The Archive
What used to be premium-only is going public in weekly stages. Past posts are being updated regularly, so check in.
Part 2 of 2 · The Convention Circuit
Part 2: How Online Communities Replaced the Convention Dealer Room
June 20, 2025
In Part 1: The Convention Circuit: How Magic Gatherings Built, and Gatekept, Bizarre Magic as a Genre, I wrote about the lecture hall and the...
Building the Out: Technical Contingencies Every Mentalism Effect Needs Before It Hits the Stage
May 22, 2025
A mentalist I know once had a spectator hand back the wrong envelope. Not sabotage, just an honest mistake, the kind that happens when a...
The Intonation Effect: What Sound Reactive Mentalism Reveals About Audience Belief
May 9, 2025
Most props that claim to contact the other side rely on suggestion and interpretation. The audience brings meaning to ambiguity. Intonation works the opposite way:...
The Uncanny Valley of Belief: Why Almost Explainable Effects Unsettle Audiences More Than Impossible Ones
April 13, 2025
A fully impossible effect gets filed away in about four seconds. The audience says "how did he do that," laughs, moves on to their drink...
Before the Crystal Ball: A History of Reflective and Scrying Instruments in Mentalism
March 23, 2025
Every mentalist who has worked a black mirror routine has felt it, that small pause before the sitter looks down and actually sees something. It's...
Pricing the Impossible: What a Private Bizarre Magic Booking Should Actually Cost
March 5, 2025
A client called me once wanting a "quick séance thing" for a dinner party. Twelve people, ninety minutes, candles already on the table. When I...
The Performer’s Guide to Pendulum Divination: History, Science, and the Art of the Swing Revisited
February 26, 2025
A woman in the third row stopped breathing. I know because I was watching for it. The pendulum, a vintage brass bob on a twelve-inch...
The Bell Stand Reconsidered: How a Séance Instrument Found Its Way Back to the Table
February 5, 2025
A bell rings in an unlit room with no hand near it. Nobody moves. Nobody breathes right. That single sound, unexplained and unaccompanied, has done...
The Hits You Remember, the Misses You Forget: Confirmation Bias in Mentalism
January 24, 2025
Someone once told me, totally convinced, that I'd gotten "everything right" during a private event reading. I hadn't. I made six statements. Two hit, two...
The Placebo of Certainty: Why a Confident Wrong Guess Beats a Hesitant Right One
January 2, 2025
A performer stands in front of a room, closes his eyes, and says a name out loud. It's the wrong name. Doesn't matter. Nobody in...
Talking Tables: The Séance Phenomenon That Predates the Ouija Board
December 9, 2024
Before the little wooden planchette ever slid across a board spelling out names of the dead, there was a table. A whole table, sometimes seating...
The Swami Gimmick: How a Palm-Sized Device Became Nail Writing’s Workhorse
November 13, 2024
Nobody in your audience has ever heard the word "swami" used the way we use it. That's the point. The gimmick takes its name from...