Upgrade your party tricks with some bona fide magic

Learn how to wrap an entire room around your sneaky little finger…

Magician, comedian and all-round trickster Paul Zenon is one of the pioneers of street magic. The professional swindler has spent the last two decades causing people’s jaws to hit the floor on both stage and television, and has written several best-selling books on deception. Now he’s here to share the tricks of the trade…

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01 Hands aren’t quicker than the eye

“People tend to think the foundation of magic is manual dexterity. It’s actually a combination of lots of other things like applied psychology coupled with acting. The misdirection is more important – making people see what they need to see.”

02 Books aren’t dead

“There’s a trend these days for learning from YouTube videos and instructional DVDs but there’s so much more value in books. They encourage you to think and not just copy someone else’s performance. I used to get the same two books out of the library every week: The Amateur Magician’s Handbook by Henry Hay and The Royal Road To Card Magic by Jean Hugard and Frederick Braue. I still go back to them now.”

03 Anything can be amazing

“If you see a joke written down on paper, it doesn’t usually look very funny because it depends on delivery. If 10 people told that joke, you’d quickly notice everyone does it in a slightly different way. One or two of them will make it hilarious. Magic tricks are the same; they can be terrible or absolutely brilliant.”

04 It’s not about secrets

“The secret of a magic trick is not actually that important, it’s just one part. It’s like saying that the secret of The Beatles was that they were just sliding their fingers up and down metal strings and making noises with their voice. It’s technically what they were doing, but it’s not the whole deal. Like music, it’s about putting on a performance, not just throwing a few tricks at people.”

05 Don’t be a show-off

“A famous magician called Slydini once said, ‘Confusion isn’t magic’ and it’s true. Just because you don’t know how something’s done, doesn’t make it entertaining. People often don’t like the idea of someone getting something over them. It can make you look like a bit of a dick who’s trying to make people think he’s superman. Aim to impress people, not show off.”

06 Cut your chops on the basics

“If you start by learning sleight of hand, you’ll never be stuck when someone challenges you to perform just because you don’t have props like playing cards. You could just grab a banknote or a coin, or vanish someone’s cigarette and blow their mind wide open.”

07 Don’t overcomplicate it

“You never know how people will react. I’ve shown audiences tricks in the past that are incredibly simple and they’ve been absolutely blown away. Other times, I’ve spent weeks learning something and people just react with a shrug and go, ‘Yeah… very clever.’”

08 Hecklers are like sharks

“If you’re a smart arse or aggressive, you’ll invite the same back. It’s a question of making people like you, and the only way to learn that is through experience. The best way to deal with a heckler is to not let them know that you care. If they smell blood, they’ll go for your jugular.”

Street Magic by Paul Zenon is available from Carlton Publishing

The vanishing cigarette trick

Make your friends think you’re a sleight-of-hand messiah by making a borrowed cigarette vanish right in front of their eyeballs…

• Borrow a cigarette from someone. Before they give it to you, moisten the back of your thumb with your drink or a bit of spit.
• Hold the cigarette so that it’s poking out of the top of your fist, sticking the paper end of the fag to the moist bit on your thumb.
• Make some distracting waves with your hand and quickly straighten your thumb. The cigarette should be hidden behind your hand.
• Make the cigarette reappear by folding your thumb back down in a swift motion.

From the March 2015 issue of FHM India.