This essay appears in Issue 24 of The Mockingbird print magazine, now available to order in our store!
I would go so far as to say that [creating] the illusion of impossibility is as good a definition of what constitutes magic as I can imagine. – Darwin Ortiz
Nate, Marcus, and a Weight Lifted
Magician Nate Staniforth finds himself playing to a tough room. He’s on a college campus performing in an overcrowded bar located in the basement of the student union, and there were more than a few boos scattered among the applause as he was introduced. For his first effect, he decides to pick as his main volunteer one of the big guys he saw booing. Marcus is his name, and Marcus reluctantly accepts the responsibility assigned to him: holding Nate’s wallet.[1]
Six other volunteers are randomly selected by tossing a ball cap around the room, and Nate asks each person to name a two-digit number. The first five numbers named are 16, 32, 09, 43, and 11. The hat is tossed randomly one last time and is caught by a woman named Jessica. “Jessica,” Nate says, “…when you go home tonight, you are going to be unable to sleep. You’re going to lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, driving yourself crazy wondering what would have happened if you had named a number other than the number you are about to name … What number are you thinking of?” Jessica chooses the number 14; the room has gone completely quiet.
Looking back at Marcus, Nate asks him to find a lottery ticket in his wallet, the wallet he’s been holding the whole time. Marcus finds the ticket, and Nate hands him the microphone; that’s when Marcus begins to read the numbers printed on the ticket: 16-32-09-43-11-14. The room erupts in cheers and screams, and in a state of disbelief, Marcus begins to repeat a string of expletives followed by “No f*#@%^g way!” He leaves the stage reading the ticket, shaking his head, and laughing.
Nate describes Marcus’s reaction: “I want you to see his face. I want you to see the joy, the open, unaffected joy. It’s the kind of joy that reminds you that what you mistook for dull, uninspired brutishness a moment before was actually just weight — the weight of worry, of pain, of anxiety, of the world — and for a moment it has gone, and the face that shines without it is extraordinary.”
There’s a world of difference between … not knowing how something is done versus … knowing that it can’t be done. -Simon Aronson
Wonder, Limitations, and Spontaneity
I can identify with Marcus — after being fooled by a good piece of magic, my brain tells me that what I experienced is not possible, and the mystery leaves me with wonder, astonished by what I witnessed.
But even if the statistical impossibility of the lottery ticket defies my intellect and taps into my emotions — so what? Does magic really matter? I believe magic matters because, done well, it invites us to momentarily suspend belief, and in doing so, it calls into question the way we think the world works. Before Marcus opened the wallet and read the ticket numbers, he probably had subconscious beliefs about statistics and probabilities; after he read the ticket, those convictions were now suspect, even if for a moment.[2]
In his book The Secret History of Magic, Jim Steinmeyer, a legendary magic creator and former Walt Disney Imagineer, has said something similar:
When we see a magic trick, when something happens that appears to be impossible, we are forced to realize the limits of our views, our doubts, and our expectations. When we encounter the seemingly impossible, we are reminded that there are things beyond what we see and what we take for granted. Magic demonstrates, if only for a moment, that our view is simply inadequate. The real secret, however, is to realize that this is not a momentary lapse. Every day, we experience the world from a restricted point of view, directed by ways of thinking that we do not realize are there.[3]
Essentially, the mystery of magic lets us exhale a bit in the face of everyday realities by inviting us to rest in what we don’t and, oftentimes, can’t know.
Almost like an antidote to worrying about tomorrow’s obligations and potential conflicts, magic has a unique ability to bring us fully into the present moment. It usually contains a callback feeling of what it was like to be a child, when playtime was unstructured, spontaneous, and not rooted in the utility of the activity at hand. In Mockingbird’s Law & Gospel, the authors place a strong emphasis on how the Gospel sparks spontaneity, which they define as
an inherent trust that the grace which moved someone like you is bound to move pretty much anywhere … Spontaneity is also, therefore, utterly playful. Child’s play and leisure completely disregard the world of costs and benefits, of means and ends. Instead, someone at play is completely immersed in the infinite riches of the present moment. A child could not tell you this is what they are doing, precisely because they’re not thinking of it — they are simply allowed to create something out of nothing.
Mystery, Real Magic, and the Grace of Not Knowing
So magic helps us see the limits of our own understanding, and sometimes the playful wonder we experience provides some temporary relief from the world and its pressures — but how does that relate to matters of faith? Doesn’t mystery just cause doubts and work against long-held beliefs? Doesn’t play distract us from solving the important problems at hand?
Katie Paterson, 100 Billion Suns, 2010. Custom printed confetti, confetti cannon launcher, dimensions variable. Edition of 10, JCG4930. Photo by: Jerry L. Thompson.
In fact, mystery and play are not attempting to undermine truth or reality; rather, they are encouraging us to hold our certainties with a bit more humility. Does this mean abandoning our core beliefs? No, but it does remind us that something bigger than our own understanding is at work.
By trying to erase every unknown and answer every God-related uncertainty, we’re unwittingly undermining the character of God and His gospel. If we understand everything about God, then why should we worship him? Billy Collins, former US Poet Laureate, once highlighted too much certainty as a key obstacle in his faith journey:
… the [Jesuit college’s] theology-based curriculum seemed to want to replace my lingering faith with a methodology based on the strict application of philosophic reasoning … As I studied for examinations by memorizing pages of syllogisms, I could feel Jesus being replaced by Thomas Aquinas.
In her book Mystery and Manners, Flannery O’Connor expresses a similar concern to Collins’. She exhorts us to have a kind of mind that is “willing to have its sense of mystery deepened by contact with reality, and its sense of reality deepened by contact with mystery.” Reality is made more real by embracing, not explaining, the mysteries we encounter.
As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things. (Eccl 11:5)
First century rabbis reportedly debated whether or not to include the book of Ecclesiastes in the Biblical canon, given its apparent incongruities and pessimism; even today, some scholars question whether the book has any revelatory value. However, a Vietnam War chaplain confessed that it was the only part of the Bible his soldiers were willing to hear.[4]
Even for the non-veterans among us, life holds hard mysteries, and Ecclesiastes makes us stare right at them.
The Preacher of Ecclesiastes tells us that death is certain, and we’re not likely to be remembered — but at the same time, each of our lives holds meaning, and we should enjoy life’s pleasures. How can we bridge this contradiction? Here is what I think: Our lives have meaning not because they always make sense or go the way we think they should go; our lives have meaning because of the One who created us. In his memoir Telling the Truth, Frederick Buechner reminds us that “God is not an answer man can give… God himself does not give answers. He gives himself, and into the midst of the whirlwind of his absence gives himself.” When Job is at his wit’s end, God doesn’t miraculously heal him in that moment; instead, God explains who He is by pointing to mysteries too deep for Job to comprehend (Job 38). It’s what theologian Ellen Davis calls “the grace of not knowing.”
What we least understand is what we need the most. It should come as no surprise that the Hebrew word for God’s one-way love, hesed, is untranslatable.[5] But it is most clearly manifested at the cross, when the realities of darkness and earthquakes meet the mysterious sacrifice of the Son of God for the redemption of humanity.
As magicians, we don’t keep secrets from our audiences. We keep them for our audiences. -Michael Weber
Select Milestones in Magic History
2500 BCE: Egyptian magician Djedi who beheads a goose and then restores the head for Pharaoh Khufu, as told in the Westcar Papyrus in a likely fictional recounting
1400 BCE: In Exodus 7, Pharaoh’s sorcerers challenge Moses and Aaron by replicating Aaron’s initial sign and turning their staffs into serpents “by their secret arts”
50-100 AD, likely earlier: The cups and balls routine, rumored to date back to 2500 BCE in Egypt but without convincing proof, was being performed by street performers in China, India and Europe
1584: Thomas Brandon kills a pigeon on a far-off rooftop by stabbing a picture he brought to the court of King Henry VIII; Englishman Reginald Scot publishes The Discoverie of Witchcraft to debunk witchcraft and conjuring by exposing how many of the effects were accomplished; it’s considered to be the first book on illusionary or stage magic
1805-1871: Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, a French watchmaker, is credited as the “father of modern magic”; in The Orange Tree effect, he would vanish a lady’s handkerchief, his magical orange tree would bloom several real oranges, and finally, the top orange would split open and two butterflies would emerge in flight with the handkerchief suspended between them
1876: Professor Hoffman publishes Modern Magic, a comprehensive book on Victorian stage magic and secret props; his magician peers are not amused
1902: S.W. Erdnase publishes The Expert at the Card Table, still considered to be a foundational text in card magic and manipulation, though the true identity of the author has never been definitively identified
1905: David Devant, whom some believe to be England’s greatest magician, premieres his Mascot Moth stage illusion, making his winged assistant instantly disappear
1918: Harry Houdini, born Erich Weiss, vanishes an elephant on stage at New York City’s Hippodrome; Houdini was a gifted escapologist and self-promoter, but according to his contemporaries, he was not a good magician
1920: English magician and inventor P. T. Selbit saws a woman in half for the first time
1922: Canadian-born Dai Vernon, virtually unknown at the time, fools Houdini backstage after one of his shows in NYC by having a signed card rise to the top of the deck seven times
1954: London-based magician David Berglas makes time stop in London’s Piccadilly Circus for a few seconds; he also introduces the Berglas Effect, a mysterious any card at any number effect
1983 & 1986: David Copperfield vanishes the Statue of Liberty in front of a live audience (1983) and walks through the Great Wall of China (1986)
1987: Spanish magician and teacher Juan Tamariz publishes The Magic Way, and the Spanish School, founded by Arturo de Ascanio and led by Tamariz thereafter, ushers in a new era of card magic and offers a fresh take on the structure of magical effects
1997: In his first TV special, David Blaine introduces his unique brand of ground-breaking street magic, including revealing the chosen card by throwing a deck of cards at a restaurant window and letting his spectators see that the selected card is stuck on the other side of the window
2006: Posing as a motivational speaker, English mentalist Derren Brown uses the power of suggestion to persuade a handful of otherwise law-abiding citizens to rob an armored car
2010: David Blaine catches a .22-caliber bullet in his mouth, fired from a rifle into a small metal cup
2013: David Copperfield causes multiple audience members to disappear from stage only to reappear in the rear of the auditorium seconds later
2022: Mac King swallows his guinea pig whole on stage, only to reveal the pet safe and sound minutes later
Celebrities Who Are Amateur Magicians or Just Love Magic
This is a select list and is not all-inclusive:
JJ Abrams
Jason Alexander
Muhammed Ali
Adrien Brody
Johnny Carson
Dick Cavett
Kelly Clarkson
Benedict Cumberbatch
Ellen Degeneres
Nathan Fielder
Arsenio Hall
Neil Patrick Harris
Hugh Laurie
Steve Martin
Chris Pratt
Daniel Radcliffe
Eddie Redmayne
Jason Sudeikis
Orson Welles
Larry Wilmore
King Charles III
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Orson Welles was considered to be a very accomplished magician.