By the way send me $100 for my DVD on doing real magic so you guys can stop taking heat!

One of the most asinine statements I ever heard was one that someone in the audience made when I was appearing on a show at Pat Robertson's station in Virginia. There is a show called "Straight Talk" which follows the 700 Club.

Anyway, they have a "peanut gallery" of about a5 people that show up for the broadcasts. I did the newspaper trick, explaining that it was a trick, and that no demons, devils or black magic were used in the performance. They put up my photo in the Wizard outfit -- same one I use in my avatar -- with a quote from the Bible about witches. But that wasn't the real capper.

After I finished, they interviewed a woman in the audience who said, "I used to perform as the assistant for my uncle, who was a magician. After every show, we would go back to the hotel room and worship Satan."

They asked me to respond. I said, "That's very unusual. Usually, when I finish a big show, I go back to the hotel and I go to sleep. I'm usually too tired to worship much of anything. Besides, most magicians I know would never consider Satan worship as an option. I don't know a single magician who is a Satanist."

There is a card-trick (with a custom deck, handling by my friend Oliver Moon - patter by yours truly) I showed a friend of mine:
-Name any card! We'll find "Your Fortunate Week" (52 cards - 52 weeks)
-Four of Clubs.
OK. I counted and the card was found as the 15th.
So I proved to him it was *the* week...

-The 15th week, he said. I have to remember that...
-But it's a *trick*!
-Well, you never know...
:)

Gene

The first time I drove to Nashville, I was listening to Ralph Emory interview Brother Dave Gardner. This was about the time of all the campus unrest, shortly after the Kent State incident.

Ralph asked Bro. Dave, "So, what do you think about all of this campus unrest?"

"Well, these people are misusing a fundamental law of the Universe called the Law of Karma."

"What's that?"

"Well, in layman's terms, it states that if you believe in anything hard enough it will work for you, even if it's a Sears Roebuck Catalog."

Ralph was at a total loss for words. I had to pull off the highway, I was laughing so hard.

Continuing with the theme of the supernatural forces, though, I have a friend who runs a guitar shop that caters to left-handed guitar players. He also spends a lot of time proselytizing. Part of his independent mission is rehabilitating druggies and alkies that have found "the Way." He knows that I am a magician.

I was in his shop one afternoon, and one of his recently rescued, upon hearing that I am a magician, stated, "I can do all of that stuff, too, if I call upon demons."

I looked him straight in the eye and said, "I doubt very seriously that you have ever even attempted to call upon a demon. If you had, you wouldn't even make a statement like that. You know that demons are completely untrustworthy. My stuff has to work all the time. I'm not going to trust anyone to get it done other than myself."

My friend laughed.

Some of these people have a binary view of the world. Or maybe it's bipolar.