I do a "bait and switch".
Usually, in the case of a trick, I make up some bullpucky to explain "an experiment". For example, when I do something like PK Touch, I tell them about a "phenomenon" (which I completely made-up), that when two people work close together, or live together, there's a connection that is made that binds their experiences together. I even give it a phoney name, "Psycho-Transmition Kentics" or some such thing.
After performing the trick, I give the audience a beat and they are amazed. But as soon as they say something to me, I tell them that everything I said was a lie. I admit to them that there is no such thing as "Psycho-Transmition Kentics" and all I did was fool them.
That's when I get astonishment from them. I completely changed their way of thinking in one sentance. It actually shocks them because I take the time to build up this whole falsehood, completely lie about it, prove it and then in one breath, I negate the whole build up, yet the effect still has happened.
I also do hypnosis. With that though, before I even ask for people to come up into the audience, I tell them up front that what I do is nothing more than the same thing a movie does to them.
And with both cases, even when I tell them the absolute truth that this is a trick, I have no powers, that what I do is a trick (I don't say sleight of hand, I say trick), and there is no magic, no psychic powers, nothing supernatural, no ghosts, spirits or any of that phony stuff, the audience STILL believe that it exists or that I have "super powers".
I believe that as a magician and hypnotist that it's important to come out and say that you are a performer, nothing more. That even though I may have performed something that could be called a miricle, it is not. It's simply fooling people. It doesn't take away from the "astonishment factor" to let an audience know that there is no such thing as psychic powers or the like, in fact, knowing that that bull doesn't exist ADDS to the "astonishment factor".
Because to say "I have a power to read your mind" and then do it means you've told the secret. That also makes you more important than the effect that affects the audience. And that's just not what this art is about.
The audience has to walk away thinking about how they were affected. What they experienced, how they react to it. By saying "I have powers" or "This is real magic" takes that away. It puts the experience on YOU and not them. By telling them that what you did was a trick, and there is no magic, no powers, it puts the ball back into their court.
They have experienced something that can not happen.
That's what I go for.
.....sorry for the long post on a soapbox, but this is something that I am passionate about and one of the reasons why I got into this stuff....
