Personally, I love the satisfaction of accomplishing something that not everyone can. The satisfaction of an effect coming together and it actually looking like magic is a thrill. I still love to be fooled and entertained by others in magic when I have the opportunity. There is a certain draw in magic that simply will not go away for me.

Harp

It seems most of us primarily like magic for the connection it provides with people. For some, it is also an outlet for their extroverted personalities wheras for others, it is/was a tool to overcome shyness...

But let's take this topic a little further...

Skeptic mentioned what *initially* attracted him to magic. What about the rest of you? Even if what relates us all would be a need to "be on the spot" or whatever, why did we choose magic among other performing arts?

I personaly find it even more difficult to answer that question because I suspect it was love at first sight when I was a kid. But what did I see in it as a kid that others didn't?

I will risk a bold answer here... I think that it may be a way to deal with the painful fact that real magic doesn't exist... I mean, I'd be surprised if anyone who enjoys spending hours practicing tricks and sleights didn't enjoy watching good magic as well! I also found out that magic attracts people who are very, very different from each other. Could it be that what relates us all is a personality trait with an unusual combination of above average rationality/skepticism WITH an above average of imagination/creativity?

Some people are very creative but seem to live in a never-never-land and are, in my opinion, gullible. Other are quite down-to-earth but can rarely see anything beyond what they have already experienced.

I think magicians are amongst the most skeptics people when it comes to the supernatural and yet, I'm sure we agree that a good magician HAS to be creative.

Or maybe we just love the cool props that come with the trade?

What are your thoughts?

Richard

Interesting questions, Richard.

I never believed in the supernatural; that is, "real" magic could not exist in my view. Yet magicians seemed to do the impossible all the time. I wanted to know how it happened, and I wanted to be able to do the same thing. That was what initially got me in. But just like Skeptic, what kept me in was being able to meet others and connect with them in a unique way.

There's also something to the cool props idea. I'm always impressed by the brilliant ideas that magician-inventors come up with. These things stretch the boundaries of what the spectator thinks is possible. Being able to see the impossible is an amazing thing, and performing it oneself is even better.

For me, it was sparked by my love of watching magic. I love the feeling when you witness a superb effect and for a split second, your brain really believes that you saw something impossible occur. What a feeling! To be able to provide that feeling to other people is an incredible gift. That is why I perform magic.

While we're on the subject, does anyone have any theories as to why people who do get into magic are generally male? I find that women are often the best spectators, but they do not usually get into performing.

I'm in charge of a college magic club, and I'm always thinking that it would be nice to have some female members.

I realize that most of the famous magicians in history were men, but it seems there is probably some deeper psychological reason.

Sitting in Discovery's Home and Leisure Channel Master Control room watching magic show after magic show, I found myself looking at schedules to see when the next show was on...even if I had seen it a dozen times before.

It was a great catalyst that pushed me into to performing rather than watching. It also reminded me that I've always been facinated by magic. That and the eight hours a day of watching tv has been great time to practice card and coin sleights.

It's been a great confidence builder.

Deerbourne

My fascination for magic started in my childhood, when I saw people doing magic on tv and at parties.

The simple fact that you know it can't be real, and still someone being able to trick your mind in thinking that it is real. That's great.

So from a child who didn't have the money to buy the magic boxes in the toyshop to the man who is able to.
It was a long road, but my interest got kickstarted again.

Why be a popstar if you sound like a cat on heat ?
why be a moviestar when you look like you just got hit by a bus (maybe not that hard, haha)?
So why not be the one that can amaze and be amazed ?
Popstars, moviestars can entertain very good.
But can they really amaze people ?
Can they make people blink their eyes twice after they do something ?
Nope, only magic can do that.

Yes! Love at first sight did it for me as a kid I say. But I chose it because of those 4 little words, “how’d you do that”?

I like it because the vast majority of the public DOES NOT DO IT as a hobby or a profession. The fact that so few people are into performing it makes me a rare commodity.

My initial attraction was as a kid. I saw some great effects, but lacking any belief in the supernatural I knew something was going on and I just HAD to know what it was. At the time my dad had a coworker who was a professional magician on the side, and when he saw how earnest I was about the process he started to teach me various effects. I was hooked.

These days, it's primarily for fun (nothing feels better than seeing a group of spectators' eyes bulge when you pull off a seemingly impossible effect), for my continuing appreciation of the seemingly bottomless wellspring of creativity in the magic community, and just because I love to be "in the know."

Some of the gaffs, gimmicks, sleights, etc. in the world of magic are so downright ingenious that when I learn a particularly good one it really brings a smile to my face.

Watching magic shows as a kid was also what got me into magic Magic isn't very popular over here and I know many people who have never been to a magic show. Its so exciting to see there reactions the first time I show them something! Their eyes light up and they get so excited! It makes it all worth while:)

--->Wynsome

Giday to you all


My guess Asaha is that you are a bloke (male) like the majority of magicians. If a competent psycholigist was looking at this fact they would conclude that it was statisticly significant.

The over representation of blokes involved in magic has not gone unnoticed by Troop Bob. My theory is that it has resulted from a a combination of psychological and sociological influences.

Have you noticed for instence that many magic publications still refer to all magicians as male. There is un underlying (subconscious) ideology that reinforces that males are of greater value than females. In many areas of social interaction this issue has been more fully addressed.

Therfore it is easier and more comfortable for blokes to become involved and remain involved.

And why have most of the famous magicians over the years been male? Possibly for the same reason that the majority of all famous /powerfull people have been and continue to be males.

Thanks for the opportunity to reflect on that one.

Troppo Bob

What attracts me most to magic?

To be honest......Women!

Jack.

Yup troppobob, I'm a "bloke".

I must admit, it's easier to break the ice when meeting women or others if you can do magic.

I'll drink to that Jackdaniel!

Do you mean women as in "attracting women" with magic? Or the women practicing magic?

Richard

Giday all again

It looks like the thread of this discussion has been disrupted a little.

Troppo Bob

When I started magic it was in my younger days where my mother tried to help develop my reading skills, and in so doing gave me a magic book called Let's Make Magic by Jon Day. At that point in time it was the satisfaction of fooling someone and asking me, "HOW DID YOU DO THAT?" It was also the one thing that I could draw people at school together.

They were my reasons then, but now it is more that how in days where things are so dark, and where bad news is the only news (like car bombs, wars and the like) it's just nice to create that ray of sunshine among the doom and gloom and lighten up a person's day. If that's what I can do for someone else, then I will continue to do it.

Another reason I'm attacted to magic is how clever magicians are in thinking up tricks. The biggest secret in magic is that we do impossible things with means that are possible. Each trick that is sold is a glimpse of a person's mind that created that trick or in some cases, a group of people. This reminds me also that well we strive for things that seem impossible to obtain, things will always be possible. In many ways, magic is a lesson in life.

Magically
Aus

Hi, at first magic was great because I could see the look on people's face and know that I caused that (I still enjoy that factor of magic). But when I read this topic I realized how much I enjoy watching magic and I respect magicians, it clicked. If I respected magicians then that means that at some point people will have respect for me.

So I guess I'm trying to say I respect respect for me.

As others have mentioned there is a second when time and disbelief are suspended and the observer makes contact with a sense of wonder, rare these days.

Also, I still believe that if I practice hard enough I really will be able to make people disappear!

Sorry if this sounds a little corny and pretentious, but here it goes...

For me, I've always been attracted to things and people on the edges, particularly those able to play around the boundary between dreams and reality and forms of theatre and entertainment that can use this to create as intense and passionate an experience as possible.

That's why I'm into illusions, escapes and physical stuff; much as I admire well done close-up magic and prop magic (or for that matter productions and disappearances of cars, statues or other large objects) magic that's about material objects isn't what I'm most interested in. I'm interested in art that's about people, their emotions, primal instincts and fantasies.

I'm not bothered about fooling people, though I definitely want to generate reactions, perhaps a better choice of verb is challenging people. Hell, as a fan I love the intellectual challenge of figuring out how the impossible is accomplished (I like to work it out, not be told) but I'm more interested in the emotional, artistic expressive theatre and the mechanics of the trick are ultimately just tools towards that end. (Though as with any craft, anyone who wishes to create owes it to themselves to work towards having the best tools possible.)

As a kid I always wanted to be sawn in half by a magician; the trick scared the brown stuff out of me when I first saw it aged about five, but then when I realized the girl in the box was always removed intact, I came away thinking, cool! This brings in the whole death and resurrection angle and all associated metaphors (romantic sacrifice and Petit Mort to name but two). To face your fears and the ultimate reality of death, especially with the added surrealism of doing so voluntarily and gleefully and then surviving to do it all again is the ultimate high.

And this is just one (arguably weird) dream that can be lived through magic; you can fly, transform into other people (or even different species), penetrate solid objects and transport miraculously between points, all the things that real life denies us the ability to do safely or at all can be realized. Populate this dream world with the strange characters, creative personalities and the bizarre imagery that surrounds them, and I'm hooked.

A bit long winded, but that's my story.