The real work

What it takes to make a miracle.

Photo by Sarah Cervantes on Unsplash

“I can’t really do magic. I can only help you see it.”—Magician Peter Samelson

Magicians sometimes refer to “the real work,” the finer points, the secrets beyond secrets that make for magic that is completely mystifying and entertaining—and also, we hope, meaningful for the human condition. It’s not that the magic itself must have meaning—even we know that that can be a stretch for, say, a simple coin trick or sawing a person in half. (As legendary magician Eugene Burger once asked, impishly, “Why do we saw someone in half? And why do we do it to cha-cha music?”) It’s that many of us believe a meaningful life includes an appreciation for mystery and wonder. “The real work” refers to skills like timing and subtle psychological ploys that enable the magish to bring about a wholly satisfying magical effect, one that performs a pas de deux of sparking real wonder while kind of making sense, versus a trick box or other secret something that helps make the magic happen, with or without skill.

I’ve been thinking about the real work lately as it applies to bringing magic to the world in more meaningful ways, because, well, that particular real work is hard. Just this week I had an unsettling moment while I met with a small group of ministers here in Vermont. When we went around the room introducing ourselves, my spiel, after rattling off my academic and professional ministerial credentials, went something like this:

“My wife and I moved to Vermont partly because it seemed like a good place to try something new. My something new is a kind of magic ministry, designed to appeal to people inside our denomination but also outside of it, to the wider world.

“I guest-preach, which always incorporates magic, and I teach magic to youth with a program called MagicLab through my nonprofit, Magistry I also publish a twice-weekly newsletter on Substack, to which I will be adding a podcast …”

As I spoke, I was reassured by the faces I saw smiling back at me, but my doubtful inner voice was whispering, “Rob! Is that really ministry? Is a nonprofit the right model? Is this thing gonna work? How will you monetize this for real?”

I tried to appease that inner voice by concluding out loud with a shrug, “… honestly, I’m still figuring this out.” But the inner voice pressed on. “You don’t know, do you? You can’t always be ‘figuring this out’!”

Does this moment sound at all familiar? Do you have an inner voice, a chatterer who jumps in with what psychologists call “intrusive thoughts” or what the Buddha called “monkey mind?”

Even someone who dabbles in the impossible can find themselves flustered by the mental hocus pocus of an overactive mind. After a lifetime spent constantly mentally rehearsing magic tricks, thinking of the next one to learn and which magic book or video to study, wondering what magic I could create with the ancient goblet I found in a curio shop while on vacation—essentially being preoccupied with magic 24/7—I am trying to become the magician I’d always hoped to be.

Wait. It’s more than that. I am trying to become the person I’d always hoped to be: someone with a unique take on the world who finds imaginative and engaging ways to share what he learns from the spirit moving through him. This is the artist’s path, and it is scary, because it often feels that I am only ever edging toward something and I don’t know what that something looks like.

So how does a 61-year-old magician, someone who for years as a business writer solved other people’s problems using words, who then began delivering sermons to give problems a good going-over, who is used to thinking way, way outside the box but also deep within … how does that person calm the inner voice that is sowing self-doubt?

Answer? He doesn’t. Those intrusive thoughts? They’re showing up to help me. To call on Buddhism once again, they’re clearing the pathway by pointing out that my calling is not-that, not-that. For example, it might not involve a nonprofit. It might, but at least consider that it might not. Do I want to “monetize this thing?” Maybe so, but it is probably the task of a business consultant I hire and not me to figure that out. Maybe that is why it hasn’t happened yet. Wouldn’t have occurred to me had that thought not jumped all over my brain.

This is not unlike how a magic trick is invented. The magician imagines what the effect on the audience should be and what she wants them to see and remember, and only then does she worry about how to bring it about. That process, focused on methods and subterfuges, includes a lot of clearing of the pathway, removing unnecessary moves and words, ditching sleight-of-hand that isn’t really needed, ultimately simplifying to the point that the magical effect on the audience is direct, miraculous and memorable. Behind the scenes, the methods that survived the process to create the magic are elegant and lend to a gracefulness that makes the trick a pleasure to perform. And it works. It works because all the real work has been done.

The real work can take hours, days or weeks, sometimes even years. As I write, I am rewriting what I say for my show opener, a classic trick known as The Linking Rings, a trick I’ve performed off and on since I was 11 years old. There is a moment in that presentation that draws gasps from the audience—but only half the time. The other half I am greeted with silence because I did a secret something less than perfectly, and while it doesn’t expose the secret, the audience knows something’s afoot and isn’t sure what to think. I’ve realized that the words I’ve been using—a beautiful poem by a German magician that Siegfried & Roy also used in their Las Vegas act—may be the problem. Now I’m writing my own poem, because the words of another magician can’t live inside of me the way my own words will. I fully expect the problem will disappear, like magic, and I will hear oh-so-gratifying gasps all the time, not half the time.

I love that German magician’s poem. It is hard to let it go. But that is what real work looks like.

Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? As Teller, the silent half of Penn & Teller, puts it, magicians are willing to spend more time on a single trick than you would ever imagine. But when your heart and mind line up, work can feel like play.

How might this practice apply to non-magicians? Just consider that maybe we all are always becoming the person we’d always hoped to be, and start there.

For me, the real work has only begun. I’m convinced there is a way to make magic a healing presence in today’s world and that I can reach a lot of people with the approach I ultimately take. I don’t yet know what it will all ultimately look like. But each day I learn something new and each day I discard something that this approach should not be. Sometimes those two bits of information are one and the same.

If the internal chatter of self-doubt ever troubles you, surprise that voice—and yourself—by laying out the welcome mat. This special guest has arrived to show you all their cards so you may discard them, one by one. Anything that voice says that smacks of criticism or negativism—you are not-that, not-that. You are here to love and to be loved, to care and to be cared for. It’s the greatest miracle of all. The real work is to come to know that a life filled with meaning, and even joy, could be as simple as the acceptance of real love. And then—abracadabra—it could feel like no work at all.