MAGIC:
In the past two months or so in quarantine, I’ve encountered many interesting situations I never would have during my regular daily routine. First of all, I realized how much of the day I spend at school and at the pool, which turns out to be a really, really big part of my day. To compensate for that time, I have picked up a new hobby–MAGIC! Magic sparked my interest when I was younger and when I would watch reruns of America’s Got Talent, where magicians did tricks that seemed logically impossible. Now with one month or so of practice, I realized that these tricks are extremely hard to do without the audience seeing through the trick, but it is dazzling to see the reaction of your audience when you do perform the trick correctly.
When getting into this hobby, I thought it would be easy once you watched a couple of YouTube tutorials and such, but I have realized that it takes hundreds of trials to just master a small part of the trick. And I know that most people have probably seen those videos that teach tricks where the magician cuts cards or glues them together, but truly talented magicians just use a plain set of cards and their nimble hands. And I think it is all the more magical to know that in one person’s hand a deck of cards can just be a deck of cards, but in someone else’s hand, a deck of cards can amaze audiences and produce magic.
Even if you don’t plan to become a professional magician, learning magic can be worth the time and effort put into it because it often comes in handy at parties or even just to entertain your friends and family when they’re bored. The look of astonishment on their faces after you perform your trick correctly is definitely worth all the time you spent practicing it.
I find this principle the same with any hobby because is it not true that you stick by your passions for those little moments of brightness? That you continue no matter how hard it is right now because you know that the small amount of satisfaction you gain at the end is worth it?
So, I challenge you to try watching a few tutorials and try practicing a few tricks because trust me, it’s worth your time (since I’m sure you have a lot of that on your hands right now).
Click here to watch a quick little trick (sorry about the angle)
HYPNOSIS:
Hypnosis is the art of tapping into the subconscious mind to increase focus and awareness of someone’s surroundings, thoughts and actions. Many people associate hypnosis with “mind control” or “mind manipulation,” but to much surprise, hypnosis is a very natural state that we go into several times a day. Whether you know it or not, you’ve been hypnotized to believe in a particular opinion or theory. For example, why do we cry when we’re watching a sad movie? We know that the movie we’re watching is unreal and played by actors and actresses, but we still experience real emotions because we’re so focused on the action in the movie. Due to our undivided attention, we begin to experience the sentiment portrayed by the movie’s plot. However, if the fire alarm goes off around you, your tears stop flowing because your attention has now shifted to the fire alarm (which poses danger), and your brain focuses on keeping you safe instead of the movie that made you cry a few moments ago.
Hypnosis, unlike magic, doesn’t require any props. You simply need a hypnotist and a subject who’s willing to be open to the experience. Magic revolves around illusion, and the magician is primarily deceiving people through appearances. You often need props and equipment to host a magic show, unlike hypnosis, and oftentimes, if you don’t prepare in advance, your show “cannot go on” because you’re dependent on the props you’re using. Hypnosis can be done impromptu, but for magic, the tricks you see are strategically planned to mislead you.
As mentioned before, hypnosis is a very natural state where ideas, suggestions and thoughts are believed to be so real that you experience them literally. For example, if an actor is scared in a movie, we get scared too, even though we know that the environment we’re in doesn’t pose a threat to us. Contrary to popular belief, a hypnotist can’t make you do anything that goes against your moral values because you are conscious and aware the entire time. And because you are aware the entire time, you are always in control of the actions, thoughts and ideas you take and believe in. Hypnosis increases focus, so you don’t “go to sleep” in actuality because if you were asleep, you wouldn’t be able to hear or follow the directions of the hypnotist.
Hypnosis is a very safe state; you cannot be manipulated to believe in anything you don’t want to believe in. However, if a hypnotist attempts to “control” you in any way, two scenarios will happen:
You fall asleep and wake up at your leisure
You get out of the hypnotic state
If you’re interested in hypnosis or want to experience it yourself, feel free to email me, and I will be happy to provide you with more information and perhaps even an experience with hypnosis yourself!
(Rin inspired me to add in a video, so here is a video of me hypnotizing someone to forget their birthday until they got a high-five and petted their dog: Hypnosis birthday amnesia video)
Have a wonderful rest of your day and a safe summer! :)