Module 6- Part 4: The Inception Principle…
Benji
The Inception Principle…
Now that we understand why thinking unconventionally can be very powerful, let me give you the disclaimer that goes along with that fact:
If you want to be unconventional, you need to learn how to be ‘conventionally unconventional’ and ‘sensibly nonsensical.’
What I mean by this is that you need to create your unconventional routines that have their own rules and logic, within the wider conventions of magic performance.
Don’t worry if that doesn’t make sense yet.
Let’s break it down…
Earlier in this Module I mentioned that there were certain rules we have to understand before we can break them.
This is where they come in.
Let me explain why by zooming out for a moment and just talking about magic in general—since this really applies to everything.
See, some magicians justify awful ideas (that make absolutely zero sense) by saying:
“But it’s MAGIC! The whole point is that it doesn’t make sense! It’s just part of the mystery. After all, YOU were the one who said to do ‘unconventional’ things!’)
If that’s you, listen up. I’m only going to say this once…
The issue ISN’T that your magic is nonsensical. The issue is that your magic isn’t ‘sensibly nonsensical.’
Sound cryptic?
Here’s what I mean:
I think we all understand by now that many things we do in magic, including with the memorized deck, are pretty…strange.
Whether it’s giving cards names, pretending they’re attracted to other cards, or even pretending a sponge ball has the honed senses of a trained bloohdound—a ‘hol lot of it is just plain silly.
So our magic can definitely be nonsensical. There’s no denying that.
However, individual magic performances ought to be ‘sensibly nonsensical.’
All that means is that if you’re doing nonsensical things, you ought to be doing them in a way that makes sense according to the ‘rules’ of your performance.
The technical term I like to use for this, shamelessly borrowed from film critics, is ‘internal logic.’
It’s kinda like how complex films like ‘Inception’ can be both totally bonkers and illogical in relation to rieal life, but very logical according to the ‘rules’ of their world.
In our world, logic dictates that you can’t infiltrate other people’s dreams.
However, in Inception, you can.
Therefore, Inception doesn’t follow all of our ‘external logic.’
But it DOES follow its own ‘internal logic.’
For example, the deeper that you go into dreams, the slower time passes. This is nonsensical, but it’s one of the internal ‘laws’ of Inception’s world, and so the film makes sure it sticks to it strictly throughout the entire story.
It’s the same in magic.
Audiences are willing to ‘suspend their disbelief’ and let you share something with them that we all know is going to break the rules of our ‘external logic’ of life. However, they expect your routine to have its own ‘internal logic.’
So if you set a rule in your performance, you better stick to it.
For example, if their chosen card jumps to the top of the deck only after you say ‘jump’, you’ve essentially created a piece of your own ‘internal logic.’
I.e the law in your act is:
If you say ‘jump’, the card will jump to the top of the deck.
(note how this rule is completely nonsensical. That doesn’t matter! All that matters is that you stick to it.)
Now that this law and piece of internal logic is established, you MUST obey it throughout the rest of the performance. If you don’t say ‘jump;, the card shouldn’t come to the top, and if you do, it should.
The idea of cards jumping to the top of the deck is still nonsensical—but since it has its own set of rules, structure, and ‘internal logic’ it’s sensibly nonsensical.
Does that make sense?
So within your individual routines, there should be ‘internal logic’ that is maintained and stuck to.
That’s the first piece of the puzzle—being sensibly nonsensical.
To be conventionally unconventionally means zooming out and making sure your routine obeys the laws of magic performance.
The CONTENT, PREMISE and METHOD can all be unconventional, but the EFFECT should be conventional.
Really, conventional doesn’t mean ‘average.’
Conventional just means it ‘follows conventions.’
And those conventions (also known as ‘rules’) are conventions for a reason.
None of this is to say the effect can’t be strange, or unusual, or unique—it just means it must follow the rules of dramatic magic performances.
Now, despite a certain level of controversy, I believe Darwin Ortiz’ ‘Strong Magic’ is the best place to learn these rules.
Here are a couple of examples:
- Your routines should have built-in dramatic progression (i.e get more and more intense/powerful as it goes on.)
You could have someone perform an Ambitious card with the most ‘normal’ presentation possible, but completely fail to ‘up the stakes’ each phase. Someone else could perform the Ambitious card with a ‘weird’ presentation, but as long as they ‘up the stakes’ of each phase, their routine has followed convention (while the other one hasn’t.)
Convention isn’t about being normal. It’s about following the rules—in this case, that your routines should progress dramatically.
- Your act itself should follow a dramatic progression
One guy performs the Triumph effect, then the Ambitious card, then the 21 card trick.
The second guy performs the Ambitious card, then the Triumph routine, then an effect where the card disappears from the deck and appears inside his mouth—even though his lips were literally stitched together at the start (I stole that right from a David Blaine performance).
The first guy performed a very ‘normal’ routine without any unusual presentations, but he didn’t follow convention. The second guy performed an ‘unusual’ routine but followed convention.
See how the two things are different? We can have unusual and unconventional routines within convention.
Anyway, there’s a bunch more of these discussed in Strong Magic. It’s well worth your picking up.
But notice how, for example, our Sponge Ball sniffer dog is a good case study for the above:
- It’s nonsensical, but sensibly nonsensical—when we say ‘go’ the ball finds the card, and that’s true each time.
- It progresses dramatically—the second phase is more amazing than the first.
It all comes back to what I talked about at the start of the module. If you want to build an unconventional skyscraper, you still need to obey the ‘rules’—the rules of gravity, wind, and all the other external factors that go into it.
We’re dealing with the same thing.
Got it?
Great.
Now that we’ve reminded ourselves of that, let’s look at one more way to be unconventional with a memorized deck…