially as it means they might lose their livelihood.

:wink:

Often it depends on things like misdirection, where a ‘prepared’ object (lightbulb) may be switched with a ‘normal’ one before the trick is done. Or a hidden battery, etc., is deployed at the right moment. Also, remember that the magician has decided where to display his abilities. He may have prepared the area beforehand. He may have accomplices in the audience. There are a million ways to do these tricks. I am no magician, but have heard enough over the years to get a general idea how they work.

BTW, DJ Grothe is a magician. Hopefully we can get him around here sometime to talk about it.

no youre right. i wouldnt dare be asking them ‘how’. i guess what i wanted to know is if there is any reason to believe that these guys are employing any sort of supernatural force.

[quote author="alexdiaz"]i guess what i wanted to know is if there is any reason to believe that these guys are employing any sort of supernatural force.

You’re joking, right?

... certainly they want you to think they’re using supernatural forces ... that’s how they make their money. And they are consummate professionals.

For more on this read about James Randi, one of the best.

[quote author="alexdiaz"]no youre right. i wouldnt dare be asking them ‘how’. i guess what i wanted to know is if there is any reason to believe that these guys are employing any sort of supernatural force.

You mean your wife thinks they are using “REAL” magic?  Golly!  I suppose the best argument would be that if it were real, they would be making a lot more money as the guru of some kind of new religion, not to mention rewriting all the physics books!

By the way, about the levitating in public trick.  I’ve only seen this once, but you notice he wears a long-tailed coat when he does this.  I hypothesize that he has some kind of support attached to his back, so that when he leans over backwards, it unfolds itself, covered by the coat.  If you could stand at just the right angle, you could probably see this, but the camera obviously doesn’t stand at that angle.  Hope that helps.

yes, definitely. thanks guys.

There’s also the argument that, if magic were real, there should be all sorts of practical applications for it (just glance through the Harry Potter books!).  And yet think of all the magic tricks you’ve seen.  Ninety-nine percent of them are purely entertainment (pulling little birds out of thin air?).  Next time you watch Mindfreak do his stuff, ask yourself what practical benefit there would be from being able to do that.

But even the few that could be useful pose a problem.  Severe burn victims would certainly benefit from being levitated an inch or so above their beds for example, so as not to come in contact with them.  But do you ever see magicians hanging around hospitals, volunteering their services? 

Regarding Blaine, I have read that, when it comes to his levitating trick, the people whose amazed expressions and exclamations you see, doesn’t necessarily get to see the same thing you see. Unless I’m wrong, they never show him doing at the same time as you see the people. So, from this, feel free to imagine how they can play around with video editing and different takes at different times, and how that might allow them to change how the effect is achieved in each case.