Greetings Magical Friends,
Abigail here, writing from the House of Mystery, while Jeff is performing and teaching in Florida for a few days….
“I cannot tell you anything that, in a few minutes, will tell you how to be rich. But I can tell you how to feel rich, which is far better, let me tell you firsthand, than being rich. Be grateful… It’s the only totally reliable get-rich-quick scheme.â€
 —Ben Stein, actor, comedian, economist
Once again, we are approaching my favorite time of year, a time when just for one day, we turn our focus to gratitude and giving thanks. My awareness around gratitude has been deepening lately, and I am noticing the effects this has on my life. One of the practices I learned many years ago was to make a list, from A-Z of things I am grateful for, everything from Air that I breathe to the fact that Zebras exist at all… and now, this practice is growing, as I ask myself, “Why am I grateful for this?â€Â (Water, because it hydrates, cleanses and makes things sparkle!) Deepening into the “why†seems to bring me into more and more awareness. When I am grateful, I feel happier, more in tune with just how blessed and fortunate I am. I’m not the only who has noticed this correlation. In his fine work, Thanks!: How Practicing Gratitude Can Make You Happier
“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.â€
 —Denis Waitley
I want to encourage all of us to bring up the frequency of gratitude in our lives, not just once a year for one day, but consistently, consciously, constantly. I really do believe that when we are tuned into how good life is, we are more inclined to be kind, helpful and present with all those we encounter, and there is so much to be thankful for.
Brother David is one of my favorite teachers about gratitude, and this is one my favorite works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Zl9puhwiyw
Today, my gratitude goes out for my beloved, darling husband, who I appreciate, respect and admire; for our students and faculty who make the Magic & Mystery School; for my health, my home, the happiness that is mine on a daily basis, for the willingness to celebrate even the smallest victories, and the ability to breathe, dance and live in this amazing world.
I am especially grateful that my parents decided to have me start piano lessons when I was four, as that decision has led me to be the musician and singer that I am. If you’d like to hear some of my music, you can find it here:
http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/AbbiSpinnerMcBride
Wishing you the gift of knowing how fortunate you are, at Thanksgiving time and always…
Abigail
From Lawrence Hass, Associate Dean:
Throughout the month of October, we are celebrating the “Philosophy of Magic†on our Mystery School Monday shows. Thus, for this Museletter we wanted to bring you something special from one of our famous philosophers, Bob Neale. On the day this arrives in your box, Bob will be with us in Las Vegas for the Magic and Meaning Conference, where we will be celebrating the release of his brand new book The Sense of Wonder (available October 20 from TheoryandArtofMagic.com).
Meanwhile, enjoy these reflections:
The Magician’s Bauble
 Robert E. Neale
(Excerpt from an unfinished manuscript, Breakaway: Bits and Pieces of a Magic Wand)
“Bauble†is an Old French term of obscure origin. It refers to a child’s plaything or toy. We continue to employ it to mean a trinket—a small, showy ornament of little value. In either case, it suggests something of little value. This is just as it should be . . . as long as we remind ourselves of the quite opposite meaning that is involved when we connect it with the Fool’s Bauble, which functions as a scepter that mocks the staff of office of rulers.
Fool’s Baubles could vary in form from an imitation phallus, to a bladder, to a doll-like replica of the fool himself. The prop was a symbol presenting the jester as a ruler of his own, fool of all fools. But our recollection of the jester in Europe should not obscure the fact that the fool figure has occurred in such cultures and societies as Eskimo, Aztec, Arabian, Roman, and Chinese. Fools occur to make merry, play absurd, and also critique society. They are experienced as innocent and yet knowing, criminal and yet caring, destructive and yet wholesome. Indeed, the jester is a most ambiguous figure about which we are properly ambivalent.
So I invite you to consider our traditional magic wand as a jester’s bauble:
It is a bauble we have been using all through our magic lives, but perhaps haven’t fully recognized it as such.
But now consider it to be a kind of wand that we have sometimes used in our public performances:
Indeed, at the most fundamental level, all our baubles are breakaway wands: the comedy stick with which we wave to make magic happen and then hand to a child who discovers it broken. We take it back, restore it, and may offer it to the child again. However abusive, this event has been experienced as funny by magicians, their audiences, and even those on whom the trick has been played. And it is properly ironic that we should finally play it on ourselves. Can we show our wand broken? Can we create the illusion for ourselves that we have restored it? Can we not like ourselves, then like ourselves, and then be silly with the serious?
So consider our wand now as fully revealed. Can we see it? And if so, can we appreciate it still as a comedy stick? Is it funny for us? Yes, can we laugh? Let us hope so by moving the life cycle of our magic wands to a new stage in which they embody ambiguity, and yet we treasure our own ambivalence about it.
“It’s not how much we give, but how much love we put into giving.â€
-Mother Teresa
Lance Burton and Jeff McBride raise awareness for ALS. It is a joy to share this with our friends.
See the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFOV3KqjBZw&feature=youtu.be
“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
–Winston Churchill
to gather and hold the attention of the crowd. Today’s audiences have short attention spans. In today’s fast-paced world, only those who have the skills to win the crowd will survive.
What can we learn from magicians? Here are the 3 rules of “Street Magic”
Find out the techniques used by master “crowd stoppers” by watching this short clip:Â https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALE65MRP-hA
1. CAPTURE THE IMAGINATION – Use sound, color and movement to attract ALL of the senses. Â Get people INVOLVED not “just watching.”
2. EN-TRANCE & MANAGE ATTENTION – Use the hypnotic language of storytelling, music, varied vocal VOLUME and pacing to connect and deepen the immediate experience.  Repetition and predictability are boring! Make your presentation a roller coaster ride.
3. MAKE THE MESSAGE MEMORABLE -Â Use “catch phrases,” hooks and visual metaphors to help the message “stick” in the memory.
For more info on how to make your message stick:
 http://www.gingerpublicspeaking.com/make-your-message-stick-the-rule-of-memorable-presentations
Q: Where do public speakers, presenters and magicians go to learn how to make their
message more meaningful?
A: The Magic & Meaning Conference
http://www.magicalwisdom.com/events#469
caption under photo: Mario and I will teach you to the secrets of capturing the big crowd at our upcoming class. http://www.magicalwisdom.com/events#467
Mario Morris said, “This is perhaps the only magic workshop you will ever attend, where you can actually get PAID BACK your tuition by PERFORMING!”
This training is the THE REAL DEAL on Street Performing. If you EVER had the desire to live your dreams as a busker, this class will give you what you need to know.
 “Only those who attempt the absurd can achieve the impossible.â€
–Albert Einstein
Yes, Ross Johnson can detect objects while 100% blindfolded! He seems to have developed the ability to see without the use of his eyes! He can also teach you to manifest apparently psychic powers! I’m not kidding! You can even meet Ross here:
http://www.magicalwisdom.com/events#470
“Advertising is the greatest art of the 20th century”
– Marshall McLuhan
Imagine performances that integrate the power of the mind, magic, mentalism, and hypnosis, creating a truly unique experience for audiences – a unique experience that only you can provide.
Hypnotic Wizardry
Join master hypnotist Richard Nongard and
World-renowned magician Jeff McBride
Jeff McBride’s Mystery School
in Las Vegas, NV
January 23-25, 2015
Magicians and mentalists will master the art of hypnotic language, directing audiences in new and powerful ways to accomplish routines that are spectacular.
Hypnotists will learn the art of magic, illusion and mentalism and create unique skits that move far beyond what the standard stage hypnotist is offering.
You will be able to exemplify yourself in this intensive three day learning opportunity and you will have the personal attention of two masters within their craft.
This class is for magicians, mentalists, hypnotists and performers that desire to impact audiences with powerful demonstrations which others simply do not perform. You will be setting yourself, and your performance, apart from the rest by combining cognitive magic with innovative performance.
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.â€
–Maya Angelou
Sheryl Garrett is an amazing photographer. She attended a recent Master Class. You can get a secret look inside the halls of Mystery School by viewing the gallery of her photos you will find here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.265206657003832.1073741848.150066185184547&type=1
The biggest magic party in Las Vegas and YOU are invited!
Thursday night September 18th… never to be repeated! The full line up can be seen here: www.vegaswonderground.com
I’m home in Las Vegas after the “Chicago to Brazil to Arkansas” tour. Abbi and I are hosting a few residencies and seminars here in Vegas. So when you plan your Vegas visit, be sure to let us know, and we’ll help you put a little magic in your visit. Call Abbi at 702-450-0021 to set up a class or private session.
We will see you in the online classroom, here in Vegas, or on the road,
Jeff McBride
“Before you can think out of the box, you have to start with a box.â€Â —Twyla Tharp
For me, September is the month of transitions. It is the month when the nights start to get cooler and the days get shorter. It is the time to roll up my sleeves (vacation is over!) and get started on some fresh new thinking and projects. And above all, it is time to get “back to schoolâ€!
“Back to School†is the theme of all our Mystery School Monday shows this month and I hope that you’ll tune in because we will have a lot to say about “hitting the books†with your magic (Mondays, 7:00 p.m. pacific, mcbridemagic.tv). But here I want to talk about something I won’t discuss during the shows and which I have found to be utterly essential for bearing in on September projects. And that is: “taking good notes,†in other words, the practice of keeping an artist’s notebook.
I don’t know about you, but for me creative insights and breakthroughs come when I least expect them: in the shower, riding on a train, or walking my puppy. Or I come across an exciting trick or a potential method while I am reading a magic book or magazine. Of course I always pledge and promise not to forget, and yet days or weeks later most of them are simply . . . gone. Or the living heart of the idea has evaporated; I can’t remember what gave me the “creative buzz†that seemed so promising.
This is why I always have my artist’s notebook with me. And it is why every serious artist I have ever known, across a full range of art forms, keeps notebooks or journals. It is the primary way we can catch our dreams and, by putting them into words, make them real. Without this, despite all good intentions, our creative insights flutter away and fritter into nothing.
Now, it doesn’t have to be a note-book. As her epigram makes clear, master choreographer Twyla Tharp uses a box to collects props, artifacts, CDs of music, notes written on napkins, and so on. And you certainly could keep your “notebook†on your “tablet†or a computer. But after twenty years of doing this and experimenting, my preference is to use “Mead Composition Books,†available in any drugstore. They are inexpensive, small enough to be portable, and yet large enough to hold lots of notes. And I personally love the muscular, tactile handwork of writing on paper with pen and ink—somehow this embodied ritual makes it all solid and “sticky†for me.
Whatever system you decide to use—composition book, loose pages in a binder (Jeff’s method), or digital files—an artist’s notebook has two essential functions. The first function has already been mentioned: being able to record your good ideas and creative brainstorms whenever and wherever they might occur (after the shower, on the train, in the middle of the night). This is what I call the “dreamcatcher†function.
The second function is retrieval: you must be able to quickly access your past good ideas when you need them today. Indeed, nothing is worse than knowing that you once had a great idea for this somewhere! I call this the “lay-your-hands on-it-now†function.
In my experience, every system is better at one of these functions than the other. So carefully decide which “box†will work best for your overall work-style and devise additional strategies to offset the shortcomings. For example, my composition books are perfect for recording, but to facilitate retrieval I need to create a supplementary index for each one.
Obviously, there is a lot of variability in how artists keep a notebook. But there is no variability about the fact that doing so will help you be a more creative and productive magician. If you have never tried this practice or if you have fallen away from it, this September is a perfect month to “take good notes.†I think you’ll like what it does for you!
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