The Magic Show 2007

This past Saturday, I had the pleasure of participating in our IBM Ring 327 charity event. It is amazing that this small, local chapter has so many talented magicians. The show benefited the Helping Hands ministry which provides emergency assistance to families needing help with rent, utility payments and other support services. The two family-oriented shows drew at least 200 enthusiastic magic fans.

Lee Novak performed a portion of his stage routine. This is the second time I've seen Lee's show and he has put together some astonding stage illusions as well as some card and billiard manipulations. The audience loudly gasped at his dove productions and vanishes - especially the transformation of 3 doves into a live rabbit.

Tim Stolba also mystified the audience with a newspaper prediction and several great routines from his act. I also watched Tim perform a couple great close-up routines before the show to several delighted children.

Ricky Rowray, a deaf magician from Cedar Rapids, performed his hilarious style of comedy magic. It is amazing to see him delight and connect with the crowd without saying a thing! Ricky is soon to compete at a deaf magicians competition in California. I think he'll do quite well.

The entire show was expertly glued together by the Master of Ceremonies, Dr. Don Nelson. He performed a brilliant torn and restored newspaper. He also performed one of my favorite effects of the night with his shrinking and expanding head illusion.

Bob Beardsly and his daughter performed both together and individually. Bob wowed the audience with a chair levitation. His daughter (sorry I have forgotten her name) is an extremely talented performer for such a young age. The highlight for me was their execution of the Gypsy Rope Escape.

I didn't get to see a couple of the performers as I was busy resetting (or forgetting to reset) my walk around set. Although I only saw a couple of his tricks, Chris Arthur was wowing the spectators with some mind numbing close-up work including a seemingly impossible linking rubberbands routine.

As a new member, I didn't feel qualified to perform stage routines but I did have a great opportunity to perform some strolling magic. I had a chance to try out a new presentation of my Ambitious Card Routine where I had a child draw a puppy on the card. Instead of a magic flick of the wrist to bring the card to the top, I had the spectator call the puppy home. This was a variation of David Regal's presentation with different moves including Max Maven's Classic Tackler move for the ending sequence. This turned out to be a crowd pleaser and the kids got a nice souvenier to remind them of their magical night.

Magic: Good or Evil

How does perform magic effects and illusions square away with being a Christian? This has been a hotly debated subject because the bible expressly fobids the practice of magic. Being a Christian, I've had similar misgivings. However the art of magic has little to do with the practice of "real" magic. For the record, I don't believe in "real" magic. I prefer to place my faith in a higher power; a benevolent god.

Although 90% of American's identify themselves as Christian in polls, it is not a prevelant belief amoung magicians. Chris Angel recently remarked on the Larry King show that he felt most magicians are atheists (Angel remarked that he grew up in a Christian home and was a believer). From my experience on the magic forums, this appears to be true.

In fact, I would have to say that, from my experience, magicians can be downright hateful to anyone with a Christian point of view. My guess is that due to scriptural references against witchcraft is what keeps the faithful away from magic.

First a quick definition from the Konjurer dictionary; "magic" in the context of this article and this blog is the practice of an entertainment art form. It is akin to juggling, acting, singing or playing a musical instrument and is meant to bring joy and wonderment to the people who watch. Like the other fine arts, it is a craft that requires hours of weekly practice and years to perfect. Believe it or not, there is no supernatural component to magic.

There is a lot of debate on the subject of magic and Christianity; especially during the rise in popularity of the Harry Potter books. Although I think the practice of magical entertainment as a Christian is a different topic altogether. Magic is an entertainment medium and has nothing to do with the occult or witchcraft except by misguided mediums who are looking to fool the gullible.

Although words like "conjurer" and "magician" may have some historical roots in a pagan practice, they have a completely different meaning today for 99.9% of all modern magicians. For us Christians, if the historical roots of the English language is going to be the standard for when not to use certain words then we're going to have difficulty speaking the English language without researching the etymology of every word we speak.

Atheists accurately point out that the holidays we now celebrate as Easter and Christmas have pagan roots. Should we not use those words or avoid the traditional dates of these holidays because they coincided with pagan celebrations?

So feel free to be a practicioner of the conjurering arts because, in modern times, it simply means you love to entertain people with some skillfully executed, non-supernatural feats. If someone gives you grief about being a magician then look at it as an opportunity to minister to or witness your beliefs.

If you are a Christian and a magician and you are struggling with this whole concept, keep in mind that there is a whole branch of magic called Gospel Magic. You can purchase magical effects that correspond to a Christian message or object lesson. There are a lot of magicians that use magic as a ministry to communicate Christian messages.

Note: Although there is no chapter in my region, you could also join a chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Magicians. http://www.fcm.org/