crafting mystery landman 2014

8/13/2019 Crafting Mystery Landman 2014

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Crafting Mystery

Todd LandmanAIMC, 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, antiquefurniture 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 smallglass case on a plinth mounted on the wall he removed an old anddusty purple velveteen box. He asked me to sit down and keep verystill. Placing the box on my knees gingerly, he looked at me with aserious gaze and asked,

Youre not afraid of spidersare you?

Sort of, I said with rising trepidation in my voice.

Would you like to open the box slowlyor 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, sayingnothing, sitting very still.

Unable to contain my curiosity and with incredible care, I slowlyopened the box and peered inside. The box was entirely empty, but onthe bottom was a label, which read:

Cadburys Chocolate Luxury Edition

1932

After I caught my breath and started to relax after being increasinglytense about the prospect of a large spider climbing out of the box, Ifinally realized the key lesson about presenting magic: expectation.

Even though absolutely nothing happened, my mind was racing, myheart was thumping, and my forehead had become slightly clammy.The sheer relief and humour once I opened the box allowed a flood ofemotion to be released.


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The owner of the box is a health economist, university professor, tarotcard reader, and alchemist. He is well read, steeped in the Hermetictradition, and has a piercing gaze and beguiling smile. He speaks withconfidence and a depth of knowledge, while surrounded by artifactsfrom 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 (itwas just a vintage chocolate box). The care and attention paid to thebox and dramatic pause in the delivery of the first line createdexpectation and a hint of fear. The follow-up line about opening thebox slowly or quickly added to the expectation. The release created anentirely different emotion.

There are many things at play in this example. One draws on theideas put forth in Grofmans The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life,the classic sociological study of how we adopt different roles in societyand how these roles affect people with whom we come in contact. Theperson in my example was an academic with full command of hissubject area, as well as devoted esoteric scholar. His discourse,manner, dress, and confidence are all part of his persona, which havea powerful impact on the participant.

The second is about the sparseness of language and lateral referencesrather than explicit claims. He did not say here I have a box that

might have a spider in it (an oft heard construction of theinexperienced magician). Rather he said Youre not afraid of spidersare you? Here, his language suggests that there mightbe aspider in the box. He said nothing of the box, but merely removed itcarefully from the case and gingerly rested it on my lap.

Third, his gaze, calm manner, and patience placed the onus ofopening the box on me, which means that all of what I experiencedwas 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 completedthe sense of expectation and played on my mind even more.

Years after this incident, I watched a TedX talk from JJ Abrams onwhat he called The Mystery Box. The genius behind the TV Show Lostand films such as Star Trekand Star Wars, Abrams has a cardboardbox on stage that has a large question mark on it. In talking about hislife in the creative industry, he recounts a childhood visit to LouisTannens magic shop with his father (I did the same with my father enroute to pick up my Dutch Grandfather from JFK airport), where heacquired the box.

The box quietly sits on stage, sealed, unmoving yet raising expectationin all of us. Here the man who has created some of the most fantastic


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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 andsays that after all these years, the box has never been opened. Itpromised to reveal all the secrets of magic, yet he never opened it. Ashe 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 andsuggestion form part of what Professor BC and I call the misdirectionof expectation. Like my man with the spider box, Abrams hascredibility, plausibility and authority. He shows us examples of hisspecial effects and we await the opening of the box with childisheagerness, and yet he never opens it.

In my routine Cogito Ergo Conjuro, I enter through the back of theaudience, dressed in typical academic clothing with a Cambridgegown and holding a small lantern to guide my way through thedarkened theatre. I walk slowly with a heavy step, the audience didnot expect me to enter from the back of the theatre. The lantern is likethe Hermit, casting illumination in front of me; a analogy for theknowledge I am about to share.

The lantern is placed on the table and I begin my presentation, whichis framed around Ren Descartes and the separation of mind andbody, his mystical ruminations and alleged connections to theRosicrucians, and the philosophy of science. A key moment in the

routine involves a copper sphere, which I hold aloft between thumband index finger and ask the audience about what will happen if Irelax 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 thesphere. I ask them with what certainty they think the sphere will fall.They answer 100%. I raise the possibility that some catastrophic eventcould transpire that would affect gravity at that precise momentcausing 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 aneyebrow, smirk, and then move into the rest of the routine.1

The absence of anything magical happening at this stage in theroutine in my view is more powerful than making it float. Some in theaudience expect it to float, but having it fall is better. This non-eventis then followed by a series of mind reading demonstrations and anuncannily accurate astrological reading. Combining rising expectation

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and unexpected surprise can bring a certain cadence or rhythm to ashow that takes your participants on a journey, and thus when I crafta show I think about how these moments will work and when they willoccur.

These examples allow me now to back up and formalize a number ofconcepts that ought to be taken into account when crafting mysteryentertainment and thinking about presentation.

As many others have observed, performance magic is fundamentallyabout you and not about what you do. The participants are interestedin you, who you are, how you carry yourself, what you look like, whatyou say, and then, what you do.

I believe this ordering is true and important for us as mysteryentertainers 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 whichare a function of you being able to find yourself and to be an authenticperformer. You must draw on your own life experiences, attributes,beliefs, and values in ways that remain true to yourself. Failure to doso means that no one will actually believe you when you set foot onstage.

In crafting a show in mystery entertainment you need to move beyondstringing a series of effects together and focus on an overall theme. Itis helpful to get a notebook and try to answer the following questionsbefore 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 overallnarrative that frames your show. The narrative focuses on the overallmessage you seek to get across. Whether it is light or dark, your showcan be guided by an overall aim and meta-narrative. My own showshave focused on metaphysical magic, enchantment, the unknown,and epistemology.

Once you have an idea about the meta-narrative, you can think aboutthe emotional structure of the show. Good shows ebb and flow. Theycreate 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 ofmagic and mystery that fits into one small case.


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In your show, you need to think about the pacing and delivery ofeffects. You do not want to disrupt people again and again, but thinkof ways to disrupt, settle, disrupt, settle, etc. Or like Chuck Hickokadvises in Mentalism Incorporatedyou can create a slow build ofmystery 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. Inmy show the Edge of the Unknownwith Paul Voodini, we asked theaudience: is it deduction, deception, or something more? We neverprovide an answer, but an emotional ride through mind reading,psychological profiling, spiritualism, and hypnosis. In my currentshow Lifting the Veil of Ignorance, I focus on three sources ofknowledge: observation, faith, and reason. These contested forms ofknowledge than allow me to explore wide-ranging set of questions.

Once these key elements are in place, you can then begin to look atthe sorts of effects that make sense. You should spend a lot of timerejecting effects and refining the ones that you do select. Crafting ashow can take a very long time, but early investment in the stepsoutlined here will seriously pay dividends in the long run for you as amystery entertainer.

I do hope this brief essay on presentation is helpful in your own questto be a successful mystery entertainer.

Dr. Todd Landmanwww.todd-landman.com

crafting mystery landman 2014

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