Crafting Mystery Todd Landman

AIMC, FRSA, PhD

2014 Dr Todd Landman all rights reserved.

The Shop in Birmingham was small, intimate and very mysterious. Alchemical robes were in glass cases along the walls, antique furniture was dotted about, framed Tarot images hung on the walls, and bookshelves were full of old tomes. He went to a shelf in the foyer outside the chamber and from a small glass case on a plinth mounted on the wall he removed an old and dusty purple velveteen box. He asked me to sit down and keep very still. Placing the box on my knees gingerly, he looked at me with a serious gaze and asked, Youre not afraid of spiders are you? Sort of, I said with rising trepidation in my voice. Would you like to open the box slowly or all at once? I am not entirely sure, I replied nervously. Take your time Is there something inside? That you will have to discover for yourself. I looked at him and he looked back at me, giving nothing away, saying nothing, sitting very still. Unable to contain my curiosity and with incredible care, I slowly opened the box and peered inside. The box was entirely empty, but on the bottom was a label, which read:
Cadburys Chocolate Luxury Edition 1932

After I caught my breath and started to relax after being increasingly tense about the prospect of a large spider climbing out of the box, I finally realized the key lesson about presenting magic: expectation. Even though absolutely nothing happened, my mind was racing, my heart was thumping, and my forehead had become slightly clammy. The sheer relief and humour once I opened the box allowed a flood of emotion to be released.

The owner of the box is a health economist, university professor, tarot card reader, and alchemist. He is well read, steeped in the Hermetic tradition, and has a piercing gaze and beguiling smile. He speaks with confidence and a depth of knowledge, while surrounded by artifacts from another age. The combination of context, background, credibility, ambience, language and unspoken convincers produced a very strong reaction. The plinth and case gave the box a venerable and revered status (it was just a vintage chocolate box). The care and attention paid to the box and dramatic pause in the delivery of the first line created expectation and a hint of fear. The follow-up line about opening the box slowly or quickly added to the expectation. The release created an entirely different emotion. There are many things at play in this example. One draws on the ideas put forth in Grofmans The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, the classic sociological study of how we adopt different roles in society and how these roles affect people with whom we come in contact. The person in my example was an academic with full command of his subject area, as well as devoted esoteric scholar. His discourse, manner, dress, and confidence are all part of his persona, which have a powerful impact on the participant. The second is about the sparseness of language and lateral references rather than explicit claims. He did not say here I have a box that might have a spider in it (an oft heard construction of the inexperienced magician). Rather he said Youre not afraid of spiders are you? Here, his language suggests that there might be a spider in the box. He said nothing of the box, but merely removed it carefully from the case and gingerly rested it on my lap. Third, his gaze, calm manner, and patience placed the onus of opening the box on me, which means that all of what I experienced was purely inside my head as I weighed the risks of opening the box. The added question on how I might want to open the box completed the sense of expectation and played on my mind even more. Years after this incident, I watched a TedX talk from JJ Abrams on what he called The Mystery Box. The genius behind the TV Show Lost and films such as Star Trek and Star Wars, Abrams has a cardboard box on stage that has a large question mark on it. In talking about his life in the creative industry, he recounts a childhood visit to Louis Tannens magic shop with his father (I did the same with my father en route to pick up my Dutch Grandfather from JFK airport), where he acquired the box. The box quietly sits on stage, sealed, unmoving yet raising expectation in all of us. Here the man who has created some of the most fantastic

special effects has us spell bound with a simple box from his youth. After showing us clips from his various films, he turns to the box and says that after all these years, the box has never been opened. It promised to reveal all the secrets of magic, yet he never opened it. As he finishes his talk, he picks up the box, leaves the stage, and never opens it. Part of mystery is in concealing and not revealing. Concealment and suggestion form part of what Professor BC and I call the misdirection of expectation. Like my man with the spider box, Abrams has credibility, plausibility and authority. He shows us examples of his special effects and we await the opening of the box with childish eagerness, and yet he never opens it. In my routine Cogito Ergo Conjuro, I enter through the back of the audience, dressed in typical academic clothing with a Cambridge gown and holding a small lantern to guide my way through the darkened theatre. I walk slowly with a heavy step, the audience did not expect me to enter from the back of the theatre. The lantern is like the Hermit, casting illumination in front of me; a analogy for the knowledge I am about to share. The lantern is placed on the table and I begin my presentation, which is framed around Ren Descartes and the separation of mind and body, his mystical ruminations and alleged connections to the Rosicrucians, and the philosophy of science. A key moment in the routine involves a copper sphere, which I hold aloft between thumb and index finger and ask the audience about what will happen if I relax my grasp on the sphere? They all say it will drop. I launch into a discussion of gravity, observation and empirical verification while continuing to hold the sphere. I ask them with what certainty they think the sphere will fall. They answer 100%. I raise the possibility that some catastrophic event could transpire that would affect gravity at that precise moment causing the sphere not to drop. I then pause, raise the sphere higher, and then release it. It falls to my outstretched hand below. I raise an eyebrow, smirk, and then move into the rest of the routine.1 The absence of anything magical happening at this stage in the routine in my view is more powerful than making it float. Some in the audience expect it to float, but having it fall is better. This non-event is then followed by a series of mind reading demonstrations and an uncannily accurate astrological reading. Combining rising expectation !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "!#$%!%&'()%!)*+'(&%!!"#$%"&'(#"&!")*+("!,-&!.%!/*+&0!(&!1(.%)!2%&'(3! 4$''56778889:+:+9,*;735*':(<$'753=,)%'3>!-&0!/+)'$%)!)*+'(&%3!.-3%0!*&! 5$(:*3*5$=?!;%'-5$=3(,3?!-&0!;=3'(,(3;!,-&!.%!/*+&0!(&!',$-%./.)%01"#$.! 4$''56778889:+:+9,*;735*':(<$'70)'*00:-&0;-&>9!!

and unexpected surprise can bring a certain cadence or rhythm to a show that takes your participants on a journey, and thus when I craft a show I think about how these moments will work and when they will occur. These examples allow me now to back up and formalize a number of concepts that ought to be taken into account when crafting mystery entertainment and thinking about presentation. As many others have observed, performance magic is fundamentally about you and not about what you do. The participants are interested in you, who you are, how you carry yourself, what you look like, what you say, and then, what you do. I believe this ordering is true and important for us as mystery entertainers top take into account at every stage of our great work: reading, preparing, scripting, practicing, rehearsing, advertising, communicating, following up, and socializing. Any presentation must have plausibility and credibility, both of which are a function of you being able to find yourself and to be an authentic performer. You must draw on your own life experiences, attributes, beliefs, and values in ways that remain true to yourself. Failure to do so means that no one will actually believe you when you set foot on stage. In crafting a show in mystery entertainment you need to move beyond stringing a series of effects together and focus on an overall theme. It is helpful to get a notebook and try to answer the following questions before you actually begin crafting a show: How do you want them to feel? What do you want them to experience? What do you want them to think of you? Who are you and what matters to you?

Once these are answered, you can then develop a script and overall narrative that frames your show. The narrative focuses on the overall message you seek to get across. Whether it is light or dark, your show can be guided by an overall aim and meta-narrative. My own shows have focused on metaphysical magic, enchantment, the unknown, and epistemology. Once you have an idea about the meta-narrative, you can think about the emotional structure of the show. Good shows ebb and flow. They create highs and lows for the audience. In Now and at the Hour, Christian Cagigal takes his audience from curiosity to laughter to sadness to deep contemplation, all in one supremely crafted hour of magic and mystery that fits into one small case.

In your show, you need to think about the pacing and delivery of effects. You do not want to disrupt people again and again, but think of ways to disrupt, settle, disrupt, settle, etc. Or like Chuck Hickok advises in Mentalism Incorporated you can create a slow build of mystery that moves from plausible displays of mental prowess to totally implausible demonstrations of psychic power. My own comfort zone has been what I call metaphysical plurality, where I give equal wait to all explanations of observed phenomena. In my show the Edge of the Unknown with Paul Voodini, we asked the audience: is it deduction, deception, or something more? We never provide an answer, but an emotional ride through mind reading, psychological profiling, spiritualism, and hypnosis. In my current show Lifting the Veil of Ignorance, I focus on three sources of knowledge: observation, faith, and reason. These contested forms of knowledge than allow me to explore wide-ranging set of questions. Once these key elements are in place, you can then begin to look at the sorts of effects that make sense. You should spend a lot of time rejecting effects and refining the ones that you do select. Crafting a show can take a very long time, but early investment in the steps outlined here will seriously pay dividends in the long run for you as a mystery entertainer. I do hope this brief essay on presentation is helpful in your own quest to be a successful mystery entertainer. Dr. Todd Landman www.todd-landman.com