Do you know what magicians do at magicians’ gatherings?

Last night, I was with the Story Circle group, a group for close-up magicians. I have known many of them even before the pandemic, though not as long as the International Magic Club, which I actively attended for almost a year back in 2001. My dad also attended IMC when they were still meeting at the Prince Albert in Makati.

The Story Circle meets either in Starbucks Cubao or Greenfield. I have been to both just a couple of times. I feel like I prefer the one in greenfield because the area is more alive than Cubao. Parking is also not a problem. Last night the attendance did not hit 10 which is quite low for a gathering. Normally, attendees go beyond 10, but since it’s a long weekend, maybe people had other plans.

The number one rule in the magician’s code is to never reveal the secrets. However, since we are all magicians, we do help each other. We give each other chicken’s blood, hair of a virgin female, and some dust from Mount Banahaw. Books are also one of the topics we discussed about. Still at the back of my mind, I want to have the biggest library of magic books in the Philippines. I am still far from that goal.

After sharing and discussing the latest magic, books and magicians, we do a round-robin. One by one, we show tricks. It can be cards, coins, or mentalism, depending on what the magician feels or what he has prepared. If my memory serves me right, there used to be a theme before, so it was harder for me to think of what to share last night. Though I ended up doing some Tito tricks you normally see during drinking sessions.

What I showed was a trick I learned from watching Daryl on VHS back in 2001. I made a spectator choose a card, which only he and the others know. Let’s say is the Ace of hearts. I then asked him to get 4 more random cards, put the rest of the deck down then shuffle the 5 cards now, which are the 4 cards and the chosen card (Ace of hearts). I got the cards and told him to pinch the cards by the edge. Once in between his thumb and pointer, I slapped the cards. Everything fell, except for one card, the chosen card, the ace of hearts.

One young, newbie magician, a fresh college graduate who took mechanical engineering, showed a mentalism trick where he wrote something ahead of time on his phone that matched what the volunteer chose. The supposed spectator volunteer was also a magician. Afterward, he was given pointers on how to improve. The young magician asked for my opinion, but I said just a few words about making his acting more believable because I haven’t been doing magic for a couple of years now.

Conjuring that uses new age and spiritism to explain the magic behind the trick is something I used to be attracted to. Not anymore now. I simply want straightforward sleights that play with the brain’s blind side. I think it’s more powerful that way, though both have its pros and cons.

The second rule is to never repeat the magic. Fortunately, no magician asks to repeat someone else’s routine. No one wants to admit they have been fooled, so no one asks to have the magic done again—it’s the magician’s pride. A fooling magic trick in the company of magicians ends with either a clap, a wow, or a “great.” The other reason might simply be out of respect for the code.

Practice before performance is the third code. In a casual meeting like what happened last night, making mistakes is forgivable, but not in a real show. It happens, and it has happened plenty of times in casual meetings, and we just laugh it off.

One magician told me that there are other hobbyists who seldom attend but have mastered difficult sleights. One is a doctor who can memorize the arrangement of a deck of cards; another is a musical performer who can do decent magic and presentation. The magic community in the Philippines is substantial. What’s lacking are shows that invest in great production. After all, magic is a kind of performing art.

Magicians’ meetings are always fun. The sharing of ideas, performing new tricks, even classics, and the laughter never ends.