Dear Friends in Magic,
There are a few phrases in magic so familiar, that the moment they’re spoken, the mystery begins to disappear. We’ve all used them. We’ve all heard them. And if we’re honest, we’ve all felt that subtle shift when an audience leans back instead of leaning in. In this Museletter, Mystery School Instructor Frank Zazanis invites us to take a hard look at one of the most common.
The Uphill Battle Of Pick A Card, Any Card
“Oh, I’ve seen this trick before,” the well-dressed person at your corporate strolling gig says, and with righteous indignation you think to yourself, ‘No you haven’t, I just came up with this variation on the ambitious card to pepper mill yesterday.’ You are frustrated with them for assuming they knew what was going to happen, but can we blame them if the first words out of our mouth were the familiar “Pick a card, any card?”
Let’s try a little experiment: What comes to your mind when you see the following phrases:
A long time ago in a galaxy…
It was the best of times…
Space, the final frontier…
A spool of yellow cotton thread…
The way you most likely finished some, if not all, of those sentences (if not, as Max Maven said, you need to get out less) is exactly the same way people finish what they think is coming next after “Pick a card, any card.” They think it is the same trick their friend from school, their uncle, or—hopefully not, but possibly—someone less practiced in the art of magic showed them, and they liked it, tolerated it, or hated it. Regardless, we are fighting an uphill battle every time we use that line.
I think we owe it to our participants, the art as a whole, and ourselves to give it just a bit more effort. If we really want to give them a magical experience, perhaps we should start with something magical. I can hear you now asking me, “But Frank, I like doing this card trick. You’re not going to ask me to stop doing it, right?” Right, I am not going to ask you to stop doing the routine. I would never dream of asking a fellow magician to stop doing card tricks—that would be the impossible dream indeed.
I am simply going to invite you to change how it starts. If we spend just a few minutes brainstorming the possibilities that can be used instead of asking people to pick a card, any card, like a sideshow flim-flam artist (unless you, in fact, are a sideshow flim-flam artist, and in that case, please keep using the line), we will change not only our magic but, dare I hope, the world’s perception of magic as an art. A lofty goal, but one that can be achieved if we all respect ourselves and our art just a little bit more. It will eventually change.
Here are some examples of ways to have a card selected that don’t sound like someone’s uncle who knows one trick:
“When you look at what I have in my hands, you may see a simple deck of cards, and it may be exactly that, but what I see is 52 unique possibilities that will lead us down a brief magical adventure. Would you take just one of these possibilities to begin this adventure?”
“You know, people say that card tricks are boring, especially the way my Uncle Todd used to do them. I don’t do card tricks; I create moments of magic with these portable pasteboards of power. I’d like to create a moment like that for us. In order to do that, we need one of you to be the star of this moment, and I need you to choose one of these to represent you.”
“I’m going to show you something amazing using a stack of bowling balls. Oh, I guess I forgot to pack those. Well, I can do the same thing with these, and my insurance won’t go through the roof. Please take one of these flat, rectangular bowling balls so we can get on with it.”
“Look at all of these options you have to start a minor miracle with. Point to whichever of these seems the most miraculous to you.”
Now, I know these particular lines may not suit you and who you are on stage or when strolling about your corporate gig, but hopefully they are a starting point for you to create your own.
Each introduction we do to every effect we perform is absolutely critical to the experience we create. How would you want your magic to be remembered? That all begins with the first thing you utter at the moment you approach a group or walk on, but it is heightened by the introduction to the effect and the action you wish the participant to take.
I look forward to seeing what you come up with to replace “Pick a card, any card.” Now please go write a line, any line, and go forth and change the world, one piece of magic at a time.
Frank Zazanis (Franklin Williams)
Putting Out the Fire with Gasoline
Or
The Night Jeff McBride and Tina Turner Were on Fire…Almost!
It was the mid-1980s and I was performing at Caesar’s Boardwalk Regency in Atlantic City. I was the opening act for Tina Turner, and as you can see from my make-up, it was in a phase of my career that I fondly call my “Alice Cooper meets Marcel Marceau at a Kiss concert.” Anyway, it was really working, and I was the opening act for many rock acts of the time including Cheap Trick, Asia, and Tina Turner. I have lots of wild stories about this era of my life!
The Following Story is One of the Wildest Shows of My Life!
My act took place in front of the curtain while the entire band was set up behind it waiting for their cue. The timing of the show was carefully rehearsed. I would finish my act, take a bow, and throw kabuki streamers out into the audience. The moment the streamers were thrown, there would be a blackout. The band would count it off, five, six, seven, eight. The curtain would open, the lights would come up, and the band would burst into David Bowie’s song Putting Out the Fire With Gasoline as the opening song.
That Was the Plan…Until…
When I threw the kabuki streamers into the audience, I did not know that every table in the room had small tea lights burning on them. Tiny candles were placed across the tables every few feet. The paper streamers fell across the audience and landed directly in the candles. Immediately the thin rice paper began to catch fire and the long strands started burning like little fuses. For a moment it looked like the entire room might go up in flames!
Fortunately, kabuki streamers are made from very thin rice paper and they burn quickly. The flames ran through the paper and went out before they could ignite the tablecloths or the napkins on the tables. It was a close call and certainly gave everyone a scare, and I learned a powerful lesson: always do a complete run through before the show with props, especially if there’s fire involved!
These are the kind of lessons I’ve learned the hard way. I share these cautionary tales with students and remind them that I’ve made these mistakes so they don’t have to! One of the advantages of having a magic teacher is they’ve made so many mistakes and learnt from them, and they can save you years of trials, pitfalls and perils along your path.
When I see you next, remind me to tell you why I never have wheels on my table on stage…but that’s another story for another time.
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Q: How do you set your audience’s mind on fire?
A: MENTAL TOWERS! A total mind-melting mystery!
It is guaranteed to get 100% audience participation. There are only a few units left. This is one of the most powerful audience participation routines that I’ve ever encountered! I’ve worked on it for many years and now I’m sharing this amazing act with students who are members of our Mystery School and those who read our newsletter. That’s you, my friends!
This Act Starts with My Confession
Speaking of fire, in the next few days Abigail and I will be getting ready to go out to the Nevada desert for our 26th annual MayFire gathering. We gather with our friends each year in the desert to share magic, music, poetry, art and yes, light a beautiful fire. Here is a photo of us from many, many years ago playing music! We’ve been sharing these magical events with our community for over 30 years!
Dear Friends in Magic,
Wonder is one of the most powerful tools a magician can create, but where does that feeling really come from? Is it the method, the presentation, or something deeper in the human experience? This week, mentalist, anthropologist, and storyteller Paul Draper explores the deeper roots of mystery itself. Drawing from anthropology, performance, and years of experience in front of audiences around the world, Paul examines why magic resonates so strongly with people across cultures and generations.
The Anthropology of Wonder: What Magicians Can Learn from Culture, Mystery, and the Human Mind
By Paul Draper
Magic is one of the oldest human arts. Long before there were theaters, television specials, or viral clips online, there were people standing before a small circle of others creating moments that defied expectations. A bone moved without touch. A prediction came true. A story revealed a hidden truth. In every culture on Earth, people have created experiences that evoke surprise, mystery, and awe.
As an anthropologist and a mentalist, I often find myself returning to a simple question:
Why does magic work on people at such a deep level? Not just mechanically, not just psychologically, but humanly. Anthropology has given me a framework that shapes the way I think about audiences and performance. Across cultures and throughout history, human beings are constantly seeking three things: Membership, Order, and Meaning.
These elements appear everywhere in human life. They shape religion, politics, art, and storytelling. And when we look closely, we discover they are also the invisible structure beneath the art of magic. When we perform magic, we are not simply demonstrating tricks–we are creating a temporary world where these three elements come alive.
Membership: The Circle of Wonder
Every magical experience begins with membership. Think about the difference between watching a trick on a phone and sitting in a small room with a magician. The moment we gather together, something changes. The audience becomes part of a shared experience. The performer invites them into a circle of wonder.
This is one reason I love performing in intimate spaces like the Close-Up Gallery at the Magic Castle. With only a couple of dozen guests in the room, something remarkable happens. The audience stops being a collection of strangers, and becomes a small community. They laugh together, react together, and they become witnesses to the same impossible events.
Anthropologists sometimes call this communitas — a shared emotional experience that bonds people together. Magicians create communitas every time we gather people around mystery. And in a world where many people feel increasingly isolated or disconnected, that simple act has tremendous value.
Order: Crossing the Threshold
Magic may appear chaotic, but it is built on a deep sense of order. Audiences arrive with expectations about how the world works. Cards remain where they are placed. Thoughts stay private. Objects do not vanish. Cause leads to effect. The magician introduces a disruption to that order.
A prediction reveals something that should be unknowable. A volunteer finds their thoughts anticipated before they are spoken. A borrowed object behaves in ways that contradict everything we know about physical reality. For a moment, the structure of the world bends, but the deeper transformation is not simply disorder–it is repositioning.
In anthropology, crossing a threshold matters. When we move from one state of experience to another, our position within the structure of society and reality changes. The person who has not experienced the mystery occupies one place. The person who has witnessed the impossible occupies another.
During a magical performance the audience crosses that threshold. They move from being observers of ordinary reality to participants in something extraordinary. They have now experienced something others have not. In that moment, the order of their experience shifts. They now belong to the group that knows–not the secret of the trick, but the experience of the mystery. And, once someone has crossed that threshold, the world never looks quite the same again.
Meaning: Why Wonder Matters
Of the three elements, meaning may be the most important. If magic is only about fooling people, it becomes a puzzle. But if magic connects to meaning, it becomes something deeper.
Some of the most powerful magical experiences I have witnessed had very little to do with technical complexity. Instead, they carried emotional or philosophical weight. A simple object becomes a symbol of memory, a prediction becomes a metaphor for destiny, or a mystery becomes a reminder that the world still contains the unknown.
In my own work, I often combine mentalism with storytelling about psychology, anthropology, and human perception. When people realize how easily the mind can be influenced or misdirected, they begin to understand something important about themselves. Magic becomes a mirror.
Magic in the Modern World
We live in an age where information is instantly accessible and skepticism is often celebrated. Yet paradoxically, people seem more hungry for wonder than ever.
Over the past year I have had the privilege of sharing this idea in many different settings. I recently spoke and performed at the Blackpool Magic Convention, where thousands of magicians from around the world gather to celebrate the art. Shortly afterward I had the opportunity to lecture at the University of Cambridge, discussing social engineering, perception, and the psychology of deception with students and faculty in the computer science department.
The contexts were very different. One room filled with magicians, another filled with cybersecurity researchers. But, the reaction was the same. People leaned forward. They laughed.
They asked questions, and afterward many said some version of the same thing–that they had not felt that sense of wonder in a long time.
In the coming months I will continue exploring these ideas in a lecture and performance at the Portland Magic Jam, and at the Irish Hypnotherapy Conference. Different audiences, different cultures, but the same human response to mystery. Wonder, it turns out, travels very well.
A New Book About Mystery
On Second Thought… Mentalism, Meaning, and Performance
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pauldraperbook/on-second-thought-mentalism-meaning-and-performance.
These experiences are part of what inspired my newest project, a book exploring mentalism, psychology, and the deeper art of creating astonishment. Rather than simply teaching techniques, the book explores how performers can combine psychology, storytelling, anthropology, and theatrical structure to create experiences that resonate long after the performance ends. It looks at mentalism not just as demonstrations of mind reading, but as a way to explore the mysteries of human perception and belief.
The response from the magic community has been extraordinary. The Kickstarter campaign quickly surpassed its goal, and nearly three hundred supporters stepped forward to help bring the book into existence. Even though the campaign has technically closed, the special edition is still available through Kickstarter, and magicians can still join the group of backers who will receive the first printing.
If you enjoy exploring the deeper ideas behind magic, not just methods, but why mystery matters, I believe you will find something in these pages worth studying, performing, and thinking about. On Second Thought… Mentalism, Meaning, and Performance by Paul Draper
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pauldraperbook/on-second-thought-mentalism-meaning-and-performance.
Keeping the Flame of Mystery Alive
One of the great gifts Jeff McBride and the Magic & Mystery School have given our community is the reminder that magic is not merely entertainment, it is a living tradition. It is a way of connecting people to creativity, imagination, and the unknown. Every time we perform, teach, or share a magical moment, we participate in that tradition. We invite someone to cross a threshold and experience the world in a new way.
And perhaps that is the real secret of magic–not the method, not the move, but the moment when someone leans forward, eyes wide, and remembers that the universe still contains mysteries waiting to be explored.
Paul Draper
https://PaulDraper.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_W._Draper
When did you fall in love with magic?
My wife, Abigail, asked this question of me with a group of friends when we were sitting at a table in our home here in Vegas. What we discovered is that many of us have the same story about how magic came into our lives, and also tragically, how Magic sometimes is abandoned only to be rediscovered late in life. Let me explain.
Many magicians discover magic early in life. A ball and vase, a Svengali deck, or a beginner’s book that opens the door to wonder. When we are young, we dream of becoming a magician. But, then something strange happens. Many of us lose the magic because we have been convinced that we need a “real job” to pay the bills instead of following our passion.
Did “Real Life” Get in the Way of Your Passion of Magic?
When we grow up, life gets a little bit too real, with school, careers, family, money, and responsibilities. Your magic stepped quietly into the background. But magic is patient…very patient.
You worked hard your whole life. Magic was always around, but never in the forefront. There were always more important things to do. But now, many years later, you’ve decided to come back to your magic.
Now It is Time for You and Your Magic!
Magic is not only about collecting tricks. It is about your personal expression, and sharing the magic you love with people that love you back. You may want to share your magic with friends and family, perhaps local charities, or maybe even dream of performing events and parties, traveling the world and sharing magic.
This Dream Can Now Be Your Reality
I have created a Mentorship Program for magicians entering “act three” of life who are ready to return to magic with purpose. I will work with you personally and also bring together a small circle of like-minded magicians who are rebooting their magic journey. Together, we explore how to take our life’s experience and pour that into the magic we love. We will learn ways to take all that magic and life experience we’ve collected, and actually put it into a show that we can share with our friends, family, and communities.
The program includes private mentorship with me, a small group that meets periodically on Zoom, and a private Facebook community where mentorship students can share ideas, performances, and feedback in a supportive environment. If magic has called you back and you are ready to take the next step, this program was created for you. To find out more, take a look here – https://shop.magicalwisdom.com/events
For details and mentorship information, contact Abigail McBride at abigail@mcbridemagic.com,
or give her a call at (702) 450-0021 and just say, “Hello Abigail, I’m interested in rebooting my magic career!”
