A Little Something New

Here's a "Happy New Year!" to all the winners. Kind of anxious on this end to find out who the other 6 are myself. How about you?

As for me, my name is Mark Horn and I'm here to work with Ben on creating a space for the readers of Think Two Products Ahead. A space you can go to learn, connect and do more with the information presented in Ben's soon to be released best seller.

While that new space is manifesting even as we speak, this trusty blog will be the place we're landing for right now.

Another part of the space for Think Two Products Ahead is a live learning tele-class focusing on each chapter of the book. Last week our first call centered on chapter one as Ben gave author insights and took guests through the exercise at the end of the chapter. Very cool.

Something else very cool? This Tuesday, January 2nd, Ben is presenting chapter two and there's still room for each of you to sneak in under the curtain and join the show...

Tuesday, January 2, 2007
8 PM EST (US)
712-432-3000
VIP Code 220365 (no "#" sign needed)

Be there to learn magic for yourself and definitely bring a friend.

The book? Please don't tell anyone but I hear there are e-book versions of Think Two Products Ahead around here somewhere. Find your copy, read through chapter two, and dial in this Tuesday.

Re: No emails fr:Me 4 1 wk? I'm listening to New Year advice. Read to learn?

Dear ,

Please help me wish "Happy New Year"
to Barry C. McLawhorn! He is winner #4
of 12 described below.

,

Want to lose your debt without scrimping?
Best way is to make more money.

Leo Quinn last night shared how to easily
do both, pay-off your debts while you make
More money.

This is an uplifting interview that is worth
your listening if you are serious about 2007
Being your best year yet you need to start
a few days early to reset your thinking

Listen hear:
http://podcast.liveoffice.com/telcorecordings/0/938678/1065284.mp3

My New Year resolution is clarity. I know how you must
feel about taking a good new resolution seriously.

Making commitments can be scary.

Leo has the most empowering tone of
any financial expert I have yet met.
I believe and trust him.

Please listen:
http://podcast.liveoffice.com/telcorecordings/0/938678/1065284.mp3

Thank you. My new years resolution? clarity

A mastermind advisor, Tellman Knudson
tells me I’m emailing
too much and
without clarity.

I’m taking a week off from emailing,
but I’ll be writing my heart out here…
http://authorsbusinessplan.blogspot.com/

In fact, in the p.s. you can read the essay
I posted there this morning. ☺

Today’s winner:
Barry C. McLawhorn is winner #4 of 12

Happy New Year Barry C. McLawhorn!

Ben

P.S. Here’s the beginning of the essay
I posted here…
http://authorsbusinessplan.blogspot.com/


Immersive Realities
The Structure of Magic
By Ben Mack
Magic Castle Award Winning Magician,
Author: Poker Without Cards (soon to be re-titled…
Escape to Witch Mountain)

Magic is the act of facilitating a phantasmagorical experience, the acceptance of the world where natural laws don’t have such a firm grasp on reality. I grew up a junior member of The Magic Castle—If ever there was a real Hogwartz, this was it. David Copperfield lectured to our membership, Dai Vernon tutored us and Diana Zimmerman managed us. The Magic Castle wasn’t open to kids interested in magic. Instead, The Magic Castle held biannual auditions and initiated those who demonstrated proficiency of craft and potential for expertise. The older a candidate was, the better they had to be. It took me two tries to be accepted. Natural aptitude was rarely enough to muster the goods necessary for acceptance. Virtually every candidate had been tutored. Lorenzo Clark was my mentor. I called him Larry.

Larry not only taught me sleight-of-hand, called prestidigitation, but he also taught me the psychology of perception. In order to create a sustainable illusion, one must have a commanding grasp of perception. A magician must transcend fooling their audience and enter the realm of trust where an audience grants you their willing suspension of disbelief.

Magic is not a thing or a physical act, but a state of mind that approaches the sublime but is more aptly referred to as phantasmagorical. Magic occurs at the intersection of a performer and an audience. There is intentionality to the perception. A stone that looks like an eagle is not magic, regardless of whether or not it is carved to represent the physical traits of an eagle. A sculpture maybe a catalyst to an altered state of mind, but I am reticent to call a sculpture magical. Some panoramas feel almost magical to me, but real magic is dynamic and ephemeral. Magic is the process of engineering an experience where reality emerges as it cannot be, and yet the audience is compelled to set aside their disbelief and flow with the experience as long as it lasts.

Creating an illusion entails tweaking our visual prejudices. We drop a coin, and it falls. We know this to be true; we have seen the force of gravity pull objects to Earth since before we had words to articulate the phenomena. What most non-perceptual psychologists DON’T recognize is the extent that our mind projects our expectations, our visual prejudices, onto our sight.

If a magician creates the physical gesture of dropping a coin from one hand to another, yet palms the coin so it doesn’t actually fall into the second hand, most minds will see the coin fall. The term for this sight projection is sight retention. A normal mind will literally “see” the coin fall. This specific visual hallucination is called a projection, our mind projects its expectation of reality onto our sight. The magician makes note of the triggers that cause these visual breaks from reality and assembles a presentation that often includes a series of these triggers, often strung together through a narrative known as patter. The magician is an actor playing the role of a person with supernatural powers.

What are you willing to make happen? (pt 2 of 3)

Creating magic requires the recognition of stages within stages, seeing micro-stages within macro-stages. The macro-stage is the physical place the audience encounters the magic. A magician may perform on a traditional proscenium stage, in a parlor, at a dinner table or on a street corner—whatever location the magician interacts with their audience becomes the macro-stage. The micro-stages emerge as the audience shifts their attention. David Copperfield regularly performs coin tricks in front of audiences in excess of 2,000. How? He manages the micro-stages, the focus of his audience. By focusing his own attention, with all his body, on a silver dollar, he can command the attention of 2,000 sets of eyes, whose minds enjoy the representation of a miracle as he makes the coin vanish. Copperfield directs the focus of his audience. Site retention won’t work unless the audience’s mind is engaged. The mind must not only see the cues that trigger the mental projections, but the mind must be so immersed in its focus that the mind accepts the magician’s cues as real. The creation of these cues, the intentional use of projection triggers, is the keystone to invoking illusion.

Misdirection is the magician’s ability to secretly do one thing by directing the audience’s attention on something else. Direction is the root of misdirection. Managing the micro-stages of an audiences focus is at the heart of misdirection—movement hides movement. When the puppet-master doesn’t want the audience to see the magician load the dove in a scarf, he choreographs the magician-puppet to “steal” the dove-load during another movement. Sound impossible? Harry Blackstone used to have an elephant walked on stage, up-stage-left, while he commanded attention down-stage-right. When Blackstone gestured up-stage-left, the audience was amazed to suddenly see an elephant.

While I cannot fully articulate the magical frame of mind, I can say this: when an audience feels safe, respected and cared for, their minds loosen and the defenses drop. The goal of the puppet master is to have his avatars communicate their love for their audience. Deception created purely for personal gain is a con; deception manifested for the benefit of the audience may feel magical.

In years past, puppet-masters were magicians, playwrights, screenwriters and novelists among other artists who created dynamic performances for the theatre-of-the-mind in meat space. The growth of the Internet has borne a new species of puppet-master, the weavers of magic who weave cyberspace into their tapestry, the architects of alternate reality games. May you enjoy and appreciate their creations.

Continued from... here

Craptology.tv is coming soon...

check here