Do you want to see a magic trick?

What do you picture when you hear the word ‘magician’? If you think of ‘that guy’ at a party, sloppily doing lame tricks he learnt an hour ago from Youtube, then I’m here to change that. If you imagine a sad man in his thirties doing kids’ parties, filled with self-loathing due to poor life decisions, then I’m here to change that too.

Unfortunately, these common generalisations of magic are mostly true, but I’d like to attempt to show you a glimpse from deeper inside the rabbit hole. There aren’t any flying broomsticks, but hopefully there’s something you’ll find cool, perhaps even beautiful.

I’ll attempt to show you some powerful magic, not by showing you the coolest trick, but by showing you the kind of wonderful experience a spectator can have. If you type “Derren Brown mystery box” into Youtube, then you’ll find a two part video of a routine from one of Derren’s brilliant stage shows. Pay special attention to the spectators’ reactions, and don’t read the Youtube comments unless you want a thousand incorrect theories about the trick’s method.

Hopefully there’s something you’ll find cool, perhaps even beautiful

I’m almost certain that you won’t have bothered to actually go to Youtube to look up the video, so I’ll attempt to describe it in words. Derren invites a random member of the audience who has lost an older relative on stage. The spectator’s name is Emma, and the relative is her grandmother, Doris. Derren then tells a story in which his own grandfather kept an old wooden box on his shelf, and told Derren that he should never, under any circumstances, open the box. We always want what we can’t have, and obviously he wanted more than anything to know what was inside.

After a couple of years, his grandfather passed away, and Derren was left with this box, and was finally able to see what was inside. To his surprise, the box contained a coin, made of solid silver, with 7 words engraved on it. The words were, “Derren I told you not to look”.

You can imagine why this became one of Derren’s prized possessions, and this story becomes the catalyst for the magical plot about to follow. On stage is a locked box, and Emma is given the key. She opens the box, and inside is another silver coin. This time, engraved on the coin, are the words, “In loving memory of Doris”.

This magical climax, combined with the backstory of Derren’s grandfather, causes a flood of emotions to rush through Emma. The fond memories of her own grandmother are mixed with the surprise of the impossible coin, to create a truly unique experience that can’t be had elsewhere in the entertainment world.

Not bad right? Different from the awful, tuxedo-wearing, wand-bearing stereotypes you’ll find if you search ‘magician’ on google images. But an interesting fact about every magician, even the good ones, is that we all go through the exact same journey.

The reason someone starts learning magic is almost always a lack of self-esteem. Why else would you want to learn a skill that basically says “please look at me, aren’t I amazing”? Learning sleight of hand requires a good amount of practice, and only those who don’t have the chance to do more fun things, like going to parties or having friends, have the time to spend their teenage lives practising in front of a mirror.

And then, even after you’ve spent far too much time learning your new abilities when you could have been developing genuine social skills, then you’ve got to be ‘that guy’ for at least two years. The guy who carries four decks of cards and six pieces of rope everywhere; who crowbars a magic trick into every social interaction; who wears mostly black and maybe even, God forbid, a playing card tie. Welcome to magic puberty.

At this point most of your friends have probably disowned you, but if you’ve made it this far then you’ll now have the experience to perform tricks that won’t cause your spectators to roll their eyes, and perhaps even provoke a genuine smile in the right people.

If this all sounds good to you, god knows why it would, then maybe you have what it takes to become a magician yourself. If you stick with it long enough, then who knows, maybe you’ll become so remarkable that you’ll change what people think of when they hear the word magician, to you.