Dear Friends:
In this Museletter, Eric Henning pulls back the curtain on one of the most powerful illusions in our art: the illusion of improvisation. From the quiet precision of Eugene Burger’s impromptu set to the razor-sharp recall of Robin Williams, Eric shows how the appearance of spontaneity is built on a foundation of intense preparation, thoughtful study, and lived experience.
Have you ever watched an artist just create amazing, beautiful art, music, comedy or anything out of thin air on the spur of the moment? Many of those we consider great improvisationalists – jazz players like Miles Davis, comedians like Robin Williams, even great speakers like Winston Churchill – have all impressed the public with their ability to seemingly pull great works out of thin air.
Let me tell you a secret. It’s an illusion.
Let’s begin with a story. At the 1998 World Magic Summit in Washington, DC, I had the privilege of sitting beside the great Eugene Burger as he performed impromptu close up magic after his lecture. He smiled at me, and as he sat down, I noticed that he did several secret things, calmly and unhurriedly, and then he winked at me. He knew he was sharing an important secret.
The secret things he had done had put him so far ahead of the audience that for the next twenty minutes it looked like he was improvising his entire act. But he wasn’t. His act had been carefully crafted to look completely impromptu. This was the greatest illusion he performed that night. How did he achieve this? The same way that all great masters do it – preparation. The good news is that this mastery is available to all of us, but it requires three things: knowledge, skill, and discipline.
Eugene Berger could apparently do “jazz magic” because he had spent years studying and mastering technique, and had performed for real people in the real world for a really long time. He knew what situations could come up, and he had thought deeply about every possibility that could emerge during his performances. Then, with great discipline, he prepared for every single one of those possibilities. This is the work, the invisible work, that makes improvisation appear effortless.
Miles Davis didn’t create his amazing riffs because he flouted the rules, but because he had mastered the rules, and had tried, and failed, so many times, that he had learned what worked on a deep, subconscious, muscle memory level. The things that you hear on his albums were developed through trial and error, endless rehearsals and actual gigs in front of the public before they were ever committed to vinyl.
Likewise, Robin Williams, who created this wonderful persona of an improvisational stream of consciousness comedian, was doing anything but improvisation. He had brilliant writing talent, of course, and was a great performer, but what made him able to create the illusion of improvisation, was his ability to catalog and recall thousands of snippets of comedy gold.
Williams’s comedy bits had been honed and polished to perfection in countless comedy clubs, and later, in his concerts and talk show appearances, it looked like he was simply pulling comedy out of thin air. In reality he had hundreds, if not thousands of bits committed to memory, and an incredibly quick mind that could pull those bits together and connect the dots faster than most of us can. His talent was not improvisation so much as synthesis. I’m not diminishing his talent at all–I’m astonished by it.
Sir Winston Churchill is widely considered one of the greatest speakers of all time, but many people don’t realize he had a tremendous problem speaking at all. From childhood, Churchill had a horrible stutter. Because his mother was American, Churchill knew that he wouldn’t inherit his British father’s title or property, and would probably have to pursue a political career. That meant having to speak in public, so he spent years studying the great speakers of history, learned what they had in common, figured out how to do it, and practiced relentlessly until he could do it himself.
He created a signature slow, deliberate, speaking style that accommodated his stutter while giving him the gravitas he needed to convince his listeners, and his writing was so good that his notes read like poetry, not prose. It’s not a coincidence that Churchill won the Nobel Prize – in Literature. His great talent was not his speaking, it was his writing, and that’s what enabled him to create this illusion of pulling things out of thin air.
You and I each have this potential for greatness.
I believe that every person has the ability to do something that is so good that the world has to sit up and take notice. But in order to develop that talent fully, it requires study, it requires diligent, disciplined practice and rehearsal, until we know our craft so well that it becomes art, and we know our art so well that we can break the rules and still create beauty.
I know someone who is such a great cook that they can walk into somebody’s house, and with whatever it is at hand, create a feast. That didn’t happen by accident. It took many, many years of study. It took being around masters and learning from them. It took applying those lessons every day.
This is the paradox of improvisation: what looks impromptu is the tip of an iceberg of preparation.
You and I can do the same thing in whatever our chosen field is. I urge you to find where your chance of excellence lies. Find your talent and commit to it. Put in the work to study your craft, become a master of the content and technique of your art, and develop your own voice. Then you too, will be able to improvise, or at least create the illusion of improvisation by doing art that flows out of you organically.
I can’t wait to experience what you’ll create.
Eric Henning is an Ambassador for the McBride Magic & Mystery School, and has been performing magic professionally for 53 years. His website is EricHenningMagic.com
Hey, Magical Friends,
We’ve just made improvements on the House of Mystery that you’ll see when you come visit us. Our garden has roses blooming, and Abigail is working outside today, harvesting lemons from our tree.
Spring is the season of fresh starts, and there’s no better time to take your magic to the next level. I remember when I started out. I thought I was nailing my card handling – until I met Jeff Sheridan.
In the 1970s, Jeff Sheridan was the most skilled, talented, and artistic magician in New York. He developed a powerful theatrical style. Here he can be seen stopping huge crowds in New York City performing with only cards and rope.
Personal instruction is the best way to learn magic. Jeff Sheridan was the first real pro who took me under his wing and said (gently), “Let me show you how it’s actually done.” That changed everything. I learned how to “do it the right way.” Jeff helped me in so many ways to advance my skills and performance style.
Building a Career and Building a School
Years later I studied with Eugene Burger, who is often quoted as saying, “The house of magic has many rooms.”
Pop Quiz! Which would you choose? A Lamborghini or a library?
When I turned 50, I realized I had a choice to make – it was either a Lamborghini or a library. As many of you know, I chose to build a library and a theater space/dance studio onto our school. Eugene was right – we needed many more rooms, so we built them…for you!
Building this new wing was the best choice I ever made. Well, okay, second best choice (the first best choice I ever made was marrying Abigail.) I knew in my heart that our magic library could take more people to more places than a Lamborghini ever could.
Today I decided to open a few new doors of my own and share what I’ve learned. You have two chances to visit us and train with us in person.
The Mystery School Experience (before & after Magic Live)
Immerse yourself in a five-hour magical journey that will take you through the art and heart of magic, all while discovering the world’s premiere magic learning experience.
IMAGINE yourself guided on a mysterious adventure as your host Jeff McBride invites you to join him for an unforgettable experience at the Magic & Mystery School.
Watch Jeff perform some of his NEW and classic pieces, and then embark on a guided tour of the magic school. You’ll visit our incredible magic library and behold the thousand and one wonders of Jeff McBride’s extensive magic collection–a treasure trove he has gathered from his many years adventuring around the world.
You’ll also get to participate in lectures, hands-on workshops, and of course, lots of magic. To keep you fueled throughout the day, snacks and drinks will be provided.
Register here – https://shop.magicalwisdom.com/event/the-magic-mystery-school-experience-session-1-2025-08-02
Take a tour of the McBride Magic Museum & Library by clicking the video below:
Magic Summer Camp for Grown-Ups
Yes, it’s a thing – and it’s amazing.
Think of it as a magical retreat–new routines, new friends, and a magical Las Vegas adventure of a lifetime. These are intimate, powerful days of training with Jeff and the rest of the faculty. You’ll get personalized coaching, stage time, and professional secrets we don’t put online.
“All magic is about transformation…You are the magician in your own life.” – Eugene Burger
So if you’re ready to deepen your magic, build your character (onstage and off,) and hang out with a bunch of other cool “grown up kids” who love this art as much as you do, come join us for a unique magical experience.
Reserve Your Spot Now.
https://shop.magicalwisdom.com/event/summer-magic-camp-for-grown-ups
Magically yours,
Jeff & Abigail
McBride
Magic & Mystery School
Las Vegas, NV
www.magicalwisdom.com
Dear Friends:
As springtime approaches, many celebrate with symbols of renewal – none more universal than the humble egg. But beyond its seasonal significance, the egg has played a remarkable, albeit mythical, role in history, espionage, and magic. Stories of secret messages hidden within eggs have captivated magicians, scientists, and even government agencies. Yet, as Judge Gary Brown cracks open this tale, we find a lesson not just in deception, but in the pursuit of the impossible.
As our thoughts turn to Spring, some celebrate holidays that use eggs to symbolize reawakening. Most celebrants remain blissfully unaware that this humble icon bears a fabled secret used to thwart medieval Inquisitors, colonial-era troops and modern spies. The secret, and its denouement, caused a scandal in the U.S., leading a federal Government agency to resort to near-delusional falsehoods to justify its actions. Meanwhile, magicians, scientists, poultry farmers, witches and evangelists have pursued and shared this method with extraordinary vigor.
“Secret Egg Writing” was documented in Giambattista della Porta’s Natural Magic (1558), in which the Italian polymath, known as the “professor of secrets” describes how the technique was utilized to smuggle messages to prisoners of the Inquisition. Della Porta’s explication proves remarkable–employing a combination of chemicals, messages may be invisibly inscribed upon the shell of a hardboiled egg. Cracking and peeling the seemingly innocent egg, the reader will find the message clearly etched in black on the hardened albumen. Similar descriptions of enciphered eggs frequently appear in popular histories of espionage.
For magicians, secret egg writing offers an incomparably powerful tool. Consider this–during a performance, the performer hands a participant an apparently ordinary hard-boiled egg, then presides over a seemingly random event (in its least imaginative but most common iteration, the selection of a playing card.) The volunteer then cracks and peels the egg, reading the words or symbols impossibly appearing in black on its shiny white interior. It’s a match! Volunteer flabbergasted! Cue the wild applause!
Reflecting on this miracle, one can readily imagine why magicians have endeavored to perfect this method. Houdini’s personal scrapbooks contain several descriptions of the technique. Countless magic books and magazines have offered instructions and applications, including, somewhat ironically, Dunninger’s 100 Houdini Tricks You Can Do.
Before you join the pursuit, be advised that perfecting the method is not without cost. The techniques for egg writing can be difficult, requiring vast amounts of time and experimentation. Instructions include time-consuming treatments using obscure ingredients such as alum, powdered oak galls, vitriol solution, wine, and an archaic red dye made from Brazilwood. In the May 1939 issue of The Linking Ring, Joe Berg, having long sought the workings of “Spirit Writing on Boiled Egg,” published a method, but noted “I am too lazy to try it. I will let you find out if it works.”
Well, Joe, it doesn’t. Secret egg writing has never worked. Not once. Not for anybody. Researchers have cataloged the many failed efforts of scientists, magicians and even della Porta himself to obtain results. (See, e.g., Coughlin, “The Egg and the Inquisition,” www.logbuch-wissensgeschichte.de). So, it wasn’t used by those resisting the Papal Inquisition, British colonialism or German counterespionage agents, though each of these claims has been repeatedly documented.
Assuming he tried, Houdini never got it to work (and Dunninger’s book might well be retitled 99 Houdini Tricks You Can Do.) And the besieged federal agency mentioned earlier wasn’t the NSA or the CIA, but rather the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which in the 1960s published an egg writing method to encourage children to eat more eggs, but later disavowed its own advice, stating that while its staffers had childhood recollections of the phenomenon, it no longer worked on modern eggs.
Secret egg writing constitutes an unusual, though far from unique, instance in which the one deceived by a method is the aspiring performer rather than its ostensible audience. The technique occupies an inglorious place among the scores of magic tricks and consumer miracles that, through inadequate testing, thoughtlessness or poor design, are destined for failure. Consider Adams’s “Mystic Smoke from Fingertips,” a sticky, chemical goo that (at least for me) worked exactly once, and would have been more appropriately titled “Rubbery Cobwebs from Fingertips” on a good day. “The Wonder Mouse,” which has never, as promised in ad copy, “run all over the magician,” does very little other than modestly enrich polished pitchmen. In some senses, such hustles bear comparison to confidence games in which a purported confederate or profiteer becomes the victim, as sale of the method is the deception. And yet conjurers, as voracious consumers of the enigmatic, have much to learn from the paradigmatic failure of undetectable ovum etching.
First, there are the lessons that follow from any unsuccessful magic endeavor. As magicians, we will necessarily encounter such moments, and must learn from them. Elsewhere, I have explored how we can learn more from our worst shows than from our best (see The Inventive Magician’s Handbook with Props at 185-87). Failure drives us to develop coping mechanisms, like outs, fireproofing and lifeboat effects that constitute necessary skills for any performer. Relatedly, in the face of misfires, we must continually devise improvements which, though famously unsuccessful in the case of “secret egg writing,” usually yields better results.
Second, it is worth reflecting on the reason that magicians have been so very determined to perfect and disseminate this method. As described, the encrypted egg represents a true miracle – the sheer impossibility of producing something from inside an organic, living object. Egg writing can be viewed as conceptually similar to Malini’s production of a banknote from inside a lemon, a powerful magic effect. (That the spectator reveals the egg message could render it even more impactful.) The same can be said for other “duds” in the magic world: “Mystic Smoke,” drawing from the conceit of a barehanded wizard producing smoke and flames, has been effectively replicated in recent years by Shin Lim and others using high-tech gizmos. “The Wonder Mouse” highlights both the desirability and the difficulty of animation effects – as one might witness with Teller’s incomparable “Red Ball.” Thus, as a source of inspiration, egg writing has something to offer, as it gives us reason to dream.
Finally, the scrambled debacle of clandestine egg inscription reminds us that secrets gleaned from the vast, untidy literature of magic may prove unworkable or may be ill-suited to certain contexts, performances, venues or spectators. By extension, digital age magicians deluged with endless offers for the newest, slickest, most perfect miracle must remain dubious – especially when promised effect is so good that you want it to be true. Always remember that advertising claims may be exaggerated, and secrets you acquire or discover simply may not work. This recognition may help avoid abject failure, embarrassment, or even worse.
In his wonderful book, Making Magic, master magician Martin Lewis recounts an adventure with Harry Anderson. After discovering techniques by which a barehanded performer could trigger an animal trap barehanded while escaping harm, the pair spent a day traveling to hardware stores, acquiring several devices. Over lunch – and drinks – they repeatedly set one of the traps, triggering it with various objects. The steel jaws shattered several plastic cocktail stirrers and a waitress’s pencil. They set the trap again while Harry contemplated trying the technique he had unearthed. Martin objected:
I pointed out that there are tricks in print that just don’t work. For example: writing on a hard-boiled egg with a solution of alum is supposed to look invisible from the outside but visible on the actual egg, but it doesn’t work. Someone wrote it up without actually trying it and then others republished it, but it never worked to start with. I had the same feeling about the trap.
It was time to go. Harry stood up and said “Ah, screw it,” and plunged his hand into the trap. The deadly steel jaws snapped shut and Harry issued a blood curdling scream. Pause. He looked up at everybody, then raised his trapped hand and said, “I guess I’ll have to gnaw my hand off now.” We exited hastily.
Anderson eventually incorporated the stunt into his stage act, a messy, distressing affair involving a comedy ending using a fake, severed hand. According to Mike Caveney’s Wise Guy, the ending served to prove that Anderson “was all right. Crazy, but all right.”
Though the ad copy for Wise Guy promised to tip “Skunk Trap,” certain details, such as the precise trap needed to attempt this feat, have been omitted, a wise editorial decision. After all, if “Secret Egg Writing” has taught us anything, it’s this–when it comes to magic methodology, you shouldn’t believe everything you read.
Judge Gary Brown, a long-time friend of the Magic & Mystery School, has grown oddly fascinated with published magical methods and commercial releases that seem unlikely to deceive, unimaginably impractical or are otherwise ill-suited for their intended purposes. He would love to hear from those magicians who have encountered such phenomena and would like to share them. You can reach him through his website: https://judgebrownmagic.com.
THE MAGICIAN WHO CAN DO THE MOST WITH THE LEAST…WINS!
The Big Question
How light can you travel?
How small can you pack?
What if I told you the secret to my success fits in the palm of your hand?
I learned this great secret from the masters – giants who needed nothing but their presence to command an audience. I trained with the legendary street magician Jeff Sheridan, who could mesmerize a crowd with a deck of cards and sheer mystery. I studied the work of Marcel Marceau, the master of mime, who conjured entire worlds…with no props at all!
And then, of course, there was my dear friend and teacher, Eugene Burger – a sage who proved that a deck of cards and a spool of yellow thread could be more astonishing than a stage filled with towering illusions.
All my life, I have been refining the art of packing small and playing BIG. One of my favorite sayings is…
“THE MAGICIAN WHO CAN DO THE MOST WITH THE LEAST WINS!”
I proved that my strategy worked night after night at Radio City Music Hall, a vast 6,000-seat theater. My props? Simple, a few masks, Linking Rings, and a deck of cards. Yet my magic filled the largest stage in the world, without video screens or camera tricks – just pure, direct showmanship.
Not only did my act shine at Radio City, but I was invited on The National Tour with the company for years, carrying my magic in a single case, while other magicians needed truckloads. I unlocked the secret of how to travel light but astonish heavy – and now, I pass this lesson on to you.
The Big Answer
Recently, I fell in love with a routine that embodies this philosophy. It’s elegant. It’s powerful. And now, I’m sharing it with the magic community – but only for a short time!
I have fewer than 50 units left, and because you’re part of my circle of friends, you get first dibs. Get your set of MENTAL TOWERS here – https://shop.magicalwisdom.com
The magician who can do the most with the least…wins.
Are you ready to win?
Jeff
P.S. Have you ever dreamed of attending our Magic & Mystery School here in Vegas? I know many of you have, but some of you don’t have the finances to make the dream come true. Now there is a solution!
A scholarship waiting for you! All you need to do is to go to this site and fill out the scholarship application, and our faculty will be in touch with you – https://www.magicalwisdom.com/about/scholarship-program
THIS IS WHERE YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE!