In the first nine lessons of this course I have given you many principles and effects on which the Magic Art is based. If you have practiced faithfully, and I am sure you have because the work is so fascinating, you are now ready to give a real performance. I want this -- your first public appearance as a Magician -- to be so successful that it will fire you with enthusiasm and make you realize how great are the rewards of the study of Magic.

The reason that I give you this lesson at this point is that I believe you are now ready to begin to break into public work. Of course, I expect you to make only a small beginning. You may invite some friends in for an evening and entertain them with your Magic, or you may arrange with some friend to entertain a group at his home. Then if you gain a little confidence in your ability, you may offer your services to entertain your club or lodge, or the church club. The Rotary club, The Kiwanians, The Lions, and various other organizations are constantly on the lookout for entertainers, and you may use them to get started in public work.

It might be well for you to do this first entertaining without charge to give you experience. Then when you think you are worth it, you may charge for your work. I want you to be making money with your Magic as soon as you can, and I believe that before you have finished the course you will have made up several times its cost by your performances.

Now for the necessary preliminaries before I discuss with you the actual presentation of your program:

CONFIDENCE AND ENTHUSIASM

You must have CONFIDENCE in yourself, first of all, to present a program properly. Review the preceding Nine Lessons. It will do you a world of good to read over again my discussions of various subjects, such as the Power of Suggestion, the Credulity of People, etc. This will do much for you in the way of giving you confidence, for an understanding of the way in which the human mind works gives you the confidence of knowing how to deal with it.

Be sure of your tricks and you need have no fear that you will fail. Remember that you are the master -- that no one else in your audience knows the secrets of your effects -- and that they cannot help but be mystified.

Start with your own family or a small group of friends in your home for your first audience. Performing before those you know will give you experience and confidence, and in time you will reach the stage where you are as much at home before a thousand people as you are before one.

Forget yourself and throw yourself into your performance, with ENTHUSIASM. If you love Magic you must bring that love, in the form of enthusiasm, into your performance. You know how contagious enthusiasm is. Your audience will catch the spark and will be alive with interest because of your enthusiasm.

Confidence in yourself and enthusiasm will, of course, do much to ward off stage fright. Absolute mastery of yourself while before an audience will, however, come only with experience. Whatever you do. BEWARE OF STAGE FRIGHT REMEDIES. I remember an instance of what a Stage Fright Chaser did many years ago. I was doing a magic show in the old town hall. One of the performers on the program bought a bottle of this Stage Fright Chaser. The directions said to take it in a dose of three to five drops in a half glass of water. To be certain of its working, this man took a tea-spoonful. Needless to say, we had a sick performer on our hands. All such remedies affect the heart and you must avoid them.

RADIATE GOOD-WILL AND PLEASANTNESS

You must start "right off the bat" with a kindly feeling for every person in your audience. You know from your own experience that when you like a person and show it, that person reciprocates your friendliness. So it is with your audience. Radiate GOOD-WILL AND PLEASANTNESS and you will get it in return from your audience. You will ward off antagonism. From the first moment you are before your audience you must win them over.

A performer is always sensitive to antagonism toward him in his audience and it handicaps him in his work. If by your attitude you gain the friendliness of the audience, you have half the battle won. You have put your spectators in a receptive mood and consequently your effects go over big.

DIGNITY — NO CHEAPNESS

You must remember, however, not to overdo in your effort to please your audience. ALWAYS KEEP YOUR DIGNITY. This does not mean that you must be stiff and aloof -- that would never do; but it means that you must never lower your standards and do something that will cause people to lose respect for you.

In your bearing, in your manner, and in your speech, never resort to cheapness or undue smartness in your zeal to make a hit. A little reserve along with your pleasantness will make a hundred-fold better impression with your spectators than boisterousness.

In line with this, let me say a word about your speech. WATCH YOUR ENGLISH. This is tremendously important in your success. When you are among educated people, you must be very careful not to get this reaction from them, "Yes, his tricks were good, but how he did abuse the English language!" and when you are among very ignorant people, you must be correct in your speech so that they will look up to you and admire you.

Remember always to speak distinctly.

In Magic the trick is the thing that you want people talking about. You must raise no counter-influences to distract their attention from your experiments, as poor English will do.

APPEARANCE

I need not tell you the importance of APPEARANCE. Our first judgment of a person is based entirely on his appearance. If you present the wrong kind of appearance the impression you convey to the audience is very detrimental to you. If you present the right kind of appearance you open the way for yourself immediately.

Always be neat. Have your clothes well pressed and your shoes shined, wear a clean collar and a good tie. Have your hair cut and be clean shaven. Wear a suit that best becomes you. A business suit is ideal for the usual magical performances. At formal affairs the tuxedo or dress suit is in order but it must fit nicely so that it will not cause comment. I will discuss dress in a future lesson when we get to stage performances.

PERSONALITY AND MAGNETISM

You must have technique in your work -- you must be a finished performer -- BUT even above this, you must have PERSONALITY AND MAGNETISM. In business, in the professions, on the stage, those people triumph who triumph on the side of personality. For instance, take a performer on the stage. You know that you have seen actors who are extremely clever and make a big hit — yet their acts are very simple and perhaps what they do almost anyone else could do. The secret lies in their emphasizing their personalities. It isn't what they do, but how they do it.

Your job is to sell your personality to your audience — to make people like you. Then, regardless of what you do to entertain them, they will be pleased with your efforts.

So, in the beginning, play up Personal Magnetism. Then as you perfect your technique with practice and experience, success cannot fail you.

SHOWMANSHIP

To become a Master of Showmanship you must be inspired with the spirit of being a Magician. Do not merely play at the part, but use the POWER OF SUGGESTION on yourself to make you really feel and fill the part.

Dress the part -- act the part -- do everything to create personal magnetism and a favorable impression -- avoid all disturbing elements -- and STUDY SHOWMANSHIP.

Now, let us analyze this tremendous factor in Magic -- Showmanship. It means the ability to put ROMANCE, MYSTERY, THE ELEMENT OF SUSPENSE, INTEREST, EMOTIONAL FEELING, and

EFFECTIVENESS into your performance.

The more power you have to build these elements into your work, the greater will be your rewards. Take your example from the playwright. He puts into his plays the same principle of showmanship which you must use. He creates interest in his audience, arouses their emotions, and builds up from lesser effect to greater until he reaches a climax. And you must work in the same way.

The Showman makes a masterpiece of a commonplace trick. He clothes it properly, he studies his presentation, he stirs up his audience with interest and suspense, he puts reality into the part he is playing, he works the whole thing up to a climax.

In every-day life we find many, many instances of Showmanship. The salesman who understands Showmanship is the one who gets the orders. He knows just what to say and how to say it, what to do and how to do it to get the greatest effect. See how the advertising man plays up a commonplace article with his Showmanship and makes you hunger for it. See how a poor piece of farm land is turned into a subdivision. How the bands play! How the salesmen use their Showmanship! And how people rush to buy the wonderful property.

What Showmanship can do was brought home very forcibly to me at one time. A party of about twelve Magicians, myself included, went to see the play, "The Charlatan." Frederick Tiden was playing the part of Cagliostro, the magician, in it. We sat there delighted at the magic and illusions which he presented. When he produced a rosebush from a seed which he had planted in a glass flower-pot, we were completely mystified. Here truly was a great magician whom we had hitherto missed. After the show we met Tiden. The Cagliostro on the stage and the Tiden in the theater lobby were two different men. In the play he was a rather large, dignified elderly man of great poise and mastership. Before us he was smaller, thinner — Tiden, the artist. We went out for a bite to eat and, as usual, some of the boys performed tricks. Then Tiden was called on to perform.

"Why, boys, I'm no magician," he said. "I do not do tricks. You have me all wrong. I am just an actor."

"Oh. no," said we, "you are a magician. Didn't we see the wonderful magic you did tonight at the theater. It was marvelous. You had us gasping. Where did you get the flowers from?"

He leaned back and laughed. "Do you mean to say those tricks fooled you?" he asked.

"We admit it," the boys said.

Then Tiden gave us an excellent talk. He said that as he had been chosen to play the part of the great magician, Cagliostro, he determined to make himself feel like a great magician and really act the part. He studied what he thought Cagliostro would do in the emergencies which the play brought forth. He succeeded so remarkably in getting his effects and making the illusions seem real because of his Showmanship.

He decided that things should be produced and vanished from places which an audience would least suspect. In this instance the man who appeared most innocent of helping him was the villain. So then, Tiden thought, his best helper would be the disturbing lawyer who opposed Cagliostro at almost every move, a skeptic who sought every way possible to undo the magician. In the eyes of the audience this lawyer and the magician were bitter enemies. In reality the lawyer in looking into the flower-pot to see that Cagliostro was not putting anything over on him, put the flowers in himself. And Tiden in his mastery of Showmanship put his effects over as if he were the greatest magician in the world.

PLAY UP YOUR INDIVIDUALITY

There is no one in all the world just exactly like you. If each of us would only realise this and capitalize on it, how successful we would be. We would give full play to our individuality instead of trying to be like other people, and we would build on our own originality.

In Magic you have the opportunity to an extent which you have in no other field to use your originality and your own individuality.

Always play up yourself as your better self. Bring out the strongest and best sides of your personality and emphasize those things which makes you a little different from other people.

BE ORIGINAL, do not be an IMITATOR. The imitator gets little credit for his work. He is known everywhere as the man who uses someone's else stuff, and whether he is good or not, he is known as an imitator. You know that an original painting is a hundred times more valuable than a copy. So it is in Magic. Originality does not mean that you must build up elaborate effects. On the contrary, the great masters work in the simplest manner. What you must do is to use Showmanship with even the simplest effects to give them the stamp of your own individuality.

Do not try to imitate the feature effects of your brother magicians. You will only bungle them and make yourself ridiculous. They have years of study and experience back of their effects and you cannot hope in such a short time to compete with them. Each of the masters has his original effects which suit his individuality. These effects, however, may not suit your individuality. So because LeRoy vanishes from a box high in the air and suddenly appears with a hat and overcoat on and burning cigarette in his mouth on the piano in the orchestra, this does not mean that you should try to do this. Because Houdini gets out of seventeen pairs of handcuffs is not a reason for your trying to imitate him. Thurston, Blackstone, Laurant, Downs, Manual — all do their feature performances in their own inimitable way. A real master does not attempt to imitate the other. He realizes that his success lies in his own individuality and originality, not in those of another man.

So perfect yourself in those things which are best adapted to you and let those who will, try to imitate. They will never get very far, while you will be building a reputation for originality.

In the beginning perform each effect exactly as I teach it to you in the course. Then as you master more and more of the principles and gain experience, you can change and add to these effects and originate new ones.

HOW TO PRESENT A PROGRAM

A little farther on in the course I will give you suggestions for several programs. You may prefer, however, to arrange an original program for yourself. If you do this, remember to choose your tricks carefully for the audience and for the occasion.

Make a list of the tricks which appeal to you most and which you seem best able to perform. Remember your dramatic effect in arranging these tricks, working up to a climax. It is best to keep your tricks in divisions, such as paper tricks in one, string tricks in another, etc. However, arrange the sequence of effects so that one blends into the other.

Paraphernalia:

As you have no assistant at this time and must present your program alone, I suggest that you secure a suitcase, about 10 x 15 inches. Put small wooden partitions in it to separate the paraphernalia for each trick. You can then arrange your materials nicely so that they are easily "getable."

When you are working on a stage with curtains and have an opportunity to prepare for your performance, you can arrange things easily, but for club or parlor work, you will find the use of the suitcase almost a necessity.

When you come to your show, you have in your pockets, of course, those things which require working from the pocket, such as the Thumb Tip, etc. You can come in with your suitcase, place it on a table, open the top up toward audience and prop it up with a stick or have a special catch made and you are ready to begin. The top of the suitcase acts as a screen for your movements in removing paraphernalia. You have everything in order so that there is no fumbling about, looking for apparatus. Then when you are through with your performance, replace the paraphernalia which is still out, close up your suitcase, and walk away.

Arranging Your Audience:

Always try to arrange your audience in front of you. There should be an angle of 45 degrees at least from you to your spectators on extreme sides, and they should be far enough in front so that they cannot see moves which you do not want them to see.

It is not always possible, however, to arrange your audience in the ideal way. For emergency you should carry tricks with you which can be performed under difficulties.

Club work often presents great difficulties because people are all around you. You must have fool-proof tricks ready to perform at a moment's notice. Work at club luncheons is especially difficult because of the angles of visibility. Try to get a corner in which to work so that you are out of the angles of visibility of the audience.

If people insist on sitting at the sides, I tell them that they can see my work much better from the front as my body covers so much of the effects from their view when they are at the sides.

Sometimes you can secure a parlor screen or two to close off a small stage. This will help you considerably.

Look to your lighting before you begin. The ideal lighting is from the front -- that coming from the rear is apt to expose the effects. So size up the situation from the standpoint of placing of audience and lighting and place yourself so that you may perform to the best advantage.

Do all you can to guard your secrets from detection -- for your own success in the work as well as for the good of the profession as a whole.

SUGGESTIONS FOR PROGRAMS

These programs are suitable for performances in the home, at a club, or on the stage. Shorten or lengthen the programs to suit the occasion. A program given at a luncheon. for instance, should be quite short, whereas one given at a club entertainment may be longer. You may rearrange these programs or add other effects as you like, but keep a logical harmony throughout the program.

One:

1. Mystery of the Burning Cigarette

(Lesson 2)

2. Comedy Version of Germaine Cord Effect Toss string to audience at conclusion of experiment.

(Lesson 6)

3. The Spirit Mathematician Have spectator hold envelope on knife blade.

(Lesson 8)

4. Rising Card Escape

(Lesson 9)

5. A Psychological Impossibility

(Lesson 9)

6. Sealed Card Mystery

(Lesson 9)

7. Chinese Paper Mystery (Lesson 4)

If convenient this may be followed up with Wintertime in China — it never fails to make a hit. If performing in a home, you must be careful not to get things on the floor which are hard to remove.

Two:

1. Burning a Borrowed Handkerchief. (Lesson 2)

2. Hindoo Paper Tearing. (Lesson 5)

3. Milady's Parisienne Hat. (Lesson 5)

4. Kellar's Cut and Restored Cord. (Lesson 6)

5. Mystery of the Traveling Numbers. (Lesson 8)

6. Rapid Banking. (Lesson 8)

Three:

1. The Magic Orange. (Lesson 7)

2. Hanging Yourself with Ropes. (Lesson 7)

3. The Dissolving Coin. (Lesson 1)

4. Japanese Torn and Restored Paper Napkins (Lesson 4) and Comedy Explanation.

5. Patriotic Paper Balls. (Lesson 5) Done with high glasses or bowls and saucers.

6. Mystery of the Traveling Numbers. (Lesson 8)

Make your program fresh and snappy. Have sufficient variety in it and present it with energy and enthusiasm. Remember always to speak very distinctly.

Your Opening Remarks. Just say a few words in opening to fit the occasion, such as:

"I take pleasure in presenting to you a few experiments in legerdemain or magic. It is oftentimes said that a magician endeavors to fool you. But really I wouldn't fool you for the world. Should things look peculiar, remember it is your own self who is looking on and seeing things. Watch me closely for the closer you watch, the closer you watch."

Learn when to quit. Most beginners are too slow in their presentation and make their programs too long. Rather than tire your audience, leave them wanting more.

Never repeat a trick. I warned you of the danger of repeating tricks in the first lesson. Turn a deaf ear to

all requests and coaxing to repeat a trick. When people are mystified they invariably ask you to "do it again." And then if you repeat the trick, they look for things which you don't want them to look for, and you run great danger of being discovered.

If you must repeat at all, vary the trick or present some other effect. This will usually satisfy the audience. If you chance to come across nuisances who are disagreeably insistent, do not take them seriously, just ignore them.

Never expose a trick. You realize that your success in Magic depends on secrecy. Think of the many centuries that this Art has survived, and you, now that you are joining the ranks of the Mystics, have a responsibility and an obligation to fulfill — and that is to guard your tricks sacredly against being exposed.

It is up to you to see that no pebble, regardless of how small, is allowed to crumble out of the foundation of Magic. It is up to you to protect the principles and the effects you learn against the layman and to keep them as your very own.

How to Get Volunteers to the Stage. Sometimes it is difficult to get volunteers from the audience to come up on the stage. You can in some cases overcome this by speaking directly to certain people instead of to the audience in general. Then if the spectator is embarrassed by stage fright, help him along in this manner. Ask him to hold a certain article for you, then to hold it up higher. Then you might say:

"Please stand up, sir, so that the man over there can see. Yes. Perhaps, if you come out into the aisle, it would be better. Fine. Just come up on the stage and all can see it."

Thus you get him to the stage step by step, and as you do this gradually, he cannot refuse.

Remember always to be courteous and respectful to people who come up to the stage to assist you. Make them feel perfectly at home. NEVER PLAY A JOKE on a spectator or do anything to make him lose confidence in you. Comedy at the expense of one in your audience is not good comedy for the Magician. Be tactful and people will be glad to help you on the platform.

How to Deal with the Wiseacres. No matter what happens, you must keep your poise. Always be a gentleman, and be the master of every situation. There is occasionally someone in an audience who tries to discourage the performer and put him in embarrassing positions — the "smart" person who will not give the performer a chance. If the magician suggests one thing, he suggests another. He also is the type who tells everyone around him how the trick is done. He is seldom, if ever right but he is very annoying, nevertheless. He acts in this manner because he wants to be in the limelight and he is doing his best to get there. You must never permit yourself to fear this person.

The audience is always with the performer. They do not like to have disturbing elements arise to interfere with the show and they will admire you if you keep cool and smile away difficulties. Make your presentation so good that even the wiseacre will admit your worth. The tricks in this course are designed to help you puzzle the "wise" ones.

Remember that you are the MASTER during your performance. Your audience will think so and you must keep them thinking so.

I shall tell you of one experience I had with the so-called wiseacre. This man insisted on making noise during my performance. Instead of becoming provoked and arguing with him, I said to the audience: "It isn't very often in performing on occasions like this that I have a magician in the audience, so I am going to ask him to come up and help me."

Then I gave him a few articles and said: "I am going to let you do the next trick. You know this one is familiar to all of us magicians. I think it is about the first one we learn. It is called THE BURNING HANDKERCHIEF. Now you show the audience how we do this."

Then I sat down and waited for him to do the trick. Needless to say, he was unable to do it and appeared ridiculous in the eyes of the audience. That was the last I heard of him.

Another way of dealing with this sort of person is to describe hurriedly what you are going to do and give him the material without the secret apparatus. Of course, he is stunned, and you can go on with your show.

A good scheme is to tie the double tapes around his neck, pass them through his sleeves and tie the rings on without using the fake joining. Give the two ends to two spectators to hold. Then tell this man that as he is an accomplished magician he will have no difficulty in escaping from the ropes while the gentlemen pull on them. Of course, he is unsuccessful. Then you arrange the tapes with fake joining principle and put them around another gentleman. You get your effect, and the wiseacre is squelched.

Every emergency requires its special method of handling. Be prepared to meet an emergency when it arises.

SEE OTHER MAGICIANS AT WORK

Grasp every opportunity to see magicians at work. You can learn a great deal if you go to a performance with an open mind and look for things to learn. Watch the professional. Notice how he presents his program. Watch for these things:

1. How he enters.

2. How he leaves the stage.

3. His speed of working.

4. How he reaches a climax.

5. His use of misdirection.

6. His patter.

7. All his means of adding to his SHOWMANSHIP.

When attending a program given by a magician, do all you can to help him, for he has the same interests at heart which you have and naturally you want him to succeed. Encourage him in his work. Tell your friends that he is playing in town. Always speak well of your brother magicians and of the Art of Magic. Doing so adds to your own prestige as well as to the prestige of others. It is usually the case that when we do a good turn for another, the reward comes back to us.

If some magician comes to your town and you want to meet him, you can manage to introduce yourself to him. He will be glad to meet you as you have a great common interest. However, do not be too insistent. Remember that he is a busy man, and you must be considerate if you desire to win his regard. Do not just loiter around and waste his time. Use good judgment. You may invite him to your home, perhaps for luncheon or dinner. You may have a little effect which you can show him, and he in turn will, no doubt, reciprocate. In this way you establish a basis of friendship which may mean a great deal to you.

WRITE ME ABOUT YOUR SUCCESS WITH YOUR SHOW

I am deeply interested in the work you are doing. I want to know how you are progressing and what you are accomplishing. I have received some very welcome letters from some students, but from others I have received no word at all. Now that you are going to give a performance, you will be able to write me all about it. It will mean a great deal to you to write me about your success and your difficulties as it will give me an idea as to how I can be of greatest service to you.

Remember that I am eagerly awaiting word from you as to how you came out on your show. To help you and to give me an understanding of what you are doing, I give you this little outline of what I should like to have you write me about. Do not hesitate to tell me other things which have occurred to you and to add any remarks you desire to.

1--Give me your program.

2--What was your reaction to your audience—that is, how did you feel when you faced them, both in the beginning of the performance and as you progressed with your show?

3--What was your audience's reception of you—what was their attitude in the beginning and what was it later on during the program?

4--Which tricks did they seem to like? Which caused comment during the performance and which did they talk about afterwards? What remarks did they make?

5--Did you have any difficulties? What where they?

6--Which effects were you particularly successful with?

7--Have you any new effects or new ways of working?

8--What do you think of the Course in Magic you are studying?

Do not hesitate to give me any suggestions or make any remarks on the course. I shall welcome anything you have to say.

LESSON 11

In this lesson I give you three interesting rubber band effects and an amazing thumb tie experiment. These effects are different and offer wonderful opportunities for showmanship.

1--Two rubber bands are wound finger by finger around right hand. A nickeled ring is placed on second finger and it is shown that the bands prevent ring from passing down to base of finger. Yet suddenly the ring seems to penetrate the bands and slides down the finger. The bands are shown to be still around all the fingers, and yet in another moment the ring slips off the finger.

2--A rubber band is placed over first and second fingers of right hand. Another band is wound around all the fingers. Suddenly the first band mysteriously jumps to third and fourth fingers. Then it jumps back again in a most puzzling manner.

3--Performer's two thumbs are bound with a heavy rubber band. In spite of this he passes hoops over onto one of his arms and passes his tied thumbs through a broom handle or cane.

4--Famous Japanese thumb tie. Performer has his two thumbs tied with two cords or wires. He then passes his thumbs through hoops, canes, rods, etc., and gets them out again between his thumbs while they are still securely bound.

TARBELL SYSTEM, INCORPORATED, Chicago.